Hala Rharrit on Quitting State Dept. & Ending U.S. Complicity in Gaza
www.democracynow.org
As human rights groups continue to call out war crimes committed by the Israeli military, we speak to the only U.S. diplomat to publicly resign from the Biden administration over its policy on Israel. We first spoke to Hala Rharrit when she resigned from the State Department in April, citing the illegal and deceptive nature of U.S. policy in the Middle East. “We continue to willfully violate laws so that we surge U.S. military assistance to Israel,” she says after more than a year of Israel’s war on Gaza. Rharrit says she found the Biden administration unmovable in its “counterproductive policy,” which she believes has gravely harmed U.S. interests in the Middle East. “We are going to feel the repercussions of that for years, decades, generations.”

As human rights groups continue to call out war crimes committed by the Israeli military, we speak to the only U.S. diplomat to publicly resign from the Biden administration over its policy on Israel.

We first spoke to Hala Rharrit when she resigned from the State Department in April, citing the illegal and deceptive nature of U.S. policy in the Middle East. “We continue to willfully violate laws so that we surge U.S. military assistance to Israel,” she says after more than a year of Israel’s war on Gaza.

Rharrit says she found the Biden administration unmovable in its “counterproductive policy,” which she believes has gravely harmed U.S. interests in the Middle East. “We are going to feel the repercussions of that for years, decades, generations.”

  • Carrolade@lemmy.worldEnglish
    12·
    28 days ago

    Ah, so it is not justified then? Perhaps you agree that hamas violence is an unjustified harm that does nothing to further goals of the preservation of Palestinian lives and culture?

    A quick googling of Ilan Pappe critique will show you that he is not as well regarded as Masalha. So, criticism is justified. Here are just some, going into claims he makes without evidence.

    https://newrepublic.com/article/85344/ilan-pappe-sloppy-dishonest-historian

    You should not simply take such things on faith. You’ll note, I personally have the power to consume source material without agreeing with every conclusion contained within. I have my own perspectives, informed by my own education and experience. I do not agree with everything your sources claim.

    At what point have I ignored their underlying cause? While I do not focus solely on them to the exclusion of all else, at no point have I disputed your assessments of Zionism. To the contrary, I’ve mentioned illegal settling several times through our conversation. My responses have been around courses of action to take in response to illegal settlement; which are beneficial, which are harmful? Yes?

    You don’t like what I’m saying because I am challenging the way you think, not because I have behaved in any sort of unethical way or misrepresented anything. You, unfortunately, alongside at least one of your sources, have engaged in whitewashing of hamas activities, though I understand you do it from a desire to help. I do not think it helps our goals of the preservation of Palestinian people, however. You do more harm than good when you do this, as idealists are occasionally prone to do.

    • Keeponstalin@lemmy.worldOP
      1·
      28 days ago

      The eradication of Palestinians as a people and cultural is central to Zionism. No, resistance of that eradication is not to blame. Neither is that ‘whitewashing.’ Idealism, is expecting a population subjected to decades of violence of an Apartheid by a Settler Colonialist Ethnostate to not fight back by any means possible. The colonialist force sets the level of violence. That has been the case for every colonialist conflict.

      Pappe is biased towards Palestinian emancipation. He explains his position and why in his introductions instead of hiding his bias like some Historians such as Benny Morris, who has justified the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 1948.

      Here’s Pappe’s response to Benny Morris, where he debunks Morris’ claims:

      https://electronicintifada.net/content/response-benny-morris-politics-other-means-new-republic/5040

      CAMERA criticisms are easily debunked as seen here:

      https://www.palestine-studies.org/en/node/42571

      https://mondoweiss.net/2012/03/we-must-expel-arabs-and-take-their-place-institute-for-palestine-studies-publishes-1937-ben-gurion-letter-advocating-the-expulsion-of-palestinians/

      “Ben-Gurion’s 5 October 1937 letter thoroughly vindicates Ilan Pappé’s reading; indeed, the Pappé quotes to which CAMERA objects seem almost mild when compared to the actual words Ben-Gurion penned to his son. The more literal translation of the Ben-Gurion direct quote (“Webmust expel Arabs and take their place”) is actually stronger than Pappé’s freer rendering (“The Arabs must go”), although the meaning is basically the same. As for Pappé’s paraphrase, it is as accurate and comprehensive as any so succinct a sentence could possibly be.”

      There’s plenty of reputable historians praising Pappe’s work and credibility. You can find links to them in his wiki page too. The criticisms don’t really hold water. Maybe don’t be so quick to discredit him without looking into the actual criticisms and see if they themselves are credible. Because they are not.

      • Carrolade@lemmy.worldEnglish
        12·
        28 days ago

        While the far right currently in control of Israel does seem to agree with you, it is far from settled that Israeli Zionism requires the eradication of Palestinians. Otherwise, Rabin would not have been dismantling illegal settlements in pursuit of the two state solution as agreed on at Oslo. You should be recognizing that this is debated, instead of applying the views of the most extreme Zionists, including some of its founders, to all modern Zionists.

        At a practical level, eradication was not occuring before Oct 7th. The population of Gaza was growing at 2-3% annually, with the population largely composed of young people. This is apartheid, not eradication. The resistance you now claim to be to eradication, was not to eradication, was it?

        I absolutely expect that wise leaders will not use counterproductive methods to pursue their goals. You may like “by any means possible”, I prefer positive results. Some methods accomplish that, some methods don’t. We are seeing this right now.

        The colonialist force sets the level of violence. That has been the case for every colonialist conflict.

        This is another historically false statement. The level of violence is influenced by both sides, not just one. I would point to the American Revolution and Britain’s eventual caving to almost all revolutionary demands prior to the outbreak of hostilities as evidence of this.

        Thank you for providing his defense of his work. I’ll note though, on many points he (perhaps rightfully) criticizes Morris, but does not actually counter Morris’ claims. He himself touches on the potential unreliability of his sources, admits own bias (very good) and admits to errors.

        Such work should be consumed alongside opposing viewpoints, doing so is very important to arriving at a fuller picture. I applaud his willingness to be forthright about these things, but this does not in any way absolve him into being a fully reliable source. It is a strongly biased source, and thus requires critical reading as opposed to blanket faith.

        From his wiki page, I see no defense for this:

        the lack of sources for Pappé’s various claims, the most prominent of which is the latter’s claim that “rape took place in every village,” without citing a source, while ignoring publications that contradict this claim

        Strong claims without evidence are not indicative of quality historiography.

        • Keeponstalin@lemmy.worldOP
          1·
          28 days ago

          Because it’s not true, he provides overwhelming evidence. He discusses the evidence at length in Chapter 9 of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. Check for yourself and check the multiple types of sources he uses yourself.

          The roads were planned with the settlers’ needs in mind, with no consideration of the geographic and demographic logic of the Palestinian towns and villages and their needs. The tunnel bypass road, constructed during Rabin’s premiership, allowed easy access between the Gush Etzion settlement bloc and Jerusalem. Under Rabin, too, the members of the Jahalin clan were expelled from their homes to make room for the expansion of the settlement of Ma’aleh Adumim.

          After Baruch Goldstein massacred 29 Muslim worshippers at Hebron’s Ibrahimi Mosque in 1994, the army punished the Palestinians in Hebron by imposing a curfew on them while designing security arrangements for the settlers that triggered the process of emptying the city center of its Palestinian residents. All these were not one-time slips but decisions entrenched in the viewing of Palestinians as inferior if not superfluous people.

          In a Knesset speech just a month before his assassination, Rabin promised that there would be no return to the borders of June 4, 1967, that the Palestinian entity would be less than a state, and that a “united Jerusalem” would stretch from Ma’aleh Adumim to the east and Givat Ze’ev to the west – effectively bifurcating the West Bank. He said the State of Israel would include Gush Etzion, Efrat, Betar and “other settlements east of the Green line,” while the Gush Katif settlement bloc in Gaza would have sister blocs in the West Bank.

          From the Haaretz source on Oslo that I already linked and you didn’t read. Labor is also responsible for settlements and ethnic cleansing. It was the labor party to planned and executed, along with the more Right-wing militia, the Nakba. Don’t act like the left wing of Zionism is against the ethnic cleansing or settlements, because they aren’t. It’s antithetical to Zionism ideology.

          Colonial powers rarely leave without a fight, so violence is inevitable. Rebellions are violently squashed, leaders are tortured and imprisoned, and even peaceful rebellion is punished. The Algerian War (1954-1962) was fought for Algerian independence from France, which had occupied the country in 1830. The movement began years earlier in 1914, but after France broke its promise to give the country more self-rule after WWII, things got violent. The National Liberation Front began a guerrilla war in 1945. France responded with the torture and rape of civilians. In 2018, France admitted it had systematically tortured people in the war that claimed as many as 1.5 million Algerian lives.

