As human rights groups continue to call out war crimes committed by the Israeli military, we speak to the only U.S. diplomat to publicly resign from the Biden administration over its policy on Israel.
We first spoke to Hala Rharrit when she resigned from the State Department in April, citing the illegal and deceptive nature of U.S. policy in the Middle East. “We continue to willfully violate laws so that we surge U.S. military assistance to Israel,” she says after more than a year of Israel’s war on Gaza.
Rharrit says she found the Biden administration unmovable in its “counterproductive policy,” which she believes has gravely harmed U.S. interests in the Middle East. “We are going to feel the repercussions of that for years, decades, generations.”
I appreciate that you genuinely care about sources and have an intellectual curiosity to engage with them.
Only thing I have to add is about the settlements and Oslo Accords. I think the Sinai disengagement can be seen in a peaceful light with Egypt, however I cannot say that extends to peace with Palestine.
Declassified Israeli documents show that the Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip were deliberately planned before being executed in 1967:
This can be seen as an extension of the mass ethnic cleansing campaign of 1948 in respect to Settler Colonialism.
Israel may have dismantled some settlements after Oslo, but it is far eclipsed by the new settlements created after Oslo and has risen ever since.
(AJ source previously linked) (The Haaretz source talks more about Rabin and Oslo)
I would argue that Egypt agreed to the peace proposal in order to normalize relations economically and regain it’s territory, at the expense of the Palestinian people.
Excerpt from Ilan Pappe's findings about the Israel - Egypt peace settlement
I don’t argue against the ethnic cleansing being deliberate, I’m well familiar with Plan Dalet. The primary crux of my argument is that this is very much a case of two sides trying to ethnically cleanse each other, with one succeeding and the other failing. The one that failed is rightfully upset, but it should not be seen in some more-innocent-than-the-other light. Recall, this all began because I said hamas and Hezbollah are themselves Jihadist, genocidal movements. Perhaps that’s been overshadowed in the modern day by mere survival, since actual ultimate victory has become so distant, but I don’t ignore those roots.
Liberation, reconquest/Jihad, ethnic cleansing, call it whatever you like, but if it is directed against a people living on land they were born to, it’s too late. The invaders became innocents at that point, due to being different individuals after the chronological passing of time. Descendents are not guilty for the sins of their fathers or countrymen, you cannot simply lump them all together as “colonizers” and subject to destruction, that is not right. If an individual colonized nothing, only their forebears or countrymen did, that individual is not a colonizer. The saddest thing about Oct 7th was how so many of the dead were pro-Palestinian progressives, fighting for the rights and dignity of Palestinians.
Now, that isn’t to say we shouldn’t continue to fight for human rights. But to say hamas or Hezbollah are even remotely on the “right” instead of co-equal and complicit with the IDF and Netanyahu in the ongoing destruction of the Palestinian people is wrong-headed in my eyes.
edit: Consider, after Rabin’s assassination, Netanyahu, a right-wing, ex-military strongman won the following election by a single percentage point. Do you recall the environment in Israel at the time, the regular suicide bombings in Tel Aviv? That is not how you achieve peace, it’s how you achieve war.
This is not true. Zero of the resistance groups, Hamas or otherwise, have ever had the goal of eradicating all Israelis. The destruction of Israel means the end of Israel as a Settler Colonialist Ethnostate, of the Occupation, of the Apartheid, of the Genocide. It means the creation of a new State where Palestinians have equal rights to Israelis. Palestinians are not inherently primitive and antisemitic, which is the underlying sentiment baked into that idea equating the two. Zionist is an inherently Supremacist ideology and dehumanizes Palestinians in order to justify the Ethnic Cleansing and Settler Colonialism. The Book about Transfer I referenced earlier has extensive documentation that show this.
That entire argument is based on a false premise and is completely at odds with the history as I pointed out earlier. It ignores the reality of Partition, the plans for ethnic cleansing and settlements, the creation of the PLO, Hamas, and other resistance groups, and the details of the peace process including the Oslo Accords.
Then you don’t understand the difference between Colonialism and resistance to Colonialism. The Vietcong were not co-equal with the French, nor were the IRA to the British, or the ANC in South Africa.
Do you recall that Zionism is a Settler Colonialist Ethnostate and the environment that has created for Palestinians for generations? Settlements and Occupation are antithetical to peace, that has been the entire point. This has been discussed extensively by Historians like Avi Schlaim and Ilan Pappe, which I already linked. Official Israeli Declassified Documents and Official Knesset Meeting Minutes make all this very clear. None of this is hidden knowledge, multiple Israeli historians have discussed this extensively in their works.
