As the world grasps for a moral framework to make sense of the recent events in Israel and Gaza, Remi Adekoya argues that the dichotomy between the Oppressor vs the Oppressed is deeply unhelpful.

As we observe the unfolding of a violent conflict in the Middle East that will reverberate for years to come, an ideological schism is appearing that may be no less consequential in the Western world. Support for the Hamas terror attacks on Israel expressed in some quarters of leftist academia and activism has upset many moderates on the Left, as has the silence of some others. So why do some on the Left believe terrorist attacks on civilians can be justifiable or morally ambiguous?

While today’s dominant progressive narrative is one of “intersectionality”, acknowledging how privilege and oppression factor in one’s race, gender, sexual orientation and a host of other factors, it would appear that when push comes to shove, some progressives divide the world into just two kinds of people: Oppressed and Oppressor, groups that are often ethno-racially defined.

SUGGESTED READING War is not a game, but we should play it like one By Frank Zagare

Hence, Zareena Grewal, the Yale professor who justified the Hamas attacks by arguing that Israeli settlers “are not civilians” was not too concerned that many of the murdered settlers were women who were also often raped before being killed. The intersectionality principle which posits that Jewish women face oppression as women for which they deserve solidarity, didn’t kick in here. More important was the fact they were Jewish, thus ultimately members of the Oppressor group. Likewise, the Chicago BLM chapter that endorsed the attacks did not inquire whether some of the Israeli victims had been gay, poor, or disabled – vulnerable categories that they would otherwise highlight. Their Jewishness trumped all else.

___

According to this ideology, oppressed groups are the weaker, poorer groups who have little or no power because they have been deprived of this by the Oppressors. Oppressed groups are fundamentally noble while Oppressor groups are fundamentally not so.

___

Oppressor groups are today’s strong, wealthy ethno-racial groups, in particular whites and Jews who are often “coded” as white, as American author Thomas Chatterton-Williams has noted. These groups are seen as having become powerful as a result of their exploitation of, and violence against, others. According to this ideology, oppressed groups are the weaker, poorer groups who have little or no power because they have been deprived of this by the Oppressors. Oppressed groups are fundamentally noble while Oppressor groups are fundamentally not so.

Perhaps the most eloquent articulation of this moral framework was Paulo Freire’s The Pedagogy of the Oppressed - the third most-cited social science text in history according to a 2016 study. Freire argued that “with the establishment of a relationship of oppression, violence has already begun …Never in history has violence been initiated by the oppressed…Force is used not by those who have become weak under the preponderance of the strong, but by the strong who have emasculated them.”