COLONIALISM AND POST-COLONIALISM IN PALESTINE

    One prominent criticism of Israel in the current Israeli-Hamas conflict is that Israel is a colonialist occupier.  The implication is that Hamas and other Palestinians are the exclusively rightful inhabitants of what is recognized as Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza.  Some college students and faculty are strident advocates of this view.  However, it lacks geographical and historical context, and leads to the application of a double standard to Israel, a common feature of antisemitism.

    The context is the Levant and its history.  The Levant, a term little used today, is defined as that area “of land bordering the Mediterranean Sea in western Asia: i.e. the historical region of Syria (“Greater Syria”), which includes present day Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and the Palestinian territories” (Wikipedia).  From ancient times, it has been the crossroads linking Africa, Asia, and Europe.  Because of its once strategic location for trade, it was liable to conquest and occupation by regional powers, with control shifting back and forth from one to another.  Because of its importance to three religions, it has been the site of struggles then between Crusaders and Saracens, now Jews and Muslims.  Religion and religious conflict are the Levant’s major exports.

    In modern times, the Levant was part of the Ottoman Empire.  For centuries, the area known as Palestine had declined into a backwater home to Jews and Muslims, who co-existed peacefully under Ottoman Muslim rule.  The Ottoman Empire collapsed during the First World War, and England and France divided the Levant into its modern states without regard to its peoples, their cultures, or their religions.  For 30 years, a three-cornered conflict involved Muslims, Jews, and Brits.  In 1917, the British Balfour Declaration promised Zionist Jews a homeland in Palestine, and the League of Nations made it a British protectorate.  Friction arose between Palestinian Muslims resisting the pre- and post-war immigration of Zionist Jews, most fleeing Eastern European poverty, prejudice, and pogroms, and British military forces.  Conflicts between Jews and Muslims arose over control of land, water, and major Jewish and Islamic religious sites.  Shortly after the Second World War, Jews turned against the British, who, attempting to placate Muslims, tried to restrict Jewish immigrants seeking to escape Europe, its antisemitism, and the shocks of the Nazi Holocaust.  In November 1947, the United Nations, like the League of Nations, stepped in and carved Palestine into two separate areas, one for Jews, one for Muslims.  I stop here; everyone knows the history of the area since Israel declared its statehood in May 1948.

 

    The salient fact is that Israel differs from any other polity in being legitimized by its creation by an international organization with presumptive rights to create it.  Today, when the inconceivable is liable to become conceivable, it still remains inconceivable that the United Nations would reverse its decision creating Israel or infringe upon its status as an independent country, with the same rights accorded to other countries.  Indeed, it would be the most extreme example of a double standard to disestablish Israel.  Israel as a colonizer is either a question for those eager to split semantic hairs to little purpose or a chant of offensive slogans reflecting faddish academic ideologies.

 

    Although its settlements have become colonizing encroachments in the West Bank, Israel was initially less a colonizer than a tool of the colonizing powers who created it.  European Jews wanted to go to Palestine as a homeland, and the United States and countries in Western Europe and the British Commonwealth, unwilling to be the final destination for large numbers of Jewish refugees or displaced persons, assisted them by using the United Nations to fulfill the promise of the Balfour Declaration.  So countries with histories as colonizers made decisions about Palestine with its history as a colony, by drawing boundaries for two states without regard for the wishes of its inhabitants.

 

    There is no going back on a century of a history of purposes and cross-purposes, some better, some worse, than others.  There is no denying a century of resentments and animosities between two peoples who have become hostile to one another and have engaged in intermittent skirmishes of one kind or another in that time.  There is no undoing a history punctuated by armed conflicts for the past 75 years, with the Israeli-Hamas war being only the most violent, destructive, and deadly conflict yet.  And all exacerbated by the indifference of countries in the region, and the interference of countries outside it.

 

    The call for a ceasefire may be well-intentioned, but it is a biased and futile gesture; a ceasefire can be enforced only on Israel, not on Hamas, and will lead to a resumption of Hamas attacks on Israel.  If a ceasefire secures the release of the hostages, dead or alive, their condition or their narratives will cause widespread revulsion and call into question the militant self-righteousness and moral judgment of the protesters, who regard Hamas fighters as virtuous and heroic anti-colonialists, and ignore or know nothing about their oppressive rule over Gazans.

