Choose Better Heroes
The poet Refaat Alareer has been praised, in death, as a voice for the Palestinian people ... unfortunately, that's disturbingly true.
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Last week, in Gaza, the Israeli military killed Refaat Alareer:
The Palestinian academic and activist Refaat Alareer was killed on Wednesday in an airstrike in northern Gaza, according to his father-in-law. He was 44.
A literature professor at Islamic University of Gaza, Mr. Alareer became known outside the territory for editing two books of essays and short fiction in English about the struggles of life in Gaza, “Gaza Writes Back” and “Gaza Unsilenced.”
Alareer’s death has led to an outpouring of grief both in Gaza and around the world. He was hailed as a chronicler of life in Gaza but also for “nurturing young Palestinian writers and helped them tell their stories in English.”
"He was generous, above all. Gracious, gentle, patient, funny. He had a wicked sense of humor,” said Ra Page, 51, the publisher and founder of Comma Press in Manchester, England, who worked with Alareer on several literary projects.
Alareer was a “towering figure in Palestinian society,” said Jehad Abusalim, a writer and friend based in Washington, DC. “His teaching wasn’t just about imparting knowledge; it was about empowerment, about using language as a weapon against oppression.”
According to Rawan Yaghi, who was taught by Alareer and is now a writer in Canada. “He was a force for good, for perseverance, love, camaraderie.”
“Refaat Alareer embraced everything good and pure about Gaza and Palestine,” wrote Israeli documentarian Dan Cohen in a remembrance.
On Saturday, pro-Palestinian activists held a vigil in Washington Square Park to honor his life. They read from his poetry.
There is, however, one problem with these remembrances of Alareer: they omit the fact that he was a raging anti-Semite who not only celebrated Hamas’s atrocities but later denied the terrorist group’s responsibility for them.
Well before October 7 he described Israelis as “scum,” “Nazis,” and “filth,” and he said Israel was “the root cause of evil” and “worse than Nazi Germany.”
He said that Palestinians could not engage in terrorism because all Israelis are soldiers — and all of Israel is occupied.
So Alareer’s anti-Semitic views and his dedicated opposition to a two-state solution were well-established before October 7. But after that horrific day, he descended to an even darker place.
He celebrated Hamas’s militants.
He attacked those who condemned Hamas’s awful deeds.
He attacked Palestinian leaders who support a two-state solution.
He engaged in full-on denialism about the events of October 7.
He even made jokes about a story that an Israeli baby had been found in an oven.
Some pro-Israel voices have taken pleasure in Alareer’s demise. Personally I find this ghoulish. Alareer might have said awful things, but I have yet to see any evidence that he participated in the October 7 atrocities.
Still, Alareer was no hero. He was not a force for good, for love, or camaraderie. He was not generous or gentle. He was an angry, embittered man who hated Jews, rejected the idea of political compromise, refused to acknowledge the right of Israel to exist, and explicitly supported and celebrated the terrorist monsters who killed more than 1,200 Jews on October 7.
Alareer fervently endorsed the putrid ideology of Hamas and rejected territorial compromise, which has held back the aspirations of the Palestinian people and ensured that this cursed land has never known a day of peace.
In fairness to Alareer’s memory, he had reason to be angry with Israel. In 2014, his brother was killed by Israeli forces. He lived in Gaza, which was under siege by Israel — and it’s much easier in a totalitarian society to be “pro-the government in power” and critical of the country responsible for that siege. That’s not an excuse for whiteasthing the murder of children and the mass rape of women but it is an explanation.
But what about pro-Palestinian activists, who are lionizing him in death and ignoring his appalling views? Is someone who jokes about murdered babies a person who deserves a vigil in Washington Square Park?
I suppose being advocate for a liberal cause like Palestinian self-determination, is not easy when one of the main groups fighting for that outcome is fascist, totalitarian, and religiously extreme. Yet, plenty of Israeli supporters are able to hold two ideas in their head at the same time — that Israel has a right to defend itself in Gaza and its current Prime Minister is awful. Why is that so difficult for pro-Palestinian activists?
I hate to say this, but I think it speaks to something very broken in Palestinian society and among those in the West who claim to support their democratic aspirations. The Palestinian national movement — and those who have taken up its mantle in the West — has so dehumanized Israelis and accused them of such horrific deeds that seemingly any action by Palestinians, no matter how evil, can be justified or rationalized.
But it’s worth asking: How has the ideology of people like Alareer helped the Palestinian people? How has it furthered the cause of peace? Those who are eulogizing him are endorsing a worldview that led to October 7 … led to the Israeli military response … and will continue to lead to more needless deaths. Is his story yet another reason for indicting Israel or a cautionary tale of how hatred begets hatred, and violence begets violence?
Celebrating Alareer would be like Israelis celebrating Meir Kahane, the odious former rabbi who called for the expulsion of all Palestinians out of Israel and the West Bank and was denied a seat in the Knesset as a result of his racist views (that Benjamin Netanyahu allowed his spiritual descendant, Ben Gvir in the Israeli government is an eternal black mark on his legacy). While certainly, there are some Israelis who still support Kahane — and some who voted for Ben Gvir — they are thankfully a minority. That doesn’t seem to be the case with Alareer.
The reality of Hamas — and the ideology they trumpet — is that it is a malignant force in Palestinian society. It celebrates death and martyrdom; it ignores the humanity of Israelis; and it makes peaceful co-existence impossible. I grieve Refaat Alareer’s death and those of his family members who died along with him. But I grieve even more for the ideology and hatred he endorsed, which not only led to his untimely death, but has led to many more needless deaths over the past two and half months. Alareer’s legacy is not reason for celebration.
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Excellent piece by Claire Potter on the three university presidents who testified to Congress last week.
Jack Smith has Donald Trump’s cell phone that he used before the 2020 election. I’m not a lawyer but I feel like this could be a problem for him.
Musical Interlude
You ever read Samer Kalaf at the Defector?