The Hermeneutic Temptation and Denkverbot of the Palestine-Israel struggle
In the two months since the Hamas attack, what has been committed in the name of self-defense and justice by the current Israeli state administration under the full moral auspices of the western world, is a tragedy. In the Marxian view, it’s a tragedy that is fully ironic, a repetitive act of genocide / ethnic cleansing that cannot but evoke Nazism’s treatment of the Jews. In other words, a farcical repeat of history that necessarily occurs because — as the Hegelian cunning of reason explains — events must be repeated to appropriately grasp their knowledge or significance, a process that always-already arrives too late (hence the event happening again).
Hamas and the IDF are effectively counterparts, identical entities in their function: the former wants to expel all Jews from the Southern Levant — think Jerusalem — and the latter has inscribed into their foundation the national identity and ambitions of the state, which revolve around the inalienable exclusive right of Jewish expansion into what they deem their historic homeland within the Southern Levant… To this end, the present strategies by Israel to appease international pressure in “protecting” civilians, from QR code drop shipments entitling where Palestinians are to relocate once again, to temporary ceasefires and diplomatically urging neighboring countries to deal with all the displaced Palestinians, signal a more profound matter. What is crucial to recognize in these actions is not merely the subjective violence of explicit harm, the content of murders or kidnapping, but the objective violence located in the forms of violence themselves. At its basic, objective violence refers to the implicit structural mechanisms or processes of violence. These demonstrations of violence are ostensibly tolerated in daily life from which the vast majority ignore. Apropos the Gaza Strip, a few recent examples include: the forced displacement of the inhabitants from their homes or refugee camps, the control over the electricity and water supply entering the enclave, the whole barricade infrastructure that the IDF supervises — all imposed by Israel without the power to resist these impositions by any Palestinian authorities. Keep in mind, this category of violence has been deeply embedded within Palestinian society and not some new measure only arising after the Hamas terrorist strike. The impoverished living conditions, political inequalities (apartheid state in the West Bank), Jewish settler aggression and racism, the broad intergenerational trauma (e.g. Palestinian grandparents or parents who experienced the Nakba) — all are objective forms of violence. Further, these manifestations of objective violence imposed on people aren’t by default treated as deserving of attention. This is why whenever the mainstream media emphasizes subjective over objective violence, the predictable result is the conclusion of an outlier — “bad” apple — source that disrupts the otherwise harmonious society; that if this deviating element is liquidated, then peace and civility can be restored. However, peace is never ideologically neutral as one side is always implicitly privileged in this political fiction of “peaceful coexistence” between two forces. More importantly, the prior perceived status of peace without conflict is also a falsity since this peace effectively means constant suffering for one side — that being Palestinians within Gaza and the West Bank. Henceforth, this apparent acceptance of violence that occurs in everyday life against a subordinated social group construed as being part of normal social reality, thereby triggers the encountered subjective violence. Accordingly, when this subjective violence ensues, the key ideological dimension is that certain communities aren’t regarded as valuable enough for mourning who otherwise would have been the subject of mass solidarity and sympathetic outrage at the sight of their misery. Case in point, the bulk of western media’s consideration is given to the lives of dead Jewish people over Palestinians. This is not to be misperceived as my attempt to relativize suffering or claim Jewish people are not deserving of mourning, but rather to center on how and why certain populations aren’t worthy of mourning and how and why certain forms of violence are either deemed acceptable (feigned as non-existent, or tacitly accepted because it’s regarded as crucial to maintaining normality) or unacceptable.
Given this, the goal as Slavoj Zizek points out, is to resist the ‘hermeneutic temptation’: to attribute an excess amount of attention and meaning to subjective violence while simultaneously ignoring or minimizing the objective forms of systemic violence that are present. It is a temptation because overt violence enthralls the public, the spectacle captures everyone’s imagination because you witness the violent action in its palpable appearance. On the other hand, to have to think about and evaluate the underlying structures which produce objective violence is a task of deeper reasoning that all too often people don’t pursue. Additionally, structural violence is not even registered by many because they have the privileged position to take it for granted, e.g. fuel supplies being turned off in Gaza is a measure that those in the US could never comprehend given its open accessibility and convenience. Therefore, objective violence that doesn’t fit the category of subjective violence nonetheless functions as the framework to reproduce the very existence of subjective violence. The real question to focus on then is how to overcome the objective forms of violence which affect Palestinians and impact the possibility of a two-state solution, since the capacity for friendly relations will be strained by this violence.
