What is Occupation?

The United States people fund the Israeli occupation of Palestinian people and land. The bullets in the soldiers’ guns, their uniforms and tanks—it’s our money and therefore our responsibility to understand what exactly we are funding.

I’m not criticizing the internal crisis nor commenting on any discrimination or human rights violations inside Israel. I’m talking here of occupation. In brief, since 1967, Israel has occupied the West Bank, Gaza Strip (disengagement is a myth), Golan Heights and East Jerusalem (illegally annexed). Occupation is legal under international law, but Israel’s occupation hasn’t been conducted according to international law; this occupation has committed endless human rights violations against the occupied.

What is occupation? Checkpoints and terminals; closures, sieges and curfews; tanks, guns and “targeted” killings; military prisons, courts and unending administrative detention; permits and id cards. More than a military presence, occupation here translates to denial of education, health, movement, life. Security can be invoked as an excuse for military occupation, but all people are human beings, and the cost of one people’s “security” should NEVER be another people’s insecurity and lives.

It’s weak to say that others suffer more, so Palestinian suffering is comparably little. It’s immoral to say there’s greater injustice elsewhere, so Israel’s human rights abuses are dismissible. It is dishonest to invoke atrocities to falsely applaud Israel as more humane, more free. A spectrum of human suffering should not be constructed, much less used to justify oppression and inequality.

Where there are gross and daily violations of human rights, we’re obliged to understand and challenge them--at home and abroad.