Abstract
The world has become a more dangerous place (or perhaps we are more aware of it in the age of instant communication) with the invasion of Ukraine, a devastating civil war that continues in Sudan, and the events in Gaza which has caused the massive death and destruction of a trapped population for the past 8 months. We are experiencing each crisis in different ways. Yet, there are some commonalities: people are displaced from their homes; violence has taken a serious toll on the region’s infrastructure; the scale of death and destruction increases exponentially with the technology of warfare; and there are growing health and food crises. The international condemnation of Russia for this invasion has masked the growing tension between Russia and the United States because of the growing role of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and Western nations in helping arm and support Ukraine’s resistance. The situation in Sudan has resulted in a major humanitarian crisis driving over 9 million people from their homes with the medical and educational infrastructure in ruins, and prospects for the country is bleak. Recent estimates are that a devastating famine is developing, all of which goes largely ignored by Western powers. 1
On October 7, 2023, Hamas launched an attack on Israel with devastating consequences. Breaching the Gaza–Israel barrier, Hamas fighters attacked military basis and civilian communities, including people attending a music festival celebrating the Sukkot holiday, resulting in the death of over 1100 people and the taking of over 250 hostages back into Gaza. The assault was brutal and was quickly condemned due to the extensive death and destruction caused, and for the taking of hostages. At the same time, Hamas claimed it was a response to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands, the blockade of the Gaza Strip, illegal settlements and rising settler violence in the West Bank and a general state in Gaza which has been described as the world’s largest open-air prison. 2
By the end of October, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) began a retaliatory invasion into northern Gaza with the stated goal of destroying Hamas. Israel advised Palestinians to move south as it intensified its bombing campaign and its troops spread out in the region in the effort to find and kill Hamas militants. During early December 2023, the IDF began its invasion of southern Gaza, 3 expanding its war efforts as it continued to destroy the built environment, including bombing government buildings, schools and universities, hospitals and laying waste to cities in Gaza. Palestinians who heeded the instructions to move south to avoid the war once again found themselves being urged to evacuate but unsure of where to go. Humanitarian groups indicated that there were no safe places where the civilians could shelter and avoid the extensive bombing campaign.
Historical Perspective
The situation and struggles over Palestine are not new. A United Nations (UN) report on the question of Palestine 4 details several key periods that begins with the end of World War I and the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire: (a) 1917–1947 with the British Mandate; (b) 1947–1977 with the Partition Plan, the wars of 1948, 1067, 1973, and the questions of the rights of Palestinians; (c) 1977–1990 with events in Lebanon, and the Palestinian Intifada; (d) 1990s Peace Process; and (e) the 2000s with the Second Intifada, building of the wall, and efforts at a Road Map for peace. The Palestinian people, including Jews who have lived there for centuries, sought their own nation in the aftermath of the fall of the Ottoman Empire. The colonial period of the previous century created the seeds of conflict throughout the French, British, and Ottoman Empires, conflicts which remain today.
The State of Israel was founded in May 1948, in part as a result of the UNs’ Special Committee on Palestine report 5 adopted by the UN General Assembly basically ending the British mandate. The desire for the creation of a state which would be a refuge for Jews was made clear in the publication in 1896 of Theodor Herzl’s Der Judenstaat 6 with the emergence of the Zionist movement. As the 19th century ended, European Jews began to move to Palestine to avoid persecution and violence. 7 Another wave of Jewish immigrants arrived in Palestine in the period leading up to World War I as Zionist organizations instituted systematic settlement policies to accommodate these arrivals. Tensions between Jewish settlers, Arabs and in particular Palestinians was complicated by the inter-imperial struggles of Western nations (France, Britain, and the Ottoman Empire leading up to World War I). The rise of German Fascism and the continued persecution of Jews resulted in yet another wave of Jewish immigrants from Europe to Palestine, despite British efforts to curtail their arrival. The devastation wrought during World War II and the scale of the Holocaust opened the floodgates of immigration to Palestine and the eventual formation of the State of Israel.
This brief (and albeit overly simplified) account provides some understanding of the strongly held views by both Palestinians and Israelis, and the perspective that the tensions reflect the existential nature of each side’s claims. There is a centuries-old history of the people of the region, whether Palestinian or Israeli, whether Muslim, Christian or Jew. This history is confounded by centuries of occupation and dislocation from the Roman Empire to the spread of Islam and the European Crusades, through the complex imperial rule by European and Ottoman Empires. Each side claims historical precedence, and each sees the other as an existential threat to self-determination and survival.
