Israel has seized the Spirit of
Humanity, a boat carrying a cargo of humanitarian aid in international waters,
and is forcibly towing it to an Israeli port. The boat contained 21 human rights
workers from 11 countries, including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Corrigan
Maguire and former U.S. Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney. It was bringing
medicine, toys, and other much needed humanitarian relief.
As you will find as you read this page, some of the best information about the
plight of the Palestinians comes from Jewish sources. There are a number of
Jewish humanitarian organizations which strongly oppose the brutal, racist treatment of
the Palestinians. The situation today is much like that of Nazi Germany. On one
side racists call for the brutal treatment of an "inferior" people, while
blaming all the problems of the world on their victims. They are opposed on the
other side by people of good conscience. Yes, there were Germans who opposed
Hitler and his goons, but their voices were drowned out by a cacophony of racist
propaganda. Today most Americans hear racist propaganda far more often than facts. Why
has the hijacking of the Spirit of Humanity not been reported widely by American
newspapers? We are getting far too much of our information from people who seem
not to care about the fate of innocent children. What happened to Jewish
children during the Holocaust? They were declared guilty by birth and forced to
"live" (which meant to abide on the margins existence until they died) in walled
ghettoes and concentration camps. Now the same thing is happening to Palestinian
children, and most Americans barely bat an eye. But many Jewish people of good
conscience speak repeatedly against the atrocities they see. You just heard one
of them:
Rabbi Brant Rosen You will soon hear other Jews speak for the human rights
of Palestinians. But first let's consider what experts from all over the world
have to say . . .
Mary Robinson, a former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, was
taken aback by the terrible conditions in Gaza, saying it was "almost
unbelievable" that the world did not care about what she called "a shocking
violation of so many human rights." She continued, "Their whole civilisation has
been destroyed, I’m not exaggerating."—BBC News, Nov. 4, 2008
The International
Committee of the Red Cross has released a comprehensive report
surveying the aftermath of the 22 day Israeli military operation in Gaza in
January 2009. The report focuses on the impediments to the Gazans’
rebuilding efforts. Infrastructure, public health, farming and sanitation
systems were all severely damaged and the lack of restoration to each of
these sectors perpetuates the further degradation of all facets of Gazan
society. In the report, the ICRC states that it “has repeatedly pointed out
that Israel’s right to address its legitimate security concerns must be
balanced against the right of the population in Gaza to lead a normal and
dignified life. Under international humanitarian law, Israel has the
obligation to ensure that the population's basic needs in terms of food,
shelter, water and medical supplies are met,” concluding, “The alternative
is a further descent into misery with every passing day.”
The World Heath Organization has reported that more than 80% of Gaza's drinking water is not up to WHO standards, and this
was before Gaza's
aquifer became contaminated with sewage (more on this below). Drinking water
problems, sewage problems, malnutrition, stress, fear, despair, sleep
deprivation, unsanitary conditions, compromised human immune systems and severe
overcrowding all combine to increase the possibility of epidemics, especially
during warm weather conditions.
WHO also reports that 30% of Gazan schoolchildren are showing "significant mental health
consequences from the experiences," and points out that these mental health
problems may lead to alienation and violent or
destructive behavior. And yet around one hundred academics and mental health workers were recently denied entry
to the Gaza Strip to attend an international medical conference there. The
conference, organized by the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme (GCMHP), was
forced to take place by video link. For many this "virtual" method proved less
productive, as foreign experts and local health workers were generally unable to
conduct sustained discussions and take advantage of each other's knowledge and
proficiency. "It made it harder to exchange experiences," said Samir Qouta, a
psychologist based in Gaza. The denial of entry for many health workers and visiting experts served to highlight just how isolated Gaza is from the rest of
the world. Israeli security officials said the conference was political in
nature. Attendees denied they
had any interest in partisan issues. "According to my research, the siege is
affecting social and economic life," said Qouta, adding "the impact is
especially clear on the children. The quality of life has really deteriorated."
Health experts say lack of medication and a shortage of specialized doctors are
having an adverse effect on the Gazans' well-being in general, but that mental
health is particularly affected, as there are very few mental health experts in
Gaza,
and patients cannot easily travel abroad. "The siege is making it worse. The
people are suffering more," Qouta said. W.H.G. Wolters, a clinical
psychotherapist from the Netherlands
who attended the conference noted the tough challenges mental health workers in
Gaza face in
carrying out their work. "The workers face severe stress and traumatization, in
addition to having to face their own survival in the difficult situation,"
Wolters said. In some cases, they had to treat their own family members, further
complicating an already daunting job.
Can any of us really begin to understand what it's like to live and work in Gaza, when mental health
professionals have to worry about their own survival and wellbeing, while
treating their own families for trauma? Can we even begin to imagine what it
would be like to be a Gazan child, or the child's mother, or a health care
worker, during this siege of Gaza?
"It was a very, very frustrating and emotionally demanding time," according to
Dr. Samson Agbo, UNICEF's chief of child survival growth and development." You
know what to do and what was required, but you could not do it. You just
couldn't."
Also very troubling is a massive sewage flood, caused by the impact of an
Israeli shell striking a treatment plant in
Gaza, which is now visible from outer space, according to
satellite images released by the UN’s Operational Satellite Applications Program
(UNOSAT). The shell “caused a massive outflow of sewage,” UNOSAT said. The
sewage treatment plant in Sheikh Ajleen is
Gaza’s largest, treating raw sewage from some 400,000
people. It has been out of operation since early January 2009. According to the
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which sent a field team with
Palestinian engineers to Sheikh Ajleen, “raw sewage poured directly into
residential areas, agricultural lands and the Mediterranean
Sea, posing a serious public health threat.” The ICRC and a
Palestinian team repaired a main sewage pipeline on January 22, “but extensive
repair work needs to be carried out before the treatment plant is fully
operational.” In a statement released on Thursday, the ICRC said that repair
efforts “have been hampered by delays in obtaining approval from the Israeli
authorities to bring in pipes and spare parts for Sheikh Ajleen and other water
treatment plants.”