Another significant factor within this interplay is the prevalence of interpassivity, a concept which captures how an entity performs both an active and inactive practice on behalf of another entity. The central purpose of interpassivity is not just restricted to activities completed by an entity on behalf of someone else, but that the other entity assumes — to an extent — control of one’s experiences. A noteworthy example can be found in the 2019 movie Joker: all that built up discontent and rage at the system which finally releases at the end in this huge outburst of — subjective — violence by ordinary people, helps to vent the similar anger audiences have in their own reality. One successfully discharges their frustration through the movie as a means to comfortably return back to their normal lives. Ergo, you exercise your dissatisfaction through the Joker precisely to avoid actual concrete political engagement. What this means in terms of the Israel-Palestine conflict: for the actors involved who aim for long-term peace and a two-state solution, hoping some external organization can intervene and achieve these goals unaided is absurd. Such progress will entail difficult and consistent effort from everyone, recognizing that in order to accomplish these aims, it will entail the reorganization of the state of affairs between the two countries. Both Jewish and Palestinian powers alike will have to embrace this radical change that will upend their normality, inclusive of their ways of life. These sacrifices and costs will affect Jewish people far more substantially given their position in the struggle. Due to this, for the leftist Jews who condemn Netanyahu’s quasi-fascist government, they must simultaneously advocate for full solidarity with Palestinians. This is the only way Palestine will have the opportunity for statehood. As banal the maxim has become, it nonetheless possesses truth here for Jewish people: be the change you wish to see. Without these preconditions, any future visions of coexistence are improbable. It is crucial to realize however, that the form this necessity assumes is equally important. As Zizek affirms: telling the truth is only the first step, one must outline the truth through an ideological form (sociopolitical unity) that is able to mobilize people — not merely enable someone to exploit their knowledge for self-righteous / surplus enjoyment gains.
These past two months have also seen the prevalence of a Denkverbot in the western world, which is the German term for thought-prohibition. As mentioned from the beginning, because Israel has garnered what is effectively universal moral sympathy in the West (particularly from the US who sees Israel as its sacred cow), the discourse surrounding the ongoing offensive by Israel has been beyond distorted. The level to which this major support — across industries, politics, academia, media — has been given to Israeli policy in dealing with Hamas is not merely disconcerting, but highlights the de facto political censorship and prohibitions on public assembly that have been implemented. From sports stars to film actors, from journalists to advocacy groups, those who condemn the official line are denounced as being antisemitic and are subject to repercussions; even those who outline the historical background that brought about the Hamas attacks are perceived as harboring sympathy for Hamas. Take the pro-Palestinian protests occurring in major European cities such as Germany and France; they have been broadly banned with numerous participants arrested, yet pro-Israel demonstrations are allowed. Moreover, one of the main levers of this repression is cancel culture, whose accompanying consequences prevent many people from publicly expressing support for Palestine and condemning Israel. You can be fired from your job or suspended from your university for expressing such camaraderie for Palestine. As a result, the associated fear of social marginalization and economic effects on one’s material conditions for voicing these banned viewpoints, is a totalitarian measure being committed in our lauded “permissive” democratic societies. For the proportion of the liberal left that therefore reproach ordinary people for not courageously standing up — “silence is violence” — for Palestinians on their behalf, fail to discern this vital materialist lesson. Hence, to prohibit certain dialogues and social spaces that foment critical analysis only hinders the rights of free speech/thought. This sets the dangerous precedent that anyone can be silenced — on the grounds of endorsing antisemitism — for speaking the forbidden standpoints.
With everything in mind, how to proceed forward? What are the future emancipatory visions to contest for that can properly undertake the Palestinian challenge of their geopolitical and ontological status? And what type of alternative society do Palestinians see their role to be within? These questions are crucial in framing the political future of Palestine. If instead, the onslaught by Israel drives on, the disastrous result for Jewish people will be the newfound explosions of antisemitic subjective violence; not only in the west, but potentially exported to the rest of the world. The guiding premise behind this racist narrative would be the universal status of the Jew as the prime force of oppression and colonialism among younger generations of Arabic populations. Correlatively, if Hamas commits further terrorism, deepened xenophobia and collective punishment will be inflicted on Palestinians. In this way, both sides will ultimately lose if current conditions persist.
