Framing the Gaza Conflict: Five Questions
Emails continue to pour in with heartbreaking accounts of Israel’s Gaza victims, details of worldwide protests, and analyses of events from conflicting perspectives. Some of these accounts come from Gaza residents I was in contact with before my recent Israel/West Bank visit, psychologists and artists I would have met at an October conference on Siege and Mental Health if Israel had granted us permits. I read obsessively.
Also on my mind are friends and relatives in Israel, some of whom live or work well within range of the missiles from Gaza. Some have children in the army and worry about their safety. Some worry just as much about what their young child-soldiers may do to innocent Palestinians, about their becoming brutalized in the name of ends they may not yet comprehend beyond the superficialities every government instills in its young.
I want to note here a few topics related to different ways of framing issues. Perhaps this effort reflects my background in social psychology, though I hope my general critical psychology perspective has helped me move beyond mainstream social psychology’s narrow, avowedly apolitical, empiricism. In the abstract, it’s easy to understand that how we frame an issue affects our evaluation. Framing matters in everything from the questions of journalists to the speeches of politicians to the proclamations of partisans, academics, and, yes, bloggers. But it’s not easy to keep framing’s centrality in mind in the heat of political hostility.
(There’s also a danger of the opposite: recognizing framing’s importance can lead to avoiding political commitment. If we know that “how you evaluate something depends on how you look at it,” it’s easy to avoid any commitment at all. This stance of either above-it-all cynicism or supposedly objective neutrality is a common academic and journalistic hazard, as I’ve addressed elsewhere. Although I do think it’s important to understand competing perspectives, I do not believe all perspectives are equally valid or just.)
Several questions come to mind related to Israel’s Gaza operations, all of which are reflected in more specific issues. Some of these different perspectives are obvious in comments to several earlier postings on this blog over the past couple of weeks; others have been obvious at protests and counter-protests, or listening to callers on NPR who seem to be living in different worlds. Here I mostly list questions and offer some related thoughts. Full answers, as always, await another time.
- Who started the current hostilities? Instigators always blame the other side. The mainstream media generally parrot the argument that Hamas refused to extend the ceasefire and that Israel seeks only to stop missiles from leaving Gaza. They minimize or even ignore the fact that Hamas had managed to stop missile launches almost completely before Israel itself broke the ceasefire, an earlier violation that the media now fails to point out.
- Who started the broader conflict? This is a central question, or would be if the rest of the world paid much attention. Interpretations vary depending on the starting point. Here are some possibilities: Hamas’s takeover of Gaza, Hamas’s election to office, the 1967 Six Day War leading to the Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory, the 1948 establishment of Israel, the late-nineteenth century arrival in Palestine of Zionist immigrants determined to create a Jewish homeland, and even Napoleon’s plan to create a Jewish state in Palestine to defend French interests. Israel’s supporters – and Israeli negotiators in the never-ending “peace process” – refuse to go back in time, while Palestians’ supporters know that the further back you go, the more the violation of their rights is clear.
- What kind of conflict is it? Is this a national conflict between Israelis and Palestinians? A religious conflict between Jews and (mostly) Muslims? A geopolitical conflict between Israel, the US, Western Europe, and their conservative Arab allies on the one hand, and on the other Arab states less beholden to the US, Iran, and other states at odds with US dominance? Alternatively: Does the conflict reflect the actions of two equally responsible enemies engaging in tit-for-tat retaliation, who might someday make peace as equals (the framework often adopted by “neutral” peacemakers and dialogue advocates)? Or is this a conflict between Occupier and Occupied, between a powerful nation and a weak but stubborn resistance? If the latter – as I have come to see it – are the sides so unbalanced that journalistic and academic “even-handedness” becomes a support for oppression?