 

    Current hostilities are convincing evidence that a one-state solution is not feasible.  After Hamas’s barbaric attack on Israeli citizens and its treatment of hostages, and after Israeli forces’ disproportionate casualties inflicted on civilians in Gaza, the idea of peaceful co-existence in a single state of Israelis and Palestinians is absurd.  Jews and Muslims would cluster into enclaves of their fellows, gangs would act on grievances and grudges, the government would fracture, and civil war would break out.

 

    Given many causes, especially religious ones, for hostility between Jews and Muslims, even a two-state solution is problematic.  Though it is un-American to say so, the best of reconstructions within a state of Palestine (including Gaza) is not likely to ameliorate  these preconditions of conflict.  International largesse cannot bribe either Jews or Muslims.  Islamic shrines will remain Islamic shrines; Jewish shrines will remain Jewish shrines.  Israel and Palestine will remain holy lands and Jerusalem will remain a city holy to both Judaism and Islam.  It is implausible that peace—likely no better than a pause in hostilities—and prosperity will overcome deep-seated religious convictions.

 

    Still, a two-state solution is the least bad of all proposals.  Its realization would require finding a way out of a maze shrouded in a miasma of distrust, fear, and hostility.  Such a solution would require Israel and Palestine to agree to asymmetric provisions.  Israel would insist on defensive armaments against Iran, possibly Iraq, and certainly Hezbollah, including the retention of its nuclear weapons; Palestine would have little need for them but would insist on international guarantees of its security.  Palestine would insist on Israel’s abandonment of settlements, and on its right to and means of unhindered passage between the West Bank and Gaza to unify the country and to promote trade and travel.  Two provisions which both would resist but have to accept: small but symbolic numbers of Muslims exercising a right of return, and placing Jerusalem and all holy sites shared by both Jews and Muslims under international control.  These are but a few provisions which must be addressed by all, but with the decisive voice of Israelis and Palestinians.  I fear that this time, both sides will not miss the opportunity to miss an opportunity. 

THE RUMPUSES ON CAMPUSES ABOUT VIETNAM AND HAMAS

    We have been here before, in fact, 56 years ago.  Then, in 1968, the anti-Vietnam war movement engaged in teach-ins, protests, and occupations, some violent, some not, in the streets and on campuses.  Anti-war demonstrators disrupted the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, were quelled by a “police riot,” and helped elect Richard Nixon president.  American involvement did not end for another 5 years.  Now, in 2024, a similar movement to end the Israeli-Hamas war is engaging in the same tactics in the same places and disrupting college environs, with tent cities replacing teach-ins, and protests and occupations prompting police responses.  The movement may prompt another police riot at the DNC in Chicago and help elect Donald Trump president.  Like Hubert Humphrey, Joe Biden may not see the light to higher moral ground until it is too late.  The American involvement in the Middle East is not likely to end anytime soon.

    The wars—the Vietnam War and the Israeli-Hamas war—have important similarities, with American involvement in both morally problematic.  In Vietnam, America betrayed its democratic principles by supporting South Vietnam’s refusal to hold promised elections; it knew that Ho Chi Minh would defeat Bao Dai.  In Gaza, America betrays its human rights principles by supplying and tolerating overreacting or undisciplined Israeli forces killing civilians in numbers beyond military justification and displacing city populations from their homes and workplaces.  In both wars, American weaponry meant to kill combatants—Viet Cong soldiers and Hamas militants—killed disproportionately large numbers of civilians.  Yet there is an important difference.  In a predominantly rural country, American weaponry destroyed little of Vietnam’s infrastructure; in a predominantly urban enclave, it is wreaking unimaginable damage on Gaza’s infrastructure, housing, and commerce.

