18.7.2024

Animal liberation under occupation?

On the limits of Penny Johnson’s book about animals in Palestine

With the latest war in Gaza starting in October 2023, during which more Palestinians have been murdered than in any previous assault, and the increasing settler and occupation violence in the West Bank, the direct rescue of animals in Palestine, such as carried out by the animal rights organisations Sulala Animal Rescue[1] and Baladi Palestine Animal Rescue Team[2], has become immediately more urgent. Nevertheless, many activists of the animal rights and animal liberation movement in solidarity with the Palestinian people may have thought about how one can stand up for animals at all in a society in which the population itself is subjected to countless wars and a brutal occupation regime. »Can humans engaged in conflict – and Palestinians living under military occupation – be concerned with the lives and welfare of other mammals?«[3] This is how Penny Johnson, who has lived in Ramallah in the West Bank since 1982, raises the question in her book »Companions in Conflict« that was published in 2019.

Humans and animals under Israeli occupation

On over 200 pages, the author, who is also a co-founder and employee of the Institute for Women’s Studies at Bir Zait University, attempts to portray the lives of »animals in occupied Palestine«[4]. In doing so, she hopes not only to find suggestions for dealing with the above mentioned problems. By analysing the current and historical relations between humans and animals in society, Johnson wants to introduce another perspective on the plight of the Palestinian population under the ongoing Israeli occupation.

The main text of »Companions in Conflict« is organised according to individual animal species. The book deals with donkeys, camels, goats, sheep, cows, as well as hyenas, wild boars, jackals, gazelles, ibexes and wolves. Each of the eight chapters is dedicated to one, two or three of these mammals native to Palestine (with the exception of cows). The individual sections are each an amalgam of stories about the species covered. Johnson compiles reports from her extensive walks as well as accounts by older and younger Palestinians, excerpts from literary testimonies, references in newspaper articles and scientific papers. The contributions vary greatly in subject matter. They cover all sorts of topics from the adventures of individual animals to changes in their general situation in the occupied territories.

From the author’s interwoven stories, it becomes clear that it is not only the way people live their lives that has been transformed by the economic and imperialist developments in Palestine, but also the roles of animals in society. The traditional husbandry of goats by small farmers for example is increasingly being displaced by the high-tech dairy industry in Israel. Furthermore, camels, which were once omnipresent in the area, have almost completely disappeared from view due to their replacement by cars and lorries, while donkeys are once again being used as a means of transport in the Gaza Strip, there being a chronic shortage of petrol due to the Israeli blockade.

Johnson’s main conclusion is that not only the Palestinian population is affected, oppressed and threatened by the Israeli occupation, but also the animal world. She specifically draws two analogies. On the one hand, she argues that – in the wake of the violence used in countless wars and conflicts – »we all, humans and animals, suffer from loss of habitat«[5]. As the Palestinians have been continuously deprived of their livelihood along with their land in recent decades, particularly as a result of illegal settlement in the West Bank, wild gazelles, ibexes and wolves have also been brought to the brink of extinction due to the disappearance of their habitat. On the other hand, she claims to have recognized in the widespread fear of hyenas in Palestine the gaze of the militarily and technologically massively superior soldiers of the Israeli occupying forces on predominantly young and male Palestinians. Even if those can hardly harm them, an irrational fear would prevail in both cases: »[T]he hunter can fear the hunted – and the occupier the occupied«[6]. As a result, both would often be hunted and sometimes brutally killed.

These two analogies between the oppression of Palestinians and animals show, according to Johnson, that an end to the occupation is not only in the interest of the people, but also of the animals in Palestine. Not only that, the preservation of biodiversity and ecological sustainability are also crucial for the entire population, for Palestinians and Israelis alike. »Common lives«, she concludes, »must mean a common struggle both against Israel’s occupation and for the future of the land that both peoples inhabit, along with all its living creatures.«[7] Because it is not possible to work effectively towards a society based on a reasonable relationship with nature »while one people oppresses another and while we live in a cage«[8].