- Does Israel deserve, and does it get, exceptional treatment? This is very touchy. Is Israel held to an unjustified higher standard as its defenders claim, a standard that simply proves anti-Semitism? Or does Israel get away with actions that would not be tolerated for any other modern state, and certainly any modern democracy? Does Israel deserve a Jewish state simply because Zionists took it, following the colonial model of Western states arising over the objections of defeated native peoples, or does the development of international law and the creation of the United Nations after World War II mean statehood by conquest should no longer be tolerated even for a state that absorbed Europe’s Jewish Holocaust victims? Israel’s dismissal of international condemnation as proof of bias often seems to me a convenient excuse. Anti-Semitism exists, but doesn’t explain everything.
- Where’s justice? As I’ve explored at length on this blog and elsewhere, there can be no final settlement until history is uncovered and justice addressed. Justice is tricky, I know, but having been on both sides of this issue over the decades, I think that defenses of Israel are more strained, more rickety, more based on exceptions to ordinary standards of justice and humanity than defenses of Palestinian rights.
For me, resort to tribal notions — often expressed as what’s best for the Jews, or the claim that only a Jewish state can defend Jews worldwide — are mired in comforting nostrums that long ago lost whatever validity they may once have had. If Palestine had really been a land without a people, a Jewish state would have gone differently, maybe even becoming the light unto the nations I learned about so long ago. But creating a Jewish state over the objections of people living on that land was a historical injustice that will never – never – be forgotten. It has led, ironically, inexorably, inevitably to Jews endangered precisely because they live in the Jewish state that was supposed to protect them. And it has led to Jews oppressing, and even today killing, innocent non-Jews in the name of that Jewish state.
Framing the conflict as tribal – the core Zionist argument — justifies Israeli actions no matter how grotesque, from this latest invasion of Gaza to the four-decade occupation to the six-decade imposition of Jewish control over Israel’s own internal Palestinians. I might add it also justifies similarly particularistic views and actions by groups such as Hamas. I would much prefer framing the conflict as one between those committed to a tribal worldview and those embracing a more universal justice-based outcome. There are Israelis and Palestinians on both sides of that divide, and any justice-based future depends on them.
Technorati Tags: Gaza, justice, neutrality, Palestine, protest, social psychology, Zionism
January 9th, 2009 at 3:10 am
1. You fail to consider a central ingredient in the cease fire agreement from June 2008: the requirement for an end to the smuggling of weapons into Gaza. Despite the violation of this condition by Hamas, Israel announced on December 13 its agreement to renew the cease fire, responded on December 18 by a rejection from Hamas.
At the end of the six month cease fire, Hamas had considerably increased their weapons arsenal, provided by Iran and smuggled into Gaza in violation of the cease fire agreeement. During these six months Hamas had acquired rockets that allowed them to target Beer Sheba and Ashkelon, putting more than a million Israelis under the threat of rocket attacks. This weapon arsenal is the main concern of Israel both in its actions in Gaza and in the pursuit of a new cease fire agreement that will include appropriate securities to prevent rearming of Hamas.
2. Let me suggest one more answer to the question “Who started the broader conflict?”, going back to 1948 (but of course, one can also go back earlier in time.) The palestinian leaders and Arab states categorically rejected the UN resolution from 1948 to form two states in Palestine, a Jewish state and an Arab one. The declaration of the Israeli state, in accordance with the UN resolution, was answered by the invasion of 5 Arab armies, with the declared goal of annihilating the newly formed Jewish entity.
By the way, despite this fact, the Jewish state had roughly the borders designated by the UN until 1967. What has prevented the formation of a Palestinian state between 1948 and 1967?
3. Is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict nothing more than the conflict between 7 million Israelis and 4 million palestinians in the west bank and Gaza? Or is it also tightly connected to a wider conflict between Israel and large parts of the Muslim world? Is Israel the weak or the strong side in this larger-scale conflict? and does Israel’s superior military power, compared to the palestinians, necessarily mean that justice is on the side of Hamas?
I strongly believe that without the political power of the Arab world the Palestinian-Israeli conflict would have been solved long ago in a compromise. Certainly, the world would have been interested in this conflict just as much (or, more precisely, just as little) as it is interested in most other conflicts around the globe. I think that, ironically, the political backing of the Arab world, together with its absolute refusal to engage in any constructive steps for many years, have hugely exacerbated the palestinian tragedy.
