Bad metaphors for Israel-Palestine

Crypto-fascist grifter Caitlin Johnstone analogizes the conflict in Israel-Palestine with a sandwich.

I have heard a thousand variants of this sort of allegory. They drive me bats because despite Israel hardliners being thoroughly terrible, anti-Israel commentators reliably insist on overstating their strong case with disingenuous misrepresentations of the history of Israel-Palestine and pro-Israel arguments.

Israel supporter: [Walks up to a guy at a restaurant, grabs his sandwich, starts eating it.]

Guy: Hey!

Israel supporter: What?

Guy: That’s my sandwich!

Israel supporter [still eating]: Sandwich? What sandwich?

Guy: Right there! You’re eating it right now!

Israel supporter: No I’m not.

Guy: Oh my God! You’re standing right in front of me eating my sandwich! I can see you doing it with my own eyes!

Israel supporter [finishing sandwich]: Nope. Never happened.

Guy: You owe me another sandwich you prick! You stole from me!

Israel supporter: So you’re saying Jews steal? That’s an anti-semitic canard!

Guy: What?? I didn’t even know what religion you are! I’m just mad you stole my sandwich and ate it right in front of me!

Israel supporter: That never happened. Or if it did happen it wasn’t me. Or if it was me I had to do it because another guy did something that left me no choice, so you should blame him.

Guy: Gah!!

Israel supporter: Actually come to think of it I’m beginning to suspect maybe YOU ate MY sandwich.

Guy: How is this happening? This is ridiculous!

Israel supporter: Again with the Jew hating!

Guy: Why the hell do you keep babbling about Jews?? This has nothing to do with Jews! This is about you personally and the specific thing you just did!

Israel supporter: Okay Hitler. [Steals silverware on the table, exits.]

So here’s my attempt at a version which recognizes the injustices and power relationships without misrepresenting the arguments, history, or dynamics so badly.

I: [eating a sandwich]

P: You stole my sandwich.

I: Maybe my grandmother took your grandfather’s
     sandwich. Get over it.

P: Doesn’t make that sandwich yours.

I: She shared it with a starving Auschwitz survivor.

P: So? I’m starving, and you owe me my sandwich.
      [punches I]

I: Fine, I’ll share. Just stop that!
      [hands a small portion to P]
      [puts knee on P’s neck]

P: No compromises on what’s mine!
      Give me your whole sandwich!
      [punches I]

I: [leans on P’s neck]

I & P: This maniac hates me for no reason!

Of course what this most reveals is the inadequacy of a sandwich as a metaphor.

Over on Twitter, a friend objected to an earlier version of this reframing of the sandwich story, offering a different metaphor:

If the police illegally kicked you out of your home, gifted it to a random family, and then said, “we’ll give you the basement, but that’s all”, would you be okay with splitting your home with those illegally occupying it? Or would you only accept your home back as solely yours?

I replied:

I understand and respect why many Palestinians refuse to accept any legitimacy for Israel, or for Israelis’ presence in Israel.

If Ali bursts into Ben’s house and kills one of Ben’s children, because Ben’s grandparents stole the house from Ali’s grandparents, I also understand and respect why Ben is going to itch to have cops treat Ali roughly.

I am not drawing an equivalence between Both Sides here. Israel has perpetrated countless wrongs. It is simple to see that this newest round of horrors is unjustifiable. And a truly just way forward is not so simple.

It’s damn near impossible. Israel has actively provoked Palestinians, by continually encroaching on their land, allowing settler colonialists to violently displace more Palestinian families, claiming “iF i dOn’T sTeAl iT, sOmEoNe eLsE wiLl”. That “lOgiC” is insane.

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You’re assuming Ben isn’t provoking Ali. Is Ben nested on top of his illegally acquired home, with a sniper rifle, taking shots at Ali & his family, permanently disabling Ali’s children in the process? Does this result in Ali seeking justice? Yes. Is that bad? No.

Frankly, accusing Israel of “actively provoking Palestinians” while thousands of Israelis have fresh memories of friends and family killed on 10/7 is poor form. Israel is wrong enough without this fantasy of Israeli insanity.

This is where the sandwich and house metaphors break down. If Ali and Ben represent The Nation Of All Palestinians and The Nation Of All Israelis, then treating them like a singular individual gets weird. Or do they represent a “Typical” Palestinian & Israeli?

IDF snipers gunning down Palestinian kids is wrong, but referring to it simply as a one-sided “provocation” elides the cycle of violence which produced it.

The Likudniks who have run Israel for almost two decades are callous numbskulls, not sadists. The snipers are doing military policing of the pseudo-sovereign PA, in response to attacks on Israel.

Some Palestinian fires a rocket at an IDF truck from an office building in Gaza, Israel responds with overwhelming force, shelling the office building.

Why is this disproportionate brutality Israel’s policy?

Because if I am a 45 year old Israeli voter, I remember how the Oslo Agreements seemed to have turned the corner on violent conflict. The creation of the PA ended the overt military occupation. But then Palestinian hard-liners rightly unsatisfied with the meagre territory and pseudo-sovereignty of the PA committed terrorist attacks against Israeli citizens a couple of times a week. So I heard bombs and gunfire, I knew people who lost daughters & brothers, and when the Likudniks said “there is no making peace with these animals”, I did not vote for them but I understood why so many of my friends & family did.

And then in the years after, I started voting for them too because the Likudnik “security” strategy seemed to work. The bombings of Israeli civilians stopped, turning into things like those less bloody (for Israelis) rocket attacks on the IDF, which mostly slowed down over time. The military policing of Gaza was brutal but it seemed to work.

Until 10/7, which was not quite as brutal as Israeli hardliners’ propaganda said, but that is damning it with the faintest imaginable praise.

All of this violence by Palestinians is a response to their oppression, yes. As are the cycles of violence which came before.

What measure and kind of violent Palestinian response is justified? Feh. I would rather focus on the need to end the current genocidal attack by Israel and to liberate Palestinians from dispossession and oppression.

But don’t insist that the story is nothing other than relentless violent “provocation” by Israel. That is a crock. This is a cycle of violence in which hardliners on both sides sabotage goodwill.

Israel bears the responsibility to end it because Israel has held the upper hand for my entire lifetime, because Israel’s violence has supported an unjust order.

We can hold Israel responsible without having to misrepresent the history with horseshit.