Johnson is fully aware of the obstacles standing in the way of connecting the struggles for a world in which humans, animals and nature are liberated from occupation. According to her, the contradiction between humans is the one that subordinates all others. The Israeli government’s prevailing politics of apartheid and occupation not only makes co-operation between Palestinian and Israeli activists impossible, but also superimposes ecological issues or the animal question. In her book, Johnson illustrates the contradictions that can arise if one nevertheless stands up for animals under these circumstances without questioning the occupation using three anecdotes, among others. Especially so, if Western NGOs do that.

The contradiction between liberal animal welfarism and the occupation

In 2003, during the Second Intifada, Hamas detonated explosives packed on a donkey near a bus stop in Jerusalem. Unlike a similar attack carried out by the Zionist militia Irgun at a marketplace in Haifa in 1939, which killed 27 Arabs, there were no casualties other than the donkey in this attack. Thereupon, the president of the international animal welfare organisation People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), Ingrid Newkirk, wrote a letter to the then Palestinian president Yasser Arafat. In it, she asked him to do everything in his power to ensure that animals were not dragged into the conflict.

The publication of the letter caused outrage in the Israeli media, accusing PETA of being more interested in the donkey than in the Israeli victims of the conflict. Johnson’s nephew Aziz, on the other hand, burst out laughing when he heard about PETA’s petition. The reason for his reaction, she explains, is not that Aziz lacks empathy for animals. When Operation Defensive Shield was launched in 2002 and Ramallah was stormed by the Israeli army, Aziz was just six years old. Who can blame him, Johnson asks, for not being compassionate towards the donkey that was blown up, when as a child he himself had to witness his father being abused by the occupying forces as a human shield?[9]

Is the life of an animal worth more than that of a Palestinian? The residents of Gaza asked themselves this question in 2016. Laziz, a Bengal tiger, was brought to South Africa by the animal welfare organisation Four Paws, at the request of the owner of the allegedly »worst zoo in the world«[10] in Khan Yunis. He could no longer adequately care for it due to the difficult circumstances caused by the war. While an official representative of the Israeli Ministry of Defence was pleased with the Israeli government’s consideration for animals, many a resident of the coastal strip probably wished they were a tiger. Those who live there often cannot even leave for cancer treatment. »The worst zoo in the world«, according to Johnson »imprisons humans as well as other animals«[11]. Both suffer from the blockade, »yet Gazans have a right to wonder […] why Laziz’s life is valued over theirs«[12].

Liberal animal welfarism as that of PETA or Four Paws is more likely to be met with incomprehension rather than an open ear by the Palestinian population, as the anecdotes show. The reason for this is not a lack of empathy towards animals, but the limited single-issue strategy advocated by such organisations. Pursuing animal welfarism while completely bypassing all other issues that arise at the same time will alienate the people concerned from the cause, as their suffering and struggles will not be properly recognised and will be distracted from. This misguided approach to the animal issue leads to a contradiction in political action. Those who do not understand and engage in the struggle against animal exploitation and the Israeli occupation as elements of a common liberation strategy ultimately act as animal welfare agents of Western imperialism.

These contradictions culminated in the 2016 »global praise from animal rights organizations for accommodating vegan soldiers with special menus, non-leather boots, and non-wool clothing«[13] in the Israel Defense Force (IDF). Ahmed Safi, animal rights activist of the Palestinian Animal League and founder of the first vegan café in Palestine, commented: »I am someone who, myself, was beaten so badly by a sergeant in the Israeli army when I was ten years old that I coughed up blood from internal injuries. Would my experience, or that of my friends, family, fellow countrymen and women be different if the boot that kicked me was vegan, or the hat on the sniper’s head who took my uncle’s life was made from polyester, not wool?«[14]

Incidentally, not much seems to have changed in PETA’s course over the last 20 years. At the end of November 2023, amid the raging Gaza war, the same Ingrid Newkirk wrote a letter to António Guterres on behalf of her organisation. In it, she called on the Secretary-General of the United Nations to »include them [the animals living in Gaza] in your plans for this troubled area« and »ensure that relief supplies, including veterinary medical provisions, reach the Gaza Strip«[15]. At the same time, however, the letter does not call for a ceasefire, let alone an end to the Israeli occupation and blockade that underlies the entire conflict and human as well as non-human misery.

