{"id":174600,"date":"2020-12-14T12:00:08","date_gmt":"2020-12-14T12:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=174600"},"modified":"2024-06-12T21:24:51","modified_gmt":"2024-06-12T20:24:51","slug":"why-are-palestinians-being-forced-to-prove-their-humanity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2020\/12\/why-are-palestinians-being-forced-to-prove-their-humanity\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Are Palestinians Being Forced to Prove Their Humanity?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

For years I policed the language that I used to describe my oppressor. But what is happening in Sheikh Jarrah has a clear name: ethnic cleansing.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>

A Palestinian woman stands next to Israeli Border Police near the gate of a house in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah from which a Palestinian family was evicted. (Mohamar Awad\/Flash90)<\/p><\/div>\n

3 Dec 2020 – <\/em>Over the last few months, the Israeli Magistrates\u2019 Court of Jerusalem has ruled to displace at least 12 Palestinian families in the neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah \u2014 including mine<\/a>. Our homes, at any minute, might be taken by squatters backed by police. And it wouldn\u2019t be the first time they do so.<\/p>\n

In 1956, the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and the Jordanian government built Sheikh Jarrah<\/a> as a housing project for 28 Palestinian refugee families who had been expelled during the Nakba a few years earlier. Following Israel\u2019s conquest of Jerusalem in 1967, settler groups have been attempting to seize<\/a> the housing project by manipulating history and weaponizing racist laws and policies. Some attempts were successful, some postponed. In 2009, for example, settlers took over half of my family\u2019s house in broad daylight; the other half awaits the final stroke of an Israeli judge\u2019s pen.<\/p>\n

Recognizing that there is scant legal recourse for Palestinians in a judicial system that was founded on ethnic supremacism<\/a>, my twin sister Muna and I mobilized our friends and allies to run two media campaigns \u2014 one in Arabic and another in English \u2014 in an ambitious attempt to halt the forced evictions by spurring international action.<\/p>\n

Muna, who recently graduated from Birzeit University with a journalism degree, didn\u2019t encounter any problems engaging with Arabic-speaking audiences. To them, her plea for justice was self-evident. I, on the other hand, saw an immense chasm between Western understanding of my reality and the facts on the ground.<\/p>\n

What is a historical fact<\/a> in Arabic is somehow debatable in English. Well-documented events, such as Israel\u2019s depopulation and destruction of hundreds of Palestinian villages, are considered \u201ccontroversial.\u201d Advocacy to save Sheikh Jarrah from the imminent threat of dispossession became buried under paragraphs of contextualization. To an American audience, the idea of Israel taking over my home is so unbelievable<\/a> because they refuse to recognize Israel as a settler colonial state. But land grabbing is exactly what colonizers do. That isn\u2019t something I should have to negotiate \u2014 if anything, it should be implied.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\"\"<\/a>

An ultra-Orthodox Jew walks past belongings thrown out from a Palestinian house in the neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem.
(Miriam Alster\/Flash90)<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Denying Israel\u2019s drawn-out and codified commitment to ethnic displacement not only legitimizes ignorance on Palestine, but enables Israeli subjugation to persist largely unabated. \u201cI get that Israel isn\u2019t the kindest to Palestinians,\u201d someone commented in response to my Instagram post<\/a> reporting the news from my neighborhood. \u201cBut [your post] is antisemitic and a dismissal of the Holocaust.\u201d<\/p>\n

My post, however, did not allude to the Holocaust or the Jewish faith: it highlighted that the home takeovers in Sheikh Jarrah are part of a calculated plan to erase Palestinian presence<\/a> from our city. Systematic efforts to create ethnically homogenous geographies through the mass expulsion of unwanted populations have a name: ethnic cleansing. And that\u2019s what I called it in my post. Yet when it comes to the region\u2019s history of forced displacement, mass graves, annihilated villages, and the 6.5 million Palestinian refugees worldwide, the fact<\/i> of ethnic cleansing becomes a claim<\/i>, and a \u201ccontentious\u201d one at that.<\/p>\n