The Destruction in Gaza
The stated aim of the IDF is the eradication of Hamas, and in execution of this invasion the degree of destruction of cities and the level of deaths has resulted in massive condemnation and protests around the globe. It is difficult to call this a war since the forces arrayed on each side are not comparable. In addition, since the closing days of World War II the prosecution of war has been transformed from an engagement between combatants to an all-out war against populations. Adam Tooze, in reflecting about the role of technology and material might in wars (in this case, on the level of destruction at the end of World War II), posits:
Furthermore, liberal regimes fighting with the odds so heavily in their favor in material terms and with the sense of ‘history being on their side’ have an impatient expectation of victory—call this the pressure of the philosophy of history. If you are truly convinced that your victory is inevitable, resistance is, as the saying goes, ‘futile’. Opponents that engage in futile resistance, exacting a price from you, long after their defeat is inevitable, are rightly treated as ‘mad dogs’ that demand their own destruction. Not just their defeat but their erasure and total destruction. Rather than encouraging liberal agents of history to raise themselves to great personal efforts and sacrifice, this philosophy of history, this sense of historical inevitability counsels the opposite. If your barbaric, criminal enemy does not understand that they must lose, if they want to go down in a meaningless suicidal blaze, there is no reason why anyone on your side should needlessly expose themselves to risk. After all that would deprive those citizen soldiers of the victorious future that is rightfully theirs. Instead, minimize your own losses and let massive firepower do the work. Collateral damage, especially if it occurs on the enemy side, is barely worth a mention (Tooze, 2024).
He closes with the reflection that ‘The relevance of this paradigm to America’s “wars of choice” and to the Israeli campaign in Gaza is obvious’.
As the death and destruction became ever more pronounced, voices were raised both in support of the Palestinian right to self-determination and in opposition to what many have called the Israeli occupation, and in support of Israel’s claim that they have a right to defend themselves in this struggle for their very existence as a Jewish homeland. Supporters of Israel argue that any criticism is a form of antisemitism while supporters of Palestinians argue that Zionism is a form of settler colonialism as occupiers of Gaza. Israel maintains that they must answer for the murder or kidnapping of almost 2000 of their citizens, while opponents claim the number of dead caused by this invasion is way beyond a proportionate response. It is important to understand that the destruction in Gaza is part of a pattern as old as the State of Israel. In his reflection on the emergence of this situation, Shatz points to past comments that foreshadow the current situation in Gaza, quoting comments made by Ariel Sharon’s son in 2012:
We need to flatten entire neighbourhoods in Gaza, Flatten all of Gaza. The Americans didn’t stop with Hiroshima—the Japanese weren’t surrendering fast enough so the hit Nagasaki, too. There should be no electricity in Gaza, no gasoline or moving vehicles, nothing. (Shatz, 2024: 3)
He goes on to discuss how the events in Gaza have become a genocidal war. Echoing Tooze above, on his observation on the rationale and use of extremely destructive weapons, Shatz (2024: 3) quotes defense minister Gallant as saying, ‘We are fighting human animals, and we will act accordingly’.
The scale of this death and destruction is what is at the core of protests urging a ceasefire and yet this is brushed aside by supporters of Israel. There are disputes over the numbers killed, in part because the only numbers come from Hamas’ Ministry of Health. Their recent estimates are that almost 37,000 people have died, among them over 11,000 children, 7000 women and 3000 elderly. If the goal is to kill Hamas militants, almost 57% clearly are not. If one assumes that non-combatant men were killed at the same rate as women, then the civilian toll is closer to 32,000 out of the 37,000 dead (or 87%). Add to that the unknown number of dead buried under the rubble of destroyed buildings and those who die of non-combat reasons like starvation or inadequate medical treatment, then the overall scale of persons dying because of the invasion is staggering. Given the difficulty of accurate assessment of the number of dead 8 the conclusion that IDF’s invasion approaches the level of atrocity is inescapable to many.
The response to this humanitarian disaster has entered the culture wars in the United States. Faculty, professionals, and others who have spoken out against this destruction have been labeled antisemites, are censured, suspended and in some cases fired from their jobs. 9 Any criticism of Zionism is deemed antisemitic. Pro-Palestinian student groups on campuses around the country, many of which are Jewish like the Jewish Voice for Peace which is anti-Zionist, have been silenced or suspended, while pro-Israeli student groups are permitted to voice their concerns. College presidents have been called to testify to House committees on how they were rooting out antisemitism on their campuses in the name of ‘protecting’ Jewish students while little is said about the growing anti-Muslim environments on campuses. Beginning at Columbia University, and spreading out across the United States, students created encampments on campus (reminiscent of the anti-Vietnam protests 50 years earlier), demanding that universities review their investments in companies involved in war related production in support of Israel’s war effort (reminiscent of the divestment campaign against the Apartheid regime in South Africa). With only a few exceptions, universities chose to call in local law enforcement to clear the encampments and arrest protestors rather than engage in a dialogue to hear student demands. 10
Protecting and Protesting
In response to this imbalance in both protecting student and faculty rights, and in safeguarding academic freedom, many professional groups and sections within professional associations have issued statements that generally do not promote one or the other side, but rather opposes the use of the police on campus and the abrogation of the rights of free speech and academic freedom. These statements, as well as most student-led protests, demanded a ceasefire in Gaza to put an end to the death and destruction, and to allow humanitarian aid to reach the people of Gaza who have been denied food, water, and basic medical care because of the invasion.
