On condemnations

Let’s say a man is killed in the street.

He is hit by a car.

Or, he is killed by someone in a random attack.

Or, he is killed intentionally by someone in cold blood.

The man hit by a car is dead. His family condemns the driver. His friends want to see the driver put in jail. His sister wants to kick the driver in the head until he is dead.

The driver killed the man on purpose. The man was crossing the street and the driver lurched forward and the man gave him the middle finger and, in a moment of blind rage, the driver drove his BMW into him to kill him.

His close family wants to see retribution. The neighbourhood is angry too — the streets are too narrow for so much traffic. Drivers are becoming more aggressive. A child was hit but didn’t die a month ago.

The city councillor wants to see change. She wants to see fewer cars in the neighbourhood. She tells the newspaper that traffic should go no faster than 30 km/h in the neighbourhood. She is angry.

And the man’s sister, the one who wants to murder the driver with her own feet, says: to hell with the city councillor. She didn’t even condemn the driver! She must support him.

The man killed in the random attack is dead. His family condemns the attacker. His wife wants to see the attacker hanging at the end of a rope. His son said he will find the attacker himself and murder him.

The attacker was looking to kill someone and he happened upon the man while he was out for a walk. He brutalized the man. Witnesses said he didn’t seem human in his violence.

The man was in crisis. He had just been released from custody. He had no money, nowhere to go and he heard voices. He had a history of violence. He has killed before. The state should have locked him up, many said.

The neighbourhood demanded more supervision for when people are released from custody. A few weeks ago, someone else who had just left custody was found sleeping on someone’s back step which gave her a fright. The neighbourhood demands action.

The local member of legislative assembly hears the cries. He is horrified by the attack. The neighbourhood cries mirror his personal priorities and so he calls for changes in custody release policies, longer jail sentences and so on.

The local mayor however disagrees. He instead focuses on the system failures that lead to this tragic incident. He calls for calm, appeals to empathy and says that he is committed to ensuring this never happens again.

The member of legislative assembly and the man’s family decry the mayor: he didn’t even condemn the attacker! He must support him.

The man was killed by his neighbour. The two had fought for years and one day, the neighbour pulled out a shotgun and shot him dead while the man was gardening.

The man’s wife ran outside of the front door with a knife in her hands when she heard the gunshot. The murderer ran away before she could stab him herself. The man’s brother vowed to strangle the murderer. The man’s children will never know their father — they are only two and three years old.

The neighbourhood is outraged. This kind of wanton violence has no place here they say, but it is rising; people seem to be on shorter and shorter fuses. Two weeks ago, a woman drove her car into her neighbour’s parked car in a moment of rage.

The local member of parliament is disgusted by the violence but the murderer is his cousin. He knows the murderer. He knows what pushed him down a path where he would take out a gun to regulate a conflict. He had a similar path, which he rejected, but his cousin couldn’t. He knows explaining any of this would be useless. He calls for stricter gun control, more social supports and for a tough sentence for the murderer.

After his press conference, the man’s father calls out the local member of parliament: why didn’t you condemn the murderer? You were related. Of course you support his violence. You must be violent too.

None of these stories is about Israel. None of these stories is about Hamas. Israel’s occupation has overseen intolerable conditions that have created a powder keg and this week, the keg exploded in violence. Hamas committed the first massacre. Israel commits the second.

If you dare to speak of occupation rather than of condemnation; if you dare to condemn the side in this war with the power while not condemning the side with no power, Zionists are swift to say: if you do not condemn Hamas, you support Hamas.

This becomes a cudgel used against everyone who says anything about Israel’s occupation of Palestine, in light of this week’s massacre.

But what of condemnations? There have been condemnations, from people with far more power than most in Canada. There have been condemnations and the object that has become the act of non-condemnation has been used as a weapon to attack unions, progressive politicians and workers.

But there is no peace if there is no justice.

There is no peace if there is no justice.

Where there is no justice, there cannot be peace. And Israel’s leadership — the politicians who win elections, who do not represent Israelis in the way that my politicians do not represent me, who have supported Hamas and who want violence to give them cover for a fullscale attack of the 2 million people they have held in an open-air prison for decades — that leadership, they want no justice. They want oppression. And they want no peace. They want violence because the only thing that fascists know is how to use violence to maintain power.

So, what of condemnations?

Image from Gaza from Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters