By S. E. Williams\Black Voice News
Photos: Wikimedia Commons
October 7, 2024, marked the one year anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel. It was an horrific attack that added gasoline to the smoldering tensions between Israel and Hamas.
The event was devastating and yet, I think we have a tendency to lose site of two important points. First, the conflict between Israel and Hamas did not begin October 7, 2023, and second, Israel does not have clean hands when it comes to their relentless oppression of the Palestinian people.
In the year since the October 7, 2023, attack by Hamas, Israel has been unrelenting in its efforts to wipe Hamas off the face of the earth and Israeli leadership seems immune to the suffering of children, old people and women being blow apart as a result of their country’s retaliation. The Palestinians and those who support them call what Israel is doing–genocide. What do you call it?
I remember the terms used by many Americans when white South Africans slaughtered Black South African freedom fighters and called them terrorists. Those in the Black community here at home and their supporters were incensed and demanded the U.S. cease its support of the South African government and simultaneously called for divestment. Why shouldn’t a similar case be made on behalf of the Palestinian people?
When one thinks of the international struggle to end Apartheid, some of you may recall how governments around the world slowly came to their senses and called on the South African government to end the oppression of its Black citizens that spanned from 1948 to the early 1990s.
The United States, however, came to the party late. It did not take an official stand against the South African government’s harsh, brutal, institutionalized system of racial segregation until Congress passed the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act in 1986. This eventually led to many large, multinational companies withdrawing from South Africa.
America was late responding to the cries of Black South Africans. Martin Luther King Jr. saw early on the obvious similarities between Jim Crow and apartheid. He began calling for sanctions against the South African regime as early as 1962. Also, the first bill calling for divestment from South Africa was introduced on Capitol Hill by CA Congressman Ron Dellums in 1971. But, as noted above, it took another 15 years before legislation finally passed in 1986.
I know it is considered blasphemous to breathe anything even slightly critical of Israel’s actions against Palestine, especially since October 7, 2023. It seems one word of criticism regarding Israel’s actions in Gaza and you are quickly labeled anti semitic.
I believe you can be against war in the Middle East without being against the Jewish people. I believe you can call what is happening in Palestine, genocide at the hands of the Israeli government without it being an indictment of the Jewish people. Even the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued an advisory opinion on July 19, outlining significant consequences for human rights protections in Palestine under Israel’s occupation. The opinion was in response to a December 2022 request by the United Nations General Assembly which asked the court to consider the legal consequences of Israel’s policies and practices in the occupied sections of Palestine.
It’s been 62 years since Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. penned his appeal for sanctions against Apartheid noting at the time how the world had entered an era where the issue of human rights was “the central question confronting all nations.” It is obvious the question was never answered because the quest for universal human rights still exists.
In April, UC regents rejected calls for Israel-related divestment/boycott that are driving pro-Palestinian protests. Meanwhile, President Joe Biden struggles to find a way forward, and Israel continues to escalate and expand the footprint of its war. As the war expands more innocent Palestinians, Syrians, Lebanese, Iranians and Jewish people continue to be displaced, injured or die in the conflict.
Today, more and more Americans are asking, “How long we will continue to align with Israel on this issue?” The world is judging America by the company it keeps.
What King wrote in 1963 remains relevant today. “The struggle for freedom forms one long front crossing oceans and mountains. The brotherhood of man is not confined within a narrow limited circle of select people. It is felt everywhere in the world. It is an international sentiment of surpassing strength. Because this is true, when men of good will finally unite, they will be invincible.”
Israel must remember it is a citizens of the world. In my opinion it has gone to far.
Of course this is just my opinion. I’m keeping it real.
S.E Williams is the executive editor of IE Voice and Black Voice News.