In an effort to educate members of the American Sociological Association, Sociologists for Peace 11 held a teach-in on April 19, 2024, to support the American Sociological Association (ASA) resolution supporting a ceasefire in Gaza and calling for the protection of academic freedom as students, faculty, and others protested on college campuses. 12 This was an effort to gather support for the vote on the resolution before the ASA, which was subsequently approved. 13 It is worth providing the wording of this resolution endorsed by the membership (see https://bit.ly/3VIzVbH):
The ASA comprises sociologists and kindred professionals who study, among other things, war and peace, democracy and totalitarianism, conflict resolution and violence, systems of inequality and their effects, states and legal orders, colonialism and settler colonialism, nationalism, and nation-building.
Whereas, in 1987, the ASA Council voted to divest from South African companies during apartheid and, in the 1990s, agreed to divest from ‘companies with “notorious” anti-labor policies, deficient records on worker health and safety, [and] firms whose policies have been prejudicial to minorities’;
Whereas, in 2003, ASA members approved a resolution calling for an immediate end to the US invasion of Iraq;
Whereas the ASA condemned Russia’s recent invasion of Ukraine and offered aid to affected scholars;
Whereas the ASA’s Land Acknowledgment and Recognition Statement states ‘that academic institutions, indeed the nation-state itself, was founded upon and continues to enact exclusions and erasures of Indigenous Peoples’ and that the ASA ‘demonstrates a commitment to beginning the process of working to dismantle ongoing legacies of settler colonialism, and to recognize the hundreds of Indigenous Nations who continue to resist, live, and uphold their sacred relations across their lands. We also pay our respect to Indigenous elders, past, present, and future, and to those who have stewarded this land throughout the generations’;
Whereas the US government is Israel’s primary financial backer, military supplier, and political ally and ASA is a US-based organization;
Whereas, according to recent investigations by the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, the proportion of civilian deaths in Gaza is higher than the average in all world conflicts of the 20th Century;
Whereas recent reports from the Gaza Ministry of Health suggest that more than 1 out of every 200 people living in Gaza have been killed since October 7, 2023, with 70% of the dead being women and children;
Whereas, major international organizations, including the United Nations, the World Health Organization, and the Red Cross, have raised alarms about the unfolding humanitarian crisis;
Whereas close to 800 scholars have warned of potential of genocide in Gaza and numerous academic associations have called for a ceasefire;
Whereas the International Court of Justice has ordered, with overwhelming consensus, that Israel must take immediate and effective measures to refrain from acts that could lead to sanctions under the Genocide convention, to prevent and punish incitements to genocide, to ensure the provision of humanitarian assistance to the people in Gaza, and to preserve evidence of genocide;
Whereas every university in Gaza has been destroyed, at least 94 academics have been killed, along with thousands of staff and students;
Whereas those who organize, write, teach, and/or speak in support of Palestine within the United States and beyond have been silenced, intimidated, punished, and harassed;
Whereas support of the Palestinian people and opposition to their colonization, containment, and murder is often misrepresented as antisemitic; and
Be it resolved that the ASA, on behalf of its members, shall issue a call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza.
Be it further resolved that the ASA supports members’ academic freedom, including but not limited to defending scholars’ right to speak out against Zionist occupation.
What follows in the pages of this journal are the edited text of several of the presentations at that teach-in. While it is gratifying that a majority of members supported this call for the cessation of hostilities, the need for humanitarian assistance, and for the ongoing protection of academic freedom and free speech, the assault in Gaza continues even as efforts to secure its end flounders. As the ASA resolution points out, sociologists study ‘war and peace, democracy and totalitarianism, conflict resolution and violence, systems of inequality and their effects, states and legal orders, colonialism and settler colonialism, nationalism, and nation-building’. If the hostilities in Gaza continue, these statements calling for a ceasefire should resonate with everyone committed to justice and compassion.
Footnotes
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.