Imperialism leaves behind germs of rot which we must clinically detect and remove [not only] from our land but from our minds as well – Frantz Fanon

Genocide is Disablement

To quote Alice Wong from the Disability Visibility Project, “Palestinian liberation is disability justice.” 

Palestinians are experiencing genocide and “genocide is a mass disabling event and a form of eugenics.” According to the Gaza Health Ministry, “more than 34,535 Palestinians have been killed and 77,704 wounded in the Israeli military offensive in the Gaza Strip since Oct. 7 last year.” Palestinians are being disabled by bombings, starvation, lack of water and sanitation, infectious diseases, PTSD, and other effects of genocide. The Israeli military has targeted hospitals and aid convoys that provide lifesaving care and relief to disabled Palestinians. The military is both targeting disabled Palestinians and producing disablement, creating a vicious cycle of disablement and death. The United Nations tracks official numbers of injured Palestinians, but the reality is that “everyone in Palestine is disabled right now.” Disability justice means liberating Palestinians from the disabling circumstances of genocide.  

The Disability Visibility Project explains why genocide is a mass disabling event. But we should note that disablement cannot be separated from racism, sexism, capitalism, and other systems of oppression. The mass disablement of Palestinians is, at the same time, a form of colonization, a form of misogynistic violence, and a form of capital accumulation.    

Disablement is Colonial

Palestinians “are racialized and alienated as ‘others’ in a settler colonial racial capitalist system of oppression.”As racialized others, Palestinians are subject to disabling racism. As Joel Reynolds has argued, colonialism not only produces racialized others but also disables people marked as such. This explains why, in the U.S., “roughly a third to a half of all people killed by police are disabled” (according to official statistics, though the true ratio is surely higher). Moya Bailey and Izetta Autumn Mobley similarly argue that “Blackness has not only been stigmatized but has also been used to elect candidates for death and destruction,” and Tommy Curry observes that “Black men are racialized as “a threat – a body marked for death [and disablement].” Blackness as such is a disabling event, a circumstance of colonial violence. Under Israeli occupation, all Palestinians are racialized, all Palestinians are criminalized, and all Palestinians are disabled. The ratio of racialization to disablement is 1:1.

Disablement is Misogynistic

The Palestinian genocide is also misogynistic. The United Nations reports that “Palestinian women and girls have reportedly been arbitrarily executed in Gaza,” often “in places where they sought refuge, or while fleeing.” Palestinian women and girls have “reportedly been subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment,” including “multiple forms of sexual assault,” “being strip searched by male Israeli army officers,” and “denied menstruation pads, food and medicine, and severely beaten” (ibid). These patriarchal injustices inflict physical and emotional disablement on their targets. They lead to chronic illness, PTSD, and other types of injury. Misogynistic abuse is a disabling event for Palestinian women and girls. 

Disablement Is Capitalist 

The Palestinian genocide is a feature of global capitalism, which is “a structural genocide,” a system of racialized violence and displacement that produces disablement. Capitalism, more precisely, operates through the displacement and disablement of racialized others, together with the appropriation and ‘development’ of their land – precisely what is happening in Gaza right now. As William I. Robinson and Hoai-An Ngyun clarify on The Philosophical Salon blog,

The siege of Gaza and the West Bank is a form of primitive accumulation aimed at cracking open new space for transnational accumulation. In late October, as Israeli bombardment intensified, Israel set about granting licenses to transnational energy companies for gas and oil exploration off the Mediterranean coast, part of its plan to become a major regional gas producer and energy hub as well as an alternative to Russian gas for Western Europe. One Israeli real estate company notorious for building settlements in occupied Palestinian territories published an advertisement in December for the construction of luxury homes in bombed out Gaza neighborhoods, while others spoke of resuscitating the Ben Gurion Canal Project that has been dormant since it was originally proposed in the 1960s. The project involves building an alternative to the Egyptian-run Suez Canal that would run from the Gulf of Aqaba across the Negev desert and Gaza out to the Mediterranean. The only thing stopping the newly-revised Canal project is the presence of Palestinians in Gaza.

Palestinians stand in the way of development projects and private contracts that would be very lucrative for the Israeli government and its Western allies. Joe Biden has requested funding for the National Security Act, which would provide military aid to both Ukraine and Israel, contributing an estimated “$64 billion dollars to the U.S. arms industry.” What will Biden get in return? Support from military contractors, who spend millions of dollars on donations to ‘friendly’ politicians. (As Stephen Semler reports in Jacobin, “House members who voted to boost military spending to $778 billion for FY2022 received three times more money from military contractors than members who opposed [the bill],” while Senators who supported the bill received seven times more cash than non-supporters). This is why Democrats continue to support the Palestinian genocide even though it is a mass disabling event. 

Coalitional Action 

The Disability Visibility Project explains why the genocide in Palestine is a circumstance of mass disablement. In addition, we can see how mass disablement overlaps with racialization, criminalization, misogynistic violence, and capitalist profiteering. Consequently, disability justice is racial justice; disability justice is gender equality; disability justice is class solidarity; and disability justice is Palestinian liberation. Intersectional analysis illuminates the confluence of all forms of injustice and underscores the principle that injustice anywhere (and to anyone) is a threat to justice everywhere (and for everyone). Alice Wong shares that “cross-movement solidarity is [a] disability justice principle that I deeply believe in.” The principle of intersectionality aligns with this principle, calling on us to unify in a global movement against genocide. We cannot support disability justice without supporting racialized, criminalized, displaced, and exploited people in Palestine and around the world. 

Disability pride is also Palestinian pride. Palestinians will persist despite their genocidal circumstances. They will continue to be proud of their heritage and culture. So will crips like me who belong to a shared crip culture with a legacy of activism, solidarity, and survival.   

On Wednesday, I joined the rally for Palestinian liberation at St. Louis University. With my chronic fatigue, I was tired and in pain, and I knew that I would be out of commission for the next 24 hours due to post-exertional malaise. Nevertheless, I persisted. We need every body to do what they can to campaign for Palestinian liberation. The mass disablement of Palestinians is an intolerable injustice against Palestinians and a threat to liberty everywhere.