The theory of an absolute “anti” that corresponds to an absolute “pro” is based on a way of seeing things that sums up the problems of the universe by attributing them to a single cause. However, this theory, which is founded on the view that one side is totally innocent and the other is totally evil, only holds true for Palestinians who are killed by the Israeli killing machine despite their being civilians. Here, and only here, you find yourself committed to being absolutely “anti” the Israeli army and an absolute “pro” its victims, the non-combatants in Gaza.
As for this view that extends the “anti” and “pro” to everything else and sees in itself a guide to solving all our region’s problems, if not the entire world’s, it is driven by a tribal mindset that a distorted form of modernity has rendered totalitarian.
With this approach, it is no longer possible to combine the just demand for Palestinian state and a conclusive peace settlement in the region into a single stance, nor to combine the condemnation of Islamophobia with condemnation of anti-Semitism and vice versa, nor to point to the setback that democracy has suffered in the West because of its blatant bias in favor of Israel without coming to a nihilistic conclusion, like that these democracies are being eroded or became a thing of the past, or that democracy is a mere ruse Westerners use to numb us.
In addition, this view prevents us from seeing countless other problems in our society, politics, culture, and economy that are of crushing concern for our region.
This tendency to simplify and come to definitive conclusions is fueled by many different ideas and ideologies that have successively violated our consciousness, as well as the world’s. While we find in this category snippets derived from populist Marxisms, which we coupled with snippets from political Islam and Arab nationalism, the noisiest of them today is a blend of “social movements” culture, its civil society, and the teachings of what is known as postcolonial studies. Here, the scene is monopolized by closed binaries of “victimizer and victim,colonizer and colonized,whites and people of color,” which suits easy and lazy summaries…
While these binaries hold some truth, their oversimplification, penchant for the unequivocal, and transformation into a contemporary religion undermine the truth they contain. We are faced with a view of the world that comes from outside and above it – a view that destroys our capacity to see domestic issues particular to every society. Thus, one task currently required of us is to combine this view (carried by a “sympathizer,” an almost abstract human in London or New York who does not speak to the specificity of a particular place) with another view from the inside, from below, that the inhabitants of these countries came to hold through their diverse experiences.
In this sense, we are required to undertake the difficult but urgent task of coupling the rights of the Palestinian people and the defense of those rights, with legitimate concerns regarding the Hamas mindset, as a form of consciousness and behavior, if not as ideals inspired by leaders whose only exemplary quality is that they fight.
We must always think of freedoms of all kinds, the requisites for their development and flourishing, the optimal means for averting fanaticism and civil wars in a region being thrown around by the fears of its communities, what climate is suitable for ensuring the stability of our states and societies (we are states and societies at the end of the day), the status of women and the sort of ideas and relationships that contribute to ensuring that they enjoy the freedoms they are entitled to, and our relationship with the external world, our disconnection from which, regardless of its politics, can only leave us drowning in isolation and perhaps decay.
In turn, emphasizing Israel’s brutality should not conflict with pointing out our long history of killing political settlements in the region, and thus with holding those responsible for killing them accountable.
Naturally, differing with Hamas and their friends with regard to the conflict and the interests of the Palestinian people, to say nothing about major disagreements with them regarding social issues, is very legitimate because it is very concerning and fundamental.
We don’t need astronomical intelligence to know that Hamas’s ideology is incompatible with women’s freedoms, demands for pluralism, the prosperity of our societies, the reinforcement of states, openness to the world, or stable relations between the sects and ethnicities of the region… These matters are no less important and “central” than any “primary contradiction.” Indeed, a contradiction is “primary” to the extent that it reconciles with and compliments them.
What awaits us, especially after the guns fall silent, but also before that, are complex tasks that a binary, external, and simplistic consciousness does not take notice of. And after all, who says that a person cannot suffer from two illnesses, or several illnesses, or face two threats, or many threats, at the same time?
Israel’s brutality is now a close ally of our inclination to simplify, and the more this brutality intensifies, the more our narrowest, poorest, and darkest ideas flourish. However, we would be better off if, just once, we did not give this brutality the opportunity to kill us twice!