 

    The wars have other important differences: their rights and wrongs, the reasons for fighting them, and the combatants themselves.  Most people viewed the war in Vietnam as a struggle between democracy and communism; I viewed it as a struggle between residual colonialism and emergent nationalism (Ho Chi Minh was more nationalist than communist, and the CIA knew it).  The Vietnamese in the southern and northern zones of the country fought with the assistance of their allies, America, and Russia and China, respectively.  Yet, despite the fighting, both sides were Vietnamese, one people, one culture.  Reunification after the end of fighting was relatively easy.  In Gaza, the war is a struggle between an internationally recognized state, Israel, characterized by the protesters as a colonial state, and a Palestinian enclave, Gaza, ruled by Hamas, with its antisemitic, exterminationist, and expansionist ambitions.  Both sides fight with the support of their allies, America and Iran, respectively.  So the conflict is between different polities, Israel, and Gaza and the West Bank; different peoples, Whites (mainly) and Arabs; different religions, Judaism and Islam; and different cultures.  After the fighting ends, the creation of two stable, mutually secure states seems a big stretch.

 

    The dynamics of the rumpuses on campuses are also different.  In the Vietnam War, the small number of Vietnamese on American campuses played little or no part in the domestic turmoil.  But the use of American troops in an increasingly unpopular war ensured the involvement of the American people as well as campus demonstrators as long as the war lasted.  In the Israeli-Hamas conflict, larger numbers of Americans—Jews or Israeli supporters and larger numbers of Arabs or Muslims or Palestinian supporters—on campuses are mutually hostile.  However, since American troops are not involved, any involvement of the American people is likely to be small and short-term, and the intensity and duration of campus protests uncertain.  For now, the conflict abroad parallels the conflict at home.

 

    This parallel means that the nature of the conflict in the Middle East and America makes lasting resolution of the issues and lasting termination of the conflict difficult and perhaps impossible to achieve.  The long-standing and complicated array of overlapping and interacting issues is unlikely to be resolved in either place any time soon.  Balancing the claims of one side vis-à-vis the other side is the largest part of the problem.  Good intentions and pious wishes notwithstanding, no one is likely soon to win the argument which diplomats have thus far failed to win or at least resolve in practical decisions tolerable to both sides.

 

    Where international politicians have failed, American politicians are unlikely to succeed.  As during the Vietnam War, so now during the Israeli-Hamas war, politicians are needlessly and recklessly taking sides.  Then, politicians opposed campus protesters against the Vietnam War and often smeared them as communist sympathizers (a few were); now, they oppose pro-Hamas or pro-Palestinian campus supporters and smear them as antisemites (a few are).  So, once again, they are making things worse by letting reactions to domestic protests resist and reject the views offered by dissenters.  In the Vietnam War, protesters were right (even as the fighting continued, the government knew they were right).  In the Israeli-Hamas war, they have at least one valid point: America has pursued an unbalanced, imprudent, and self-damaging policy for decades in ignoring the plight and rights of the Palestinians.

 

    Then, politicians kept some distance between themselves and the campuses.  Today, not so much; they seem determined to intrude themselves into rumpuses on campuses in disregard of likely, especially damaging consequences.  When the Vietnam War ended, America left Vietnam, and politicians gave little or no further attention to those who had protested.  When the Israeli-Hamas war achieves a cessation of hostilities, America will remain involved in the Middle East, and politicians will have at least small numbers of vociferous on-campus partisans, if not violent protesters, actively and acrimoniously advocating for the sides which they supported during hostilities.  Little will change the dynamics of the debate.  On the issues, pro-Palestinian protesters are not entirely right—ignorance, intolerance, and ideology mar their cause—, but politicians are mostly wrong.

 

    Not surprisingly, the controversy in this country is generating more heat than light, with politicians of both parties fanning the flames.  Rather than attempting to quench each burning issue, I resort to stating the obvious.  Combat zones are different from campuses.  The point of armed combat is to secure political objectives despite opposition from an enemy; the point of college education is research, teaching, and service.  The basis of this triad of interrelated functions is truth, its pursuit, and its dissemination.  So campuses are, or should be, the best places in America to enable informed debate of the issues and to develop some practical decisions on how to manage an intractable conflict and moderate contentious arguments.  To this end, college leaders must establish the conditions for free speech and free association, and enable the focus of college resources on the controversy itself.

