For a politics of empathy

Rory Hamilton

It feels rather futile to write about Palestine today. We are nearly one year on from the beginning of the carpet bombing and genocidal destruction of the Gaza Strip, and yet I don’t feel as though the situation will ease any more quickly for the Palestinians suffering past the deaths of 40,000 of their friends and family.

I spend a lot of my time thinking about Palestine. It is quite surreal the position I’m sure many of us find ourselves in. For example, I live in a flat, which although the rent is too high, is comfortable and homely, meanwhile my social media feeds are filled with the rubble and ruins of what is left of Gaza city, Khan Younis, Rafah and the displaced Palestinians forced into homelessness and inadequate temporary refugee camps; not to mention the regular footage I come across of Israeli soldiers and citizens taking an active part in pushing Palestinians off their land in the West Bank either by force or by intimidation.

I then think what a fortunate position I am in: I am studying a PhD at the University of Glasgow, and in addition I work for Common Weal. While neither of these roles pay particularly well, but I have the comfort of working from home or working at the University should I wish. There are no universities left in Gaza. They have all been reduced to rubble, and the intellectual and cultural produce all but erased. The erasure of structures which reproduce knowledge and cultural ways of knowing and being is one of the hallmarks of genocide. Not only is the actual extinction of the people being targeted enough to remove them physically from the face of the earth, their entire existence, their histories, the marks and impressions left upon the world, whether in scientific innovation or artistic creativity also wiped out.

There are other small daily contradictions which plague our lives. If I want to eat I need merely look in my fridge and rustle something up, likely using a video from TikTok or Instagram these days - while I’m looking for such a video, I very likely might come across Hamada Sho (@hamadashoo), a food vlogger documenting the meals he makes for Palestinians in their refugee camps, a little hope. This joy might be short-lived, however, as the next video I come across is of a child standing underneath the frame of an aid truck trying to catch the drips of water coming off the metal into their mouth because they are so starved. If I find myself feeling particularly unwell, while our NHS is under constant heavy strain, I can still go to the GP or the pharmacy, pick up a prescription and sort out most ailments in a few days. While I’m in the waiting room however, my social media will show me photos and videos of children and adults in Palestine with the most horrendous skin conditions, or bodies riddled with polio, the pain of these people unconveyable in the distance between us. And this isn’t even to mention the working conditions of the doctors and nurses whose hospitals have been shelled beyond recognition, and who operate on limited power supplies, and with little to no resources, leaving those with the worst conditions or in need of amputations suffering without pain relief or anaesthetic. 

The overriding emotion all this causes me is a sense of guilt - what more could I do beyond my work with Common Weal, Skotia, demonstrating on Saturdays when I can, signing petitions for a ceasefire and for divestment, boycotting brands, and giving money? None of it feels like it makes any particular difference, although glimmers of hope appear when I read that the boycott of brands like Starbucks and McDonald’s has resulted in major financial losses for them and a visible panic in the marketing strategies of many companies listed by the BDS movement. 

So sense my anger when, after a period of steadfast support for the Palestinian cause, Culture and External Affairs Secretary Angus Robertson MSP gladly shares an image of himself with the new Israeli deputy ambassador to the UK, highlighting the discussions held between the two parties. Yes the Scottish government could have done more in the way of divesting from Israeli via its funding for arms companies, but Humza Yousaf’s premiership showed an active and vocal engagement with the issue, voting in favour of ceasefire and supporting aid measures to the tune of around £750,000 last autumn. And now Angus Robertson and John Swinney expect us to accept that such a meeting was not a normalisation of relations and ask us to be happy with the sacrifice of John Mason MSP (who quite frankly should have gone long before this week). How dare they?

Ilan Pappé and Noam Chomsky’s On Palestine turns 10 this year, and in Pappé’s opening summation of the ‘old and new conversations’ he highlights a number of paradoxes in the discourse on Palestine and Israel. Namely, that change in world public opinion on the issue of Palestine has occurred alongside the continued support from the political and economic elites in the West for the Jewish state. And while specific Israeli policies are severely criticised and condemned, the very nature of the Israeli regime and the ideology that produces these politics are not. Finally, that the tale of Palestine is the simple story of colonialism and dispossession, yet the world treats it as a multifaceted and complex story.

