OPINION: Chris Kelly Opinion: Palestinians are people, too

Oct. 18—Dominic Saadi is a Maronite Christian of Lebanese descent. He is a husband, father and local business owner, a proud pacifist and a prolific contributor to letters to the editor of The Times-Tribune.

His cause celebre — Palestinian human rights — is always controversial, but never more so than in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel.

To some, Saadi's passionate, persistent advocacy for Palestinian statehood and self-rule reeks of antisemitism. At a time when almost no one seems willing to stand up for Palestinian civilians caught between evil terrorists and an angry Israel, I reached out to Saadi for his thoughts on the deepening crisis.

We met for coffee at Commonwealth Coffeehouse on Penn Avenue. He did most of the talking. I applaud his courage to speak up.

"I've been called an antisemite in the paper, and on the telephone," Saadi said. "I've been asked, 'Are you Palestinian?' and answered, 'No, I'm not Palestinian.' Then I'm asked, 'Why do you do what you're doing?' "

Because like many Americans, Jews and yes, Israelis, Saadi believes Palestinians have the same right to a recognized, self-governed homeland as Israelis. Like the Jews, Palestinians are an indigenous population, but they're treated like invaders to be corralled and controlled, Saadi said.

"Israel is an ethno-nationalist state," he said. "The state is there to support the nation against the 'other,' which is the Palestinians. Ideally, the state should be there for all its citizens. ... Israel emerges as a model for ethno-nationalism because they codified in law that sovereignty resides with the Jews.

"The state is used to support the Jewish element and the Palestinians are the 'other,' often a hated other. Ironically, originally, they're the same people. They're not only semitic, they stemmed from the Canaanites. Jews were Canaanites starting their own religion."

Saadi is right. I checked. Jews and Arabs are genetically linked to ancient Canaanites, but that's a little far afield for this space. Religion, and the evil so often done in God's name, is a particularly obvious accelerant in the Hamas attacks and the horrors it will provoke.

Saadi condemned the Hamas attacks and those who cheered them. The murder, rape and kidnapping of innocents is not a legitimate mode of resistance. That such a thing need be said is an indictment of the cruel times we're in.

"They (Hamas) committed war crimes," Saadi said. "There was no justification for what they did, even if they invoke the occupation. ... They are guilty of war crimes, and it's unfortunate because they know what they do is going to bring retribution on Palestinian civilians who already are subjected to brutal occupation without normal civil rights. They're stateless people."

And the evil Hamas did has nothing to do with Islam, Saadi said.

"The Koran prohibits the killing of civilians, the killing of women and children and suicide," he said. "It's all prohibited, so what Hamas did is contrary to the tenets of Islam. Islam respects Judaism and Christianity ... (Muslims) look at Jesus as a prophet, the Blessed Mother is mentioned a number of times in the Koran.

"Truthfully, even though Islam comes under a lot of criticism, it's probably the most tolerant of the three monotheistic religions."

On paper and in most mosques, perhaps, but in practice it is too often used to justify barbarism. The jackals who attacked us on 9/11 claimed they were acting for "the glory of God." The Hamas atrocities on Oct. 7 are Israel's 9/11, and like me, Saadi sees Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the right-wing Israelis around him poised to make some of the same disastrous mistakes George W. Bush and neocon warmongers made after 9/11.

Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, but someone had to pay for the attacks. The American "coalition" invasion, bombing and occupation caused more than 200,000 civilian deaths, according to the Iraq Body Count Project, which reports documented deaths. Almost 5,000 American troops died in Iraq. Nearly 32,000 were physically wounded. How many still suffer psychological wounds is incalculable.

Hamas and Palestinian civilians are not synonymous. "Wiping out" Hamas is a righteous goal, but impossible without causing massive civilian carnage. Gaza is the 140-square-mile home of 2 million Palestinians, almost 50% of whom are under 18. As of Monday, about 3,000 Palestinians were killed in Israeli retaliation, a number sure to soar when the planned ground invasion begins.

"An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind," a quote attributed without evidence to Mahatma Gandhi, surely applies here. Saadi said Israel can't claim the moral high ground if it commits war crimes in response to the Hamas attacks.

"There is no justification on either side for the killing of civilians," he said. "Is there a solution? Yes, there is a solution. It's going to be hard for Israel to swallow, but it's in the interest of world peace. And it's in the interests of peace and justice for the Palestinians. They deserve it. They're human beings.

"The Israelis say, 'We're in this fight for our existence ...' Well, the Palestinians are also in this fight for their existence, for their survival as a people."

Instead of shipping more bombs and blindly supporting Israel's next move, Saadi said President Biden and the international community should push for a cease-fire and demand an end to Israeli apartheid over the Palestinians.

"I look at myself as a world citizen, and I respect our common humanity," he said. "Unfortunately, you're judged by the texture of your hair, the color of your skin, the boundaries from which you come, rather than what's really important — that we're all the same. We're all part of the human family.

"Unfortunately, the value of a Jewish life exceeds the value of a Palestinian life, and that's just terrible."

If that's true, God forgive us all.

CHRIS KELLY, the Times-Tribune columnist and a proud progressive, stands with Palestinians and basic human decency, not against Israel. Read his award-winning blog at timestribuneblogs.com/kelly. Contact the writer: kellysworld@timesshamrock.com; @cjkink on X; Chris Kelly, The Times-Tribune on Facebook.