INCOMPREHENSIONS: Why would they call it an open-air prison?

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2023

"Is this the best way we can grow our good fruit?" All through the annals of human history, we learn about the varied fates of the planet's "disregarded peoples."

Some of these populations go on to be deeply despised. Some are then subject to genocides, as was the case with Europe's Jewish population in the middle of the past century.

As all sane people understand, that was one of human history's greatest mass crimes. As Donny Deutsch and Chuck Schumer have noted, the memory of that astonishing crime lives on in American families right up to the present day.

(Before we continue: In one of his last great songs, Woody Guthrie composed a song about a disregarded people. We'll link you to that song below. It's a song which is full of feeling, and full of instruction, about the way such disregard works.)

Europe's Jewish population was subject to one of human history's greatest crimes. There are very few comparable events in known history.

That said, is it possible that the Palestinian population of Gaza can be seen as a "disregarded people" today? We've often thought of Guthrie's song as we've watched some of the conversations about the terrible chains of events afflicting Israelis and Palestinians over the past two months.

Are the Gaza Palestinians a "disregarded people?" Consider some of what has been said about These American College Students Today—about the fact that many younger people are more inclined than their elders to hold "pro-Palestinian" viewpoints.

All the way back on November 11, the New York Times published a generally thoughtful, front-page report about the views and conceptual frameworks of those college students. Online, the dual headlines say this:

After Antisemitic Attacks, Colleges Debate What Kind of Speech Is Out of Bounds
Pro-Palestinian students say that they are speaking up for an oppressed people, but critics say that their rhetoric is deeply offensive.

At what point does "pro-Palestinian" speech become offensive, even antisemitic? On the whole, Hartocollis and Sail did a decent job exploring such questions—but we thought an unnecessary bit of incomprehension was floating around in this passage:

HARTOCOLLIS AND SAUL (11/11/23): “We stand staunchly against all forms of racism and bigotry,” said Anna Babboni, a senior at Scripps College in Claremont, Calif., and one of the leaders of the local chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine.

Ms. Babboni said her group is not antisemitic, but it is anti-Zionist. “We are fighting against a root cause, which is white supremacy, and trying to build a world which is beyond Zionism, beyond racism, beyond white supremacy,” she said. 

Pro-Palestinian students like Ms. Babboni see their movement as connected to others that have stood up for an oppressed people. And they have adopted a potent vocabulary, rooted in the hothouse jargon of academia, that grafts the history of the Israeli and Palestinian peoples onto the more familiar terms of social justice movements at home.

Referencing resistance movements, the pro-Palestinian cause is “anticolonial.” Echoing the struggle against institutionalized racism in South Africa, Israel is an “apartheid regime.” Resonating with the concern for Native American land rights, the Palestinians are “Indigenous peoples.” Gaza is a form of mass incarceration, “Israel’s open-air prison.”

Each and every term is contested by pro-Israel students and activists.

According to Hartocollis and Saul, some pro-Palestinian students see the events in question through the framework of present-day "social justice movements."

As such, they may engage in "the hothouse jargon" of present-day academia. Stating the obvious, a bit of prejudgment seemed to be lurking in the writers' use of that term.

Does the framework being described provide a helpful way to view the ongoing situation? That's a matter of judgment—but for ourselves, we were struck by the way Hartocollis and Saul folded in the use of the term, "open-air prison."

The reporters almost seemed to be puzzled by the students' use of that term. In fact, that unflattering term has been widely used down through the years, for fairly obvious reasons.

The term had been used by many people long before These Students Today came along. It seems to us that this Times report should perhaps have cited that fact.

Is the term in question useful? That's a matter of judgment. But the term has been around a good long while—and it helps explain why some of These Students Today might regard the Palestinians of Gaza as "a disregarded people."

