Why the Supposed “Unimpacted” Party Is Involved
Americans are contributors to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
Students for Justice in Palestine at Guilford College is a relatively new club that seeks to educate the campus and humanize a geographically distant conflict. We seek to address the connection between our lives and those under occupation in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. We also hope to answer the needs of the many Palestinian refugees forced to flee their homes and live across the globe. I am writing this article in hopes to convince particularly white American college students that they’re actually deeply involved in the conflict despite the geographical distance.
When discussing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it is common discourse that the damage is too far away, too unrelatable and that American college students ultimately have no impact. Furthermore, to increase the lack of involvement, there is a general apathy amongst modern college students, from those who assert that they care about social justice to those who don’t. Those who assert they care often don’t act; therefore, I have no qualms in claiming them apathetic. If one’s values are used to grant them mere social capital, then I assure you the caring is fairly limited. However, I am not interested in just pointing fingers of dismissal and critique; instead, I hope to prove that the seemingly “unimpacted” party is actually fairly involved, throughout history into the modern day.
Let me begin with eugenics — the ideological foundation of the Holocaust. Eugenics is a puritan ideal that spread originally in American legal documents and later were adopted by Hitler and his Nazi army. The Puritans sought a white supremacist nation and used the theory of eugenics to justify the native genocide here on American social.
This brings me to my next point: we live on colonized land. When addressing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as modern-day colonialism, we see a native removal through exile and slaughter much like in the Americas.
Beyond eugenics having a home in the U.S., we should also take note that the U.S. was critical in deciding where to relocate the Jews. There were discussions around placing them in Ethiopia before deciding on the “religious home of the Jews” which was admittedly easier to sell. The Jews didn’t function as mere colonizers like the Brits and Spaniards here in the states; they were relocated after the Holocaust. Eugenics has been used to justify the extermination of the “less-than” human in many conditions. It’s a white supremacist notion seeing Anglo and Scandinavian features as supreme.
Anti-Semitism is quickly growing in the West — in the U.S., Canada and Europe. Yet every time “Anti-semitism” is used only in relation to Israel, the realities are minimized. Islamophobia is also rampant in the U.S., Canada and Europe justifying marches, threats and murders. This requires education of the white-Christo member of society, as well as the white, secular member, because they’re clearly involved, opinionated and acting on their notions.
Most importantly, your tax dollars fund the Israeli occupation; your consumerism funds the military termination of small Gazan children and long-time desperate, dehumanized adults. American economics heavily entwine with our most-funded ally, Israel. This following election will aid in determining how we view peace in the region, or if it is even on the table and a part of discussion.
Furthermore, Americans associate with humanitarianism and human rights are being regularly, daily, hourly violated in the region. In the Universal Declaration of Human Rights there is a principle called the “right to return” which intends to allow people to return to their country of origin. Hospitals and schools have been bombed, emptied and terrorized by the Israeli Defence Forces. The illegal settlements break international law, which many Americans turn to for an understanding of global justice.
Quaker Values lend themselves to social justice and seeking inward. Ramallah Friends School, a Quaker high school located in Palestine, has given us many impassioned students that have much to teach about what it’s like to live under occupation. There is Quaker responsibility for Guilford to answer to this conflict in an intuitive, compassionate, non-normalizing way. There is nothing worth normalizing about ethnic cleansing, division based on race or pure nation-states. The Puritan ideal of an entirely white America failed, but we live with the consequences of our strides today. Let us interact here and abroad with power dynamics and give voice to humanization of conflict.
Layla Rafaoui • Dec 15, 2015 at 5:46 pm
After speaking with Walter on the matter, I have decided to openly admit that the connection between Puritan thought and Eugenics is a more complicated notion to prove than I displayed. However, I would continue to argue Puritanism aided in the slave trade, using antiquated, biblical notions of black/white and evil/ good and that they’re relationship with the natives was a racist one. I use the term eugenics above to refer to ethnic cleansing, pseudo-science, and racial slaughter which existed well before the term was coined and thought up. Eugenics has roots in American ideology and I apology that the piece above is more interested in instigated conversation than flowing like an old-school research testimony or a historical documentation of who the puritans were.
Furthermore, I was interested in drawing parallels and, in that goal, ignored divergence. If you believe the native cleansing on this land, which came from colonialism–whether disease-based or intentional–is not genocide, then I believe we’ll not come to an agreeable position on the matter.
Walter • Nov 20, 2015 at 9:15 pm
“Let me begin with eugenics…”
Oh god. If ever there were an indication of a fundamental misunderstanding of an issue, it is this sentence. Buckle up, folks.
“Eugenics is a puritan ideal that spread originally in American legal documents and later were adopted by Hitler and his Nazi army. The Puritans sought a white supremacist nation and used the theory of eugenics to justify the native genocide here on American social.”
For anyone hopelessly unversed in history that hasn’t already caught Layla’s egregious error, eugenics had nothing to do with Puritanism. Nothing.
The Puritans arrived in New England to found settlements in the early 1600s. The end of their influence is almost always traced to the late 1600s, in some cases into the early 1700s. The American eugenics movement was kicked off by Sir Francis Galton, who was BORN in 1822. MORE THAN A CENTURY LATER. If we could go back in time and ask the Puritans what their vision of the ideal society was, I guarantee you the words “white supremacist nation” would NEVER come out of their mouths, because the only thing they were attempting to “purify” was THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.
If you want to talk about the mass slaughter of Native Americans, first understand that (1) it wasn’t simply “the Puritans” who did it, and (2) it wasn’t “eugenics” that justified it.
Also, if you want to talk about Puritanism and then expect people to take you seriously, refrain from making such ridiculous statements as “The Puritan ideal of an entirely white America failed.”
The Israeli occupation (and the continuous building of settlements) is a serious issue that merits attention (as does the Turkish occupation of Cyprus, which gets almost no attention).
However, one should be slow to accept such a convoluted diagnosis from someone that demonstrates embarrassing ignorance on one of the most well-known groups in American history.