In several debates I have participated in on the X, formerly Twitter, there seems to be a big divide between ‘single event’ lovers and those who insist that context matters. You cannot understand an issue unless you try to understand the context in which the issue takes place.

Let’s look at the appalling situation in Gaza and how it divides the world and creates a massive shift in public opinion worldwide, however hard the world’s political leaders try to prevent it. Without context, there is no way this can be addressed.

Context number one: Why did the Jews want to have their own land? It’s not just because of the Torah, the Holy Book. For centuries throughout Europe and later the States, the Jews were discriminated against, marginalised, beaten, tortured and killed. 

The Holocaust

The Holocaust was by no means an isolated event. Hence, the desire to have a land of their own, which was most forcefully presented by the Zionists – the most radical form of ‘return.’ And they, too, used terrorist tactics against civilians to force the British colonialists to accede to their demands.

Here, one remembers the story of the camel and its owner. The camel was feeling cold outside and asked its owner if it could at least put its nose inside the tent to keep it warm. The owner did not object. 

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But then the face, and the ears, and the front legs and finally, the whole camel was inside the tent. There was no room for its owner, so the camel took over the tent, and the owner was left to freeze in the cold.

That is what happened in Palestine. There were Jews living in Palestine before the Second World War. 

In the nineteenth century, they were a mere five per cent of the population, while Christians numbered nine per cent. However, by the 1920s, when Jewish immigration began in earnest, they were 11 per cent, only slightly more than the Christians, who were 9.5 per cent. 

In those days, before massive immigration of Jews into Palestine, Jews, Christians and the majority Muslims lived peacefully, although the Arabs began to raise the alarm as they saw the country being taken over by forcible immigration. 

The camel strategy worked until finally, the Jews, under the Zionists, took over the land and the owners of that land were kicked out of the tent. Not only that, all the surrounding areas of the tent continued to be occupied, and the former owner was put under occupation even outside the tent by Zionists. 

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Just like the Jews in Europe and the States, the local inhabitants were discriminated against, marginalised, beaten, tortured and killed. As stated elsewhere, this was one of the largest dispossessions of an ethnic group in modern history. 

Of course, earlier, the white immigrants to the U.S., Australia and New Zealand had done the same. That dispossession can hardly be justified, but the context explains why it happened. Understanding the context is not justification, but it does help when trying to find a solution.

Sympathy for Israel

Given that original context, when I was growing up in the UK, there was overall massive sympathy for the Israelis and the kibbutz; the collective farms were seen to be a model of development. 

I don’t remember the majority of people paying much attention to the dispossessed. However, as time has gone on, people have become increasingly aware of the oppression taking place, contrary to the preachings of their leaders. 

It was no longer guilt at what had been done to the Jews in their own country but working with the Zionists in a colonial project. As Biden said in the 1980s: “If there were not an Israel, we’d have to invent one.”

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Israel was a useful colony to keep its neighbours in check. However, the continuing oppression of Palestinians cannot be hidden, and the increasing radicalisation of the Palestinians in the face of dispossession and oppression is inevitable. That is the logic of occupation. Read John Steinbeck’s The Moon Is Down.

Here, I would like to quote a Jewish professor, Norman Finkelstein, a Jewish American born of parents, both of whom survived the Warsaw Ghetto and concentration camps. 

When Norman asked his mother how she felt about the carpet bombing of German civilians by the British towards the end of the Second World War, she responded, “If [the Jews] were to die, at least they would not die alone.”

Finkelstein says until the end of their lives, his parents hated the Germans because of the way their lives were destroyed, something he disagreed with, but he understood, and he understood there was no way he could argue with them about that.

October 7th

Context number two: This is the context of the Hamas attack on Israeli civilians on October 7, 2023. The lives of Palestinians have been destroyed by years of dispossession and occupation, restriction, and humiliation, so that even South Africans who suffered from the atrocities of apartheid say that the apartheid in Palestine is even worse.

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This is in no way a justification, but it is the context and anyone who looks at the situation purely through the lens of October 7th is wilfully ignoring what led up to that situation. 

Hence, the calls to insist that people condemn the killings of October 7th in isolation without acknowledging the cause of those killings is nothing but bully-boy tactics.  Every time someone tries to put those killings in context, they are asked again and again and again, “Do you condemn October 7th.” 

And even when people condemn all the killings, from the Spanish Inquisition, the pogroms against the Jews, the Holocaust, the killings of Palestinians on a daily basis and the massacres of Shatila and Sabra as well as the killing of civilians on October 7th, the bully-boys insist that October 7th be condemned as one isolated atrocity.

Worse still, most of the bully-boys then go on to justify the carpet bombing of Gaza civilians, even using such genocidal terms as calling the Palestinians ‘cockroaches.’ The genocide of Rwanda immediately comes to mind.

No one thinks that the Israeli-Palestinian issue is an easy one. And I certainly don’t have the solution. 

But context matters. Context makes it possible to look for a solution. Anyone who thinks otherwise is just perpetuating a system of oppression, which will only lead to more unacceptable violence.

Richard Mabala is an educator, poet, and author. He is available at rmabala@yahoo.com or on X (Twitter) as @MabalaMakengeza. These are the writer’s own opinions, and they do not necessarily represent the viewpoint of The Chanzo. Do you want to publish in this space? Contact our editors at editor@thechanzo.com for further inquiries.