Then explain the atrocities committed against Israeli civilians. Not just on Oct 7th, but over the entire century before. You have reams of evidence of Israeli atrocities, this is good, but you are completely silent on Arab atrocities. I assure you there were many, which I won’t link to because I am not a propagandist. You’re educated, though, you know how to find the examples. Explain the bombings during and after the negotiations over the Oslo Accords. Explain the continued fueling of the fear that Netanyahu leverages to maintain his power.
This is an attempt to whitewash the past with a new progressive interpretation, but much like how the “river to the sea” slogan has several different variations in Arabic, we should remember that a new, re-worded variation does not eliminate the historical existence of previous variations, like “min el-mayeh lil-mayeh, Falastin Arabiyeh”. This whitewashing is one of the dangers of Post-Modernist historical work, and why such historians do not deserve their credentials.
There is no inherent difference between colonialism and resistance to colonialism. There are structural differences applied by our ideologies, but functionally they are all humans of one singular species living on land. While people are actively invading, resistance can be justified, if battle has a reasonable chance of success. Once the invaders have settled, though, they are no longer invaders, they are neighbors. This was incredibly common through the European Middle Ages, the Vikings did it up and down the Eastern Atlantic, as just one singular example. Human history over the whole globe is full of these movements of people, continuing even into the modern day, though usually much more nonviolently.
This statement is historically false. It should not be taken with blanket faith, but should be critically examined. Not to excuse the furthering of illegal settlements into the modern day, but simply to point out that just because settlement happened at some point in the past does not mean violence is necessary forever into the future. Doing so will inevitably result in the extermination of the weaker group, based on historical precedent. This is not necessary, however. The Anglo-Saxons and Norse co-existed very peacefully after a time, despite one being Christian and the other Pagan, just to continue on my earlier example.
Ultimately, you should consider what sorts of actions will empower and strengthen Netanyahu’s hand, making his strategies more likely to succeed by allowing him a firmer grip on his own people, and what sorts of actions will weaken him, and make him more likely to fail. These practical considerations are what the survival of the Palestinian people hinges on. Not justice, rights or dignity. Remember too, that starvation of every last Palestinian man, woman and child does not require any foreign aid from any power for his country, and just how many genocides have succeeded throughout global history. How rare it is for a genocidal regime to actually be stopped by the international community. SE Asia, Central Africa, the Balkans, the Kurds, the Azerbaijanis, the Ukrainians, our own Native Americans.
That’s what we’re up against, and your one-sided, propagandized vision of hamas is playing right into Netanyahu’s hands, as you excuse the dangers his own people experience, giving further fuel to their fear. You know what afraid people are capable of? Genocide. Instead, consider acknowledging a more nuanced understanding of the conflict, one less reliant on capitalized vocabulary words and systemic structures and more on natural human physiological and emotional reactions to certain sorts of stimulus.
Not even to speak of hamas’ oppression of their own people, an entirely separate topic altogether.
It’s called Blowback from decades of Colonialist violence. Which you would have recognized if you did genuinely consider any of the sources I provided. But it’s clear you didn’t. The acts violence of armed resistance are discussed at length in the works of Ilan Pappe, Rashid Khalidi, and Avi Schlaim. You’re just being willfully ignorant at this point. Read the Apartheid reports, read the works by Historians, or watch some documentaries. You are the one being ‘one-sided’ by ignoring all these sources and discrediting them as ‘propaganda’ despite them detailing the violence you claim they ignore. I’m done talking about this with you. And I take back what I said about you being genuinely interested in sources, because you’ve clearly shown othewise.
Apartheid Evidence
Amnesty Report
Human Rights Watch Report
B’TSelem Report with quick Explainer
Historian Works on the History
Palestine: A Four Thousand Year History - Nur Masalha
The Concept of Transfer 1882-1948 - Nur Masalha
A History of Modern Palestine - Ilan Pappe
The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine - Rashid Khalidi
The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine - Ilan Pappe
The 1967 Arab-Israeli War: Origins and Consequences - Avi Shlaim
The Biggest Prison on Earth: A History of the Occupied Territories - Ilan Pappe
The Gaza Strip: The Political Economy of De-development - Sara Roy
10 Myths About Israel - Ilan Pappe (summery)
Documentaries
A shocking insight into Israel’s Apartheid | Roadmap to Apartheid | Full Film
Palestine 101 with Abby Martin
Life in Occupied PALESTINE by Anna Baltzer
How Israeli Apartheid Destroyed My Hometown
The Gaza Ghetto Uprising
Anti-Semitism, Weaponized.
