Is Palestine a “Muslim” issue? I regularly see some variation of the question these days—with predictably passionate, and sometimes acrimonious, responses.
In short: yes, it is.
Saying otherwise strikes me as partaking of that peculiar phenomenon in which Western pundits discuss Palestine as they want it to be and not as it actually exists.
There are caveats, though. Calling Palestine a “Muslim” issue can mean hundreds of different things. Are you talking about an issue of the spirit? Of ideology? Of theology? Of devotion? Of charity? Of jihad? Of endurance? Of principle? Of scripture? Of genetics? Of fate? Of identity? Or are you talking about everything? (If so, you might want to slow down.)
At the level of terminology, the intersection of Palestine and Islam can be brutally complicated, and that’s before we get to the even more complicated matters of faith and religious identity. What if we change the question slightly: is Palestine an Islamic issue? This wording shifts the debate. Is Palestine an Islamicate issue? The debate shifts again. The terms are too dynamic for a static conversation.
Neither is Palestine a static nation. Palestine defies singularity. Being a Muslim issue doesn’t prevent it from also being a secular issue, a catholic issue, a cosmopolitan issue, a class issue, a material issue, a socialist issue.
A few things stand out about the intersection of Palestine and Islam. Efforts to disassociate the two aren’t merely personal preferences; they speak to specific political and philosophical commitments.
Claiming that Palestine isn’t a “Muslim” issue—a claim that by its nature is categorically impossible—can serve various purposes. Sometimes the point is to highlight the importance of a secular future. Sometimes it’s to ensure that Palestinian Christians don’t feel left out. Sometimes it’s to challenge the popular understanding of Palestine-Israel as a religious conflict. All are valuable arguments.
But sometimes one gets the impression that the speaker is trying to delink Islam from Palestine as a way to make Palestinians more legible to a Western audience. This approach is ahistorical and unethical, like any other that instrumentalizes Palestinians to the psychic benefit of our oppressor, and can tacitly validate Israel’s demographic paranoia. The problem is evident in narratives that conceptualize Hamas as extraneous or anathema to Palestinian society. One doesn’t need to support Hamas to recognize the incontestable fact that Palestinians in the Arab World (including Christians) overwhelmingly approve of how the organization handled the latest war with Israel, or to recognize that Hamas is a major player in Palestine’s civic landscape.
Sometimes there’s a subtext (or explicit context) of ethnic conflict in delinking Palestine and Islam: just because you’re Muslim, a Palestinian might say to a Pakistani or Senegalese or Indonesian, doesn’t mean you have some intimate claim to Palestine, or that your viewpoint can supersede a Palestinian’s. I generally find these approaches unfair, if not hostile. Non-Arab Muslims have plenty of reason to care deeply about Palestine and to feel like it’s a personal issue. (We expect non-Arab Muslims to speak up for Palestine, after all.) We’ve built many wonderful friendships on this premise. This subtext tends to be contingent on the viewpoint of the non-Arab Muslim in relation to a Palestinian audience. When it comes to Muslim Zionists invoking their faith to whitewash Israel’s brutality, for example, national identity will supersede religious affiliation.
(The same dynamic pertains to non-Palestinian Arabs vis-à-vis Palestinians.)
As always, though, it depends on which Palestinian audience we’re talking about. People like to accumulate rhetorical authority by invoking birthright, which sometimes feels necessary, but it’s easy to match an ethnic subject to any political position. There’s a Palestinian for every belief or sensibility. Communal principles are more important than individual proclivities.
Ethnic identity isn’t the only complication. Islam itself doesn’t exist in singularity; it too has deep-seated and intricate relationships with almost every ideology and geopolitical issue on the planet. Questions of basic ontology often get lost in simplistic perceptions of Islam, particularly in the binaristic logic which suggests that emphasis on Islam deprives an issue of its human dimension. Insisting that Palestine is a “human” issue can unwittingly set up a dichotomy between Islam and humanity. If an issue is understood to be Muslim as against the human, then it follows that the Muslim forfeits humanity.
Instead of wondering if Palestine is a Muslim issue, perhaps it’s better to reframe the question. Certainly Palestine is an issue for Muslims, as it should be. If anything, I’d like to see more Muslims (at least among civic organizations in North America) take a firmer line on Palestinian liberation.
A final caveat:
Once you begin talking about Palestine as some quixotic avatar of a future theocracy, we part ways and I feel compelled to assert a filial claim to the nation—or at least an analytical claim to the vibrant and nonsectarian Palestinian intellectual tradition.
For in the end—and this is something never to forget—Palestine is not raw material for oblique or ulterior ideological ambitions. The nation’s future belongs to the human beings embedded in its past, in all our messy and incongruous complexity.
I would consider the fact that there has yet to be a state named Palestine. However, setting that argument aside, the next concern regarding its status as a Muslim issue is more is it a Muslim problem. If its support derives from its identity as Muslim, that is a problem, but as its support has diminished greatly among Muslim states, it may not be an issue nor a problem.
I would like to see more Muslims (at least among civic organizations in North America) take a firmer line on Palestinian Arab terrorism stemming from radical Islamist ideology than the issue of the formation of a second (Jordan is the first) Palestinian state.
This is the ultimate red herring by racist surpremacists known as Zionists. Anyone with a micro knowledge of history can easily refute the claim about a “state” called Palestine by pointing out how “states” are a colonial concept. This is why Zionazis make the argument because illegal colonials only use colonial concepts.