The result is the pumping of partially treated or untreated sewage directly into
the sea, and the seepage of dirty water into the ground and groundwater. "The
environmental situation in Gaza
is bad and getting worse," an ICRC expert on water and sanitation said in a
recent interview. While exact statistics are unavailable, 30,000-50,000 cubic
meters of partially treated waste water and 20,000 cubic meters of raw sewage
end up in rivers and the Mediterranean Sea.
Some 10,000-30,000 cubic meters of partially treated sewage end up in the
ground, in some cases reaching the aquifer, polluting Gaza's already poor-quality drinking water
supply. Gaza's electricity problems have further exacerbated the situation. When power is
limited, pumping sewage away from homes takes priority, leaving little left over
for treatment, according to Monther Shoblak, head of the Gaza Coastal
Municipalities Water Utility.
There are three sewage treatment plants in Gaza: one in Beit Lahiya in the north, one near Gaza City,
and one near Rafah in the south, which is only a primary treatment lagoon and
incapable of treating most of the sewage it receives. In Khan Younis people
still use septic tanks. The overload on the Beit Lahiya plant led to the
creation of a "great lake" of effluent which occupies some 30 hectares and holds
some 2-3 million cubic meters of waste water, which UN and non-governmental
organization projects are currently working to slowly drain. In 2006 a smaller
lake, which was used by the water utilities to hold sewage and take pressure off
the "great lake" collapsed, killing five people in a "torrent of filth."
Efforts to address Gaza's problems of great lakes
and lagoons of raw, seeping sewage have been stymied by Israel's refusal to allow construction materials
and equipment to enter Gaza.
A recent UN report cites Israel's
blockade as the primary factor in the dumping of raw sewage into the Mediterranean, which has left beaches empty and fish
unsafe to eat. Water quality tests conducted by the World Health Organization at
13 points along Gaza's coast found that four sites—three in Gaza City and one
in Rafah—are contaminated with dangerous levels of bacteria associated with
feces.
The bottom line? Raw sewage. Contaminated and increasingly brackish drinking
water. Water contaminated with feces and bacteria. Constant malnutrition,
stress, fear and despair. Children wetting their beds at night, unable to sleep,
as Israeli helicopters and fighters scream overhead. Overworked health care
professionals worried about their own survival, who have to treat their own
families before going to work. All for the sake of the "security" of Israeli
Jews. But the Israeli Jews are not secure. The closer the Gazans inch toward a
devastating plague, the closer Israeli Jews, American Jews and other Americans
inch toward imminent peril. This truly is a zero sum game. There can be no
"winners," only losers, if innocent Gazans die in large numbers.
If simple humanity and human compassion cannot persuade people to help the
Gazans, then enlightened self-interest should.
Of course this is not what most Jews and Americans want to hear. What they
seemingly want to hear is that the Palestinians are responsible for their own misery,
and that as long as they are responsible, the injustices of Israel and the United States can safely be
ignored or discounted. But this is akin to an ostrich sticking its head in the sand,
dreaming it's "safe," while exposing its rump to a pride of lions. What we have been
programmed to believe makes no sense at all. All that matters, really, is this
question: who condemned the Gazans to live inside a walled ghetto? The answer is
clear: Israel and the United States. How many UN resolutions have called for relief for the Palestinians? Over forty.
Who opposed them? Israel. Who vetoed them? The United
States. Why? Because American politicians have ignored the interests of our children and grandchildren, to woo the votes and
campaign contributions of pro-Israeli lobbies. In short, we have been betrayed,
and our children and grandchildren have been betrayed, for the political
aspirations of our politicians. Why is President Obama not doing many of the
things he promised? Because he’s a politician, and he too wants to be re-elected.
This is the reality we have to deal with. How can we change this reality? By
telling our politicians that we will not re-elect them unless they put the
interests of our children and grandchildren highest on their priority list. If a
plague in Gaza may well lead to World War III and/or
a
nuclear holocaust, shouldn’t preventing a plague in Gaza be at the top of our priority list?
The head of operations for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Gaza,
Pierre Kraehenbuhl, calls the situation there "a full-blown and major
humanitarian crisis." Malene Sonderskov says, "Gaza has the highest prevalence of traumatized
children in the world." Why? Because in addition to using lethal force against
Gazans, Israel has established a siege and blockade of Gaza, limiting or
eliminating the basic stuff of life. As a result, the World Health Organization
says one third of Gazan children under five and women of child-bearing age are
anemic, while thousands are malnourished. This, too, increases the likelihood of
an epidemic.
At the same time, new strains of highly infectious, drug resistant diseases are
on the rise all over the world. The best American hospitals are struggling to
contain these new diseases. What will happen when a highly infectious, drug
resistant disease strikes Gaza,
where 1.4 million people are crammed together in one of the densest populations
on earth? The very young and the very old will be the hardest hit, and the most
likely to die. Who will tend to the children? Their mothers and grandmothers.
Who, then, will be the most likely to die? Babies, toddlers, mothers and
grandmothers. Who, pray tell, are the least likely to be "terrorists"? Babies,
toddlers, mothers and grandmothers.
Do you see the very real danger we face? The governments of Israel and the United States have conspired
together—in fear, ignorance and hubris—to condemn the people least
likely to be terrorists to the most likely deaths. We cannot trust Israeli or
American politicians to do what is right, and so my plan recognizes this reality
and addresses it.
What will a billion Muslims do, when they see multitudes of innocents dying,
who cannot possibly be considered "terrorists" or "criminals"? What would
Americans do, if some outside agency caused innocent Americans to die? We know
the answer. As soon as 9-11 had taken place, we were ready to go to war,
regardless of the cost, to protect our innocent civilians. How can we expect Muslims not
to do the same? They will be every bit as angry as we were, and rightfully
so.
