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Frank P. Barajas. Courtesy photo.
By Frank P. Barajas / Guest contributor
As a Chicano who lives in the historically conquered territory of the Southwest after the US attack on Mexico in 1846 and who lives in the state of California that systematically dispossessed indigenous peoples of their land and relegated them to lives in concentration camps known as reservations, I identify with the Palestinian struggle for national liberation. Hence, I refuse to abet via silence the continued catastrophe, Nakba, of ethnic cleansing against the people of Palestine perpetuated since 1948 by the United States-backed state of Israel.[i] This moral stand arose from witnessing the brazenly decontextualized propaganda of commercial network news streamed to my television since October 7, 2023. Indeed, I have yet to view corporate news functionaries addressing the fundamental causes of Zionist invasion, racial apartheid, and theft of Palestinian territories even before the mid-twentieth century that induced Hamas’ recent attack on Israelis and the taking of hostages.
Furthermore, US news anchors, posing as objective journalists, refuse to provide their audiences with primary statements of Hamas or Palestinian Authority officials; virtually all accounts related to the October 7th attack originate from biased Israeli government officials and spokesperson for the Israeli Defense Forces. Then US officials from President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, to Democratic party tool, Senator Alex Padilla, and others pathetically parrot the perspective of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The unverified accounts of Hamas beheading Israeli babies echoed by President Biden being one example.
To paraphrase the late eminent scholar Edward W. Said, everyone speaks for Palestinians except Palestinians.[ii]
When US propaganda television news presents the perspective of Palestinians it is restricted to the severe suffering of Gaza civilian women, children, and men of all ages having been mercilessly and collectively punished by IDF with US bombs and tanks that level rubble entire urban districts, hospitals, refugee camps, and schools. I have yet to view the commercial media report on Palestinian resistance that would present them as valiant human agents not solely powerless victims of IDF domination.
Thus far, IDF attacks have killed 24,000 Palestinians in Gaza. Of them, 11,000 children, over 7,000 women, and 1,000 senior citizens; or 75% of the total number of Palestinian casualties. This number steadily increases, not counting deaths in other territories under Israeli military siege and occupation (such as the Golan Heights and West Bank) in violation of United Nations resolutions 194 242, 338, and 465. According to a December 15, 2023, report by France 24, October 7th Israeli deaths “is now thought to be 695 Israeli civilians, including 36 children, as well as 373 security forces and 71 foreigners, giving a total of 1,139.”[iii] Therefore, Palestinian lives lost caused by IDF are greatly disproportionate to the estimated lives lost of Israelis and other people by Hamas on October 7, by a ratio of over 20:1.
To lessen my ignorance on the question of Palestine and fathom the reasons why Hamas would dare challenge the Israeli government that enjoys an extraordinarily superior military largely supplied with state-of-the-art US weaponry and financing in the billions of dollars annually, I lately studied, in the consequent order, books authored by Richard Becker, Jimmy Carter, Rashid Khalidi, respectively titled Palestine: Israel and the U.S. Empire (2009), Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid (2006), and The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017 (2020). I currently started Ilan Pappe’s The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (2006). Moreover, I seek out and read the latest articles in the Los Angeles Times, largely opinion pieces, and The New Yorker focused on the experience of Palestinians and Jews before and since the United Nations partition of Palestine in 1947 that led to the violent creation of the state of Israel the next year that, in the words of Pappe, “led to one of the largest forced migrations in modern history. Around a million people were expelled from their homes at gunpoint, civilians were massacred, and hundreds of Palestinian villages were deliberately destroyed.” I also learned that Palestine’s partition after WWII was sponsored by Britain, the archetype colonial power in rapid decline, and subsequently advanced by the number one global empire, the United States. I augmented this self-study with enlightening social media video clips that feature the informed views of people in opposition to Zionism such as Angela Davis, Norman Finkelstein, Nelson Mandela, and Gabriel Mate.
This initial investigation also encompassed conversations with colleagues and people in my social network, as well as attending community forums and demonstrations. Over time I came to understand the effective ways in which a highly tuned Israeli public relations campaign—with the support of influential allies such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee—has defined the dominant narrative imbibed by the US public, particularly those of the Great Depression and Baby Boom generations. Myths, misinformation, and outright lies portray Palestinians as fanatical terrorists who irrationally attack Israelis, and Zionists, on the other hand, essentially, as neutral, and innocent defenders of Israel’s security. People who do not have the luxury to devote time to independently learn the historical realities of the Palestinian experience are left to rely upon pro-Israel propaganda proliferated by US television “news,” with no recognition of causation.
In this regard, US stories on events in the Middle East are a modern-day production of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. But people of all generations, internationally, and from all walks of life, are learning alternative perspectives via social media.
In the next installment of this series, I will comment further on my learning of the history of Palestine and the creation of the state of Israel 77 years ago. Meanwhile, contact your elected representative local, state, and federal to demand a cease-fire as a starting point for the liberation and self-determination of Palestinian people.
[i] Other Western nations with ruthless imperial histories, as if there were any other kind, that back Israel are Britain, France, and Germany to name a few.
[ii] Said’s more popularly well-known books are Orientalism (1978) and The Question of Palestine (1979).
[iii] https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20231215-israel-social-security-data-reveals-true-picture-of-oct-7-deaths
— Frank P. Barajas is a lifetime resident of Oxnard and Professor of History, Faculty Early Retirement Program at California State University Channel Islands.
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