Predicament, changing course

On May 2, Trinidad and Tobago formally recognised the state of Palestine. The very idea that Palestine is a state had been highly contested but we joined 142 other states in this affirmation. Then, on May 10, Trinidad and Tobago co-sponsored and voted in support of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) adopting a resolution allowing Palestine observer status. This action affords the Palestinian Authority a seat at the table, along with member states, to make its views known, even though it does not have the right to vote. It is not quite membership but it is a helpful step for the Palestinian people to have a voice on matters that concern them.

These actions on the part of our state deserve applause and appreciation since, although a bit late, they recognise the absolute right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and to the disputed occupied territories and their resources, and to peaceful settlement there – rights that have been denied them for decades. It is noteworthy that the vote was won by 143 to 9, with 25 abstentions – a significant majority. It shows the extent to which Israel’s overreach in Gaza is squandering its longstanding PR advantage on the troubled question of Palestine.

Apart from the impressive Jewish lobby groups in NY and Washington it’s worth remembering how pivotal the powerful film and media industries have been in promoting the rightness of the Jewish state and the interloper that is Palestine. Hollywood classics that people of my generation saw in cinemas made us all anti-Muslim and pro-Jewish. We were ignorant of politics, but the handsome lead characters who saw off the invading Moors, eg, El Cid in Spain, or who delivered the enslaved Jews, as Moses did in The Ten Commandments, were our heroes.

For some reason, long after WWII, these epic films were preceded in the local film programme by Pathe News footage of ravaged Jews in Hitler’s concentration camps. They were horrific. Those images are etched onto my brain. That unbelievably dark period of human history was everyone’s history. In my 20s I even tried to join a kibbutz. I was rejected. I did not then understand why, but believed that the state of Israel had to be, to protect Jewish people from further persecution. The literature we read, the theatre we saw, about pogroms in Europe and the constant persecution of Jewish people living in ghettos made many of us supporters of Jewish people and opposers of those who thwarted their rightful destiny.

It was inevitable. The US big film studios were owned by super-talented Jewish immigrants from Europe: Louis B Mayer, Harry Cohn, Sam Goldwyn, Marcus Loew, William Fox, the Warner brothers, Adolph Zukor, Carl Laemmle. In his excellent 1980s book, An Empire of Their Own: How The Jews Invented Hollywood, Neal Gabler charts how those later-to-be larger-than-life characters who arrived in the anti-Semitic US were unexpectedly welcomed into the film industry and came to help shape and define the culture of the US and the world. The silver stars of Hollywood's heyday – Paul Newman, Elizabeth Taylor, Kirk Douglas, Burt Lancaster, Gregory Peck et al were Jewish too.

Fast forward half a century and it would be true to say that the war on Gaza and its population and Israel's determined lack of humanity have shocked the conscience of the world, even traditional Israel supporters and Jewish Israeli citizens are outspoken in the face of the gross cruelty of the Israeli Defence Force and the iron determination of the desperate Benyamin Netanyahu. Whatever the geopolitico-economic reasons for their lack of support, those UNGA member states know that they are going against the grain of international opinion.

On May 16, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) started hearing South Africa’s case against Israel’s genocidal operations in Gaza and in Rafah, in particular. Full marks to South Africa for asking the ICJ to use its powers to bring Israel to heel. In laying out its case, we heard from the South African legal team that: 1) Israel’s right to self defence does not allow it to inflict massive violence and starvation on a people; 2) nothing can justify genocide; 3) that no country has a right to self-defence in a territory that it is occupying.

How much success the hearing will have is debatable since Israel has ignored earlier ICJ orders. Bombing supposedly safe civilian areas, inflicting starvation, piling Palestinians into mass graves, killing journalists, medical staff and aid workers, and shunting innocent Palestinians from one hell-hole to another continues. The clear intention is to destroy any vestige of Palestinian history and culture and the viability of the Palestinian state that international opinion seeks.

In 1997, when I was in Israel, although the rise of the far right and the Likud party was evident, the present scenario was unimaginable. A former Zionist cabinet minister in the Labour Party did address, however, the harsh treatment dished out to non-Jews. She feared that “the abused is becoming the abuser.” She must be turning in her grave at what Netanyahu’s political avarice has wrought.