In publishing this article, I hope to give my informed opinion to the students at Central Hardin on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the current war between Hamas and Israel. As students at Central Hardin it is important that we, the future of the US, are able to stay informed and sympathetic to worldly issues.
In 1947, the UN adopted Resolution 181, also known as the Partition Plan. The Partition Plan sought to divide the British Mandate of Palestine into two parts, Arab and Jewish states. In 1948, the State of Israel was created and sparked the first conflict between the native Palestinians and the Israeli government.
The war between both groups ended in 1949 with Israel being the clear victor resulting in more than 750,000 Palestinians being displaced. Palestine was then divided into three parts: the State of Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip.
For the past 56 years, Palestinians living in what used to be their home have continued to be displaced, oppressed, and murdered by Israel’s government and it has gone largely unnoticed until recently with the ongoing war between Hamas, an Islamist militant group that governs the Gaza Strip, and Israel.
Prelude to the war, in September 2023, Israeli police raided the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem after Palestinians barricaded themselves inside prompted by reports that Jewish supremacists were planning to sacrifice a goat in the mosque. The siege on the Al-Aqsa Mosque along with the excessive violence on the Gaza Strip had led to Hamas launching an attack on Israel. Israel declared war shortly after this and continues to spread propaganda and misinformation that intends to bring down support for Hamas and the restoration of Palestine.
“For those of you who don’t know,” stated the official Twitter account of Israel managed by a team of digital diplomats. “‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,’ is a phrase used by those who call for the elimination of Israel.”
Israel in this quote uses a gross overstatement that supporters of Palestine want to eliminate Israel and its occupants when instead they simply want the Israeli government to withdraw from the land that originally belonged to Palestinians.
Israel has garnered support from celebrities and influencers who try and bring in even more supporters for Israel and their genocide against Palestinians and have taken to popular social media platforms like Instagram and X, formerly Twitter, to make anti-Palestine posts dehumanizing and belittling Hamas and their supporters.
To quote James Woods responding to the “die-in” that Harvard students held to demand an end to violence against Arabs in Gaza, “Harvard students standing in solidarity with Hamas. These creatures will soon infiltrate American business and government. Hamas and their minions in brain-addled American liberal institutions hate Jews and whites and want them dead. The American political left has gone insane.”
In this quote, James Woods, an executive producer for summertime hit Oppenheimer, goes as far as to call pro-Palestinian students attending Harvard, one of the top institutions in the world, creatures. The disrespect that Woods expresses here towards peaceful protesters trying to fight for freedom and stand against the death of innocent Palestinians is horrifying and off-putting, but the spread of Zionist views and Palestinian hate among celebrities doesn’t stop with Woods.
Noah Schnapp, an American actor famous for his role as Will Byers in Stranger Things posted a video on Instagram of him promoting stickers that say “Zionism is Sexy” and “Hamas is Isis.” He quickly fell into controversy after posting this video with people commenting, “imagine supporting genocide” and flooding his comments with “Free Palestine,” a phrase adopted by supporters of the restoration of Palestine.
Multiple examples across social media and news outlets show the discrimination that Palestinians have endured in Israel, a supposed democratic country including that of Nasrallah A’war, a former prisoner of Israel, who posted a video of himself describing the brutality he and other prisoners endured while in Israeli custody, from confiscating electronics to storming cells with dogs and abusing prisoners.
“When they used to take us for interrogation they would hurl insults at us, humiliate us, and beat us. During investigations, at least 10 soldiers would come in and beat us. They would threaten us with destroying our houses, arresting our families, our young siblings, and other things of the sort,” A’war said, a quote translated from Arabic. “On Oct. 7, and as the war started, we had access to TVs and radios so we knew what was happening outside [the prison]. On the next day, they came and took away all electronic devices and everything else; they even took away the fans and our clothes.”
Native Palestinians like A’war living in Israel continue to be attacked and discriminated against by Israeli police every single day using the attack that Hamas launched against them as an excuse to continuously violate the human rights of those living in the region.
Another example of such is that of a 17-year-old boy, the same age as some of the students here at Central Hardin. The boy was shot in the head in Umm el-Fahem and died a week later. Eyewitnesses said that he was sitting in his car near a protest when he was initially shot
A final showcase of the deliberate discrimination Israel is showing Palestinians involves Ibrahim Souri, a citizen of Israel. Souri was filming police on his phone when he was shot in the face on the balcony of his own home after asking if filming was not permitted. Souri survived the incident and spoke to Amnesty International in an interview.
“I did not imagine that they would shoot,” he said. “I thought I had rights, and that I was safe, in a democratic country.”
These among multiple other stories show the evil cruelty that Israel is and has been showing to Palestinians as they steal more and more of their land.
To conclude, Israel has shown Palestinians unprecedented discrimination and has overstayed the warm welcome that they were given so many years ago. The innocent men and women in Israel and all of Palestine deserve the same respect and rights, especially in a democratic society.
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