But why did 9-11 take place, in the first place? When this question was
posed by Lee Hamilton, Vice Chair of the September 11 Commission, the FBI
special agent who answered, James Fitzgerald, said that the 9-11 attacks
were caused by the attackers who identified with the Palestinians and were
outraged with the US (because the US supports Israel no matter how many
horrors Israel inflicts on Palestinians). This testimony was kept out of the
9-11 Commission Report, but it was recorded on C-SPAN and you can watch the
question/answer session on YouTube by clicking on this
link.
Why was this simple, obvious answer suppressed? Because it is very
inconvenient for our politicians, for several reasons. First, because
they're the ones who opted to support Israel regardless of how many innocent
women and children Israel condemned to suffer and die, whether those deaths
were lingering deaths or more immediate. Second, because they want the votes
and campaign contributions of a powerful pro-Israel lobby. Third, because
they want the votes and campaign contributions of conservative Christians
who believe the world will end in the near future, and that Jesus Christ
will descend from the clouds at the last minute to save anyone who sides
with the Israeli Jews. But there are a number of reasons for even the most
devout of Christians to doubt that the views of conservative Christians are
correct. You can view rational arguments for not allowing innocent women and
children to die needless deaths, arguments based on the Bible, by clicking
here.
What did Osama bin Laden said himself? "Your position against Muslims
in Palestine is despicable and disgraceful. America has no shame ... We
believe that the worst thieves in the world today and the worst terrorists
are the Americans. Nothing could stop you except perhaps retaliation in
kind ... The fatwah is general (comprehensive) and it includes all those
who participate in, or help the Jewish occupiers in killing Muslims ... For
over half a century, Muslims in Palestine have been slaughtered and
assaulted and robbed of their honor and of their property. Their houses have
been blasted, their crops destroyed. And the strange thing is that any act
on their part to avenge themselves or to lift the injustice befalling them
causes great agitation in the United Nations, which hastens to call for an
emergency meeting only to convict the victim and to censure the wronged and
the tyrannized whose children have been killed and whose crops have been
destroyed and whose farms have been pulverized."
We have been programmed to believe that Osama bin Laden is a madman. But his
facts are basically correct. When Sitting Bull led an insurrection of Native
Americans, was he a madman, or was he leading a people with little or
nothing to lose, whose backs were against the wall? We now know that Sitting
Bull had more than legitimate grievances against the government which
oppressed his people. Who was more in the wrong: Sitting Bull, or the United
States government? The question is rhetorical and the answer is obvious. If
we consider the facts pertaining to the Palestinians, rather than blindly
accepting racist propaganda, we will immediately discover that the
Palestinians are in the same predicament as Native Americans. Should Sitting
Bull have submitted meekly to the rape and pillage of his people, or did he
have every right to resist? What the governments of Israel and the United
States do not want us to do is consider this fundamental question. Why?
Because the American Declaration of Independence clearly declares that it is
the right of any people who have been denied freedom, equal rights and
justice to resist, using force. Like Sitting Bull, Osama bin Laden is more
right than wrong.
Do I condone terrorism? Of course not. But is it possible that Muslims have
legitimate grievances against Israel and the United States? Yes. We can
understand these grievances by considering the policies and actions of
Israel and the United States against innocent Palestinian women and
children. Should we correct those injustices, regardless of what Osama bin
Laden does? Yes, we should. Until we correct them, who is more wrong than
right? Clearly, Israel and the United States.
The bottom line is this: while terrorism is a terrible thing, what Israel
and the United States have done to millions of Palestinians constitutes
terrorism on a massive scale. The terrorists didn't attack the US because
they hate Americans, but because they hate and despise the policies and
actions of our government. Yes, they were wrong to kill our innocent
civilians. But we were wrong first, because the policies and actions of our
government, in collusion with the government of Israel, caused millions of
Palestinians to suffer, and multitudes to die before their time. Muslims
have valid grievances against Israel and the United States, and if we were
to face the facts, rather than living in a fantasyland where we are the
"good guys" no matter what we do, we might find a path to peace that doesn't
require our soldiers dying on Muslim soil in unnecessary, fruitless,
needless wars. Our politicians don't want to admit that for more than 60
years they have funded and supported a Holocaust of the Palestinians, which
has led directly to 9-11, the deaths of thousands of American citizens, and
two exorbitantly costly wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. And now, unless we
learn from our errors of the past, we face the possibility of World War III.
If Palestinians die in large numbers, who will Muslims blame? The answer is obvious. They will blame Israel, and the United States. And unfortunately they will be more
right than wrong. Israel
has denied the Palestinians their freedom and self-evident human rights, ever since the Nakba ("Catastrophe") of 1948, while continuing to steal
what little land and water the Palestinians have left. And the United States has foolishly funded and supported
this new Holocaust, by providing Israel with many billions of dollars
in financial aid, vetoes of over forty UN resolutions which might have brought
relief to the Palestinians, and innumerable advanced weapons (many of which have
been used against civilians). Of course Jews and Americans do not want to admit
these things. We want to believe that Israel is "good," that the United States
is "good," and that the Palestinians are a nation of "terrorists." But this is
an absurd, evil, nonsensical fiction. The facts prove otherwise. I believed
the convenient, prevailing fictions for most of my 51 years on this planet. But
then one day I began to realize there was something terribly wrong with
the emails my Jewish friends were sending me. As long as I agreed with them
about Israel, they were cordial. But if I
asked them questions about the conditions of the Palestinians or the policies
and actions of the government of Israel, they became defensive,
evasive, hostile. I couldn't understand this. Why should Israel be above
questioning? Americans constantly question the policies and actions of our
government. And so I decided to research the matter of Israel and the
Palestinians independently. Please allow me to tell you what I discovered. It only took me a few hours
of research to refute the
"facts" I had been told about Israel and the Palestinians.
