When Violence is Justified
y Dave Alpert
10/12/2015
I have posted many images on Facebook of Palestinian men, women, and children crying and suffering the loss of loved ones at the hands of the Israeli army. These are ordinary citizens, unarmed, non-combatants, people trying to survive the brutal occupation sponsored by Israel.
There may be people who now avoid looking at these images because they are painful to witness. But, we cannot ignore and avoid what is occurring in Palestine on a daily basis. It is the country we live in, the USA, which is supporting the israeli occupation and, therefore, the brutality suffered by the Palestinian people at the hands of our ally.
Although what Israel is doing has nothing to do with religion and is, instead, a Zionist political strategy, as a Jew I am disgusted and shamed that I am in any way seen as connected to this holocaust.
There are many well-meaning people who support Palestinian resistance to the occupation. Most want the resistance to be “responsibly” implemented. What that inevitably means is that the strategies should be non-violent, peaceful, passive activities, demonstrating that we are not like they are. People generally have difficulty advocating for bloodshed. But, there is and will continue to be bloodshed...Palestinian bloodshed. There are times when one must recognize that the suffering will be a slow painful death and the only recourse is to strike back.
The Israeli people are too comfortable...they do not experience any serious retaliation. There exists no motivation to change what they are doing. During the summer of 2014, 2200 Palestinians, most of them non-combatants, 500 of them children, were slaughtered by the Israeli invasion into Gaza while another 1100 suffered wounds. At the same time, 73 Israelis lost their lives, only 6 of them non-military personnel.
The Israelis claim that over 1,000 rockets were fired into Israel by Hamas and that they were responding to this provocation. Let’s be real. Are we to believe that 1,000 rockets were fired with no damage to their infrastructure or deaths of civilians being experienced by Israel?
But the problem is not just the big battles, it is the day to day harassment and killing of Palestinians by armed Israelis both military and settlers. According to United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Israeli search and arrest operations in the Palestinian territories, which averaged 75 per week earlier, rose to 86 per week in the first five months of 2015. According to the same source, averaging statistics from January through to June, 2 Israelis have been injured and, excluding settler assaults, 40 Palestinians have been injured by Israeli forces, per week. In the Hebron governorate alone from January to June, 550 Palestinians, among them 105 teenagers, were arrested, and 225 sentenced to administrative detention without trial.
I am not arguing against peaceful demonstrations and marches, I’ve been on many myself. Washington, DC was a second home for me. What I have learned over the years is that no one really pays attention unless there is a dramatic expression of anger.
I remember an anti-war demonstration in the 60’s when over 250,000 people participated. One would assume this event was newsworthy. What did we find out that night...most of the elected officials had left DC for the weekend. The next morning, the NY Times carried the story on page 17. In other words 250,000 people joined together to talk to ourselves. There is no doubt in my mind that if there was violent or destructive action during the day, the Times would have had us on page 1.
The question, of course, is how successful are non-violent movements for social or political change?
The issue of Israel and the Palestinian people is the most current example of the failures of non-violence. For the past 10 years, Palestinians have remained relatively passive while suffering atrocities committed by the Israelis against them. As a result, their living conditions have become worse. Palestinians, especially the youth are shot, killed, or arrested daily.
In the 1930’s, during the Great Depression, 75% of the population were living in poverty and approximately 30% were unemployed. But the richest people in society felt no sympathy for the starving masses. They had spent the previous decade slashing wages and breaking unions, with widespread success. They banded together as a group to oppose every measure to grant government assistance to feed the hungry or help the homeless. Most employers flatly refused to bargain with any union, and used the economic crisis as an excuse to slash all wages across the board. But in so doing, they unleashed the greatest period of social upheaval that has ever taken place in the United States.
The ruling class responded with violence. Police repeatedly fired upon hunger marchers in the early 1930s. In 1932, for example, the Detroit police mowed down a hunger demonstration of several thousand, using machine guns.
This was merely the beginning of the violence perpetrated on working people. Police and National Guardsmen were called out in states around the country to break strikes and destroy attempts to demonstrate or organize. Many men and women died in the struggle.
With the Communists and Socialists (yes, you’re reading this correctly) leading the way, workers continued to fight back. The number of strikes increased greatly and working people came prepared to respond to the violence of government and the bosses.
