By Paul V. DeMarco
Guest Columnist
My experience with injustice has, fortunately, never been personal. I’m a white, married, straight man who attends a Protestant church, so no one has ever denied me a seat at any table because of who I was. I was born in New York, but when I was 7 years old, my family moved to Charleston, where I entered second grade. It didn’t take me long to understand that not everyone was accepted as readily or treated as well as I was. Racism was easy for even a child to spot. When I was taken shopping at Belk, I saw a cross-section of the community that was missing in my neighborhood, school, and church.
I’m not sure when I first became aware of anti-Semitism. I would guess I learned about it in middle school when we studied the Holocaust. I had the advantage of attending a private school during the 1970s that had a substantial population of Jewish students. I was impressed by the discipline of some of my Jewish friends, who after a full day of regular school then attended Hebrew school. One Orthodox classmate once showed up late for an extracurricular meeting on a Saturday morning. “Sorry, I’m late,” he said sheepishly, “But I had to walk.” (Orthodox Jews are not permitted to drive or ride in cars on the Sabbath). I do remember occasionally hearing my classmates make comments disparaging Jews, but these were few and far between. I think it’s fair to say that my Jewish friends felt safe and respected at our school, although not necessarily celebrated. I graduated from high school feeling that Jews my age would have essentially the same opportunities I had.
In December of 1982, during my second year in college, that belief was challenged. I attended a debutante ball at a South Carolina country club with the woman who would eventually become my wife. I didn’t know most of the other guests, so I made many introductions. When curious partygoers asked from whence I came, I proudly told them “Brooklyn.” Some of the members of the club left our conversations worried that this loud kid from Brooklyn with the big nose and olive skin might be Jewish (I’m actually Sicilian). Jews, of course, were prohibited from being members.
The next day, my future mother-in-law told me that questions about my origin had gotten back to her. She had assured all those worried that a Jew might have polluted the WASP-y ballroom atmosphere that, no, I wasn’t Jewish. However, since then, I generally respond to the question “Where are you from?” (which in the South means “Where were you born?”) with a dodge. I tell people I was raised in Charleston, which is better received from those who might harbor misgivings about Yankees or Jews.
Jews (and, of course, blacks) were not welcome at many Southern private clubs until recently. For example, Forest Lake Country Club in Columbia, which was founded in 1923 and counts Governor Henry McMaster as one of its members, did not admit its first black member until 2017.
I’ve been revisiting my debutante experience as anti-Semitism has resurfaced around the war in Gaza. My naïve sense prior to October 7th was that the anti-Semitism that I encountered in 1982 had gradually atrophied to the point where it would continue to decline and die. But sadly, anti-Semitism seems impervious – it’s like the fungal spores that can lie dormant in the earth for years only to spring to life as a carpet of mushrooms in favorable conditions.
My one night as a Jew has helped me form my current opinion of the conflict in Gaza. First, Israel must continue to exist. Second, Palestinians must also have their own state and the right of self-determination.
I fully support the rights of those who protest peacefully in support of the Palestinians and against the war which is killing so many civilians. Before the war there was already growing opposition to the Netanyahu government. Netanyahu’s provocative policies such as settlement expansion, the killing of Palestinian demonstrators, and restrictions on Palestinian trade and freedom of movement were staunchly opposed by many in Israel and the United States.
But what hasn’t come across in any protests I have seen is any sense of shame or regret for Hamas’ brutality on October 7th, not to mention years of suicide bombings, indiscriminate rocket fire, or their grotesque tactic of using their own people as human shields.
Despite our hope for peace and justice for the Palestinians, most Americans rightly find it impossible to be sympathetic toward Hamas. The attack on October 7th will surely be one of the most evil acts of my lifetime. The barbarity of invading homes, of meticulously killing entire families, and of raping and mutilating the victims, is some of the most base behavior of which humans are capable. No one should cheer for this.
The key to many successful protest movements is their ability to find and elevate principled, sacrificial leaders. The Bible provides examples in Moses and Jesus. More recent examples include Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Nelson Mandela. Neither Netanyahu nor the Hamas leader, Yahya Sinwar, fit this mold. The current conflict cannot be resolved until both the Palestinians and the Israelis elect new and better leaders. That is a rallying cry that would unite campus protesters from both sides and point toward a solution.