Robertson and Swinney characterise Pappé’s criticisms in their recent actions. It is crucial that statesmen and politicians do not treat the Israeli state and its diplomats as separate from the ideology which is leading the regime to carpet bomb this tiny strip of land with more tonnes of explosives than London, Hiroshima, and Dresden in WWII combined. While Robertson claims that “no one intended that this meeting be presented as legitimising the actions of the Israeli government in Gaza,” the mere acknowledgement of Israeli diplomats as statespersons to be met with whilst their colleagues are committing genocide provides them with legitimacy as an international actor.

Robertson goes on in his statement to say that “it is clear that it would have been better to ensure that the meeting was strictly limited to the need for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza,” which indicates two things: 1) that the meeting was not simply limited to the Scottish government making its position on a ceasefire in Gaza clear (as he states earlier), i.e. that discussions went beyond this issue and therefore the Scottish government treated the Israeli state as a normal state to engage in normal relations with; and 2) that the SNP leadership views the issues of Israeli policy on Gaza (namely genocide) and the Zionist-colonialist ideology which underpins it as entirely separately, i.e. it must treat the atrocities in Gaza as an isolated issue, and normal relations if not already resumed can be resumed after a ceasefire is agreed. This latter point appears to trickle down directly from the transatlantic foreign policy playbook, to which Angus Robertson subscribes (having been a key instigator in the SNP’s policy change to a pro-NATO position in 2012).

The (non)apologetic statement goes on to say, “it is clear that, having now spoken direct to the Israeli government and making them aware of our position on an immediate ceasefire, it would not be appropriate to accept any invitation for a further meeting.” Imagine my incredulity reading this - surely these are not facts which either party was unaware of before the meeting? If the Scottish government was unwavering in its commitment to a ceasefire the Israeli deputy ambassador would have been aware of the Scottish government’s past statements and financial aid to Gaza, and vice versa, Scottish government officials cannot have ignored the very clear signals sent by Benjamin Netanyahu that a ceasefire does not appear in their lexicon, let alone on the horizon. If neither party was aware, then either they must be extremely bad at their jobs or ignorant to an unprofessional degree - the question that begs therefore, is why would it be appropriate to accept a meeting for the first meeting, let alone any further conversation?

The answer lies in the the old centrist mantra: ask for forgiveness, not for permission. As was the way with Starmer’s Labour, being late to the party to take a moral stance is trademark centrism - they are feart of taking a bold position and drawing a line in the sand. I am particularly drawn to Nicola Sturgeon’s timid words on the “reassessment” of new oil and gas fields in 2021 and the long held position that any such developments would be required to meet a set of stringent tests - equivocating which has opened the door to John Swinney dropping the commitment to no new oil and gas developments.

When the time comes, and the parts played by politicians and international institutions in legitimising Israel’s actions or in perpetuating an already out of control climate crisis are assessed, equivocal positions such as these provide centrist politicians with the wiggle room to say “ah but look we did condemn the actions (just forget about all that fence sitting we did),” whilst benefiting from the real-time cosy diplomatic or industrial relations fostered by their vacuous statements. Our job is not to let them.

I would ask John Swinney or Angus Robertson, how would they justify the meeting they both signed off on if they were asked face to face by a Palestinian whose life would be denied by the Israeli Deputy Ambassador? If they had family affected by the actions of the Israeli state would they be legitimising the institutions of Israeli oppression?

Of course it shouldn’t take having a direct connection to encourage empathy or doing the right thing. That might indeed be a far stretch for the centrist ideology which encourages a sterile view of politics, steeped in moral ambiguity. So those of us with empathy, with guilt, with despair must do our utmost to continue to pile on the pressure and ensure our demands for justice are not ignored.

Maybe one day a politics of empathy will prevail, but it will be a constant struggle and it will be championed by people overcoming oppression, like those in Palestine.