Why am I unwilling to condemn the violence of the oppressed (and neither should you)
By Rachel Beitarie (רחל בית אריה) • [Translated by Sol Salbe]
To those who criticise me for allegedly treating an attack on a rabbi, no less, lightly: I don’t feel the need to reiterate each and every time, and in an abstract way, that I am against violence. My actions speak for themselves. However, in our society we are drowning in violence from all directions and I am unwilling to pick one act, a very minor one in the scheme of things, and go to the trouble of telling you how horrible it is (and it isn’t) so that you’d will agree to listen to the rest of the list.
In summary, the expropriation and eviction of Palestinian families from Ajami (Jaffa) has been going on for a very long time, generally speaking since 1948 such and specifically for the last several months of intense pressure and acceleration of evictions. Until they hit the RABBI no media was interested in it and neither was any other authority or entity and now suddenly everyone lands on the neighbourhood and between expressing shock again and again, maybe they also get to hear here and there what the residents have to say. Even the mayor himself bothered to address the crisis in a social media post (ridiculous and annoying in itself, but that’s not the issue at the moment).
It seems to me that this is what is called “understanding only force”, no?
And let’s face it, the violence in question is towards a man who comes to a family home with a representative of the real estate entrepreneur and starts measuring the walls ahead of their eviction from a home where they were born and have nowhere to go from. Seriously, if someone attempted to enter your home without being invited and with the intention of evicting you, what will you do? If you know that there is no point in calling the police because the police work for the intruder, what will you do? If it is clear to you that no law and no public system would protect you, but they are intentionally designed against you, what will you do?
Most importantly, it may be possible to condemn such desperate violence but only after the violence of evicting residents from their homes and expelling them from their town has been condemned and stopped. It would be possible only after a predatory system and mass arrests and police trampling and abandonment of the community to crime encouraged by the state has been condemned and stopped. It would be possible, but not even one moment before that condemnation. For the time being, condemnation simply means throwing the victimised family under the bus to feel good and moral.