A version of this column appeared in the May 16th, 2024, edition of the Post and Courier-Pee Dee.
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“There is little doubt, to my mind, that the defeat of the nationalist project in Palestine by Israel that followed in the wake of the Oslo Accords encouraged the rise of political Islam, much like what happened elsewhere in the region.”
“After fifty years of trying, we have not succeeded in forcing Israel to end its occupation of our land. This would have required a stronger, more sustained struggle and much greater sacrifices. All we could do was to bring Israel to self-destruct. The country that occupied us half a century ago bears little resemblance to the Israel of today. By forcing them to justify the unjustifiable, that which is patently illegal, we have helped them destroy their legal system and, through their open discrimination, the rule of law and respect for international law. We have also helped destroy the socialist aspects of their system by providing them with cheap labour. We have certainly not won, but neither have they.”
– from Going Home (2019), by Raja Shehadeh (head of the Palestinian rights organization, Al Haq)
“[M]uch of the denunciation of the student protesters rests on a conflation of Jewishness and Zionism—which is itself a dangerous act of language. To call the student protests against the war on Gaza antisemitic is to disregard anti-Zionist Jewish protesters; to describe the call to free Palestine as genocidal is to ask us to believe that the Jewish students of the organization Jewish Voice for Peace, or the religious leaders in Rabbis for Ceasefire protesting with them, think that the seven million Jewish human beings who live between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea should simply vanish. If rhetoric can be dangerous, sophistry is even more so.
This focus on the speech used tο support Palestinian rights does more than obscure the context in which protesters are speaking; it also obscures the reality about which they speak. I believe in the power and importance of language. But what is happening is not primarily about language. Words are not weapons of mass destruction: when we encourage others to use language with care, we should be sure to do the same ourselves. The context here is a quantity of ammunition dropped on Gaza that is equivalent to more than three times that of the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima. A high proportion of those bombs were US-made and supplied. Those bombs were not made of language, and they certainly were not metaphors.”
– Isabella Hammad, “Acts of Language”
I’m not sure how those quotes directly address anything that Paul wrote…
Hah?? Everything from his paragraph 6 on is about Gaza — and therefore about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. These comments address that issue as well as the war of words over it.
It’s not that difficult to see the connection.
“Not difficult to see?” Yes, Ken, I realize I’m an idiot, and your purpose in coming repeatedly to this blog is to make that point, but it was not obvious to me. Perhaps you did not read what Paul was saying carefully enough.
By the way, which do you consider to be paragraph 6? The way I count, the “sixth” is “Isabella Hammad, ‘Acts of Language’,” and that’s counting the lines of attribution as “paragraphs,” which seems a stretch. And the theoretical six are difficult to see without either indentation or spacing.
If I simply look at the last graf of actual text, which is the fourth, I see the admonition that “when we encourage others to use language with care, we should be sure to do the same ourselves.” Do you see THAT as advice that Paul needs? I don’t. Nobody on this blog chooses his words more carefully than Dr. DeMarco.
Perhaps you should quote it for us outright, so that maybe it will sink in through our thick crania…
“which do you consider to be paragraph 6?”
You misread. The original post, above, reads “HIS paragraph 6.” Which clearly refers to graf 6 in Dr. DeMarco’s original op-ed.
Very good. Thank you.
“The barbarity of invading homes, of meticulously killing entire families, and of raping and mutilating the victims, is some of the most base behavior of which humans are capable. No one should cheer for this.”
There is nothing to cheer here. But the invasion of homes and the killing of entire families in Israel should not be counted more barbaric than the flattening of homes and the killing of entire families in Gaza. The attacks of October 7th have drawn comparisons with the Holocaust. But Israel’s campaign in Gaza could itself be termed a kind of holocaust.
I’m pretty sure you already said that, and I answered it.
And I’m kind of ticked off at myself for doing so.
Of course, you will complain that it had not been approved, so you turned to your habitual tactic of sending it again, assuming I had disallowed the first, and you were going to wear me down by continuing to pound on the door.
Apparently, you had failed to notice that I hadn’t posted anything barely substantial since… I guess the D-Day post. And I’m being generous to myself calling that “substantial.” But it took a bit of thought and looking things up, so we’ll count it. And I haven’t looked at comments much since then.