          Even decolonization that’s allegedly “bloodless” really isn’t. India’s independence in 1947 from Great Britain is held up as an example of the power of nonviolent protest, but there were years of violent struggles leading up to Gandhi’s campaign. Revolutionaries planned assassinations and bombings. In 1919, British troops killed at least 379 unarmed pro-independence protesters (which included children) in Amritsar. One way or another, violence is always part of decolonization.

          Decolonization 101: Meaning, Facts and Examples

          British Colonization of America did not end before a violent bloody revolutionary war that killed many and required the destabilization of the British empire on multiple fronts. The British still set the level of violence. A better parallel would be the violence of Native Americans in response to the Settler Colonialism of the American settlers.

          Maybe look into the realities of what living inside that Apartheid, especially in Gaza, is actually like in order to recognize how it’s considered an incremental genocide. You have plenty of reports by Human right organizations and documentaries with first-hand footage available. I already talked extensively about the realities of the occupation and blockade.

          • Carrolade@lemmy.worldEnglish
            12·
            27 days ago

            You’re shifting your goalpost. The discussion was about the eradication of Palestinians, it was about genocide. Apartheid and genocide are not the same. Genocide is happening now, apartheid was happening previously. That’s an escalation.

            The Oslo Accords were not agreements to return to the 1967 borders. Thus Rabin saying there would be no return to the 1967 borders and building infrastructure within the West Bank was in compliance with the agreement between the Israelis and the PLO, that allowed certain settlements to remain and made others illegal.

            Following that killing of 29 Palestinians, hamas took responsibility for two suicide bombings. They themselves claimed those bombings were intended to disrupt the peace process.

            Source: Abufarha, Nasser (2009). The making of a human bomb: an ethnography of Palestinian resistance. The cultures and practice of violence series. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press. p. 68.

            While I understand that you have strong political leanings, in a discussion on history, cite reputable history sources, not political organizations. History is a tool often misused by political movements, anything written about it from a Political Science background is very problematic.

            This paragraph does not even support your thesis, it supports mine:

            Even decolonization that’s allegedly “bloodless” really isn’t. India’s independence in 1947 from Great Britain is held up as an example of the power of nonviolent protest, but there were years of violent struggles leading up to Gandhi’s campaign. Revolutionaries planned assassinations and bombings. In 1919, British troops killed at least 379 unarmed pro-independence protesters (which included children) in Amritsar. One way or another, violence is always part of decolonization.

            This indicates that Britain was setting the level of violence very high, but the actual result involved very little. Why? The Indians.

            Your incremental genocide still ignores the growing population in Gaza.

            You have a very clear political agenda. I support and agree with it. But I’m a history guy, I won’t simply let you twist history to your own ends as been done so often in the past. Argue in an academically honest way, acknowledging what the Oslo Accords actually were along with counterexamples for your historical assertions.

            I do acknowledge that the Nakba was not perpetuated solely by the right, but we’re discussing modern Zionism, not historical Zionism.

            • Keeponstalin@lemmy.worldOP
              1·
              27 days ago

              You’re shifting your goalpost. The discussion was about the eradication of Palestinians, it was about genocide. Apartheid and genocide are not the same. Genocide is happening now, apartheid was happening previously. That’s an escalation.

              I’m not, you’re just not understanding my point. Unlike Apartheid in South Africa, where exploitation of Labor was a major factor, the Apartheid of Palestine is to make uninhabitable conditions for Palestinians to live in. Conditions such as access to basic necessities like food, water, and shelter, has been intentionally diminished by Israel. Populations have a higher birth rate in more impoverished conditions. More preventable deaths happen. This shifts the population to a younger demographic. You are focusing on the birth rate instead of the violent conditions of the Apartheid.

              The Oslo Accords were not agreements to return to the 1967 borders. Thus Rabin saying there would be no return to the 1967 borders and building infrastructure within the West Bank was in compliance with the agreement between the Israelis and the PLO, that allowed certain settlements to remain and made others illegal

              Because the Oslo Accords were meant to justify further settlements, that were already underway, in the West Bank, de juro annex more Palestinian territory, and quell resistance through the means of Counter Insurgency with the PA. It was never about peace and reconciliation. That’s precisely why Right of Return was a non-starter even for Rabin. Rabin was assassinated because he dared to entertain even minimal concessions. This is all thoroughly discussed in the sources I linked, which you still have not read.

              This indicates that Britain was setting the level of violence very high, but the actual result involved very little. Why? The Indians.

              There are many factors that differentiate the two. Majorly, British Occupation of India was not Settler Colonialism. It was focused on economic and geopolitical supremacy. Britain was not interested in ethnically cleansing the native population in order to make new settlements, they wanted political control which became unsustainable. Native Americans had no choice but to fight back, because their eradication was inherent to the settlers Colonialism of Manifest Destiny.

