Palestinian activist: Israeli crisis is ‘internal conflict over the means of oppressing’ us

Palestinian activist Majd Kayyal (Picture: PalFest/Flickr)

Israeli society is collapsing deeper into crisis as its right wing government pushes ahead with plans to remove judicial controls on the government. For weeks, demonstrations by Israelis defending their “democracy” have grown ever larger, and now groups of military reservists are refusing to sign on for duty. Yet—although the crisis concerns the occupation of Palestine and how to manage it—there’s been little focus on voices of Palestinians and the question of their resistance. Socialist Worker spoke to Majd Kayyal, a Palestinian activist based in Haifa.

What do you think about the Israeli “democracy” protests? I understand that most Palestinians in 48 Palestine—the area inside Israel’s official borders— aren’t joining them. Protest organisers exclude the question of Palestinian rights. But also, because there is no democracy for Palestinians in Israel.

Our perspective on what is happening is not only a question of is there or is there not democracy. And it’s not only a question about whether the movement includes Palestinians and Palestinian issues. The protest and the conflict itself are deeper than that.

The two sides conflicting in Israel are fighting over control of the state, which also means controlling the means of our oppression. It’s an internal conflict over the means of oppressing the Palestinians.

Both of these sides are well established in Israel’s settler society in Palestine. The whole creation of this state was built upon one ethos, which is colonising the place and destroying Palestinian life.

Today we are witnessing two different sides that are in conflict over what methods they should use to oppress the Palestinians.

We see in everything that’s happening now the huge presence and voice of the military in these protests. Okay there are these demonstrations, but what is really creating the pressure on the government is the threat of the generals, the pilots and the military who are stopping taking part in training.

There are interviews in Israeli news outlets such as Haaretz with the soldiers that are refusing to serve. They are all proud of their war crimes. But they say, “We did it under a contract with a democratic state and we knew that there was a court to supervise this, and so we did the work.”

There are pilots, soldiers and generals who are suddenly very shocked by the burning of Hawara carried out by settlers. But these are the same soldiers who razed hundreds of buildings in Gaza and the West Bank.

Some of these people talk about the war crimes they have done as proof that they care about serving their democracy. One soldier in Haaretz talks about how these used ambulances to enforce checkpoints during clashes in the West Bank. And how they hid the ambulance symbol so as not to be caught doing it. But yes, he says, we did it as part of a democracy.

But now the new government wants to manage the occupation and do the same crimes, but without the court.

So for Palestinians, is this a case of being able to sit back and watch Israel’s crisis unfold, or does it present new opportunities for the resistance?

This is happening in parallel with catastrophic police brutality against Palestinians. There is also an argument going on between the Israeli police and Israeli security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. This conflict is mainly related to the Israeli protests. But it also related to Ben-Gvir’s incursions into Jerusalem, and related to dealing with Palestinian activists and demonstrations.

I think what is happening is that, in order to win more favour from the minister, the police are using more force with Palestinians, especially in Jerusalem. They are way more aggressive.

This has continued since the Palestinian uprising of 2021. But more recently the government banned flying the Palestinian flag in Israel.

Any small demonstration that has even just 100 people, half a year ago would have passed quietly. Now the fact that you know there will be a Palestinian flag means you know, even before you arrive, that there will be clashes. That’s because the police are so insistent on taking down the flag.

Activists know that if they turn up to a demonstration there is a high probability that this will not end well. You have to remember that people are still feeling the repression after the mass demonstrations we had two years ago.

People are now being sentenced. Every few days you hear of someone getting eight years in jail, ten years in jail, two years in jail. The police are also targeting activists and I think they have managed to sabotage many movements.

But at the same time it’s important to mention that there is always one area of Palestine that is the focus of the resistance. In 2021, everyone was out together, although without much of the West Bank.

Now all eyes are on the West Bank—on Jenin or Nablus. There’s something that is happening at the level of people’s consciousness. That’s very good because it breaks the illusion crafted by Israel and America of the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) control in the West Bank.

Now the PA’s control is collapsing in front of their eyes. We used to look at the West Bank, at how brutal the occupation and the PA was, and wonder if it was really possible that people there could get rid of this very complicated regime that collaborates with Israel.

So, it’s a huge surprise that the armed resistance is going on in the West Bank and it’s not stopping. It’s a very popular kind of resistance. It’s armed, but not like a formal military organisation. It’s just instead of stones and Molotov cocktails they have guns.

It’s not that there’s tactics and a hierarchy. It’s something that has evolved out of popular and individual resistance that took the form of attacks. People are fighting out of their own houses, and every neighbourhood has its own groups of armed men.

Social bonds and ties are rebuilt through supporting this kind of resistance to create a safe community for the fighters. You feel this is rebuilding.

That doesn’t mean we can’t think critically about what is happening. But there is something fascinating in the ability of people to recreate and regenerate resistance, no matter what happens, no matter what the PA or Israel do.

This ability to regenerate resistance is a lesson, I think, for humanity.