The following is an accounting of a strike in Minneapolis. Vincent Dunne and Farrell Dobbs from the Communist League of America coordinated the strike with military precision. Predictably, the strikers were attacked by police that led to the following:
“The pickets charged the deputies first and noticed that many uniformed cops were tending to hang back.… Sensing this mood among some of the cops, the pickets continued to concentrate mainly on the deputies. Soon even the bystanders were getting their licks in support of the strikers. Finding themselves mousetrapped, many deputies dropped their clubs and ripped off their badges, trying with little success to seek anonymity in the hostile crowd. By this time the pickets were also zeroing in on uniformed cops who had gotten into the thick of the fight. The scene of the battle spread as cops and deputies alike were driven from the market. The deputies were chased clear back to headquarters, the strikers mopping up on stragglers along the way. In less than an hour after the battle started, there wasn’t a cop to be seen in the market, and pickets were directing traffic.”
The government was finding it difficult to govern and businesses could no longer conduct business as usual. Franklin D. Roosevelt, aware that the country was in a state of chaos and Capitalism was in danger, came to the rescue and forced through legislation that created jobs and allowed workers to unionize.
In the 1960s we had the Civil Rights Movement. Martin Luther King, Jr. was rightly credited with having an important role in ending most of the official barriers to racial equality. He insisted on conducting a non-violent movement which won international recognition. But in the background was Malcolm X who proclaimed either deal with Martin or you’ll have to deal with me. Malcolm never promised non-violence and made clear he would use any means necessary to achieve his goals.
Also, in the background, we have the Deacons of Defense and the Black Panther Party, two organizations that found it necessary to arm themselves. They made very clear that this was not to go out and attack white people, but to be prepared to defend themselves, not if, but when they will be attacked by racist white men.
Merely the presence of black men results in many white folks feeling threatened, but black men with weapons was intolerable.
During the non-violent process of the Movement, black folks were continuing to be beaten and murdered. Very often their homes were burnt to the ground.
Things took a turn when the city of Detroit was set aflame by angry black residents of that city. The elite began to show concern, not for the loss of life but for the ruination of their property. More than 2,000 buildings were destroyed and business activity was informally curtailed in recognition of the serious civil unrest engulfing sections of the city.
In June, 1969, there began spontaneous, violent demonstrations by members of the gay (LGBT) community[note 1] against police raids that took place at the Stonewall Inn, located in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. For years, the gay community had been harassed and intimidated by the police. But, on the 29th of June, they rebelled and they did so violently, fighting back against the police and destroying property.
It made a big difference and they made their point. The harassment stopped.
Let us take a look at WW2, when the Jews were the target of a genocidal program. The Jews, for too long, were portrayed as people who passively accepted their fate and walked into the gas chambers. WRONG.
Between April and May 1943, Jewish men and women of the Warsaw Ghetto took up arms and rebelled against the Nazis after it became clear that the Germans were deporting remaining Ghetto inhabitants to the Treblinka extermination camp. Warsaw Jews of the Jewish Combat Organization and the Jewish Military Union fought the Germans with a handful of small arms and Molotov cocktails, as Polish resistance attacked from the outside in support. After fierce fighting, vastly superior German forces pacified the Warsaw Ghetto and either murdered or deported all of the remaining inhabitants to the Nazi killing centers. The Germans claimed that they lost 18 dead and 85 wounded, though this figure has been disputed, with resistance leader Marek Edelman estimating 300 German casualties. Some 13,000 Jews were killed, and 56,885 were deported to concentration camps.
Would not most of us applaud the actions, taking up arms and killing the oppressors, rather than insist that the “responsible” resistance would have been a peaceful march through the ghetto?
In August 1943, an uprising took place at the Treblinka extermination camp. The participants obtained guns and grenades after two young men used forged keys and snuck into the weapons store. The weapons were then distributed around the camp in garbage bins. The organizers set off a single grenade—the agreed-upon signal for the uprising. The prisoners then attacked the Nazi guards with guns and grenades. Several German and Ukrainian guards were killed, a fuel tank was set on fire, barracks and warehouses were burned, military vehicles were disabled, and grenades were thrown at the SS headquarters. The guards replied with machine-gun fire, and 1,500 inmates were killed—yet 70 inmates escaped to freedom.
I’m certain that Jews and most well-meaning people world-wide would feel that these uprisings and, yes, killings were justified. Unfortunately, many of these same people look at Palestinian uprisings as acts of terror. For the Palestinians who suffer at the hands of a brutal Israeli occupation, these so-called terrorists are their freedom fighters.
I agree with their perception. The Palestinians are the victims of another holocaust this time conducted by the Israelis, people who should know better.
There are many times in the history of the world when oppressed people have armed themselves to rise up and resist. This is one of those times.
