On July 19, The Conversation Canada published a letter penned by their Culture & Society Editor Ibrahim Daair, filled with links directing readers to disinformation and outright fabrications about the ongoing war between Israel and the terrorist group Hamas, and the so-called ‘Palestinian culture’.
Daair opened his letter by writing that: “a recent paper in the British medical journal The Lancet estimated that ‘up to 186,000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza.’” What Daair conveniently didn’t mention is that this ‘paper’ isn’t actually a paper at all – it’s a letter published in the correspondence section of the journal; it’s the equivalent of a letter to the editor. This ‘paper’ was not peer reviewed and is not based on anything more than a half-baked opinion about what the long term outcome of the conflict may look like years or decades from now in a dystopian, worst-case scenario. The authors of that letter cited “severe shortages of food, water” as one of their factors which would lead to poor health outcomes. This alone should be enough to make one question their outrageous mortality numbers, given the fact that more food is entering the Gaza Strip now than before the conflict began.
A Direct Attempt To Erase Jewish Identity And History
Daair went on to direct his readers to a piece about Palestinian food culture, and the idea that the land was agriculturally ‘blooming’ prior to the establishment of Israel. Written by Ateqah Khaki and Vinita Srivastava, the article repeatedly described “Jewish Israelis” as colonizers who are bent on removing ‘indigenous’ Palestinian connections to the land. This narrative is a common one, despite it being a complete inversion of fact, history, archaeology and indeed the religious tradition of both Jews and Muslims alike. Trying to paint Jews as ‘colonizers’ in their own indigenous land is a direct attempt to erase Jewish identity and history, and to gain support from well-meaning, if ignorant, Westerners trying to assuage their own colonizer guilt. The narrative of “Jew as colonizer” is so blatantly ridiculous that anyone seriously engaging in it has lost all credibility to speak with any authority on the history of the region.
Finally, Daair directed his readers to a piece written by Elizabeth Vibert, a professor of colonial history at the University of Victoria. She argued that much of Western discourse around the Palestinian people is designed to paint them as backward savages who engage in violence to get what they want (that is, a Judenrein, or Jew-free, Israel). Leaving aside the very valid question of how exactly ‘liberation’ of Palestine is supposed to be carried out without violence, so much of what she said in this piece deserves only mockery, from the mention of the October 7 Hamas attacks that left over 1,200 Israelis dead being characterized as “defending their land with stones,” to this gem: “the dismissal of Palestinians as ‘barbaric’ or somehow less human is rooted in a long history of colonizing narratives, including views of Indigenous lands and peoples as ‘uncivilized.’”
The suggestion that “Palestinians” (who define themselves as Arabs) are somehow ‘indigenous’ to Israel shows a deep lack of understanding of what that term means. Simply because someone isn’t a white European does not grant them automatic indigenous status to everywhere else. Arabs are indigenous to the Arabian Peninsula (hence their name) – a long way from land in question. How exactly Vibert is defining that term is unclear, but her love letter to the Palestinian people doesn’t require something so conventional as an honest definition or exploration of ideas.
The suggestion that “Palestinians” (who define themselves as Arabs) are somehow ‘indigenous’ to Israel shows a deep lack of understanding of what that term means.
After all, Vibert cited Palestinian-American author Edward Said and his concept of ‘orientalism’ to explain away the supposed western tendency to cast Palestinians as barbaric or savage. Supposedly, she claims, the public sees the world as ‘West’ vs. ‘East’, ‘Us’ vs. ‘Them’. This is an interesting take, given that it is the Palestinian leadership and their allies that are constantly chanting ‘death to the West’, and who have made it their mission to eliminate the Jewish people, not the other way around. The mental gymnastics necessary to arrive at the conclusion that it is Israel (or the West) responsible for the ongoing conflict, simply because Jews have the temerity to continue to exist, is mind boggling.
Ultimately, that’s the real problem with Daair’s round up of articles. They all begin from the premise that Jews have no right to live in their ancestral land, no history in the region, and that whatever culture existed there was de facto Arab. Perhaps Daair should look beyond the borders of his echo chamber to educate himself on the reality of the region’s history and culture, if he is indeed looking to have an honest ‘conversation.’
For its part, TheConversation.com, a news outlet that receives Canadian government funding from the Canada Periodical Fund, the government of Quebec, and scores of Canadian universities, continues to spread anti-Israel propaganda.