And why am I ticked off at myself for answering you? Because I just spent more than an hour on two comments of yours and two of Doug’s. Not one of which was worth the time.
Here’s the problem I have: You and Doug spend a great deal of your time — more time than I have for the blog — posting things that don’t foster the kind of civil venue I want this blog to be. With Doug, it’s about blowing raspberries and scoffing at almost every sensible thing said here. For you, it’s about proving that you possess superior intelligence and anyone who disagrees with you is an idiot, and you are here to demonstrate that.
Of course, Doug would say that’s what I do. Perhaps you and he should start your own blog and discuss that point ad infinitum. I’m just not interested in having your discussions about “who’s the biggest idiot” here.
Occasionally, you and he are both capable of saying things that add positive momentum to this space. (And before someone idiotically says, “you mean agree with YOU!,” no, I don’t. Look at all the people out there who have disagreed over the past 19 years here without detracting from civility. You’ll have to look back a few years, though. Most of the thoughtful debaters have drifted away, probably disgusted by the increasingly incivil miasma that lately dominates.)
Anyway, bring something positive, and new, something that adds to the discussion in a way that makes it worthwhile for me and others to spend time here, and I’ll approve it. Otherwise not…
I’m off to do the things I’ve been neglecting now…
Yes.
I agree Sir Paul. I have submitted my agreement in my way via email to Brad.
Not enough Love. Implicit Bias. Our existence of a liberal democracy is fragile.
10 Years After over 50 years ago. I’d love to change the world but I don’t know what to do.
See ya!
“The barbarity of invading homes, of meticulously killing entire families, and of raping and mutilating the victims, is some of the most base behavior of which humans are capable. No one should cheer for this.”
There is nothing to cheer. But the invasion of homes and the killing of entire families in Israel should not be counted more barbaric than the flattening of homes and the killing of entire families in Gaza. The attacks of October 7th have generated references to the Holocaust. But Israel’s campaign in Gaza could itself be termed a kind of holocaust.
Antisemitism continues to exist. But the attacks of Oct. 7 took place within a fundamentally different context than did The Holocaust. If we are to avoid abusing history for political purposes, that difference must be taken into account.
To answer for Paul, you compare “the invasion of homes and the killing of entire families in Israel” to “the flattening of homes and the killing of entire families in Gaza.”
The two things are equally tragic, and should be avoided with equal care. I think all of us will agree with you to that point.
But then comes the HUGE difference
The first thing was not only entirely intentional, it was the entire mission, the whole reason for the attack. That’s what the Hamas minions were there for. I’m not sure how many times I need to say that.
The second thing was NOT the purpose of the attack. The purpose was to destroy the entity that deliberately hides among the civilian population so that as many innocents as possible will be killed alongside Hamas.
For Hamas, those two things go together. Because while the killing of Israeli innocents in particularly horrific ways was indeed the purpose of Oct. 7, it was only the immediate tactical purpose.
The strategic purpose was to make damned sure that Israel responded as strongly and forcefully as possible. That meant civilians would die, which is the strategic aim, as it would certainly result in worldwide revulsion against Israel.
Are the innocent deaths horrifically terrible? Yes. Should Israel be actively seeking a way to end this, while still neutralizing Hamas (which for Israel, is an existential imperative — a key lesson from Oct. 7)?
Absolutely.
But we’re not going to get there with Bibi in charge, as continuing the fight is essential to his political survival.
Which, I think you will find, Paul pointed out.
“The purpose was to destroy the entity that deliberately hides among the civilian population so that as many innocents as possible will be killed alongside Hamas.”
Yes, I’m aware how this “civilian shield” argument is used to shield its advocates from their own moral blindness, by turning the principle behind it on its head, making it into an excuse for Israel killing as many people as it likes rather than what it is supposed to be: a barrier to disproportionate force. And leaving aside the fact that Israel’s ROE allows for 20+ civilian deaths for each “enemy” targeted – though there is sufficient reason for skepticism about Israel’s carefulness in choosing targets. Few bear in mind that Gaza could easily fit inside the smallest South Carolina county, with room to spare, while serving as home to over 2 million people, or about 4 times the population of SC’s most heavily populated county (Greenville). This makes it readily apparent, to those who wish to see rather than shut their eyes, that Gaza is a wholly inappropriate “battlespace” for the type of warfare that Israel has been conducting. A campaign that, furthermore, has failed to achieve either of its two goals – the destruction of Hamas or the liberation of hostages – assuming those were ever its goals and that its aim has not been simply to exact vengeance.
