What Do We Talk About When We Talk About Palestine? Part 6: Gaza and The Fake Security vs. Equality Dichotomy

As I’m writing this, Gaza is being bombed by Israeli forces.

In short, a lot has happened since last week. A lot needs to be unpacked.

In this episode, instead of trying to address everything at once, I consciously build on my five previous episodes.

Trying to further answer the question I have asked myself in this series – what do we really talk about when we talk about Palestine? – I talk about the concepts of security and self-defence.

I am not a legal scholar, let me tell you this in advance, yet what I point to in this episode are important legal aspects we have to keep in mind and use when assessing the events in Gaza.

Also, we should name those events as they are: media offices bombed, hospitals attacked, multiple members of the same families killed. It is a brutal attack on a population that literally can’t escape it. You can read my article on what’s happening in Gaza here.

In my episode, I go more deeply into this, deconstructing several debate points that you might be hearing regarding the bombings of Gaza.

What I do exactly is the following:

• use the concepts from my previous episodes as prisms to analyse this situation,
• talk more about the mainstream media narrative and, more importantly, where it starts,
• explore the concept of security and self-defence by mentioning what the International Humanitarian Law has to say about it,
• point to potential hypocrisy that might surround any talks about Gaza.

Give it a listen. Join the debate. Speak out.

References and comments:

• War and Law by the International Committee of the Red Cross,
• Facts on Gaza by UNRWA,
• Israeli occupation cost Gaza $16.7 billion in past decade by UNCTAD,
• Data on demolition and displacement in the West Bank, by UN OCHA,
• State-Backed Settler Violence by Btselem,
• Gaza Airport: The legacy of a Palestinian dream by Aljazeera,
• Dream of Gaza seaport alive despite decades of delay and waves of negotiation by The Irish Times.
  

I say in my episode that Gaza has seen three wars in the last 10 years. A correction: it’s three if we include this one, and it’s also three if we count the wars since 2009. So right now, these are four wars/operations in total:

2009 – Operation Cast Lead
2012 – Operation Pillar of Defence
2014 – Operation Protective Edge
2021 – current bombings

Also, in my episode I ask if we can consider what Hamas is doing an action of a state actor, so if Israel can claim that whatever it’s doing (for example, defending itself), it’s doing it to another state. I am aware that International Humanitarian Law also guides conflicts where we find states fighting non-state actors, too, What I focus on is whether any claim by Israel is legally justified if it’s a militarily occupied territory.

Finally, I say that Al Aqsa was raided and mention specific footage. Here’s an example of what I mean:

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