 

    Unfortunately, college leaders have, over not months or years, but decades, squandered their moral authority to lead their campuses in these purposes.  While modern conservatism grew in reaction to judicial decisions and political legislation advancing civil rights, the humanities and social sciences oriented their approaches to, and shifted their standards of, scholarship and instruction in their academic disciplines to emphasize their political and social dimensions: race, gender, class, and colonialism.  The now largely abandoned phrase “political correctness” signifies the judgments used to define acceptable campus and classroom speech and behavior related to these topics.  Dissenting views of students were discouraged or disincentivized; of faculty, censured; and of invited speakers, uninvited or harassed.  Colleges developed speech codes and “safe areas” to control what was not PC.  Thus, limitations on free speech have become ingrained in college administrations, academic departments, and student bodies.

 

    Yet sensible correctives are available and implementable.  Minimally, colleges should develop a code of conduct applicable to all campus personnel—officials, staff, service personnel, faculty, and students—which states the standards, procedures, and penalties for those subject to it.  They should declare that they will vigorously enforce it and, to hold themselves accountable, report their enforcement to their trustees.  The code should declare rules against verbal and physical intimidation and harassment of people, disruptions of classes and lectures, occupations of buildings, and the like.  They should permit speech of any kind however offensive except speech which intimidates or threatens individuals or groups, or approves, threatens, or incites violence anywhere, at home or abroad.  They should permit demonstrations but disallow encampments.  They should encourage teach-ins and other means of facilitating discussion among interested parties.  The code should prohibit faculty from using research or teaching to indoctrinate or propagandize students.  They should declare that they do not take positions on public issues.  And they must, not should, resist the intrusion of politicians into college affairs and thereby protect their unique mission.  Sadly, whether the long-term acquiescence of college leaders and the long-term involvement of faculty in the moral, political, and pedagogical slackness on campus and in courses can be reversed and establish their credibility in time to serve current needs is doubtful.  Expect both turmoil at colleges and tumult in Congress to make the problem worse, not better, in this election year.

 

    I conclude with a statement of my main positions on this Israeli-Hamas conflict.  They are that the United States suspend all military assistance in offensive but not defensive weapons to Israel for the duration (Israel needs defensive weapons to repel attacks from Iran and its proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas); make all military assistance contingent on the urgent and effective delivery of humanitarian aid to Gazans; contribute with others to rebuilding Gaza; and revise American policy toward Israel to require its compliance with international law (most particularly the abandonment of its West Bank settlements).  A revised policy late to do the right thing is better than a policy never doing it.

ANTISEMITISM PERVASIVE IN THE GOVERNMENT OF THE CITY OF THE CROSSES (PART 3)

    This blog is longer and more detailed than previous blogs in this trilogy about my case with the Las Cruces Police Department because its thesis is more circumstantial and more serious.

 

    No one in the Las Cruces government—Mayor, Councilors, City Managers, City Attorney, Police Chiefs—has defended or explained the refusal of the LCPD to drop five, admittedly false, admittedly minor, allegations of animal code violations in over 4 years.  Internal Affairs admitted that they are false; I have admitted that they are minor.  Those who have discussed the matter with me think that the city government’s refusal is absurd.  Yet no one in city government has done anything to rectify this wrong.  Why?  Why is this case different from other cases in which false charges are routinely dropped?

 

    Answers differ.  One is the instinctive, institutional defensiveness of officials and their refusal to admit mistakes, especially the longer they have refused to do so.  Two is their fear that any admission might prompt legal action resulting in adverse publicity for the city and the LCPD.  For, if the allegations were officially admitted to be false, then questions would arise about why they were made and have not been dropped.  Three is their resentment of public criticism exposing their failures and foibles to other officials and concerned citizens.  So, when then IA Sergeant, now Deputy Police Chief responsible for IA, Sean Mullen expressed his resentment to the Police Chief, “Mr. Hays … protested the facts in emails, blogs, phone calls and meetings,” he spoke for Las Cruces officials.

 

    Yet I am not convinced that defensiveness, fear, and resentment are the only reasons for the refusal of Las Cruces government officials to right a wrong and offer an apology Four is antisemitism.  Their conduct fits the patterns.  Typically, antisemites do not admit, disavow, or apologize for their antisemitic words or deeds; or, if not given to such words or deeds themselves, tolerate them in others.  My case has challenged City Council and the LCPD to confront antisemitism; by declining the challenge, they fit the pattern.

