“If we had to wait for all whites to be convinced that apartheid is wrong, South Africans will still be living in apartheid,” said an Israeli author and activist, Miko Peled, in response to my question during an interview.
He was convinced that the only solution is to transform Israel from a Zionist state into a democratic bi-national state – with equal rights for everyone, just as how South Africa was transformed when apartheid fell apart.
This transformation, he believes, will be driven by a movement of global ostracism towards Zionism combined with a struggle of the Palestinian people.
For so long, global powers with position to influence change in the conflict, including the Arab world, have mostly chosen to remain passively silent on the oppression, institutional discrimination and violation of the basic rights of millions of Palestinians.
As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday vowed that global pressure will not stop him from ‘defending’ Israel from terrorists, and leaders who ‘condemn’ these attacks on Gaza repeatedly paying lip service, the responsibility is in the hands of the people outside of the conflict to exert a strong, non-violent international pressure on the Zionist government.
The global community must act. But what kind of pressure and message should be pushed forward?
Change the narrative
The campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) is one way to step up pressure on Israel and to isolate the country that is politically and economically dependent on the West, in particular the United States.
The other methods are through peaceful protests and education.
In Astro AWANI, the Palestinian cause has always been given importance, not just because it is an issue close to the heart of our majority Muslim country, the Palestinian resistance is a morally just cause.
I have, in my four years as a producer for current affairs programmes, covered many events on the Israeli-Palestine conflict, organised by movements like Viva Palestina and Perdana Global Peace Foundation, and I am encouraged to see that the cause has gained a broader and diverse support locally.
More civil movements and other non-Muslim religious bodies and leaders are participating and lending their voice to the Palestinian cause, and not just from the Islamic organisations.
The message is as such - that discrimination towards Palestinians is in fact a violation of basic human rights and the attack of Palestinians is indeed an attack on humanity.
These conversations of challenging the narrative offered by the Zionist state (harsh punishments meted out towards Palestinians as their right to defend) are gaining traction in churches and universities in the West too, albeit at a slower pace, according to international activists I have had the chance to interview.
They may not be supporting all aspects of the Palestinian resistance, but are taking a closer look at the conflict on the grounds of humanity, and to step beyond the Zionist perspective.
Palestinian relatives mourn over the body of one of the five members of the Hamad family who were killed in an Israeli missile strike late Tuesday in the family house during their funeral in town of Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza Strip, Wednesday, July 9, 2014. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)
Us vs them
For as long as we know it, nationalism and politics have often been used as tools to make war.
In the west, some governments use fear to breed hatred towards Palestinians and Arabs, or Islam in general.
In some Muslim countries, similarly, there are strong calls for the annihilation of Israelis and Jews.
I think this is where Malaysia has got its narrative wrong at times, although our stance towards the Palestinian cause is clear.
An opposition towards Zionist political movement has often been misrepresented as a war against Jews or the west.
This must be rectified, because if the narrative of the Palestinian resistance is one based along ethnic and religious lines, it will only seek to propagate more hostility and distract us from the issue at hand.
One-state solution
In a matter of one’s right to defend, and one’s right to return, what is certain is that this conflict is no fair game.
But the privileged will never give up its privileges, until when forced, and this force comes in the form of strong, international condemnation of the Zionist political movement, with the right narrative.
Many may not agree with a one-state solution, but having a democratic and plural state that provides equal rights to Israeli, Palestinians and all who live on the land, is the best, and probably, the only opportunity for peace.
It took 46 years for apartheid to collapse.
In this Palestinian-Israeli conflict, an expedited and intensified pressure on the Zionist movement and its supporters is needed for a lasting way out.
