Today, I’m not going to talk about why you shouldn’t be pro Israel, I don’t think you should be, but that’s not what I’m going to talk about today. I’m going to talk about why you shouldn’t stay neutral. Not being for Israel or Palestine. You can’t be wrong if you stay neutral right? After all, how can you be wrong if you support nobody?
To be clear, this is different from Ireland’s political position of neutrality, which they don’t fully adhere to anyway. No, this is a different topic, this is why I don’t think you as an individual should be neutral on Palestine.
Being neutral has the same effect as being in favour of what Israel is doing. Being neutral is to favour the status quo. Being neutral is to look at what Israel is doing and say, “My actions will facilitate all of that murder continuing.”
Now, this might sound a bit harsh. After all, how is doing nothing for Palestine, morally the same as actively support Israel?
Well, it’s not, that’s not what I’m arguing. Supporting the genocide in Palestine, is morally worse, far worse, than taking the stance that you are not for Palestine, and not for Israel.
But I’m not talking about morals. I’m talking about things pragmatically. I’m talking about, what are the actual real world consequences of neutrality.
Well, the consequences are easy to understand. Israel has killed, by conservative estimates, tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children. To do nothing, to stay silent, to stay neutral, is to passively support that continuing.
Yes, I can’t stress enough, I consider somebody who is neutral on the genocide to be morally a lot better than somebody who is full on supportive of the genocide. But, looking at it in terms of consequences, those who are neutral on Palestine, for all practical intents and purposes, are aiding those who would see the genocide continue.
So, here are some reasons, in my experience, why people may wish to stay neutral on Palestine. And I’m going to explain why I don’t agree with these reasons.
1. What About Hamas?
Let me try to get this across using the strongest terms I can. Fuck Hamas. Fuck them for the horrors they inflicted on innocent bystanders on October 7th. They took hostages, a serious, serious line crossed in and of itself, and they murdered innocent people! So fuck them to hell and back, I hope I’ve made myself clear.
And I’ll go further and say I support the ICC’s decision to issue an arrest warrant for both Nehenyahu and the leaders of Hamas. Lock them both up! They are both murderers!
But, Hamas’s actions in no way justify the genocide of Palestine. They don’t even partially justify it. They offer no justification to it whatsoever. An innocent person is an innocent person. I hope the horrors committed on October 7th are never forgotten. All I’m asking for is that people feel the same moral outrage for the assault on Gaza that has, at the time of writing, been going on for ten months. Take that feeling of horror, that anger, that endless, sadness, for the victims of October 7th, and feel those same feelings towards the people of Gaza.
2. I’m Apolitical
No you’re not
I am, I just told you, I’m apolitical.
You 100% are not.
I just told you I’m apolitical, are you claiming to read my mind?
Okay let’s get into this.
You live in a country where (hopefully) the political system is such that you are able to live a reasonably comfortable life. To be apolitical is to state, “I am indifferent to whether or not the government introduces new laws that result in me being poor, and I’m indifferent to weather or not the government introduces new laws that severely restrict my civil liberties.” Are you really telling me you’re apolitical on the subject of women’s rights? That you have no opinion on whether or not women getting the vote was a good thing? Are you telling me you are indifferent to weather or not the government allows you freedom of speech? You are indifferent to weather there are laws governing how the police are allowed to interact with you? Are you seriously telling me you are indifferent to weather or not the laws do or don’t allow you to access good quality healthcare should you be affected by a very serious health condition?
Face it. You are not apolitical. Because nobody is.
3. There’s so many injustices in the world.
This is a very strange argument I come across from time to time. It’s almost like, the opposite of what logically makes sense. The more injustices there are in the world, the more we should be inclined to stop fighting injustice.
To be clear, this isn’t aimed at anyone who already spends a lot of time working on another important issue or issues. If you’re already active on the housing crisis, LGBT rights, or getting support for victims of domestic violence, or is active in trying to help with a humanitarian crisis somewhere else it the world, then yeah, it’s possible that you don’t have time to engage in Palestine, and that’s fine. Everyone’s time is finite.
But what I’m talking about is when people who aren’t active in any political cause or social justice movement make this argument.
Let’s say the genocide in Gaza was the only injustice in the world. And your actions could save, we’ll say 100 Palestinians. Now, let’s say there are 12 billion injustices in the world. Does the action of saving 100 Palestinians somehow become unimportant? Isn’t it better to save them, whether in absolute proportions it makes a huge difference or a small difference to the total amount of suffering erased in the world?
Their lives matter to them. Who cares about overall percentages? I don’t much care weather stopping the genocide in Gaza stops 10%, or 0.001%, or 0.0000000000001% of the total amount of suffering in the world. I just know that each one of them is someone’s daughter, someone’s father, someone’s best friend, and many of them have hopes and dreams of living a long, happy life. And that’s all that matters to me.
