“A Country Our Own,”
“Toward an American Palestinian Narrative”
“Part one”
by Dr. Zaher Sahloul
Justice is sacred to all faiths and at the heart of the three monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The Quran says in The Bee 16:90: “God ordained justice, doing utmost good to self and others and benevolence to family members, and forbade shameful acts, unaccepted behavior and transgression.” The Bible says in Jeremiah 22:3 “Thus says the Lord: Do justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor him who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the resident alien, the fatherless, and the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place.”
Palestine is one of the core issues in the struggle for Justice at the global level. The Palestinian-Israeli conflict is at the cornerstone of our foreign policy. It is also at the center of political activism of two important faith communities: Jewish and Muslim Americans. It is an open sore that will not heal until the full aspirations of Palestinian people for peace and justice are fulfilled. Throughout our history, we fought for justice, from our revolutionary war against the colonial British army, to the First and Second World Wars in support of our allies against aggressors and against Nazism and fascism, to our Cold War against oppressive communist ideologies. We also had our internal struggles for justice to liberate slaves first in our Civil War, then to make sure that they are treated equally in the Civil Rights movement. Every American identifies with the three great leaders who fought for Justice and freedom in our history, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
To be American implies, among many other things, supporting justice for the oppressed.
One may expect that the same applies to the cause of Palestine. More than 750,000 Palestinians were driven out of their homes by force by the Israeli army during the 1948 and 1967 wars and they lived with their descendants, now counting 4.6 million Palestinians, in refugee camps scattered around their historic homelands under very poor conditions since then. More than 3.3 million Palestinians still live under oppressive Israeli military colonization, which is one of the last military colonizations in the modern world. More than 1.6 million Palestinians, most of them civilians, live under siege in Gaza, and 1.7 million are blockaded by an apartheid wall in the West Bank. Palestinian Arabs are treated as second class citizens inside their historic homeland in Israel and are discriminated against by the Israeli law (de jure) and de facto. Yet, our good hearted nation has not been as supportive of the victims as our record may predict.
The American public opinion has been steadily sympathetic and supportive of the oppressor, Israel, and that support is increasing over the past 20 years. According to a recent Gallup poll, a record-high 63% of Americans say they sympathize more with the Israelis while 17% percent sympathize more with the Palestinians. Support to Israel is highest among Republicans and conservatives and following 9/11, while support to Palestinians is highest among Democrats, liberals, younger age groups and during President Clinton’s era. Among other factors, many believe that the Israeli narrative has been very successful in the U.S., while the Palestinian narrative failed to reach to the hearts of the American people.
For years a well-financed and politically sophisticated Israeli lobby has overwhelmed the Palestinian narrative in the United States.
Palestinian voices are systematically marginalized and de-legitimized. Critiques of Israel are characterized as anti-Semitic. The Palestinian cause is identified with violence and terrorism. Academics who study the power of the Israeli lobby are attacked. A bi-partisan coalition of Democrats and Republicans compete to see who can more fully define the Israeli interests as U.S. interests. A cross-section of U.S. leaders, including Evangelicals, elected officials, Latinos, and African Americans, are annually given fully paid tours of Israel, presenting a deep pro-Israel perspective.
In the next few articles we will explore the current narrative about the Palestine-Israeli conflict within the American public and what can be done to align it with American values and historic perspective and align it with justice-based agenda in general.