If your oppressor is the judge, to whom do you complain?<\/b><\/h3>\n

The perils of such comments lie not just in the intentional derailing of the point at hand \u2014 that colonizers have been systematically stealing our homes in Jerusalem for decades. More dangerously, it is the cruel comedy of reducing 72 years of settler colonialism, military occupation, and siege to mere \u201cunkindness.\u201d<\/p>\n

Calling a spade a spade is the only clear way to address the systemic, ideologically-driven nature of these crimes. By addressing cases like my family\u2019s as isolated, humanitarian, legal crises, the innate injustice<\/a> of Israel\u2019s judicial system is ignored. Legality is not synonymous with morality. We don\u2019t need to look far to find unjust laws that were legally upheld and defended for years: the U.S. Constitution\u2019s Three-Fifths Clause, Jim Crow laws, Apartheid in South Africa, and more. Putting an atrocity in a uniform \u2014 and calling it \u201cunkindness\u201d \u2014 doesn\u2019t make it less atrocious.<\/p>\n

But these fallacies aren\u2019t anomalies: in fact, they control the narrative on Palestine. Be it on social media or university campuses, I can\u2019t part my lips to speak about my experience of living in Jerusalem without having my integrity questioned; without being accused of complicity in atrocities I had no hand in. For years, I policed my language into palatability, carefully selecting the words with which I describe my oppressor so that they aren\u2019t manipulated or misconstrued as antisemitism. I memorized the UN resolutions and international laws broken by Israel, and Israeli bulldozers still destroyed livelihood after livelihood.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\"\"<\/a>

The demolition of the Shepherd Hotel in East Jerusalem\u2019s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, January 9, 2011. (Yossi Zamir\/Flash90)<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

To avoid misconceptions, I don\u2019t note that the colonizers seeking to take over my home are Jewish \u2014 even though they openly acknowledge that this is what gives them the divine decree to do so. I preface my talks by stating the obvious: \u201cthis isn\u2019t about religion, it\u2019s about land theft.\u201d While writing this very article, I initially included a reference to Israeli historian Ilan Papp\u00e9, reinforcing the very idea I am seeking to challenge: that holding up the research<\/a> of an Israeli will legitimize my use of the term \u201cethnic cleansing.\u201d<\/p>\n

I even wanted to mention Yonatan Yosef, a prominent Israeli rabbi and activist in the Judaization of East Jerusalem, as he gloats<\/a> over \u201ctaking house after house\u201d in my neighborhood \u201cin continuation of the Zionist-Jewish project\u201d \u2014 as if my experience can only be believed by his confirmation that \u201cthe State [was built] at the Arabs\u2019 expense.\u201d Or by the dozens of Israelis from far away settlements whom I witnessed gather in my neighborhood and chant, \u201cIn blood, in fire, we will kick out the Arabs!\u201d<\/p>\n

This muzzling of vocabulary isn\u2019t new. Growing up, I was bewildered that Palestinian children throwing stones at Israeli military tanks generated more outrage than the tanks themselves. I clung to my nonviolent beliefs even harder because I thought my resistance would be deemed \u201cacceptable.\u201d There were always prerequisites to solidarity with my cause.<\/p>\n

But frameworks of respectability and legality have offered me nothing except the illusion that I can partake in a game that was designed to make me lose. In reality, there isn\u2019t a bug in the system that one can challenge. The scourge of dispossession in Jerusalem relies on the very vision of the Israeli settler colonial project in Palestine.<\/p>\n

Moving beyond the politics of humanization<\/b><\/h3>\n

Beyond racist rhetoric, Israel has demolished<\/a> tens of thousands of Palestinian homes since its invasive establishment, and will demolish many more<\/a>. As such, there is nothing complex or ambiguous about this so-called \u201cconflict.\u201d It is clear who the aggressor is \u2014 statistically, historically, and materially.<\/p>\n

And still, Palestinian suffering is trapped under a culture of disposability. We\u2019ve been so demonized and alienated. To combat this vilification, many Palestinians, including myself until recently, chose to take the very problematic route of \u201cproving\u201d our humanity.<\/p>\n

For example, Israeli police might flock to my neighborhood at any given moment and render half of its already dented population homeless; our properties will become fraternity houses from which settlers harass the remaining families into leaving. Yet I can\u2019t just break this news and receive the outraged reaction one would expect.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\"\"<\/a>