Everything I had been told to believe was a house of cards.
The main facts are easy to confirm. What we must do is concentrate on facts,
while ignoring opinions which cannot be confirmed, on both sides. There is such
a thing as Jewish propaganda. There is also such a thing as Arab propaganda. But
there are also verifiable facts. So let us examine them, now, together . . .
(1) First, there is the question of who "owns" the land, and why and how. Before
1948, the year Israel
became a nation, the Palestinians owned
more than 90% of the land, and were predominately farmers, not "terrorists."
There was no PLO, no Fatah, no Hezbollah, no Hamas. These organizations came
into being later, as a result of multitudes of Palestinians having lost their
land, homes, farms and businesses and thus the ability to provide for
themselves. These organizations are the effects of the disease (injustice),
not the cause, just as the Black Panthers were the result of the American
disease of racial injustice, not the cause.
Why did Sitting Bull and his warriors go to war? Because of the massive
injustices suffered by Native Americans at the hands of the government of
the United States. Was Sitting Bull a criminal? Of course not. The
government of the United States portrayed Native Americans as savages and
criminals because it had an agenda. That agenda was to blatantly steal
Indian land, while pushing innocent men, women and children to the margins
of existence. How many innocents suffered and died on the Trail of Tears?
What must we think of the "Christians" who turned their backs on those
innocents, and allowed them to suffer and die so horrifically? Now a
collusion of Americans, American Jews and Israeli Jews is allowing the same
things to happen to Palestinians.
Before 1948, the Palestinians owned a preponderance of the land of present-day
Israel/Palestine. Suddenly, in
1948 and shortly thereafter, they no longer owned great swaths of that land,
hundreds of their villages had been bulldozed, and hundreds of thousands of
Palestinians were living in refugee camps in Jordan and elsewhere. How did this
happen? As many Jewish historians, reporters, humanitarians and lay people
now admit, armed Israeli Jews deliberately participated in ethnic cleansing.
They had been provided with weapons by 50 million dollars raised from American
Jews by Golda Meir. (Read her autobiography if you want to confirm this, since
she admits it herself.) American money and influence were used to aid and abet the ethnic
cleansing of Palestinians. Most of these Palestinians were farmers and
non-combatants. The armies that invaded Israel were those of bordering nations like Egypt and Jordan. A non-combatant farmer is
clearly not responsible for the actions of sovereign nations, whether good, bad
or indifferent. When the war of 1948 was over, these non-combatant farmers and
their families had every right to return to their land and reclaim their homes
and property. Not only did the UN not "give" their land to the Israeli Jews, the
UN has absolutely no right to "give" the legal property of any person to any
other person. Can the UN "give" me your house, or vice versa? Of course not: the
idea is absurd. A UN mandate had established a new democratic state which at the
time had a slight majority of Jews. But this democratic state was supposed to
protect the rights of all its citizens, equally, including those
of its minorities, which were close to half its population. But the Israeli Jews
realized that demographics presented them a real problem, since they had only a
tenuous majority. Their solution was simple, if horrific: evict the unwanted
Palestinians, bulldoze their villages, leave them homeless and destitute, and
keep them from ever returning. This was their "solution" and it reeks of
injustice.
How do we know this actually happened?
Because one day hundreds of Palestinian villages existed, but shortly thereafter
they didn't. Hundreds of villages don't disappear by "accident."
Because suddenly multitudes of displaced Palestinians were living in refugee
camps in Jordan
and elsewhere. Farmers don't voluntarily abandon their farms and livelihoods to
live impoverished lives in refugee camps.
Because the Israeli Jews didn't own or control most of the land before 1948, but
after 1948, "miraculously," they did. How did so much land change hands, without
anyone paying for it? It was clearly stolen, in clear violation of every
civilized law known to man. What would Americans say if there was a flood or
other catastrophe, and people fled their homes temporarily, only to have other
people claim "squatter's rights" and steal their homes? Many of us work the
better parts of our lives to be able to own a house and a small parcel of land.
Land is expensive. Houses are expensive. How many of us can afford to have
someone else steal our life's work and savings, which for many of us
our houses represent? How is it in any way fair for another man to claim in an
hour what I worked all my life to procure? If such a thing had happened to any
American, he would be devastated.
Now we know why so many Palestinians are devastated, and have been for over 60
years. This is the most fundamental fact Americans need to understand about the
Nakba: the palpable evil and injustice of a peaceful, law-abiding family losing
everything for the sudden "economic benefit" of newcomers. The situation of the
Palestinians is very much like that of Native Americans and Australian
aborigines, who were suddenly confronted by better-armed newcomers, who stole
their land, robbed them blind, then "cleansed" the land by herding them off to
refugee camps, where they could suffer and die without their conquerors having
to abide their wretchedness and despair. The German people did not want to see
the suffering of the Jews during the Holocaust. My Cherokee ancestors walked the
Trail of Tears because my white ancestors did not want to live close to them, or
see their suffering. But this was an event which preceded true democracy in the
United States. A true democracy must protect
the rights of its minorities. Surely Americans no longer advocate stealing the
land and property of people of other races and creeds!
But this is what clearly happened to the Palestinians, just 60 years ago. Has
the statute of limitations on justice run out? No, because Jews continue to seek
reparations for their losses during the Holocaust. The injustices of the
Holocaust preceded those of the Nakba. If Jews are entitled to reparations for
injustices which occurred before 1948, then surely Palestinians are as well. Are
all human beings entitled to justice, or only the Jews? This is a perplexing
question, because some Americans may struggle to answer it. The obvious answer
is that all human beings are entitled to justice, equally. But because we have
been programmed never to question Israel or the Jews, we feel as if
"something is wrong" if we speak for the rights of Palestinians or Muslims. This
is a mindset we simply must break. All human beings have exactly the same
rights. There is no reason to accede Jews more rights than Palestinians. It is
not anti-Semitic to say a Palestinian child has exactly the same rights as a
Jewish child (and most Palestinians are Semites). There is no reason to believe
that Israel
is "in the right" merely because Israel is a Jewish state, and Jews
suffered during the Holocaust. I'm an editor and publisher of Holocaust poetry.