Are the Palestinian people of Gaza living in an "open-air prison?" You can judge the fairness of that unflattering claim for yourself. But here's a brief history of the use of that term—a brief history which was published all the way back in the summer of 2015:

Gaza as an Open-Air Prison

In February, the well-known British street artist Banksy went to the Gaza Strip to draw attention to the plight of Palestinians in the aftermath of the devastating Israeli assault the previous summer. With regard to the murals he painted around the Strip, he wrote: “Gaza is often described as ‘the world’s largest open-air prison’ because no one is allowed to enter or leave. But that seems a bit unfair to prisons—they don’t have their electricity and drinking water cut off randomly almost every day.” This comment, a new iteration in a long history of describing Gaza as a place of confinement, is meant to point out the continuous degradation of living conditions in this sliver of land cut off from the rest of Palestine and the world.

[...]

Observers have been regularly describing Gaza as an open-air prison at least since the late 1990s. The term has been used by activists in the Palestinians’ corner (such as Noam Chomsky and Ralph Nader), by not-so-sympathetic officials (such as former World Bank head James Wolfensohn), by humanitarian and human rights organizations (such as Médecins Sans Frontières and B’Tselem), by reporters writing for a range of outlets and, perhaps most importantly, by Palestinians themselves. The twists offered by Banksy and the unnamed Israeli analyst suggest that conditions have become so dire that this language may now be inadequate to describe the state of affairs.

What does the term “open-air prison” connote? Perhaps the first referent for the term is the control over Palestinian movement that has been a central part of Israeli occupation practice. These restrictions are what Sinn Fein’s Gerry Adams pointed to when he said in 2009 that “this is a total denial of the rights of the people of Palestine. This is an open-air prison…. People can’t travel out of here; they can’t travel in.” And it is not only advocates for Palestinian rights who have noted this control. In the midst of the 2014 attack, the New York Times reported that “the vast majority of Gazans cannot leave Gaza…. Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain in 2010 called Gaza ‘an open-air prison,’ drawing criticism from Israel. But in reality, the vast majority of Gazans are effectively trapped.” Gazans suffer from their inability to move in and out of the Strip. Even Israeli officials might concede this point, though they would disagree about who is responsible.

Noam Chomsky had used the term. So had Ralph Nader, as had the former head of the World Bank.

Doctors Without Borders had used the term—and so had Prime Minister Cameron. The comparison isn't meant to be flattering, but the reasons for the comparison are fairly easy to state. 

Should Gaza be seen as an "open-air prison?" That is a matter of judgment. But in the summer of 2022, Human Rights Watch offered this retrospective on the conditions which were involved in the long-standing use of that term:

Gaza: Israel’s ‘Open-Air Prison’ at 15

Israel’s sweeping restrictions on leaving Gaza deprive its more than two million residents of opportunities to better their lives, Human Rights Watch said today on the fifteenth anniversary of the 2007 closure. The closure has devastated the economy in Gaza, contributed to fragmentation of the Palestinian people, and forms part of Israeli authorities’ crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution against millions of Palestinians.

Israel’s closure policy blocks most Gaza residents from going to the West Bank, preventing professionals, artists, athletes, students, and others from pursuing opportunities within Palestine and from traveling abroad via Israel, restricting their rights to work and an education. Restrictive Egyptian policies at its Rafah crossing with Gaza, including unnecessary delays and mistreatment of travelers, have exacerbated the closure’s harm to human rights.

“Israel, with Egypt’s help, has turned Gaza into an open-air prison,” said Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch. “As many people around the world are once again traveling two years after the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, Gaza’s more than two million Palestinians remain under what amounts to a 15-year-old lockdown.”

You may, or you may not, regard that as fair and balanced. But the use of that unflattering term wasn't invented by These College Students Today. It seemed to us that the largely instructive New York Times report should have tried to avoid the suggestion that these crazy college kids had somehow come up with a puzzling, jargony term.

For the record, a very important point is lodged in the first report we've posted. That very important point goes exactly like this:

Gazans suffer from their inability to move in and out of the Strip. Even Israeli officials might concede this point, though they would disagree about who is responsible.