This kind of liberal animal welfarism not only runs the risk of alienating Palestinians by ignoring the elephant in the room, it also actively contributes to justifying the brutal oppression by the occupying power. As exemplified by the veganwashing of the Israeli army. This realisation brings us back to the question posed by Johnson at the beginning, »how can animal welfare and protection be advanced when humans are suffering«[16]? The answer, which she provides implicitly in her book rather than formulating it explicitly, is as follows: People in Palestine can be made aware of the concerns of animals when the animal issue is addressed on the basis of the commonly experienced violence caused by the occupation. If the suffering of the animals is played off against that of the Palestinians, the latter will understandably distance themselves from animal rights.

No conclusive answers

Johnson’s book is almost unique in that it essentially deals with the situation of animals in Palestine. The author deserves the credit for having dealt with a subject that has yet gone almost unnoticed. She gives the reader an idea of what the lives and stories of these animals are like in the occupied territories and in doing so offers a rare insight into the Palestinian perspective on this issue and the Israeli occupation as well as the sometimes contradictory treatment of their relationship to each other. In her exposition, she elaborates that the liberation of the animals cannot be realised without an end to the occupation. With her conclusion that not only humans but also animals suffer from the occupation – albeit in different ways – she formulates an initial starting point on how the animal issue should be negotiated in the context of the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Namely, based on the common human and animal experience of expulsion and persecution by the occupying power. These are undoubtedly major strengths of the book.

Beyond that, however, it is marked by striking weaknesses and considerable shortcomings. The composition of »Companions in Conflict« makes it difficult to read. Apart from being ordered by species, the book is barely structured. There is no clear chronology – Johnson jumps from the time of the British Mandate to the Intifada, over to the prehistory of Palestine, sometimes within a few paragraphs – stringing together personal experience with fairy tales and research findings. Due to its montage structure, it is easy to lose sight of the thread amongst the anecdotes. The line of argumentation repeatedly becomes blurred and disappears completely. The presentation also remains largely on a purely descriptive level. As a result, one is left to draw many of the implicit conclusions oneself. The lack of a systematic and in-depth analysis is expressed emblematically in four fundamental shortcomings.

Firstly, so that she can draw general analogies between the violence and oppression experienced by animals and humans as a result of the occupation, the author refrains from working out their respective specifics. Even if Johnson is right in arguing that both are affected, on the one hand she cannot sufficiently determine the respective positions that the Palestinians and the animals living in Palestine take up in these exploitative social relations. Such an investigation, however, would be a necessary condition for adequately and concretely outlining the preconditions and possibilities for their abolition. On the other hand, one would have to consider that the existences of the various animal species are threatened by the occupation in different ways.

Accordingly and secondly, Johnson can only raise a central question of the book – »[w]hat conditions do we need, for humans as well as other mammals, for our common lives to flourish?«[17] – and, apart from the imperative to end the occupation, has to leave it almost helplessly unanswered. Admittedly, the developments in Israel in recent decades have pushed the goal of abolishing the occupation and apartheid regime further and further away. Moreover, the Gaza war, which has now been unleashed for over half a year, once again demonstrates the massive military imbalance of power between oppressor and oppressed. It illustrates how far the Israeli government and the imperialist states in the West that are arming it are prepared to go in order to maintain the occupation and continue the right-wing Zionist nation-state project. Despite all this, the end of the Israeli wars and occupation would not automatically mean the that the animals will be liberated. The problems of peace and equal treatment within the international system of bourgeois states and the abolition of the status of animals as private property and means of production are of a different quality.