One year of Israel’s war on Gaza: Al Jazeera special coverage
Palestine 1920: The Other Side of the Palestinian Story | Al Jazeera World Documentary
Calling it blowback does not somehow magically justify it and make it a wise strategy for the preservation of the Palestinian people. That’s the path to self-destruction, not the path to peace, as we can very clearly see right now. You cannot say you are dealing with those acts when none of your quoting or your personal discussion, until right now, involves it.
I have dealt fairly with discussion of Israeli atrocities, justifying none of them, nor Palestinian. You cannot say the same.
I am discrediting one of your sources, Pappe specifically. I praised Nur Masalha as you recall.
Though frankly, you should be able to have your own discussions based on logic and reason, instead of relying solely on sourced material as if it is some form of gospel.
Understanding is not justification. You fail to understand the realities of Zionism, Settler Colonialism, and the Violence of the Apartheid. Pappe is completely credible, acting otherwise is disingenuous. You do not deal with Israeli atrocities fairly, you ignore their underlying cause. Sources are critical because facts are grounded in reality. You have a wide variety of sources to choose and learn from. This discussion is futile because you simply brush them aside. You’re just doing apologia at this point. If you cared about a lasting peace and viewed Palestinian and Israeli lives as equal, you would actually engaged with the sources I provided. You didn’t watch the video by Adi Callai, i doubt you’ll read anything I linked at this point.
Ah, so it is not justified then? Perhaps you agree that hamas violence is an unjustified harm that does nothing to further goals of the preservation of Palestinian lives and culture?
A quick googling of Ilan Pappe critique will show you that he is not as well regarded as Masalha. So, criticism is justified. Here are just some, going into claims he makes without evidence.
https://newrepublic.com/article/85344/ilan-pappe-sloppy-dishonest-historian
You should not simply take such things on faith. You’ll note, I personally have the power to consume source material without agreeing with every conclusion contained within. I have my own perspectives, informed by my own education and experience. I do not agree with everything your sources claim.
At what point have I ignored their underlying cause? While I do not focus solely on them to the exclusion of all else, at no point have I disputed your assessments of Zionism. To the contrary, I’ve mentioned illegal settling several times through our conversation. My responses have been around courses of action to take in response to illegal settlement; which are beneficial, which are harmful? Yes?
You don’t like what I’m saying because I am challenging the way you think, not because I have behaved in any sort of unethical way or misrepresented anything. You, unfortunately, alongside at least one of your sources, have engaged in whitewashing of hamas activities, though I understand you do it from a desire to help. I do not think it helps our goals of the preservation of Palestinian people, however. You do more harm than good when you do this, as idealists are occasionally prone to do.
The eradication of Palestinians as a people and cultural is central to Zionism. No, resistance of that eradication is not to blame. Neither is that ‘whitewashing.’ Idealism, is expecting a population subjected to decades of violence of an Apartheid by a Settler Colonialist Ethnostate to not fight back by any means possible. The colonialist force sets the level of violence. That has been the case for every colonialist conflict.
Pappe is biased towards Palestinian emancipation. He explains his position and why in his introductions instead of hiding his bias like some Historians such as Benny Morris, who has justified the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 1948.
Here’s Pappe’s response to Benny Morris, where he debunks Morris’ claims:
https://electronicintifada.net/content/response-benny-morris-politics-other-means-new-republic/5040
CAMERA criticisms are easily debunked as seen here:
https://www.palestine-studies.org/en/node/42571
https://mondoweiss.net/2012/03/we-must-expel-arabs-and-take-their-place-institute-for-palestine-studies-publishes-1937-ben-gurion-letter-advocating-the-expulsion-of-palestinians/
“Ben-Gurion’s 5 October 1937 letter thoroughly vindicates Ilan Pappé’s reading; indeed, the Pappé quotes to which CAMERA objects seem almost mild when compared to the actual words Ben-Gurion penned to his son. The more literal translation of the Ben-Gurion direct quote (“Webmust expel Arabs and take their place”) is actually stronger than Pappé’s freer rendering (“The Arabs must go”), although the meaning is basically the same. As for Pappé’s paraphrase, it is as accurate and comprehensive as any so succinct a sentence could possibly be.”
There’s plenty of reputable historians praising Pappe’s work and credibility. You can find links to them in his wiki page too. The criticisms don’t really hold water. Maybe don’t be so quick to discredit him without looking into the actual criticisms and see if they themselves are credible. Because they are not.