Should Israel be held responsible for the remarkable conditions which gave rise to that unflattering term?

That's a matter of judgment! But Gazans live under a remarkable set of restrictions, and these restrictions have helped condemn this group of people to one of the highest poverty rates in the world.

In the aftermath of October 7, we saw few references to such facts in various angry conversations on such programs as Morning Joe and Deadline: White House. High level blue tribe pundits often seemed to be thoroughly puzzled by the incomprehensible outlooks and views of These College Students Today.

Why in the world would These College Kids present themselves as "pro-Palestinian?" Why would they express sympathy for the Palestinian people?

Angry pundits seemed to have no idea. They seemed to have little interest in finding out. In our view, they seemed to be locked in a type of incomprehension regarding the various human tragedies being enacted here.

That doesn't mean that these pundits are bad people. It may simply mean that they're people people. 

It's very easy for us humans to lock ourselves into some familiar limited viewpoint about some situation. Along the way, it's very easy for us to create another disregarded people.

For the record, some of Those College Kids Today may even be antisemitic. Quite surely, many others are not.

Some of those students probably have extremely limited judgment. (Some are just 19 years old!) But so do many of our major mainstream pundits, a fact they've established, down through the years, again and again and again. 

None of us have perfect judgment, but a great deal of American discourse slides past the circumstances of the people living in Gaza. In that sense, Gaza's Palestinians strike us as a "disregarded people," along with many other populations around the world. 

(Lip service may be paid to their circumstances. But at that point, the conversation quickly moves on.)

The Guthrie song to which we've referred is called Deportee. More fully, the title of the song is Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos), or simply Plane Wreck at Los Gatos.

The leading authority on the song traces its history here. It isn't clear that Guthrie understood the actual circumstances of the event which led him to write the song, though it may be that he actually did.

The Guthrie song isn't history; the song is human feeling. It deals with the deaths of some migrant farm workers who were part of a disregarded people. Its final verse asks this:

Is this the best way we can grow our big orchards?
Is this the best way we can grow our good fruit?
To die like the dry leaves 
That rot on my topsoil
And be known by no name except "deportee?"

We'll link you to a performance of the song below.

Back in October, Barack Obama said the situation in Gaza was "unbearable." You can see a writer from the Norwegian Refugee Council use the same term here, way back in 2018:

Gaza: The world’s largest open-air prison

More than 50 years of occupation and 10 years of blockade have made the lives of 1.9 million Palestinians living inside the Gaza Strip unbearable. That is why they now are protesting and risking their lives.

Palestinian children and youth grow up in a society characterised by fear, lack of security, hopelessness and the lack of work, medical services, food, freedom of movement and other essentials. Today many refer to the Gaza Strip as the world’s largest open-air prison...

None of us have done enough, Obama said in his statement. On behalf of Israelis and Gazans alike, we're prepared to suggest that his assessment was accurate.

In our view, pundits on our blue tribe's channel weren't doing nearly enough as they battered These College Kids Today—the inscrutable kids who were expressing those puzzling "pro-Palestinian" viewpoints.

Almost surely, some of those students have very limited judgment. At the same time, they may be aware of certain things their elders may tend to ignore, or may perhaps never have known. 

The adult pundits seemed uncomprehending concerning the views of these students. Sometimes, teaching our children and parents well can run in more than one direction.

In closing, this:

It's very easy to create "disregarded peoples." It's been done all through the course of human history. In the course of simplifying a terrible situation, do our pundits help do it today?

Meanwhile, "Is this the best way we can grow our good fruit?" 

That's the question Guthrie asked in one of his last great songs. We'll ask his question a different way:

Is this the best way we can frame our discussions? In our view, the conversations were uncomprehending on MSNBC, even worse over on Fox.

Song sung blue, Rolling Thunder style: To see Guthrie's song performed in the spring of '76, you can just click here. 

For us, the performance is full of feeling. For the full lyrics, click this.