Furthermore, it is insufficient and wrong to single out Netanyahu for this disaster. The ICC recognizes as much by holding out the prospect of international arrest warrants aimed at multiple members of his government. More fundamentally, the problem with how Israel has and is conducting this war goes beyond the current government there. This war is an expression of what happens when a people turns victim status into an identity, leading them to become self-righteous in their viciousness against others.
Hang on. You WERE talking about Hamas with that last sentence, right?
Nope, not at all. The Israeli campaign in Gaza cannot be described as anything other than vicious.
NPR ran an interview with a former US military surgeon who’d recently been in Gaza. He said that civilians are “consistently targets” and that medical aid, food and supplies have been “withheld on purpose” by Israel. I don’t know what to call that except viciousness.
Kenneth Roth, an expert in the field and long-time head of Human Rights Watch, writes:
“Is this death toll [in Gaza] an unfortunate byproduct of war or a reflection of Israeli misconduct?
Some people defend Israel’s behavior in Gaza by pointing to Hamas’s atrocities of October 7, its indiscriminate rocket attacks on populated areas in Israel, and its calls for the eradication of Israel, but these, too, bear on the country’s reasons for fighting, not the means by which it fights. None of Hamas’s actions justifies Israeli violations of the laws of war.
[B]y talking to witnesses there, using satellite imagery, and analyzing photos and videos that Israeli soldiers and Palestinian civilians have posted on social media, it is possible to determine that the Israeli government has repeatedly violated international humanitarian law in ways that amount to war crimes.
Defenders of the Israeli government like to contrast its behavior with Hamas’s deliberate targeting of civilians on October 7, but the contrast is less stark than they would have us believe.”
He then notes examples of Israel’s arguments for striking civilian targets (for ex: to create “shocks to Palestinian society generally”), along with establishing “kill zones” in which civilians are not distinguished from combatants, generating target lists based entirely on algorithms, the use of 2000 lb bombs in heavily populated areas, targeting evacuees along evacuation routes and in supposedly “safe zones,” brutal treatment incl. deaths of detainees, blocking and hindering the delivery of food and other aid for capricious and trivial reasons as part of a starvation strategy, etc, and then points out that each violates international law (one especially: the rule of proportionality).
Quite regrettably, the US is complicit in much of this – including by de-funding UNRWA, the only agency with the infrastructure and capacities to adequately supply Gaza with the humanitarian services it requires. And also by failing to condition any of the $18.8 billion in military aid provided to Israel. Biden`s failure to apply the significant leverage the US has, or can have, on Israel’s capacity to conduct war in Gaza has materially assisted in the destruction of Gaza and its people.
We as Americans could also try an approach to peace that didn’t involve sending billions of dollars in weapons to one of the participants. To suggest that this is a problem Israel and Palestine should work out by having new leaders is one approach we could take as well. Bombing Palestine into oblivion will work about as well as it did for the U.S. in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
First, no one is “bombing Palestine into oblivion.”
More to the point, nor did the U.S. in Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan.
We DID try that in Germany and Japan, and it worked. 100 percent.
Am I suggesting we or our allies do that now? Hell, no. I don’t know when, if ever, we will face such enemies again. I pray we will not, ever.
I’m just urging you to study history, and apply it to the present accurately….
“because I just spent more than an hour on two comments of yours and two of Doug’s.”
That’s your problem. Maybe just don’t feel like you have to edit, delete, comment on everything I say? Spending more than an hour on comments that I can produce in two minutes seems to be a very unproductive use of your time. Maybe just let them through without feeling the need to filter everything through your biased worldview? Who are you trying to protect from alternative views?
I’ve used my name on my comments since day one. If people don’t like what I have to say, they have multiple options: don’t read them (my name appears before the comments), read them and ignore them, or read them and respond (i.e. have a dialogue). You only want to control the narrative. As I’ve said before, try being an adult instead of a dictator.
Fortunately, I have an option.
It’s really interesting when I hear people say silly things about how terrible it is for me not to publish any nonsense somebody else wants me to publish on MY blog.
That’s how far civility has fallen in this country. Too few people know how to act like a guest in someone else’s digital home.