Intervening for Justice in the Middle East and at Home

by Ilise Cohen

Intervening in the U.S. culture of violence, militarism, and fear, alongside working for justice in Israel/Palestine, must be priorities for our peace movement.

We fear deep self-reflection on our role in perpetuating neo-colonialism in the Middle East. We use this ongoing brutalization for our economic and strategic benefit, discouraging and undermining natural alliances and democratic strategies while claiming to support democracy. Israel/Palestine is a microcosm of the way we handle conflict and violence, the way we claim to want peace while using our power to systematically oppress rather than to demand accountability and justice in the region.

Beyond ending the Occupation, we must seek out ethical frames of justice — such as people’s tribunals and international courts of justice — and be willing to be led by marginalized voices: Palestinian citizens, refugees, Mizrahi Jews, and women. As a Sephardic Jewish woman, my spiritual practice is one of justice, drawing on a history and heritage of acceptance, creativity, education, and friendship between Jews and Muslims in Spain and the Ottoman Empire. Though no relationships are perfect, this history gives an indication of what is possible when difference is an accepted and celebrated form of citizenship.

Today, an increasing number of Jews around the world are no longer willing to play the role of gatekeeper to marginalized and oppressed groups, by applying a double standard to Israel while withholding support unless their partners follow the “party line.” Instead, they are questioning the intentions of the Israeli state toward its marginalized Mizrahi and Palestinian citizens and toward Palestinian non-citizens, forming non-Zionist and anti-Zionist alliances, and building coalitions around boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) based on the model that brought down apartheid in South Africa.

One meaningful methodology of activism is modeled by Interfaith Peace-Builders (IFPB), an organization that builds alliances between North Americans and Palestinians and Israelis, intervening on U.S. complacency, ignorance, and fear. IFPB takes delegates to witness the everyday realities of Palestinians and marginalized Israeli citizens, to meet and engage with courageous and dedicated Palestinian and Israeli activists committed to nonviolent resistance to oppression, while becoming advocates for fair and just U.S. policies.

We must recognize that the U.S. is a white Christian country, whether by faith or culture. Our privilege makes it easy for us to forget the significance and impact of history on others. By recognizing this, we can engage what it means to acknowledge our brutality and its continued legacies of exclusion, forced assimilation, silencing, and marginalization. Our political leaders must take political and personal risks to go to Israel/Palestine (despite State Department warnings) in order to see and be accountable for the effects of the policies they produce and enforce.

We must commit ourselves to multiple forms of justice — to stand up against anti-Arab, anti-Muslim, and anti-Semitic sentiments, and to intervene on the culture of violence, militarism, and fear. We must rethink the ways we care for those around us, the ways we prioritize work over family and community, the ways we ask others to leave their histories behind in order to become American, and what it would mean to live difference as a form of liberation.

Ilise Cohen is a Middle East activist and a Ph.D. candidate in anthropology focused on marginalized Mizrahi and Palestinian Israelis. She chairs the IFPB board and leads delegations to Israel/Palestine. Cohen is a former co-vice chair of FOR’s National Council. She and her partner Dan live in Atlanta, Georgia, with their daughter.