Thirdly, the proposals or rather allusions to political practice for the liberation of animals in Johnson’s book – there being no explicitly formulated, elaborated and concrete ideas – remain inadequate in two aspects. The book advocates cultural and academic education about animals in Palestine and classical animal welfarism. Even if this may be the only feasible form of activism for animals under the given social conditions in Palestine, it is nonetheless crucial to transcend this framework in one way or another. Because if animal welfarism is not pushed beyond its limits, it can be instrumentalised, for example, for the ideological support in continuing animal exploitation. It is not clear from her book what the connection between the fight for the animals and against the occupation, which is essential for overcoming their contradictory relation, could look like on a level that is not purely nominal but also organisational and practical.

Fourthly, Johnson neither examines the various actors nor does she go into the foundations of the occupation regime. For example, what are the positions of the various political parties and organisations on animals? What role can the working class or social movements in Israel play in the struggle for liberation? How can the Israeli politics of occupation be conceptualised? Several questions such as these, which are fundamental to understanding the situation and are central to the strategic orientation of the class struggle for animal liberation, are left out of the book. This makes the reading unsatisfactory, as it leaves more questions than it gives answers.

For a socialist and internationalist animal liberation strategy

»Companions in Conflict« is ultimately little more than a first unsystematic approach to the animal question in Palestine. In order to deal with the topic more appropriately and insightful than Johnson is able to do in her book, a comprehensive materialist analysis of the social relations in Palestine and the role of animals in them would be required. This cannot be limited to the immediate effects of the Israeli occupation, but would also have to address the animal industry, capitalist economies and class composition in Israel and Palestine, as well as the geopolitical entanglements of the conflict.

Such an endeavour could not only reveal the objectively and qualitatively different situations of humans and animals in these contexts and thus highlight the conditions for the liberation of both. It would also offer the potential to identify specific opponents and concrete political goals, on the basis of which the struggle against occupation and animal exploitation could be brought together, instead of pursuing paternalistic animal welfarism in the wake of Western imperialism. Who, for example, are the profiteers of animal exploitation and what is their involvement in the occupation? Does the apartheid system and the ongoing oppression of the Palestinian population guarantee the owners of the Israeli livestock industry a constant reservoir of over-exploitable labour? To what extent do producers of vegan goods not only support the Israeli army, but also the right-wing populist and neo-fascist forces in Israel and their politics of war and occupation? Locating points of attack of this kind would be the first step towards the kind of political movement that Johnson actually has in mind.

The integration, advocacy and demands of animal liberation within the struggle for a free Palestine would provide further points of contact for international solidarity and cooperation with activists from the animal rights and animal liberation movement. It could also contribute to the establishment of a political counterculture that is orientated towards consideration for the weakest living beings – which, according to Johnson, would be diametrically opposed to the politics of occupation. As a lived vision, it could contribute to the creation of a basis on which a truly liberated society could be fought for.

Ultimately, the liberation of animals is not »only« an impossibility under occupation in particular, but also in bourgeois society in general. As long as production remains under the thumb of capitalists and is geared towards maximising their profits, animal exploitation will continue to be a lucrative business. In reality, its abolition can only be achieved as part of a socialist movement to overcome capitalist relations. In its internationalised form, accompanied by an imperialist politics, capitalism can only be challenged successfully through an internationalist strategy from below. From the West Bank to Gaza and right into the heart of Western imperialism, the freedom of humans and animals can only be the result of a common struggle against the ruling classes.

Daniel Hessen

Originally published in German: Tierbefreiung unter Besatzung? Zu den Grenzen von Penny Johnsons Buch über Tiere in Palästina

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[1] https://sulalaanimalrescue.com/

[2] https://www.instagram.com/baladi.palestineanimalrescue/?img_index=2

[3] Penny Johnson: Companions in Conflict: Animals in Occupied Palestine. Brooklyn, Melville House, 2019, non-paginated edition, p. 8.

[4] Ibid., subtitle.

[5] Ibid., p. 201.

[6] Ibid., pp. 200-201.

[7] Ibid., p. 192.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Ibid., pp. 96-98.