I have always admired the Jewish people and have always considered the Holocaust
an abomination. But this does not mean that I must favor Jews over Palestinians.
If Jews do to Palestinians what Nazis did to Jews, I must use discernment and be
fair. This is why I oppose the Nakba ("Catastrophe") of the Palestinians just as
strongly as I have always opposed the Shoah ("Catastrophe") of the Jews.
(2) Second, there is the evidence of the dividing, conquering, killing walls
erected by Israel
on Palestinian land. No one can deny that these walls exist, because they are up
to thirty feet high: twice as high as the Berlin Wall. Was the Berlin Wall a defensive
wall? No it was a highly offensive wall, which caused the deaths of many
innocent Germans who only wanted their freedom, human rights, and dignity. Now
Palestinians are dying in ambulances at these new dividing, conquering, killing
walls, including mothers in labor and their babies. What is the best evidence
that these walls are offensive, rather than defensive? Well, many of the walls
are built on Palestinian land. If I build a wall on my land, I may have built a
defensive wall. But if I build a wall on your land, that is clearly an offensive
wall, meant to claim your land as mine. The walls Israel has
erected must be considered offensive walls, wherever they exist on Palestinian
land.
(3) Third, Israel
has also built "Jewish only" roads and settlements on Palestinian land. I live
in Tennessee.
Suppose Tennesseans agreed to give millions of Cubans the right to establish a
Cuban state within the borders of
Tennessee. Then suppose the Cubans began to build "Cuban
only" roads and towns on land we hadn't given them. Would this be fair? If
someone gives someone else something they didn't pay for, should they not only
take more, but claim superiority as well? But what if Tennesseans hadn't agreed
to give any land to the Cubans in the first place? This is very much the
situation of the Palestinians. They didn't agree to give their land away: it was
taken from them, by force. Then the same people who had taken their land without
their permission began to build walls, roads and buildings on their remaining
land. These people then told them, "Stay off our roads; they are only for us."
How would Tennesseans feel if there were roads reserved for a "superior" people,
in the state their ancestors founded and settled? Again, the injustice is
palpable. I cannot imagine being a Palestinian, and seeing Jews driving on
"Jewish only" roads on my family's ancestral land. Because I am a freedom-loving
American who believes in equal rights for all human beings, I can only see this
as an act of overt racism and an outrage. The Israeli Jews already have huge
tracts of land they didn't pay for, which they took by force of arms and
outright robbery. How can they now have the effrontery and gall to build "Jewish
only" roads and settlements on the little land the Palestinians have left? In
case anyone thinks I'm being "unfair," let me quote the results of a major study
of Israeli settlement practices conducted in 2002 by the respected Israeli human
rights organization B'Tselem: "Israel has
created in the Occupied Territories a regime of separation based on
discrimination, applying two separate systems of law in the same area and basing
the rights of individuals on their nationality. This regime is the only one of
its kind in the world, and is reminiscent of distasteful regimes from the past,
such as the apartheid regime in South Africa." A more recent
B'Tselem publication on the road system Israel
has established in the West Bank again concluded that it "bears striking
similarities to the racist Apartheid regime," and even "entails a greater degree
of arbitrariness than was the case with the regime that existed in
South Africa." As I pointed out previously,
these matters are discussed openly in Israel, where
decisions affecting Americans are made on a regular basis. But it seems that
Americans are also considered “inferior” in that we are spoon-fed propaganda, as
if we were infants. If we try to discuss these matters rationally with our Jewish
friends, we are not treated as we would be treated if we were Jews. Instead, we
are treated evasively, or defensively, or even with outright hostility. I do not consider myself
superior to my Jewish friends, but neither do I consider myself inferior to
them. I have a heart and a brain, and I am fully capable of using them
simultaneously. Why have I been called a “pathetic disgrace” for supporting the
rights of Palestinians to equal rights and justice? Why do many of my Jewish
friends no longer wish to speak to me? To me, the answer is obvious. I am
supposed to pledge unswerving allegiance to
Israel, no matter how horrific her injustices.
But for the sake of humanity, and my own children and grandchildren, I cannot
support the injustices of Israel.
Jewish historians, TV stations, reporters, humanitarian organizations and lay
people now freely discuss the injustices perpetrated by Israel on the
Palestinians. But Americans are not privy to these discussions. We are supposed
to blindly support Israel,
to fork over hundreds of billions of dollars, and to allow our children to die
as proxies for Israeli Jews on foreign soil. We are supposed to support Israel at any
cost, while Jews figure out what we should do, at their behest. But for
Americans this is insanity. We should do what is in our best interests,
and our children's and our grandchildren's. Why should we wait for
Israel
to decide what we should do, when we have nothing to gain, and everything to
lose? What do Americans gain, when Israeli Jews steal land and water from
Palestinians? We gain absolutely nothing. We only imperil ourselves, and
our children, and grandchildren.
This is the crazy thing:
Israel
knows Palestinians and Arab nations will act in their own best interests, as
will every other nation on earth. But Americans are a "special case." We will
not act in our own best national interests. Our politicians will act in the best
interests of Israeli Jews. Until we prove that we have hearts, minds and wills
of our own, and can act independently in the best interests of ourselves and our
children, we are doomed to participate in the follies of Israel's
racist leaders.