4. It’s such a big injustice I don’t see what I can do about it.
It is a big injustice, and it can be overwhelming. I already wrote a blogpost that deals in part with how to “get in” to activism.
So if you’re feeling overwhelm just thinking about it, don’t try to do too much at the start. Try to start just reducing your purchases of Israeli products. I “started small” with my own boycott of Israeli products, not boycotting things that I thought would be too hard to boycott. And now, I’ve reached the point where, outside of medical supplies, I can’t really think of any Israeli products I purchase. I started by going to one protest a month, now, at the moment, I’m up to going to the weekly protest more often than not.
But you may not be asking that, you may not be asking how to get past the feeling of overwhelm. You may be asking, can you, is it feasible for you to make a difference.
There are many ways I could answer this. One way I would answer it is, would you rather fail to make a positive difference or succeed at not making any difference when it comes to Palestine?
The other answer is, sure, some activists might have exceptional abilities, for organizing or for giving rousing speeches, that you simply do not possess and never will. But that doesn’t mean you can’t do anything. By definition, most of the population do not have exceptional abilities, that fact is contained within the word itself. It can’t have been the case that every social movement for positive change was done by people with rare gifts, sure, they’re probably an important part, but they wouldn’t have been able to do anything without others to stand beside them.
Personally I think I’m “the wrong fit” for being an activist. I have bad social anxiety. I’m frankly, not particularly brave. I get overwhelmed easily and I have piss poor organizational skills. But, I’m not the only person like this in the country, and if everyone who is like me, could get together and make a small difference, together it would add up to a big difference.
5. We Need To Worry About Irish (Or Insert Whatever Country You Live In) Problems and Not Worry About Problems In The Bigger World
What frustrates me about this is that it’s usually stated as if it’s some sort of undeniable fact, like 2+2=4, or that the capital of France is Paris, or that the rule of 3 is a good writing technique.
Why should we automatically assume that we should worry about Irish problems before we worry about overseas problems?
And why should we assume it’s a zero sum game, where you can only worry about Irish problems or problems in the wider world, but not both?
When I voted in the recent Local and European Elections, I didn’t have to make a choice between Irish issues and Palestine. All of the candidates I voted for who were good on Palestine were also good on Irish issues such as the housing crisis. And the reverse were also true, those who were neutral on Israel or worse, pro-Israel were also not good at helping the average Irish person with their problems.
And let’s say it was Ireland being bombed out of existence. Let’s say there were images of murdered Irish children, and you were seeing them so often it was impossible to cry any more tears. Would you appreciate it if the response from other countries was, “We have to deal with our own problems?”
Now, sometimes, it can be understandable, for example, it was quite understandable when the Choctaw Nation didn’t want to help the Irish in their time of need. After all, the Choctaws were dealing with poverty, horrific racism, and the cruel destruction of their culture, so the fact that they didn’t have the ability to help the Irish victims of the famine was perfectly understandable, and so….
Hang on a sec, I may have misread the article, let me just give it another read.
https://time.com/5833592/native-american-irish-famine/
Wait a minute, the Choctaw Nation, at a time when they could have 100% been forgiven for not wanting to help the Irish victims of the famine, actually sent 5000 dollars in today’s money to the people of Ireland? Yeah, I think “we need to deal with our own problems” is some variety of equestrian excrement.
6. It’s Very Complicated
The history of a people is always complicated, but, we could apply this reasoning to anything. Have you tried to read Irish history? It’s basically, who’s that guy, which guy was that again, did that event happen before or after that event? Does the complexity in any way make the British Empire’s actions towards Ireland any less cruel?
If you use the it’s complicated excuse, well, you never have to do anything ever, because, the world is complicated! It’s been complicated since life evolved from single celled organisms into multi celled organisms. That’s just the way it is.
I have looked into the history of Palestine, and yes, it is complicated. Maybe World War I is to blame for the whole thing, or maybe it isn’t. Or maybe everything would be different if not for World War II. What would things be like if the Ottoman Empire hadn’t existed? Could we fix it all by going back in time and suggesting that Mr and Mrs Balfour see other people?
The history is complicated, but the facts about what is happening right now are not. No history, no matter how complicated, can justify mass slaughter.
So I hope I have convinced you that neutrality isn’t the solution to anything. It doesn’t make the world better, all it does is mean the world stays the same as it is. Let’s hope more and more people wake up to the reality of what’s happening in Palestine, and hopefully, there will be a day when no Palestinian has to worry that each day will be their last.
Ponderings Of An Autist 
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