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Faizel Patel – 26/05/2021
A fellow of the Institute of Policy Studies in Washington DC in the US says there is no question that there has been a huge shift in the language and discourse in the Israeli Palestinian conflict.
Phyllis Bennis was speaking to Radio Islam on Wednesday following the devastating attack on Gaza by Israeli occupation forces that claimed the lives of at least 274 Palestinians including 66 children and 39 women while scores of others were wounded.
Hamas claimed victory in the conflict with Israel after a ceasefire was brokered by Egypt last week Thursday.
Bennis says the shift in language and discourse about the Palestinian struggle for freedom has been underway for years.
“A big shift in the public discourse, in the media discourse. But particularly after this most recent Israeli assault on Gaza over this last month. We’ve seen a real change even further particularly among young people, part of that in this country and I would say probably globally as well.”
Bennis says while young people are seeing Israel through a racial injustice lens, they are also seeing Palestinians through the lens of a people facing and fighting back against oppression.
“In the language in the media, among public officials, we are hearing the use of the term ‘apartheid’. The new report from Human Rights Watch in the US and from B’Tselem in Israel both talking about Israeli apartheid, Israeli violations of international law, the oppression of Palestinians. We are hearing about settler colonialism in some cases and we are hearing about a struggle for Palestinian rights rather than a focus on two states.”
Bennis says while the world did not see a real shift in policy from the Joe Biden administration, there was a shift in the language.
“In the early stage of this most recent crisis, the rhetoric was the classic US President’s position, ‘Israeli has the right of self-defence period. We stand with Israel full stop.’ But we did see a shift by the sort of midpoint where the shift was away from this question of Israel’s so called right of self-defence. We started hearing Biden even using the term ‘equal right’, that Palestinians equally have the right, not of self-defence, they would never say that but they have the equal rights to live in safety.”
Bennis says there was an even more dramatic shift within the US Congress adding that historically the US Congress was more pro-Israel than most of the presidents until Donald Trump.
Listen to the interview with Phyllis Bennis
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