I had to open my eyes and clear my mind, in order to understand that my Jewish
friends were misleading me. They wanted me to put their interests ahead of my
own interests, and those of my loved ones. But they were so bedeviled by their
own fear that they were incapable of making a sound decision. Rather than
offering justice to the Palestinians, and gaining the chance of peace for
themselves, they placed nooses around their own necks, then demanded that I join
them at the gallows, along with my family. But I don't want my family to commit
suicide, or to cause the suffering and deaths of innocents. Therefore, it is up
to us, as Americans who understand the value of, and need for, equal rights and
justice, to take the reins back, and do what is just and right. Israel must do what the United States
did, and give equal rights and justice to every human being under its aegis.
(4) Fourth, the laws of
Israel
are matters of public record. Anyone can study them, as I have. Many of these
laws are clearly racist, and therefore illegal. It is not a crime to break an
illegal law, but it is crime to establish a racist, illegal law. Think about it.
American slaveowners had "laws" which made it "illegal" for a slave to strike
his "master" or run to freedom. A slave might be beaten or killed for trying to
become free. If a slave heard that his "master" was about to sell his wife and
children to other "masters" and split his family up, would it be a "crime" for
him to attack his master, and rescue his wife and children? No, it is obvious
that the "laws" of the white masters were racist and therefore illegal. The
"masters" were the criminals, not the slaves. If a slave struck his "master,"
ran away, and then his "master" died, would any truly fair judge or jury find
him guilty? No, because it is the right and duty of a man to protect his family.
There is obviously something very, very wrong when "superior" races try to
control who can marry whom, and who can live with whom. But the marriage and
citizenship laws of Israel do just
this. Israel
routinely prevents Palestinians from living with their spouses, and even keeps
parents from living with their children. Why? Because Israel has the
mentality that the rights of Jews supersede those of any other race. Therefore,
a Palestinian woman who lives in Israel
and is a citizen of Israel
may not be allowed to live with the man she chooses to marry. Even if she has
children with her husband, by commuting back and forth to see him from time to
time, their children may not be allowed to live with her. If she divorces her
husband, or if he dies, she may not be able to obtain custody of her own
children, unless she packs up and leaves Israel. Again, the injustice is
palpable. A government should not tell its minority citizens the people they can
marry, or under what circumstances they can live with their own children. When
human marriages and families are not sacrosanct, something is deeply, terribly
wrong. Something is deeply, terribly wrong with the government of Israel. The main
problems are overt racism and palpable injustice.
(5) Fifth, the problems go even deeper. The laws of Israel seem to be designed to create
situations which will cause Palestinians to lose their land, homes and property,
to the political and economic benefit of Israeli Jews. Here is very troubling
example. A 16-year-old Palestinian boy can be tried as an adult in a military
court. But Jewish boy will not be tried until age 18, and then in a
civilian court. Now suppose a Jewish settler has his eye on a Palestinian's
land. He can have his son throw rocks at a younger Palestinian boy. When the Palestinian boy retaliates, the Jewish settler can
call the Israeli military, report an act of "terrorism," and have the boy hauled
into a military court where he can be detained indefinitely, while being denied
access not only to a lawyer, but even to his own parents. Then the family
can have its house bulldozed for having harbored a "terrorist," and its land
confiscated. If the Jewish settler has the right connections, he can end up with
the land he had his eye on. Why do we see so many graphic pictures of young
Palestinian boys throwing rocks, then ending up dead or being hauled off by the
Israeli military? Do you think I exaggerate? Then please read this TIME article
(and
please note that thousands of Palestinian children have been arrested for throwing rocks).
Walid Abu Obeida, a 13-year-old Palestinian farm boy from the West Bank village of
Ya'abad, had never spoken to an Israeli until he rounded a corner at dusk
carrying his shopping bags and found two Israeli soldiers waiting with their
rifles aimed at him. "They accused me of throwing stones at them," recounts
Walid, a skinny kid with dark eyes. "Then one of them smacked me in the face,
and my nose started bleeding."According to Walid, the two soldiers blindfolded and handcuffed him, dragged
him to a jeep and drove away. All that his family would know about their missing
son was that his shopping bags with meat and rice for that evening's dinner were
found in the dusty road near an olive grove. Over the course of several days in
April last year, the boy says he was moved from an army camp to a prison, where
he was crammed into a cell with five other children, cursed at and humiliated by
the guards and beaten by his interrogator until he confessed to stone-throwing.
Walid says he saw his parents for only five seconds when he was brought
before an Israeli military court and accused by the uniformed prosecutor not
only of throwing stones but of "striking an Israeli officer." The military judge
ignored the latter charge and chose to prosecute Walid only for allegedly
heaving a stone at soldiers.
The boy got off lightly: he spent 28 days in prison and was fined 500 shekels
(approximately $120). Under Israeli military law, which prevails in the Palestinian territories, the crime of throwing a stone at an Israeli
solider or even at the monolithic 20-ft.-high "security barrier" enclosing much
of the West Bank can carry a maximum 20-year-prison sentence. Since 2000, according to the Palestinian
Ministry for Prisoner Affairs, more than 6,500 children have been arrested,
mostly for hurling rocks.
Walid's story is hardly unusual, judging from a report on the Israeli
military-justice system in the West Bank compiled by the Palestine office of the
Geneva-based Defense for Children International, which works closely with the U.N. and European states.
Human-rights groups in Israel and elsewhere have also condemned the punishment meted out to
Palestinian children by Israeli military justice. Most onerous, says Sarit
Michaeli of the Israeli human-rights group B'Tselem, is that inside the
territories, the Israeli military deems any Palestinian who is 16 years and
older as an adult, while inside Israel, the U.S. and most other countries,
adulthood is reached at age 18.
The report states that "the ill-treatment and torture" of Palestinian child
prisoners "appears to be widespread, systematic and institutionalized,
suggesting complicity at all levels of the political and military chain of command."