10/12/2015
I have posted many images on Facebook of Palestinian men, women, and children crying and suffering the loss of loved ones at the hands of the Israeli army. These are ordinary citizens, unarmed, non-combatants, people trying to survive the brutal occupation sponsored by Israel.
There may be people who now avoid looking at these images because they are painful to witness. But, we cannot ignore and avoid what is occurring in Palestine on a daily basis. It is the country we live in, the USA, which is supporting the israeli occupation and, therefore, the brutality suffered by the Palestinian people at the hands of our ally.
Although what Israel is doing has nothing to do with religion and is, instead, a Zionist political strategy, as a Jew I am disgusted and shamed that I am in any way seen as connected to this holocaust.
There are many well-meaning people who support Palestinian resistance to the occupation. Most want the resistance to be “responsibly” implemented. What that inevitably means is that the strategies should be non-violent, peaceful, passive activities, demonstrating that we are not like they are. People generally have difficulty advocating for bloodshed. But, there is and will continue to be bloodshed...Palestinian bloodshed. There are times when one must recognize that the suffering will be a slow painful death and the only recourse is to strike back.
The Israeli people are too comfortable...they do not experience any serious retaliation. There exists no motivation to change what they are doing. During the summer of 2014, 2200 Palestinians, most of them non-combatants, 500 of them children, were slaughtered by the Israeli invasion into Gaza while another 1100 suffered wounds. At the same time, 73 Israelis lost their lives, only 6 of them non-military personnel.
The Israelis claim that over 1,000 rockets were fired into Israel by Hamas and that they were responding to this provocation. Let’s be real. Are we to believe that 1,000 rockets were fired with no damage to their infrastructure or deaths of civilians being experienced by Israel?
But the problem is not just the big battles, it is the day to day harassment and killing of Palestinians by armed Israelis both military and settlers. According to United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Israeli search and arrest operations in the Palestinian territories, which averaged 75 per week earlier, rose to 86 per week in the first five months of 2015. According to the same source, averaging statistics from January through to June, 2 Israelis have been injured and, excluding settler assaults, 40 Palestinians have been injured by Israeli forces, per week. In the Hebron governorate alone from January to June, 550 Palestinians, among them 105 teenagers, were arrested, and 225 sentenced to administrative detention without trial.
I am not arguing against peaceful demonstrations and marches, I’ve been on many myself. Washington, DC was a second home for me. What I have learned over the years is that no one really pays attention unless there is a dramatic expression of anger.
I remember an anti-war demonstration in the 60’s when over 250,000 people participated. One would assume this event was newsworthy. What did we find out that night...most of the elected officials had left DC for the weekend. The next morning, the NY Times carried the story on page 17. In other words 250,000 people joined together to talk to ourselves. There is no doubt in my mind that if there was violent or destructive action during the day, the Times would have had us on page 1.
The question, of course, is how successful are non-violent movements for social or political change?
The issue of Israel and the Palestinian people is the most current example of the failures of non-violence. For the past 10 years, Palestinians have remained relatively passive while suffering atrocities committed by the Israelis against them. As a result, their living conditions have become worse. Palestinians, especially the youth are shot, killed, or arrested daily.
In the 1930’s, during the Great Depression, 75% of the population were living in poverty and approximately 30% were unemployed. But the richest people in society felt no sympathy for the starving masses. They had spent the previous decade slashing wages and breaking unions, with widespread success. They banded together as a group to oppose every measure to grant government assistance to feed the hungry or help the homeless. Most employers flatly refused to bargain with any union, and used the economic crisis as an excuse to slash all wages across the board. But in so doing, they unleashed the greatest period of social upheaval that has ever taken place in the United States.
The ruling class responded with violence. Police repeatedly fired upon hunger marchers in the early 1930s. In 1932, for example, the Detroit police mowed down a hunger demonstration of several thousand, using machine guns.
This was merely the beginning of the violence perpetrated on working people. Police and National Guardsmen were called out in states around the country to break strikes and destroy attempts to demonstrate or organize. Many men and women died in the struggle.
With the Communists and Socialists (yes, you’re reading this correctly) leading the way, workers continued to fight back. The number of strikes increased greatly and working people came prepared to respond to the violence of government and the bosses.
