Summary:
Recently, on November 9th 2009, a mass demonstration in the village of Bil’in (in the West Bank) was mobilized against Israel’s ‘Security Wall’; a physical icon that has presented itself as yet another obstacle for Palestinian self-determination and sovereignty. The footage brings about ringing memories of November 9th 1989 when the epic fall of the Berlin Wall took place; an event that has been tenaciously garnished as one of the most important victories of western capitalist democracies over tyrannical communist autocracies. The mass demonstration was mostly made up of a group of Israeli and Palestinian activists, journalists, and local youth, who ritually protest against the wall in a weekly manner. A section of the eight meters tall concrete wall is dismantled and torn down by one of the protesters sparking waves of screams and chants of victory. However after a few seconds the crowd is met with Israeli soldiers bombarding the area with tear gas and sound bombs from their military vehicle. Such an event doesn’t come as a shock as it falls under the endless number of instances where non-violent Palestinian resistance has been answered by brutal measures exercised by Israel’s military apparatus.
Commentary:
Twenty years ago, on November 9th 1989, the fall of the Berlin Wall brought about (1) end of a long clash of two worldly ideologies and (2) the throning of America as the sole uncontested hegemonic power. Ever since the fall, the only symbol close to resembling the Berlin Wall has been Israel’s ‘Security Wall’; a wall twice as high and five times as long built by Israel in the West Bank. The Wall is a separation barrier comprised in part of massive concrete walls that have been complimented with a significant number of watchtowers intending to give an Orwellian effect. Israel has repeatedly legitimized the Wall’s creation by calling it a vital security measure as it creates a ‘buffer space’ between ‘innocent Israeli citizens’ and the ‘suicide-bombing Palestinian masses’. Furthermore, Israeli officials continue to fend off international laws and jurisdictions that challenge the Wall’s existence and, more importantly, unveil Israel’s systematized policies of human degradation and land dispossession. Palestinians are made insignificant and invisible as their economical and social livelihoods are constrained by the presence of the wall.
Israel’s 60 years of occupation has evolved as a contemporary manifestation of the practices and mechanisms of the old colonization era. As we have talked about in class of the fact that we are now living in the ‘era of post-coloniality’, it is crucial for us to see the various shapes and forms that colonial power has been exercised in light of new international norms and standards. Through a suffocating matrix of physical checkpoints and barriers, Israel has ensured its permanent appropriation of Palestinian livelihoods.
Now the question comes: Can the Subaltern Speak? It is certain that the Palestinian masses make up another strand of the subaltern fabric as they continue to fight from a position that demands them to convince the rest of world of their very existence. However, I think that they have not been given the room to speak. This is because they have become subjugated by Israel’s military and media apparatuses. They have become mere pawns in the state’s mega-expansitionist campaign aimed at wholesale destroying Palestine. Moreover, ‘Israel-friendly’ discourses and narratives have been constantly produced and reproduced by Western knowledge-making institutions leaving no room for voices that even vaguely represent the Palestinians. Following Foucault’s notion of power/knowledge, we see that these dominant discourses and bodies of knowledge have been validated by the policies adopted by the world’s most powerful players (namely the USA and Britain).
For example, just recently the US congress overwhelmingly voted in favor for the condemnation of the Goldstone report for being too biased and unfair against Israel in its Christmas Gaza massacre last year killing 1400 Palestinians. May it be reminded that Richard Goldstone, a Jewish South African former judge and a proud Zionist, was delegated by United Nation’s Human Right Council to lead an investigation into the violations that occurred during the Israel’s war on Gaza. The International condemnation of this report – along with stockpiles of other documents and reports accumulated over the years – eliminates the possibilities for debates or critical discussions over the matter.
Palestine stands as an explicit manifestation of an era Derek Gregory calls ‘the Colonial-Present’. Due to Israel’s adoption of conventional colonial craftsmanship of apartheid-style practices of absolute segregation and settlement campaigns, Palestinians have become the new colonial subjects disenfranchised and denationalized of a homeland.
Sadly, the event in Bil’in will become no more than another mere footnote in a decades-long conflict. The different forms of resistance to the Apartheid Wall, and to Israeli occupation in general, are yet more symptoms of Israel’s colonial strangle on the Palestinian masses. The Palestinians will continue to push to ‘make room’ for their voices through their means of resistance. As they are murdered and brutalized in their thousands by a military machinery called “Israel,” the young and defiant Palestinians will continue to fight for rights of land and liberty stolen from them in the broad daylight of history.