The group's director, Rifaat Kassis, says the number of child arrests rose
sharply in the past six months, possibly because of a crackdown on Palestinian
protests in the West Bank in the aftermath of Israel's military offensive in
Gaza.
The Geneva organization's report alleges that under Israeli military justice,
it is the norm for children to be interrogated by the Israeli police and army
without either a lawyer or a family member present and that most of their
convictions are due to confessions extracted during interrogation sessions or
from "secret evidence," usually tip-offs from unnamed Palestinian informers. If so, the practice may
violate the U.N. Convention Against Torture, which Israel ratified in 1991. In
response to TIME's queries, a lawyer for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said that under "security legislation" and Israel's interpretation of
international law, no lawyer or relative need be present during a child's
interrogation.
The children's rights defenders collected testimony from 33 minors, including
a child identified merely as "Ezzat H.," who described a "soldier wearing black
sunglasses [who] came into the room where I was held and pointed his rifle at
me. The rifle barrel was a few centimeters from my face. I was so terrified that
I started to shiver. He made fun of me and said: 'Shivering? Tell me where the
[father's hidden] pistol is before I shoot you.'" According to the report, Ezzat was 10 years old at the time. TIME asked the
IDF to comment on the specific incidents mentioned in the report, but a
spokesman said that would be impossible without knowing the names of the
soldiers allegedly involved.
Often, children suffer lasting traumas from jail. Says Saleh Nazzal of the
Palestinian Ministry of Prisoner Affairs: "When soldiers burst into a house and
drag away a child, he loses his feeling of being protected by his family. He
comes back from prison alienated from his family, his friends. They don't like
going back to school or even leaving the house. They start wetting their beds."
Says Mona Zaghrout, a YMCA counselor who helps kids returning from prison: "They
come out of prison thinking and acting like they are men. Their childhood is
gone." And they often turn to another father figure - the armed militant groups fighting the Israeli occupation.
According to the Israeli human-rights group Breaking the Silence, a few
Israeli soldiers are alarmed by their own troops' behavior. The group cites the
testimony of two officers who complained before a military court that during an
operation last March in Hares village, soldiers herded 150 male villagers, some
as young as 14, into a schoolyard in the middle of the night, where they were
kept bound, blindfolded and beaten over the course of more than 12 hours.
A U.N. Committee Against Torture, which met on May 15 in Geneva, expressed
its "concern" over Israel's alleged abuses of Palestinian child prisoners. The IDF denies any ill treatment
of children detainees and insists that all claims are thoroughly investigated
and that the number of complaints has dropped. But Khalid Quzman, a defense
lawyer at the Israeli military courts, says, "We don't complain anymore because
it's a waste of time." More than 600 complaints of torture and ill treatment
were filed between 2001 and 2008, he says, "and not a single criminal
investigation was ever carried out."
Inculcating respect for an occupying force is, of course, a difficult task
under any circumstances. In the case of the Palestinians, history and society
have made hatred for Israel almost an instinct. Still, there was shock in June
among Palestinians when members of a family were
accused of hanging a boy for suspected collaboration with Israeli forces.
Israel's treatment of Palestinian children and teens as combatants
perpetuates the cycle of hatred. After a spell in an Israeli jail, it's hard for
a young Palestinian to stay uninvolved. Walid says he never cared
much for anything aside from his school friends and family before his
incarceration. Now he bears a radioactive hatred towards Israelis. "The
soldiers' curses and insults, I'll carry them to my grave," he says.
— by Tim McGirk, Jerusalem, June 30, 2009, with reporting by Jamil / Hebron
and Yonit Farago / Jerusalem
See pictures of Israeli soldiers
sweeping into Gaza
See pictures of life under Hamas
in Gaza
See pictures of 60 years of Israel
View this article on
Time.com
Here's another article, this one by DCI (Defence for Children International),
which shows how Israel uses the "crime" of rock-throwing, and confessions
obtained under duress, to inflict terror on Palestinian children:
[RAMALLAH, 11 June 2009] – Today, DCI-Palestine is
releasing a
report which documents the widespread ill-treatment and torture
of Palestinian children at the hands of the Israeli army and police force –
Palestinian Child Prisoners: The systematic and institutionalised
ill-treatment and torture of Palestinian children by Israeli authorities.
The release of the report comes just days after an
article was published in The Independent newspaper reporting
the testimonies of two Israeli soldiers which detail the deliberate abuse of
Palestinian children. One soldier is reported as saying that in an incident that
occurred in a Palestinian village in March, he saw a lot of soldiers
"just knee (Palestinians) because it's boring, because you stand there for 10
hours, you’re not doing anything, so they beat people up.’
The report published today contains the testimonies of 33
children, one as young as 10 years old, who bear witness to the abuse they
received at the hands of soldiers from the moment of arrest through to an often
violent interrogation.
Most of these children were arrested from villages near
the Wall and illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank. There is evidence
that many children are painfully shackled for hours on end, kicked, beaten and
threatened, some with death, until they provide confessions, some written in
Hebrew, a language they do not speak or understand.
A soldier [...] pointed his rifle at me. The rifle barrel was a few
centimetres away from my face. I was so terrified that I started to shiver.
He made fun of me and said: ‘Shivering? Tell me where the pistol is before I
shoot
you.'
(Ezzat, 10 years old)
Disturbingly, the report finds that these illegally
obtained confessions are routinely used as evidence in the military courts to
convict around 700 Palestinian children every year. And the most common charge
against these children is for throwing stones. Once sentenced, the children who
gave these testimonies were mostly imprisoned inside Israel in breach of the
Fourth Geneva Convention where they receive few family visits, and little or no
education.
The report concludes that this widespread and systematic
abuse is occurring within a general culture of impunity where in 600 complaints
made against Israeli Security Agency interrogators for alleged ill-treatment and
torture, not a single criminal investigation was ever conducted.
