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In recent weeks, student protests over the war in Gaza have generated an increasingly outraged debate, pitting people who are so outraged by the protestors’ rhetoric that they refuse to be outraged by the war against people who are so outraged by the war they refuse to be outraged by the protestors’ rhetoric. Much as voicing any criticism of Israel apparently makes you a Hamas supporter, suggesting that protests might be more effective with fewer actual Hamas supporters now makes you complicit in genocide.
Walking by a pro-Palestine rally in Dupont Circle several months ago, the very first thing I heard was the chant “We don’t want no two-state / We want ’48.” As a historian, I’m always glad to hear people shouting about history. But as someone who still thinks that two states represent the least impossible of the good solutions to the current catastrophe, I was outraged to hear it rejected so emphatically for a more impossible, more problematic alternative.
Feeling a bit like Hans Moleman, I announced to no one in particular that I wanted two states, then got distracted by a sign reading “Krispy Kreme Supports Genocide.” It turns out that after the owners of Krispy Kreme came clean about their ancestors’ Nazi ties, they tried to make amends by starting a charity in Israel. Now, because of the charity, they stand accused of supporting genocide in Gaza. The moral might be that no good deed goes unpunished. Or maybe it’s “Don’t be a Nazi.” Either way, if there’s one company that could openly rebrand as Genocide Donuts and still get customers, it’s definitely Krispy Kreme.
But back to the slogan. Grating rhymes aside, chants are particularly good at being very clear and very vague at the same time. Calls for a one-state solution, whether through references to 1948 or “The River to the Sea,” have proven controversial precisely because they don’t spell out what the nature of that one state will be.
Many protestors insist they are calling for the creation of a single democratic state in which Jewish and non-Jewish residents will live together peacefully with their rights secured. It’s a proposal whose workability would generate skepticism in even the best circumstances. But when you accompany it with a surfeit of Palestinian nationalist iconography, an exaggerated emphasis on settler-colonialism, and any amount of Hamas apologism, no one is going to give you the benefit of the doubt. Moreover, if you make a show of excluding Zionists — in other words, the overwhelming majority of Jewish Israelis — from your movement and liberated zones, it raises some questions about how inclusive your one-state solution would be.
Where protestors disagree over just how radical their political agenda is, perhaps they could pick from the competing versions of Palestine Monopoly for sale on Jordanian eBay. 80 dollars in shipping fees later, take a look:
The first presents a vision of Palestine that is most jarring for its normalcy. Passing yalla, you collect two hundred Palestinian pounds, then proceed with your top hat or Scottish terrier past the Rafah Crossing and Khan Younis. Working your way around the board, you can purchase a number of largely West Bank cities or villages, avoid the Jericho jail, and, with luck, land on the Old City. Ironically, it’s only the white dove in the center that even hints at the violent reality separating this from countless other national Monopoly variants.
Then, there’s the Hamas version. In place of the dove, it features a photo of the al-Qassam Brigades spokesman Abu Obaida. In addition to a coin or a key, you can play as a bullet and purchase properties like Yaffa, Ashkelon, and Lod that are located squarely inside modern-day Israel. As a final touch, the jail is Gilboa Prison, where a cartoon drawing shows the 2021 tunnel escape of six militants.
Like John Lennon said, if you go playing Monopoly with pictures of spokesman Obaida, you ain’t gonna…
Okay, rhyming is harder than it looks. The point is, in protests, as in Palestine Monopoly, it shouldn’t be that hard to avoid the Hamas version. With Israeli settlements expanding (yes, there’s a Monopoly for that too), Benjamin Netanyahu flaunting his opposition to a two-state solution and Washington hesitant to challenge him, protestors’ rhetoric is hardly the biggest obstacle to ending the occupation. Clearly, there’s no perfect rhyme that would unify everyone in support of Palestinian statehood either. But if the chant you come up with still manages to alienate the kind of person who actually owns two different versions of Palestine Monopoly, you might be doing something wrong.
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