Most left-leaning activists people who are critical of the nation of Israel claim two things: first, that they are not against Jews, just Israel’s policies; second, they claim that they are so because they are concerned about the plight of the Palestinian.
Palestinians are people who lived on the land now called Israel before it was irrigated, built up, modernized, and given infrastructure by the Jewish settlers and turned into a country. There never was a nation of “Palestine” it was simply a region called by that name, like the Willamette Valley or Riviera.
Concern for the Palestinians and their so-called cause is largely a boutique concern; that is, it is trendy and cliquish of the modern western political left more than informed and based on real worries. Most people who state these concerns know very little about the history of the area or what the palestinian is really like, not to mention Israel.
And their laser like focus on Palestinians living near Israel actually is causing them harm. The first thing that has to be understood is that there are more Palestinians than just living in the Gaza Strip, dreaming of Israel’s obliteration. Jordan, for example, has a very large Palestinian community which is utterly ignored by the boutique activist.
As Mudar Zahran writes in the Jerusalem Post:
The reasons for this treatment of Palestinians is a bit complicated but it is partly caused by the usefulness of a big enemy in Israel for Arabic monarchies and partly by tribal discrimination. Throughout the Middle East, Palestinians are often looked down upon and like . Sure, they’re Arabs, but they’re low on the totem pole, and nobody really wants them in their neighborhood.
By ignoring the plight of Palestinians living elsewhere besides Israel, they do these people a grave injustice and give them little hope that anything can change. It’s a little bit like complaining in the 1930s that African Americans can’t get into clubs in Boston while ignoring how they were treated in the all over the nation and specifically the old South.
In a different article Muhad Zahran writes:
For the Arab dictators, having the big enemy to blame for all wrong is very useful, it distracts angry or impoverished subjects from noticing that their vastly wealthier often corrupt rulers are to blame, focusing them instead on Israel and/or America. By ignoring the plight of Palestinians in these other countries, the modern left is doing them (and Israel) a grave injustice.
In the end, that means that the concern of the boutique activist is less about Palestinians and more about kicking Israel time and again, because they represent a interpretation imperialism. Odd considering in the late 1940s through the 1970s Israel was considered a project and construct of the progressive left’s ideals. For many, if not most of these modern western activists, the Palestinians are merely a tool in this political struggle.