 

    I admit that, in response to this official disregard of antisemitism, I have changed from suspecting the possibility of antisemitism to subscribing to the probability of it.  The LCPD’s and particularly IA’s contradictory positions and inconsistent conduct reflect their inability to deal with antisemitism in the ranks (with no Jew in blue) and reveal their refusal to drop false allegations because of antisemitism.  Details follow.

 

*      *      *      *      *      *     *

 

    Antisemitism had not occurred to me as a motive for the five false allegations when, on 5 August 2019, I filed a formal complaint.  That evening, puzzled by them, I asked my ex-wife, an Episcopalian, why she thought I had received them.  She said that it was the “house.”  Still puzzled, I asked what she meant; she said that it was the Star of David above the garage door.  I wrote the Police Chief an email with a picture of my garage and urged an IA investigation of the AOC’s motives.  “I now expect a very good answer.  Lacking one, I shall feel free to draw my own conclusions.”  The Chief forwarded my email with the short message “FYI” to the IA Chief.  I did not file a complaint about the ACO’s possible antisemitism because I believe that it is not a crime, but a psychological construct and a moral defect.

 

    The IA Chief responded to the Chief’s email by doing nothing for some time.  On 5 August, an IA investigator indicated a two-week IA investigation of my allegations; when nothing had happened by 3 September, I wrote the Chief about the delay.  On that date, Mullen emailed the Codes Enforcement Administrator:

 

After a review, this matter was determined to be a non-serious nature that would be best addressed at the shift/section level.  This incident will be closed out in IA with no investigation and is being referred to you as a Supervisory Matter.

 

The Administrator’s 11 September memorandum on this ”non-serious” “Supervisory Matter” to the Chief found no merit in my complaint.  It did not address the truth or falsity of the allegations; it admitted that I had a multi-animal permit but recommended no action.  It omitted the “FYI” matter of antisemitism, about which the Administrator was unlikely to be a “subject matter expert” on antisemitism.  Although the Chief had promised a written response to my complaint, I received none.  Instead, on 20 September, the IA Chief wrote to explain the process of an IA investigation and the assignment of the investigation to the Administrator.

 

I determined Codes Enforcement Chief…was the most qualified person to handle your complaint.  He has experience as an animal control officer and as a supervisor for the codes enforcement section.  He is the subject matter expert for your complaint.

 

Mullen’s and the IA Chief’s emails make no reference to antisemitism.  Neither IA nor the LCPD took antisemitism seriously enough even to mention it, much less investigate it.

 

*      *      *      *      *      *     *

 

    A sudden change occurred on 22 September when my blog “LCPD Trumped-Up Code Violations Suggest Antisemitism” appeared.  On 27 September, Mullen emailed me that “Your complaint has been updated to investigate the allegation of bias based policing” and that the original IA investigator had been reassigned to my case.  I spoke with him to express my disapproval of adding antisemitism to my complaint, explained my reasons, and demanded its withdrawal.  However, because I believe that antisemitism is a serious matter and had identified it as serious, I said that the delay in addressing it seemed to indicate that IA did not take it seriously.  Mullen later imputed a bogus contradiction to me.  On the one hand, I did not want to file or support a formal complaint; on the other, I claimed to be serious about antisemitism.  He either could not comprehend their co-existence or found it convenient to use the former alternative as a rationalization for not investigating antisemitism—a position which he later contradicted in a memorandum.

 

    More delay.  The matter of antisemitism did not arise again until a 7 December 2020 meeting of District 1 Councilor, Interim City Manager, Police Chief, herself, and me.  I noted that IA had not taken antisemitism seriously enough to investigate it.  The Chief objected by asserting but not supporting his claim that it was taken seriously.  When Mullen wrote his 5 February memorandum to the Chief, in the section “General Order 165.01(A) Bias Based Policing,” he touched upon antisemitism lightly in his interview with the ACO officer and heavily in his conclusion.  In a redacted portion, Mullen wrote:

 

Mr. Hays doesn’t like the fact a warning notice was left on his gate.  He challenges the complaints [sic] validity since the caller chose to remain anonymous.  He protested the facts in emails, blogs, phone calls and meetings.  The notice was left by ACO to have the property owner call in and the Animal Control Officer educate them on the reason for the visit to their home and the city ordinances required by every pet owner.  In an email and blog authored by Mr. Hays, he suggested antisemitism within LCPD, specifically in this instance with [the ACO].  He noted a large Star of David which hangs above the garage at his home as motivation for [the ACO]’s actions.  Mr. Hays told [the IA Chief and [the Chief] during a meeting on January 7, 2020, with City Staff that he wasn’t complaining of biased [sic] based policing.  LCPD is obligated to look into any suggestion of biased [sic] based policing whether or not the citizen files an official complaint.