Palestine has its root name in the word Philistine, as it is called in Arabic, Turkish, Farsi, Kurdish, Ethiopian, Ancient Hebrew and a dozens of other languages in the region. Palestine was the version pronounced by the Greeks after they occupied the region during their empire building. The Philistines have always been the dominant ethnic group in the land. It’s how historically lands were given names. That’s why it’s been Palestine and Philistine (depending on your language) for thousands of years.
But illegal colonials will never admit this. Their goals are to confuse everyone with fabricated colonial history. Thankfully thsse lies are no longer working. The world has seen the truth collectively and there’s no turning back.
Red Herrings. Zionazis. Illegal colonials. Confuse everyone. Is this a typical “educated” supporter of Palestinian Arab terrorism? Seems that a “Goliath” is looking to be beaten by the Israelite David again.
Terrorism he says! https://mondoweiss.net/2018/04/unhappy-history-massacres/
MondoWeiss is a propaganda site that often veers into antisemitic dogma. The owner and chief bottle washer is an accidental Jew with identity and morality issues. It is a favorite site used by antisemites.
I’d like to see more Jews everywhere
take a firmer line against the violence of Israeli settlers, the IDF, and the Israeli government itself visited against Muslims who reside in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza.
“I would consider the fact that there has yet to be a state named Palestine.”
There certainly was one, Sig(heil!)man, but right-wing scum like you stole it.
There never was one. That is your problem. You refuse to recognize reality.
You refer to us as “Catholic” which is not correct. The majority of Palestinian Christians are Greek Orthodox, but we prefer being addressed as Palestinian Christians (not “Catholic”) even though Catholicism falls under the umbrella of Palestinian Christianity, along with other Christian churches/beliefs. Very much like islam.
Also, as a Palestinian Christian who has as deep of an identity and history in Palestine as my Muslim sisters and brothers, I think it’s clear to understand why its difficult (impossible) to see Palestine as a ‘Muslim issue’. Every time I hear that, It makes me feel canceled, left out, sidelined, minimized and marginalized and that is a feeling that triggers me to be very vocal about the fact that Palestine is an “all Palestinians” issue. And as passionately as I feel about that fact, I’m equally passionate and insistent that the messaging to the entire world should always be that we Palestinian Christians, Muslims secularists and everything in between stand firmly side by side United as one against our common enemy. That we would take a bullet for each other.. and actually do… It is that messaging that needs to be enforced by each and every Palestinian with a platform. Because the issue of Palestine is truly not as complicated as some would like to make it…
“catholic” in the lowercase: an adjective meaning a wide variety, all-embracing–Steve
You are left out, sidelined, minimized and marginalized. It is intended. When Hamas takes over as representing all of the resident Arabs in the disputed territories, the Christian exodus, if allowed, will be profound.
Wow. I thought you were just some asshole Zionist, but you’re a brainless fuck, to boot.
You can read, eh?
Fuck you, Sig(heil!)man!
Thank you for proving my point.
Academic integrity grounded in authentic moral spirituality produces intricate articles such as this. Dealing with an emotionally charged topic, a highly complex issue and a brutally censored material, with a great deal of understanding, fairness and sensitivity.
RESPECT my dear brother.
Palestine, a land embedded deeply in spirituality and in what is beyond the limited materialistic perception of existence.
Denying that aspect of history of this land and its culture prevents the interested observer from seeing the whole picture, thus seeing only fragments of disconnected history, present and future, leading to a complete failure in diagnosis of the present situation, thus the inability to envisage and work for a realistic, just and peaceful solution leading to a better future.
https://nahidaexiledpalestinian.com/2012/04/28/palestine-a-moment-of-reflection/?fbclid=IwAR27kuRt-kipYdNMQV9jNCUU05jLK5SzVP18HkIuFtQbH92F68_Rz7HtXgI
The problem with how the entire Mideast Conflict, in my opinion, has been framed in the U.S. (really since the Suez Crisis ended in 1957: when Eisenhower and Dulles forced Nasser to abide by the UN resolution to reopen it, essentially, UNDER NUCLEAR THREAT — which then-caused an ensuing “demarcation line” throughout the Cold War, of America believing the Arab world was on the Soviet “side”) is that, now: IT’S THE SAME LEVEL OF MYOPIC PROPAGANDA OBSESSED WITH EITHER — Israel telling us the Palestinians are (virtually) reincarnated Nazis or the Pentagon implying they’re Al-Quaeda’s brethern(!). Kicker to the equation (one notices from the track records of how BOTH the Israeli and U.S. governments lie through their teeth) is that: the American interest in Israel, at the end of the day, is a strategic one TO DRAG RUSSIA INTO A WAR. Israel is the U.S.’s proxy stooge to irk Putin; either over Syrian skirmishes or Ukraine nationalism (which, in the case of Ukraine: Israeli intelligence and -again- colonialism have, bizarrely?, somehow even managed to whitewash THAT country’s notoriety of being the neo-Nazi capital of Eurasia!). I am a U.S. Christian by birth, but became an agnostic thirty years’ ago in my teens (I think full-blown “atheists” tend-to be intellectually dishonest egomaniacs driven more by hating their parents — more than having any personal, deep-rooted sense of self realization seeing organized religion often as being just another corrupted POLITICAL institution). HOWEVER: it is not in the soul of ANY well-intentioned being of this Earth to remotely try to justify the way Big War Inc. feels it can condemn the Palestinian people, for example, into being casualties of a pathological empire hellbent on accelerating some sort-of Armageddon.
Where the hell did you read the nonsense you are spouting?