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Bearing witness in Gaza, Kristof can't see the bigger picture
Nicholas Kristof’s Op-Ed piece in Sunday’s New York Times, “Winds of War in Gaza,” bears witness to what Gaza looks like today. Kristof should be commended for going to Gaza and writing about what he sees. It is not often that writers for the New York Times openly acknowledge how the Israeli blockade on Gaza continues, and it is refreshing that Kristof has written this piece. However, after leading us through his time in Gaza, Kristof stops short of going into significant analysis of what is really happening in Gaza and Israel’s larger goal to keep the Palestinian people under occupation.
At first Kristof’s piece might seem like an Op-Ed that actually portrays Palestinians as a people rather than as an “other.” He is shown in a photo taking a “selfie” with some Palestinians. He describes how many Gazans remain homeless, cramped, and cold. He agrees with the statement that Gaza is “an open air prison.” He even argues that the suffering in Gaza “has multiple causes,” emphasizing the Israeli “siege” as one of these causes.
Then, in a bait-and-switch twist, after having led us through these descriptions of the current situation, he commends Israel’s strategy of punishing all of Gaza as a viable solution:
Yet I have to acknowledge that Israel’s strategy of collective punishment may be succeeding with a sector of the population. Gazans aren’t monolithic in their views any more than Americans, but many said that they were sick of war and of Hamas and don’t want rockets fired at Israel for fear of terrible retribution.
Kristof is suggesting that collective punishment is successful because it is causing Gazan civilians to be fed up with Hamas and to be sick of war, and he quotes some Palestinians who say they are “tired of the war,” “hate Hamas,” and “don’t want resistance.” He is right, of course, that if a population is kept in an open air prison, denied basic human rights, and constantly under threat, that one of the results would indeed be people tired, without energy to fight back, and worried about retribution from Israel. Kristof’s claim that the Gazan population–or any oppressed population–is benefiting from collective punishment ignores the realities of the suffering that he himself witnessed and described in his piece. It is never OK to collectively punish whole populations.
Source: mondoweiss.net