              Argue in an academically honest way, acknowledging what the Oslo Accords actually were along with counterexamples for your historical assertions.

              I am. You can’t take a genuine look at the conditions of the Oslo Accords for the Palestinians and consider it a genuine peace treaty. Acting like it was a genuine attempt at peace is dishonest. The Israeli States use of ‘illegal’ settlements is a deliberate tactic of Settler Violence

              https://m.btselem.org/settler_violence

              All these colonies are regarded, even by most liberal Zionists – many of whom live in these colonies – as Israeli Jewish urban neighbourhoods that are completely excluded from any future negotiations. In terms of the law, the international community does not distinguish between ‘legal’ and ‘illegal’ settlements, but it seems that quite a few Western governments, and most certainly the various American administrations, accepted such a division and included in the former category these new ‘neighbourhoods’.

              So these ‘neighbourhoods’ became part of ‘Small Israel’, which for many liberals in Israel and in the West represented the moral and ethical state, prior to the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Such areas, even in the eyes of the Israeli peace camp, were non-negotiable, as would transpire with the Oslo Accord when their fate was discussed for the first time. So while, in the eyes of more enlightened observers, 78 per cent of Palestine was non-negotiable prior to 1967, after the occupation this exclusion spread over 85 per cent of the land. By this I mean that while the West Bank and the Gaza Strip were 78 per cent of Palestine, the parts of the West Bank that all the Israeli governments declared as non-negotiable had left only 10 per cent of Palestine as a possible territory for Palestinian rule; this 10 per cent was spread all over the West Bank, divided by settlement blocs and military bases.

              The peace process of the 1990s was no such thing. The insistence on partition and the exclusion of the refugee issue from the peace agenda rendered the Oslo process at best a military redeployment and rearrangement of Israeli control in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. At worst, it became a new arrangement of control that made life for the Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip far worse than it was before.

              Already in 1994, Rabin’s government had forced Arafat to accept its interpretation of how the Oslo Accord would be implemented on the ground. The West Bank was divided into the infamous areas A, B and C. The Palestinian Authority controlled area A and jointly with Israel, Area B. Area C was the one directly controlled by Israel and constituted half of the West Bank. Movement between, and inside, the areas became nearly impossible and the West Bank was cut off from the Gaza Strip. Israel also divided the Gaza Strip. The settlers were a given small part of it and took over most of the water resources and lived in gated communities. The Palestinians were cordoned within barbed wire. Thus, here too, the end result meant that the peace process deteriorated the quality of Palestinian life.

              The Biggest Prison on Earth: A History of the Occupied Territories - Ilan Pappe

              • Carrolade@lemmy.worldEnglish
                12·
                27 days ago

                I am not focusing on birth rate, I did not mention the birth rate. I speak of total population figures, which takes both births and deaths into account. Gaza was growing in total population, not diminishing, until very recently. You mischaracterize yet again.

                Regardless of the goals of the Oslo Accords, they were a peace agreement agreed upon by the representatives of both sides. No, they did not concede every Palestinian demand, right of return is a very notable one. It illustrates your extremist views though, that you see this compromise proposal agreed to by Arafat, as intended to destroy the Palestinian people. Perhaps you lean more Hamas than Fatah? Are you only willing to see a two-state solution if it is at the 1967 borders, also known as the Green Line?

                If the peace wasn’t real, then why were some settlements being dismantled? Why was land being given back to the Palestinians? What is this footage of Israeli settlers being dragged away by Israeli soldiers?

                https://youtu.be/x3oS2aIG_nw

                You know, I never claimed your sources were propaganda. The propaganda is coming from you, and how you cherry pick and otherwise deny all perspectives asides those coming from a small selection of sources.

                I’ve already discussed Ilan Pappe’s Post-Modernism, and how even in his own defense that you shared he acknowledged some of the claims against him. Yet you just go right back to him. This is your faith at work.

                edit: Your goal as a propagandist is clearly indicated by your automatic downvoting of everything I say that disagrees with you, incidentally. You act as a holy arbiter of truth, but really you’re just another political activist willing to do “whatever it takes”, aren’t you? Uninterested in any form of perspective that does not glorify hamas and demonize Israel, as you conveniently duck every criticism I level at them while trying to redirect all attention to Israeli atrocities.

                The self-righteousness of people like you will be the doom of what you are trying to save. The truth, even the harder parts of it, can save them though. Acknowledging even the ugliest parts of the truth allows us to grow out of the grievances in our hearts, for the sake of future generations.