Next year in Jerusalem

Israel’s use of deadly force against mostly nonviolent Gaza demonstrators on Friday raises lots of questions: as none of the Palestinians succeeded in crossing the border fence, why did the IDF use live ammunition? They claim to have fired only on those using violence or trying to cross into Israel, but on the Gaza side there are lots of videos and eye witnesses contradicting that claim. Was the Israeli government focused on violent militants, or was it really trying to frighten masses of nonviolent Palestinians away from the demonstrations? “Violence” in this instance seems to refer to throwing of stones, but the Israelis present seem to have been well out of range. Burning tires and approaching the border fence are definitely not violent or terrorist acts. Why are they being referred to as such?

I suppose we’ll never know the answers to these questions, as the Israelis will not allow an independent investigation. They appear to me genuinely frightening by the prospect of thousands of Palestinian refugees walking peacefully into Israel and claiming their rights to land their grandparents left, or were compelled to leave, in 1948. The Israelis are determined not only to stop that kind of popular protest, even if peaceful, but also to scare Palestinians into submission. Doing so redounds to Prime Minister Netanyahu’s benefit in domestic politics: his supporters are unconcerned with the deaths of Palestinians and devoted to an expansive vision of Israel’s security needs.

During my visits to both Israel and Palestine in January, I was unable to visit Gaza, but talked with a nonviolent activist who lives there. Gaza is desperate. Even the White House recognizes that the conditions in which its two million people are living–without adequate clean water, little electricity, limited medical care, and few jobs–are unacceptable. Who would not want to demonstrate? The Israelis and the Palestinian Authority would like the refugees to blame Hamas, which has controlled Gaza since 2006. Hamas is supporting the demonstrations, trying to deflect criticism for its governance failures. It seems to be succeeding, not least because it too uses violence and brooks little opposition.

Of course Palestinian lives matter to the friends, families, and communities from which they come. The fifteen or more reported killed Friday will have hundreds if not thousands of relatives and personal acquaintances who will mourn them, in addition to a far wider circle who feel they are martyrs to the Palestinian cause. Will future protests attract more than the 30,000 or so who attended the first demonstration? The plan has been to repeat them until May 15, the day Israelis celebrate the country’s 1948 independence while Palestinians mark the nakba (catastrophe).

But Palestinian lives matter in other respects too. Israel may be an electoral democracy, but it is not a liberal democracy that treats everyone as having equal rights. This matters because its friends in Europe and the US shouldn’t settle for less. Either Israel needs to treat the Palestinians whose Gaza and West Bank territory it embargoes as equal to its own citizens, or it has to let them establish their own state and allow them to govern it as they see fit, so long as it doesn’t threaten Israel. For most American Jews, there is no acceptable in-between, as Ron Lauder recently pointed out. Most of us will not support an increasingly theocratic Israel in which Palestinian lives don’t matter.

It is ironic that the Jewish and Palestinian historical narratives are mirror images of each other. The Jews were exiled almost two thousand years ago and now feel it is time to reclaim their ancient lands. The Palestinians were exiled 70 years ago, from lands they had occupied for most of those two thousand years. “Next year in Jerusalem,” the cry with which Jews finished the Passover Seder Friday evening, could just as well be uttered by Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza, most of whom do not have the permit required to reach the Haram al Sharif. It is time for all of us to acknowledge the others’ aspirations. Palestinian lives do matter.