The Amira Hass Stone-Throwing Debacle and Public Discourse on the Arab-Israeli Conflict

On April 3, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz published an opinion piece by its (Israeli-Jewish) reporter Amira Hass which discussed Palestinian stone-throwing in the West Bank. In her article, Hass proclaimed that “throwing stones is the birthright and duty of anyone subject to foreign rule” and  proceeded to suggest that Palestinian schools teach classes in this type of resistance. Hass added that “limitations could include the distinction between civilians and those who carry arms, between children and those in uniform, as well as the failures and narrowness of using weapons.”

The following couple of weeks brought with it a torrent of responses from other journalists and commentators, from her defenders, who claimed that she had written a quality article, to her opponents, who claimed that Hass had promoted terrorism. While the flames of this debacle have largely died down, it may be worthwhile to take a look back at the whole spectacle. The deluge of articles responding to Hass actually provides a valuable case study on the discourse that often envelops the Arab-Israeli conflict: The tendency to de-legitimize and demonize those with whom one disagrees and to conflate people who hold different opinions with terrorists or those who wish to quash civil liberties and basic human rights.

In The Jewish Press, a popular Jewish newspaper published in the United States, Meir Indor claimed that Hass supported the stone-throwers “who mortally wounded baby Adelle Biton” (a three-year-old Israeli toddler still in intensive care as a result of a stone-throwing attack on the car she was in a few weeks ago) and “who seriously injured musician Itzik Kalah’s wife, Tziyona, four months ago near Beitar Ilit.” By invoking the killing of civilians and infants, Indor appeals to basic human emotions in an attempt to “prove” Hass’s heartlessness. Either Indor did not read all of Hass’s article, including where she recommends (as noted above) that “limitations could include the distinction between civilians and those who carry arms, between children and those in uniform,” or he was bested by the desire to blacklist someone with whom he disagrees. A critique that better reflects reality may have instead condemned Hass for writing that limitations “could” include distinctions between soldiers versus non-soldiers instead of writing “should.” Readers of Inbor’s article are left with the impression that Hass knowingly and intentionally gave the green light for future stone-throwers to prey on infants and plain-clothed Israelis, conflating the Haaretz journalist with terrorists. This is an all too common symptom of the discourse surrounding the Arab-Israel conflict: No room for grey areas; either you are “with us or against us.”

Dror Eydar, a columnist for Israel Hayom, one of Israel’s most widely-read newspapers, exemplified this mindset perhaps most poignantly. After acknowledging that Hass wrote that stones may only be thrown at soldiers in uniform, he asked rhetorically, “Is Hass calling on the killers from Hamas and Fatah to use their knives, rifles, explosive devices and suicide vests “only” against soldiers? Am I the only one who reads it that way?” By asking this question, Eydar is able to conflate Hass with support for knife-wielding, guns and bombs even though she never expressed support of any of these methods of violence (or for Fatah and Hamas). Finally, in his concluding remarks, Eydar wrote that Hass “is not one of us; any ties that woman may have with the Jewish state are purely coincidental. She has effectively ended her association with the Jewish people through this piece.” The “with us or against us” ethos could not be clearer.

Arguing for Amira Hass, Neve Gordon and Nicola Perugini lamented in a joint article on AlJazeera.net, an English-language news site affiliated with the pan-Arab satellite television network of the same name, that those who disagree with Hass are part of an organized anti-democratic front in Israel that seeks to repress and criminalize all criticism of Israeli policies in the West Bank. Towards the end of their argument, they set their sights on Sara Hirschhorn, a postdoctoral fellow at the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies at Brandeis University, who wrote in an article responding to Hass that settlers deserve at least the minimal of rights, such as the right to live free from the threat of physical harm (even though Hass never says settlers do not have this right). Gordon and Perugini take what should be an uncontroversial statement by Hirschhorn as a “clear indication” of her unbridled support for making Israeli dissidents “aware, through legal threats, that opposition and resistance, or even thinking and writing about decolonization, could constitute a criminal act.” Yet had Gordon and Perugini taken the time to take a more serious look at Hirschhorn’s publications, they would have seen that Hirschhorn herself opposes some of Israel’s policies in the West Bank–an act they claim Hirschhorn is trying to criminalize. For Gordon and Perugini, then, you are also either “with us or against us”–there is no room for an existence anywhere in between.

Fellow Haaretz journalist Gideon Levy’s article in defense of Hass at once declares that both he and Hass are against violence, period. However, he also writes that a large part of the Israeli populace “ignores the original, fundamental, institutionalized and methodical violence of the very fact of the occupation and its mechanisms.” Towards the end of the article, Levy writes a particularly telling paragraph:

A stone can indeed be lethal. So can a rubber-tipped bullet, a tear gas grenade, live fire, bombs and shells. The fact that these latter weapons are used by Israel does not dull their violence. The claim that Israel uses them solely for self-defense is just as ridiculous as the claim, also voiced in the heat of emotion, that Israel is the victim of this entire bloody story and that the occupation was in fact imposed (!‏) on it.

Levy intimates that there is simply a spiral of violence in the West Bank, initiated by the Israeli occupation, to which Palestinians unfortunately yet justifiably respond with stones.

Towards the end of his article, Levy asks Hass’s detractors: “What do you expect? What are you…offering the Palestinians? Do you honestly think they will bow their heads in submission and obedience for another 46 years [of occupation]?” Levy seems to forget that it is possible to be both against stone-throwing and against the occupation. He ignores the fact that it is possible to adamantly oppose all violence — including the throwing of stones — yet support other, non-violent forms of political dissent.

Stone-throwing does kill and cause severe injury, and ought to be shunned for this reason. Conversely, the current status quo of occupation in the West Bank is in fact undesirable, as even perennial Israel defender Alan Dershowitz has said in a debate with none other than Gideon Levy himself. While Hass and her supporters frame Palestinian stone-throwing as an act of self-defense against an occupying force that exists in a static state of shooting at unarmed Palestinians indiscriminately, the reality is that even though Israeli soldiers do sometimes use excessive force against Palestinians, this is not the Israeli army’s raison d’etre. This is what Hass and many of her supporters seem to miss. Moreover, how will throwing stones at Israeli soldiers further peace? This question is also not addressed.

Although Hass may have only meant to support stone-throwing at Israeli soldiers in uniform as an act of defiance and not of violence, she in effect supported both. Hass left the door open for the killing Israeli soldiers in uniform with stones. This idea may have been a better focus for many of the arguments against (or for) Hass, yet much too often this was not the case. What legitimizes throwing stones even at soldiers? What legitimizes their deaths? If a nineteen-year-old Israeli soldier simply taking a break from his or her duties is killed by a stone in the West Bank tomorrow, would Hass justify it? Hopefully she would not, but it may be worthwhile to pose this question. To ask these questions is simply an attempt to stay on point and take what Hass actually wrote to its logical conclusion.

Finally, when thinking about the issue of throwing stones at soldiers, relevant international law would seem to be an excellent point of departure for discussion. Yet neither Hass nor most of the commentaries on her article ever delve into this crucial aspect of the issue.

Unfortunately, as the Hass spectacle has shown, the discourse surrounding the Arab-Israeli conflict often spirals out of control, with people who hold different ideas demonizing the other as murderers or agents of anti-democratic forces who seek to quash all dissent. Despite the unpredictable nature of the Arab-Israeli conflict, here we can assume one thing: This type of discourse surrounding the Arab-Israeli conflict will not cease anytime soon.