In recent years we have marked a number of significant 50th anniversaries. Fifty years since the famous 1963 March on Washington where Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous “I Have A Dream” speech. Fifty years since the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Fifty years since the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, though we are still waiting to realize its full protections for people of color to participate freely in the democratic process. Relatedly, the week of June 5–10 will mark 50 years of Israel’s military occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, which includes 10 years of Israel’s blockade of Gaza.
According to the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights, this 50th anniversary will include 50 actions nationwide “to demand an end to Israel’s brutal military occupation as part of a commitment to justice for all Palestinians, whether in historic Palestine or in exile. Israel’s actions since 1967 make clear that the occupation was never meant to be temporary. It is not an aberration. It is the latest extension of Israel’s ethnic cleansing and subjugation of Palestinians, which continues to this day.”
The excessive militarism is recognizable to African-Americans, and considering what we have witnessed happening in places like Ferguson and Baltimore and, historically, the law enforcement assaults on the Black Panther Party and MOVE of Philadelphia, our movement toward justice should be in solidarity with the Palestinians’ movement for peace. Excessive militarization of the police (ironically, many of our U.S. law enforcement agencies have received some training by Israeli military) represents a convergence of issues — war on drugs (now the so-called war on crime), police brutality, excessive government surveillance and lack of responsible community policing. The justice system — as we have witnessed recently with the failure to convict Tulsa, Oklahoma, police officer Betty Shelby in her killing of an unarmed Terrence Crutcher during a routine traffic stop in September 2016 — has become duplicitous in its lack of prosecutions concerning unjustified police shootings. Also duplicitous is our educational system and its disproportionate discipline of children of color and direct pipeline to the prison industrial complex. Where did all those children go who can no longer fill our schools? Check the numbers in the juvenile centers. More jails, fewer schools.
In the West Bank, 500 to 700 children are subjected to arrest, prosecution and imprisonment in an Israeli military detention system. The organization Defense for Children International — Palestine collected affidavits from 429 West Bank children detained between 2012 and 2015, and in 97 percent of the cases they were interrogated without a parent present and denied access to legal counsel — this was after being whisked off in the middle of the night from their homes without their parents even knowing where they were being taken. A majority of them were also not informed of their rights, which were already minimal since they were being subjected to a military court.
An analysis by the New York Times stated that since 2006, police departments have acquired 435 armored vehicles, 533 planes, 93,763 machine guns and 432 mine-resistant armored trucks. Just so we’re clear, U.S. local and state police departments have received $4.3 billion worth of equipment. If you want to learn more about the Israeli occupation of Gaza in particular, I recommend watching the 20-minute informative film “Gaza in Context,” available at gazaincontext.com, which will provide you with a clear understanding of this 50-year somber anniversary from the Palestinian perspective.
If you would like to participate in a local recognition of the 50th anniversary of the occupation, check the Al Huda Foundation’s website — alhudafoundation.org — for upcoming event announcements.
Dr. Terri Jett is an associate professor of political science and special assistant to the provost for diversity and inclusivity at Butler University.
