Liberation of one group cannot come at the expense of another
Authors: Kat Mahoney, Kelcie Smolin Grega, and Rabbi Ariel Stone
Sisters of the Road is a philosophy-based organization. Nonviolence, gentle personalism, systemic change, anti-oppressive practice, dignity, and community organizing guide and inform all our actions, interactions, values, and culture at Sisters.
For the last four weeks we have seen information and misinformation regarding what is occurring in Gaza. We have seen the media portray one group as wrong and the other as right.
We have seen people taking to the streets advocating for peace, for a ceasefire, for basic human rights to be honored. We are witnessing oppression, or to be more accurate, apartheid.
Oppression is not new.
Throughout history, people with more power oppressed people with less power rather than seek peaceful co-existence. We have seen this from Tutsis to Mayans to Roma and Sinti, from the mass murder of Armenians by Turkey and Kurds by Iraq and Tatars by the Soviet Union, to today’s persecution of the Rohynga by Myanmar’s military forces, and the Hazara in Afghanistan.
Jewish history is filled with persecution and displacement dating as far back as the 5th century. Jewish people were accused of poisoning wells which led to the Bubonic Plague, and throughout their homeless wandering of Europe, of murdering Christian children to use their blood to make matzah. Jewish populations were massacred throughout different historical empires. In the 20th century, the Nazi Holocaust systematically murdered 6 million Jews, 1.5 million of them children.
We acknowledge the historical complexity and emotions surrounding Israel-Palestine. Yet, it is important to remember the genocide of the Palestinian people did not begin when Israel declared war on Hamas in October.
It dates back over hundred years, to the signing of the British Balfour Declaration in 1917, which spoke in favor of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. The League of Nations mandated the British occupation of Palestine in 1918 when that land was ceded by the Ottoman Empire. The United Nations approved a plan to partition Palestine into a Jewish and Arab state in 1947 and by 1948, Israel declared themselves an independent state.
For the last 75 years there have been wars, skirmishes, failed peace attempts and terrorist attacks. Countless Palestinian lives have been lost due to the ongoing occupation by the state of Israel.
To date, approximately 3,500 children have died since the Israeli military unleashed a massive military offensive on the Gaza Strip. In total, approximately 8,000 people have been murdered.
We are witnessing the genocide of Palestinians. Anti-oppression is not pro-terrorism. The slaughter of innocents is not liberation.
Liberation of one group cannot come at the expense of another.
We can support and help Israelis recover from Hamas’ horrible attack that tore families apart, and lobby the U.S. government to cease supporting a government and military focused on the ethnic cleansing of an entire population.
We can condemn Hamas’ murder of innocents, and uphold the right of the Palestinian people to safety and sanctuary in their homeland.
People who are brutalized are often trapped in cycles of further atrocity. Only radical kindness that sees the human in every person can break the cycle.