4. Jews did not come to Palestine as the colonial forces of any country. Not even as a cultural arrowhead of the European civilization, as palestinian propaganda likes to depict them, since about half of Israel’s Jewish population came from Arab states, from which they were driven out in the late 1940s.
For 2000 years jews have kept their uniquely separate identity in the diaspora, and their daily prayers reflected their deep historic ties to Palestine. Jews have also kept a continuous presence in Palestine, and outnumbered Muslims in Jerusalem even before the earliest days of the Zionist movement. Are Jews less native to Palestine than, say, an arab family that has immigrated to palestine in the early 20th century?
You mention statehood by conquest. Israel was created by a UN resolution, and the surrounding Arab states were the ones who attempted to conquer the newly formed Jewish state in defiance of an international resolution.
5. “There can be no final settlement until history is uncovered and justice addressed.” In fact, history is riddled with misjustices, most of which have been forgotten and certainly not addressed. Can justice be done today to an Arab family displaced in 1948, 60 years ago? Or to a Jewish family displaced in the same year from Syria? Had the Arab states succeeded in crushing the Israeli state in 1948, what would have been the outcome for the Jewish population in Palestine? Would they have ever received justice?
Instead of emphasizing subjective views on historical injustices that will “never-never be forgotten”, I would suggest to focus on constructive and reasonable opportunities for a compromise. In my opinion the willingness for compromise is the real important divide in this conflict, and I do believe that both Israelis and palestinians exist on the two sides of this crucial divide.
Those seeking a resolution to the arab-Israeli conflict should be careful about who they support, and what interests they promote. Taking sides with Hamas will not help reach any constructive goal, neither will a rejection of Israel’s right to exist based on subjective notions of historic justice.
I am an Israeli, and I love my country very much with all its flaws (and many virtues). So, I have to say, the repeated questioning of my country’s right to exist comes across to me as offensive. Beyond that, I am perplexed by the one-sidedness and dogmatic thinking in many of the points above, and in particular by the capability to make far-reaching and absolute assertions, all one-sided, about a very complicated conflict.
January 9th, 2009 at 3:24 am
You have put into words and help to clarify my own thoughts and feelings on this. Thank you.
February 10th, 2009 at 5:55 am
Hi Dennis,
Thanks for your post. I disagree with almost all of the points made by Arnon, which are simply reiterations of the national myth by which Israelis justify the actions of their government. Understandable but ultimately unacceptable.
I’ll refute them one by one, but not in detail. There is no point. All argument simply obscures the fact that Israel occupies a land that doesn’t belong to Jews exclusively, and needs to either accept Palestinians in multi ethnic state, or end the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza so that Palestinians can live in a separate state.
1. Israel broke the truce. Gazans knew that Israel was not going to end the blockade and would not likely honour any future ceasefire. In fact the Israeli action to break the ceasefire was a part of the blockade of Gaza. From the Gazan point of view, what’s the point of a ceasefire honoured by only one side.
2. Palestinian leaders rightly opposed a two state solution considering that meant dispossession of Palestinians from their land in Israel, which in fact occurred. They should continue to oppose this, as a two state solution means that Palestinans in the West Bank will continue to be in an open air Israeli prison.
3. Israel is the fifth largest military power in the world. It is not threatened by its Arab or Palestinian neighbours. Resistance by Palestinians is not a threat to Israel, it is simply a pretext for an ongoing campaign of ethnic cleansing by Israel.
4. This is simply nonsense. The movement of the diaspora to Israel was a well organised and well document colonialist enterprise, complete with ethnic cleansing.
5. Let’s not confuse potential injustices with real ones. We can only solve real ones.
Dennis, the discussion of how issues are framed is interesting to me, and I’d like to keep that discussion going. Thanks.
February 10th, 2009 at 6:07 am
[...] Posted in Palestine, framing by wandering raven on February 10th, 2009 Here’s a blog post that uses the idea of framing to discuss Israeli Palestinian issues. « Some [...]