The following is an accounting of a strike in Minneapolis. Vincent Dunne and Farrell Dobbs from the Communist League of America coordinated the strike with military precision. Predictably, the strikers were attacked by police that led to the following:
“The pickets charged the deputies first and noticed that many uniformed cops were tending to hang back.… Sensing this mood among some of the cops, the pickets continued to concentrate mainly on the deputies. Soon even the bystanders were getting their licks in support of the strikers. Finding themselves mousetrapped, many deputies dropped their clubs and ripped off their badges, trying with little success to seek anonymity in the hostile crowd. By this time the pickets were also zeroing in on uniformed cops who had gotten into the thick of the fight. The scene of the battle spread as cops and deputies alike were driven from the market. The deputies were chased clear back to headquarters, the strikers mopping up on stragglers along the way. In less than an hour after the battle started, there wasn’t a cop to be seen in the market, and pickets were directing traffic.”
The government was finding it difficult to govern and businesses could no longer conduct business as usual. Franklin D. Roosevelt, aware that the country was in a state of chaos and Capitalism was in danger, came to the rescue and forced through legislation that created jobs and allowed workers to unionize.
In the 1960s we had the Civil Rights Movement. Martin Luther King, Jr. was rightly credited with having an important role in ending most of the official barriers to racial equality. He insisted on conducting a non-violent movement which won international recognition. But in the background was Malcolm X who proclaimed either deal with Martin or you’ll have to deal with me. Malcolm never promised non-violence and made clear he would use any means necessary to achieve his goals.
Also, in the background, we have the Deacons of Defense and the Black Panther Party, two organizations that found it necessary to arm themselves. They made very clear that this was not to go out and attack white people, but to be prepared to defend themselves, not if, but when they will be attacked by racist white men.
Merely the presence of black men results in many white folks feeling threatened, but black men with weapons was intolerable.
During the non-violent process of the Movement, black folks were continuing to be beaten and murdered. Very often their homes were burnt to the ground.
Things took a turn when the city of Detroit was set aflame by angry black residents of that city. The elite began to show concern, not for the loss of life but for the ruination of their property. More than 2,000 buildings were destroyed and business activity was informally curtailed in recognition of the serious civil unrest engulfing sections of the city.
In June, 1969, there began spontaneous, violent demonstrations by members of the gay (LGBT) community[note 1] against police raids that took place at the Stonewall Inn, located in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. For years, the gay community had been harassed and intimidated by the police. But, on the 29th of June, they rebelled and they did so violently, fighting back against the police and destroying property.
It made a big difference and they made their point. The harassment stopped.
Let us take a look at WW2, when the Jews were the target of a genocidal program. The Jews, for too long, were portrayed as people who passively accepted their fate and walked into the gas chambers. WRONG.
Between April and May 1943, Jewish men and women of the Warsaw Ghetto took up arms and rebelled against the Nazis after it became clear that the Germans were deporting remaining Ghetto inhabitants to the Treblinka extermination camp. Warsaw Jews of the Jewish Combat Organization and the Jewish Military Union fought the Germans with a handful of small arms and Molotov cocktails, as Polish resistance attacked from the outside in support. After fierce fighting, vastly superior German forces pacified the Warsaw Ghetto and either murdered or deported all of the remaining inhabitants to the Nazi killing centers. The Germans claimed that they lost 18 dead and 85 wounded, though this figure has been disputed, with resistance leader Marek Edelman estimating 300 German casualties. Some 13,000 Jews were killed, and 56,885 were deported to concentration camps.
Would not most of us applaud the actions, taking up arms and killing the oppressors, rather than insist that the “responsible” resistance would have been a peaceful march through the ghetto?
In August 1943, an uprising took place at the Treblinka extermination camp. The participants obtained guns and grenades after two young men used forged keys and snuck into the weapons store. The weapons were then distributed around the camp in garbage bins. The organizers set off a single grenade—the agreed-upon signal for the uprising. The prisoners then attacked the Nazi guards with guns and grenades. Several German and Ukrainian guards were killed, a fuel tank was set on fire, barracks and warehouses were burned, military vehicles were disabled, and grenades were thrown at the SS headquarters. The guards replied with machine-gun fire, and 1,500 inmates were killed—yet 70 inmates escaped to freedom.
I’m certain that Jews and most well-meaning people world-wide would feel that these uprisings and, yes, killings were justified. Unfortunately, many of these same people look at Palestinian uprisings as acts of terror. For the Palestinians who suffer at the hands of a brutal Israeli occupation, these so-called terrorists are their freedom fighters.
I agree with their perception. The Palestinians are the victims of another holocaust this time conducted by the Israelis, people who should know better.
There are many times in the history of the world when oppressed people have armed themselves to rise up and resist. This is one of those times.