What do 9/11, Pearl Harbor, the Yom Kippur War and Dunkirk have in common? They all have all been proposed in the media as analogies to the tragic conflict between Hamas and Israel, with the focus on the Israeli perspective.
Historical analogies can be useful in understanding current issues. “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” But they are also fraught with possibilities of misinterpretation and oversimplification.
I believe the closest analogy for the Palestinian refugee experience in Gaza, not a perfect one, would be the conflict between Native Americans and the United States of America in the 19th century. Its use is not to justify the atrocities committed by Hamas or Israel, but to further understand the current situation.
Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza share many historical commonalities with Native Americans. Both were displaced by a more technologically superior culture, were subjected to the destruction of their communities and the indiscriminate killing of their men, women and children, both were not given an opportunity to participate in the occupiers’ government and, after being displaced from their homes, were confined to reservations controlled by the dominant culture.
What was the reaction of Native Americans to those commonalities? Some protested peacefully or tried to negotiate with the American government, some acquiesced to the overwhelming power of the U.S. military and others fought back, at times killing men, women and children of settlements that had been established on what they believed had been their land. They were characterized as “merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.” Today they would be labeled “terrorists” who used their community members as “human shields.”
Israeli Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu recently said that dropping a “nuclear bomb” on the Gaza Strip was “an option.” He followed up with the suggestion that the Palestinians could find a home in the deserts or in Ireland. After Israeli settlers rampaged in the Palestinian West Bank town of Hawara, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called for the community to be “wiped out.”
This attitude extends beyond right-wing Israeli politicians. In a speech in support of a ceasefire resolution, the Democratic Florida state Rep. Angie Nixon said: “We are at 10,000 dead Palestinians. How many will be enough?” “All of them,” Republican Michelle Salzman called in reply.
In U.S. Congress in May of 1868, Representative James Michael Cavanaugh of Montana told the House: “I will say I like an Indian better dead than living.” Those sentiments were not limited to the wild West; Teddy Roosevelt made the followings comment during a speech in 1886: “I don’t go so far as to think that the only good Indians are the dead Indians, but I believe nine out of every 10 are and I shouldn’t like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth.”
The script essentially remains the same, except that in the Middle East, both communities have been traumatized.
Perhaps we can focus on the deaths of thousands of innocent children, women and men. Not Palestinians or Jews but people, human beings who for the most part want to live in peace and dignity. Our role, if we want peace in the region, is to support those on both sides that want peace. Picking sides will only assure the cycle of violence and revenge continues.
My motivation for writing this piece is in memory of my Aunt Renee and my cousins, Milou and Annie, who were buried under the rubble of a building hit by Nazi rockets in Liege in January 1945; and my Uncle Joseph, who dug with his hands to uncover his wife’s body with his two daughters sheltered in her arms. Milou died two weeks later. Annie and Joseph survived the war, but broken.
My family members were “collateral” damage. It doesn’t matter to the dead if they were targeted or not; they are still dead.
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