Israeli policemen detain a left-wing Israeli activist during a protest against Jewish settlers taking over homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem, December 11, 2009. (Abir Sultan\/Flash90)<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Instead, I have to specify that Sheikh Jarrah includes women and children. I mention my father\u2019s seven decades and the fragility of my sister\u2019s panic; I narrate my ribs bruised between a police officer\u2019s baton and an electricity pole; I detail the accounts of filth and fury that have haunted me for the past decade. The reality of Israeli squatters wielding guns and parading them around our home, which they forcibly removed us from, isn\u2019t enough: we also have to document images of our children sleeping on the streets, our elderly passed out on gurneys after assault, and our beaten teenagers with swollen, purple eyes.<\/p>\n

Like every Palestinian, I have carried these stories since childhood, and the burden has only gotten heavier. I have felt it. I have lived through it. I have scars to prove it. It wakes me up at night.<\/p>\n

But I don\u2019t want to pimp my pain for sympathy. If someone can look at me, my family, my community, and not see human beings, then that\u2019s on them. The need for humanization stems from decades of dehumanization, of chastising the victims rather than the perpetrators. Unless those systems of dehumanization are abolished, Palestinians will remain stuck in a vicious hamster wheel.<\/p>\n

So, from now on, I want to call a spade a spade. What is happening in Sheikh Jarrah, like the rest of Palestine, is calculated ethnic cleansing<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As my family and neighbors ready themselves for the possibility of enduring a harsh winter and pandemic in the streets, we know that our fight will not end. This is bigger than Sheikh Jarrah. It is even bigger than Jerusalem, our native city, our capital. It is about the entirety of our homeland.<\/p>\n

One day, I\u2019ll talk to a therapist about this affliction. But at this moment, my focus is to shift the understanding of Palestine\u2019s dispossession and the frameworks that enable it. Our movement won\u2019t endure if it is predicated on pain. We need to create our own political discourse and demands, shattering the glass of spurious legality and escaping the stagnancy of the humanization game. If the world is to stand with us, I don\u2019t want it to be because we\u2019ve proven ourselves to be \u201cworthy victims.\u201d It must support us because ethnic cleansing, colonization, and military occupation should never be tolerated.<\/p>\n

_______________________________________________<\/p>\n

Mohammed El-Kurd is a writer and poet from Jerusalem, Palestine, currently studying in New York City. His work has appeared in<\/em> The Nation, The Guardian, and<\/em> Al-Jazeera.<\/p>\n

+972 Magazine is a blog-based web magazine that is jointly owned by a group of journalists, bloggers and photographers whose goal is to provide fresh, original, on-the-ground reporting and analysis of events in Israel and Palestine. Our collective is\u00a0committed\u00a0to human rights and freedom of information, and we oppose the occupation. However, <\/em>+972 Magazine does not represent any organization, political party or specific agenda. We see <\/em>+972 as a platform for our bloggers to share analysis, reports, ideas, images and videos on their channels. Each blogger owns his or her channel and has full rights over its contents (unless otherwise stated). The bloggers alone are responsible for the content posted on their channels; the positions expressed on individual blogs reflect those of their authors, and not <\/em>+972 as a whole.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 972mag.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

3 Dec 2020 – What is happening has a clear name: ethnic cleansing. Over the last few months, the Israeli Court of Jerusalem has ruled to displace at least 12 Palestinian families in the neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah \u2014 including mine. Our homes, at any minute, might be taken by squatters backed by police. If your oppressor is the judge, to whom do you complain?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":174602,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[2221,120,1829,1030,87,267,1029,487,2395,88,771,1027,427,85,109,287,1572,985,880,292,70,126,1025,886],"class_list":["post-174600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-palestine-israel-gaza-genocide","tag-checkpoints","tag-conflict","tag-coronavirus","tag-fatah","tag-gaza","tag-geopolitics","tag-hamas","tag-human-rights","tag-international-criminal-court-icc","tag-israel","tag-nakba","tag-oslo-accords","tag-palestine","tag-palestine-israel","tag-politics","tag-power","tag-settlers","tag-social-justice","tag-state-terrorism","tag-un","tag-usa","tag-violence","tag-west-bank","tag-zionism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174600"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174600\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":264220,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174600\/revisions\/264220"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}