Rania Masri

Summary

Author of Chapter 10 of For Palestine — Essays from the Tom Hurndall Memorial Lecture Group, “Dismantling Racism and Settler Colonialism: Challenges for the BDS Movement”, which argues through home demolitions, child detention and normalised racism that Israel is a settler-colonial, apartheid state and that Palestine is a problem for humanity, not a Palestinian problem alone (For Palestine — Essays from the Tom Hurndall Memorial Lecture Group, PDF p.179-194).

Masri opens with the story of Abdul Fatah Abed Rabbo (Abed Qotqot) of Dheisheh refugee camp, who lived in a cave on his own acknowledged land under the Jerusalem municipality because he was forbidden to alter it, rebuilt after each demolition, and died at fifty-four still clinging to his dream of liberation and return (PDF p.179-180).
She presents the October 2012 poll figures — 74% of Jewish Israelis supporting separate road systems, 69% supporting annexation while denying Palestinians the vote — as open support for ethnic cleansing, and asks what it means when racism becomes so normalised (PDF p.181-182).
Against Peter Beinart’s stated willingness to compromise his liberalism for Israel’s status as a Jewish state, she argues that refugees are denied return because they are not Jewish, naming the policy Ethnocracy and the crime of Apartheid (PDF p.186-187).
The chapter’s conclusion (PDF p.188-193) insists on the full menu of rights in Desmond Tutu’s words, rejects the “women and children” framing and the normalisation of surrender, declares opposition to the State of Israel’s legitimacy openly — “States, per se, don’t have a right to exist. People do.” — and presents BDS movement victories of February 2015 (the 400 UK artists’ pledge, the University of California Student Association vote, SOAS at 73%, Toledo at 21 to 4) and the Ferguson-Palestine connection as the path to making apartheid fall faster.

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