 

During my interview [the ACO] advised he is not targeting Mr. Hays’ [sic] because of his beliefs, religion or any other reason.  He just happened to be the officer who took this call for service.  By the same measure where Mr. Hays said there is no evidence to support violations at his home; [sic] there is absolutely no evidence to suggest any bias or targeting of Mr. Hays by [the ACO] or LCPD.

 

Mullen’s first three comments, all derogatory, have nothing to do with antisemitism and misrepresent my views.  His next statement is irrelevant; what the ACO’s purpose was and what his practice was are two different things.  Mullen later distorts my comments on bias based policing.  The record is clear; until I made the issue of antisemitism public, the LCPD defaulted on what he claims is its obligation.  After my blog appeared, IA hastily included it in my complaint; after I protested its inclusion, IA as hastily removed it.  Thereafter, the LCPD ignored its obligation.

 

    Without having investigated antisemitism, Mullen raised the issue in the interview with the ACO.  He accepted his denial at face value—insufficient in an investigation.  His denial implies that any other ACO officer would have acted as he had: allege five false code violations and raise a suspicion of antisemitic motive.  Mullen’s claim that “there is absolutely no evidence” to suggest antisemitism is overstated because Mullen has little more idea about what evidence would suggest it than he has about how to conduct an investigation into the suggestion of antisemitism.  Evidence of antisemitism is not limited to the obvious displays of swastikas or slogans like “Death to the Jews” or “Kill the Kikes,” or attacks on Jewish community centers or temples; it extends to silent or invisible discrimination in education, employment, housing, and law enforcement.

 

*      *      *      *      *      *     *

 

    I almost want to write QED.  The government of the City of the Crosses is antisemitic.  Despite my many blogs, no one on City Council has addressed the issue.  The LCPD did not take the suggestion of antisemitism seriously, juggled its concerns according to the politics of appearances, and shifted its views to ensure that it avoided the issue.  “FYI” does not signal seriousness.  Inaction until a blog suggests LCPD antisemitism does not signal seriousness.  Assignment of the investigation to someone with “expertise” in code violations like long grass and barking dogs, but not antisemitism does not suggest seriousness.  Repeated misrepresentations of my reasons for not wanting antisemitism included in my complaint, to serve as a rationale for abandoning an investigation into antisemitism, do not signal seriousness.  An unsupported assertion by the Chief that the LCPD takes antisemitism seriously does not signal seriousness.  Indeed, this record of unserious action or inaction contradicts the claim that “LCPD is obligated to look into any suggestion of biased [sic] based policing whether or not the citizen files an official complaint.”  At the suggestion of antisemitism, the officials of city government showed themselves variously uncertain, indecisive, incompetent, inconsistent, and professionally bankrupt.  That was then.

 

    This is now.  In December, I met with Police Chief Story and sketched my case to him.  He expressed sincere-seeming concerns about it.  When I wrote to thank him for his time, I offered to discuss the related issue of antisemitism if he were interested.  He was not; I have had no reply in over four months.  He is unwilling to answer the obvious question: if antisemitism is not an important part of the reason for the LCPD’s refusal to retract the allegations and offer an apology for them, what explains its failure to correct the record.

 

    His predecessors’ lack of seriousness about antisemitism is good evidence of antisemitism in the LCPD from the top down then.  That Chief Story has done nothing to right a wrong implicating antisemitism is good evidence of antisemitism in the LCPD from the top down now.  And members of City Council who say nay or do nothing must explain why antisemitism is no factor in the failure of city government to drop and apologize for the five false, minor allegations in nearly 5 years.