Omar Suleiman: evaluation

Transcript context

…Is violence an effective method of resistance? So, the framework that I would propose is that Dr. King mentioned that peace is not the absence of violence, it’s the presence of justice. And so, occupation and apartheid are violent even in their most benevolent manifestations. The default of occupation is that it is unjustified. The default of apartheid is that it is unjustified, and it must be dealt with. The default of resistance to occupation and apartheid is that it is justified, but there can be transgressions even in resisting occupation and apartheid, right? And I come to this from an Islamic perspective. My moral framework is Islam. The prophet Muhammad, peace be upon Him, was outraged when he saw a woman or a child that was dead from the other side, the side of his persecutor. And so, yes, we have a saying as Muslims that they are not our teachers. Our oppressors are not our teachers, but the concept of resistance to occupation, it is morally justified. It is justified by international law. Any occupied people have the right to defend themselves. We talk about Israel’s right to defend itself. Israel is the occupier. Any occupied people by international law have the right to defend themselves, and any occupation is unjustified and illegal. And so, that’s where I start from. That’s the point that I come to this with. I think that the problem is that the Palestinians are told, “Find better ways to resist,” and then they are demonized when they try to find any other way to resist. If you go back a few years ago, you had the Great Return March. People in Gaza marched to the wall in what was one of the most inspiring protests or demonstrations that I had ever seen, March to the Wall, nonviolent protest, and snipers took out their legs. AP actually documented that Israeli snipers had knee counts, where you had an Israeli soldier that would say, “I took out 45 knees.” They actually had a register, a scroll of knee counts. And so, you have all these kids in Gaza walking around without legs now because they were targeted by snipers when they marched to the wall. We’re told to find methods of nonviolent resistance, but when we boycott, when we launch boycotts around the world, in response to this transgression, in response to this ongoing oppression that the world powers have shown either the inability or the unwillingness to reign in, we’re told that that’s antisemitic, even though it is based on the South African method of bringing an end to the apartheid regime there. So, don’t respond with violence. Don’t respond nonviolently. Don’t protest. Don’t try to use people power in the face of global impotence at the political level. an end to the apartheid regime there. So, don’t respond with violence. Don’t respond nonviolently. Don’t protest. Don’t try to use people power in the face of global impotence at the political level. Instead, let’s just keep talking about the two-state solution. And while talking about the two-state solution, if you were to look at a map under every single Israeli regime, conservative or liberal, whatever it is, the settlements have expanded. More Palestinian land has disappeared, more Palestinians have been dispossessed, more Palestinians have been killed. And so, we have these little pieces of land that keep on shrinking, and Jerusalem keeps disappearing, and there’s aggression whether Palestinians are resisting or not. But then we’re told, “Why can’t you people just pursue peace? Why can’t you just believe in a better way?” All along, we’re hearing Israeli ministers become far more radical and open about their intentions to wipe us off the face of the earth. And that is actually their policy. It’s not just slogans. It’s not fringe elements. Actual Israeli ministers starting from the prime Minister himself, who has executed a policy of the removal of all Palestinian lands and Palestinian lives. And then we’re told, “Peace, peace, peace, peace.” And it is awfully ugly when you use the language of peace to suffocate the work of justice. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., one of his early sermons was something along the lines of, “When Peace Is Obnoxious,” when peace is obnoxious. It was in the 1950s around the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and he talked about how this obsession with the language of peace, is usually used to try to keep people in status quo and make them complacent with their miserable situation. That has been the story of the Palestinian people, that they’ve been told that if you do things differently, then you will find peace. But everything the Palestinians have tried, inside and outside, has been met with repression, the most violent forms of it there in Gaza and beyond. And so look, I start from the place of wanting to see peace. I want to see a situation in which no innocent people lose their lives, but we have to analyze the situation with some justice, with some fairness. What would any group of people do in this situation? That doesn’t mean that you hope for hell. That means that you analyze the existing circumstances of hell, which was life in Gaza even before October 7th.…

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