The report also contains recent recommendations made by
the UN Committee Against Torture which expressed ‘deep concern’ at reports of
the abuse of Palestinian children when it reviewed Israel’s compliance with the
Convention Against Torture in May 2009.
The report is now available on-line in PDF format:
Palestinian Child Prisoners
See video
How do things work, exactly? Here's another article which cites book, chapter
and verse, then goes on to explain how the system works:
Israeli Military Order 132 defines a Palestinian child as a person under the
age of 16 and those children over the age of 16 are sentenced as adults and
imprisoned with adults. Palestinian children are subjected to the same arrest,
interrogation, trial and imprisonment procedures as adults, by the Israeli
State. Palestinian children, when under the arrest of Israeli soldiers, are not
advised of their rights, are not given immediate access to a lawyer or contact
with a parent, guardian, other adult relative or an independent support person.
Palestinian children are deprived the right to a family visit while held in a
detention center for interrogation, which can last several weeks but even after
the conclusion of interrogation, a Palestinian child may remain in a detention
center for an indefinite period where family visits are not allowed. Palestinian
children can be deprived a visit from a lawyer while under interrogation for
security reasons and under Israeli military law, this can last up to 90 days. In
some circumstances, a Palestinian child may only meet his lawyer for the first
time at the first court appearance in the Military Court. Most Palestinian
children are detained from the moment of their arrest until the end of legal
proceedings. They are usually arrested in their homes in the middle of the night
by armed Israeli soldiers and are rarely granted bail by the Military Court.
Palestinian children are interrogated in detention centers and in many
circumstances are assaulted, beaten and tortured during the interrogation
process. Torture methods include psychological threats of harm to or
imprisonment of family members. The Military Court (both the judiciary and the
prosecution) relies heavily on the confession of a Palestinian child. In this
regard, there are no rules of evidence in the Military Court. A confession is
obtained by coercion during the interrogation process. A confession is the main
piece of information or “evidence” used against a Palestinian child in the
Military Court. A confession is in effect, the prosecutor’s case and can also be
used to implicate other Palestinian child prisoners both in Court proceedings
and in interrogation. The confession, regardless of how it has been obtained,
forms the bases of the indictment against the child. It is what the child has to
respond to in entering a guilty or not guilty plea before the Military Court.
There are no civilian, forensic or military personnel witness statements,
whether oral or written, presented to the Military Court or a Palestinian
child’s Defense lawyer before this plea is entered. In effect, this shifts the
burden of proof on the Defense making it extremely difficult to challenge a
confession. All Palestinian children brought before the Israeli military court
are sentenced to a term of imprisonment. Israel uses imprisonment as a measure
of first resort for Palestinian children; there are very few cases of children
who receive alternative sentences. During their imprisonment, Palestinian
children are exposed to varying forms of punishment for minor offenses including
being placed in solitary confinement, deprivation from family visits, financial
penalties withdrawn from their prison accounts, and ongoing restrictions to
going outdoors. Palestinian child prisoners also do not have the same rights as
Israeli child prisoners, for example they do not have the right to make
telephone calls. Defence for Children International Palestine views the military
system imposed on Palestinian society by Israel as a discriminatory system that
violates core principals of human rights. Military Orders and Military Order
enforcement officials are tools used by the executive authority of the Israeli
government in its occupation of the Palestinian territories, to oppress and
suppress Palestinian children, and to overall undermine their right to life,
survival and development.
We once had similar problems in the Deep South.
A fine young black man once told me a story about his father, who grew up in Mississippi. When his father was a little
boy, he was instructed to call little white boys "sir." I find this deeply
offensive. Little boys should be equals. But the problems young Palestinian boys
face run much deeper. They can be egged into throwing rocks by much older Jewish
boys, or by the Israeli military, and then they and their families can suffer
crushing retaliation. It is a dangerous thing, indeed, to be born non-Jewish in
Israel
or the occupied territories. It would be like being born black in KKK territory,
or being born Jewish in Nazi Germany. Unfortunately, Israel is the antithesis of the United States, and yet somehow we have followed Israel's lead, rather than Israel
following ours. Why? Because our politicians want votes and campaign
contributions, and because “we the people” have stupidly and apathetically
believed what we have been told to believe. I condemn myself, because I would
still believe the unbelievable if my Jewish friends hadn't become so evasive,
defensive and hostile when I questioned the policies and actions of Israel.
These are just five examples. I could go on and on. People now tell me that I'm
being "unfair" to Israel,
and one-sided. I disagree. I don't deny that Palestinians engage in acts of
violence. Obviously some Palestinians engage in acts of extreme violence. I
abhor physical violence, have never started a fight, and have walked away from
fights whenever possible. But I have the ability to think. And thinking about
these palpable injustices makes certain things clear to me:
(1) The evidence of history is clear: injustice always leads to violence. The United States
suffered a catastrophic Civil War and 200 years of racial violence (most of it
perpetrated on blacks by whites) until we finally made strides toward becoming a
true democracy based on equal rights and justice for all citizens, regardless of
race, creed or sex. For most of our history we were an oligarchy of white males
masquerading as a democracy. In recent years we have improved in many areas, and
yet we have failed to establish real equality for certain minorities, such as
non-heterosexuals. We have never been the paragon of democracy we claim to be,
even within our own borders, and our record abroad speaks for itself. Isn't it
obvious that we vastly prefer the "equal rights" of Americans and Jews to those
of Palestinians and citizens of Muslim nations? Isn't this clear evidence of
racism and religious intolerance? We didn't torture German prisoners of war,
despite the multitudinous atrocities of the Nazis, but we have tortured Muslims.
Isn't this also clear evidence of racism and religious intolerance? Hasn't our
racism and religious intolerance abroad resulted in ever-escalating violence, on
our part, as we have attempted to "shock and awe" Muslims into submission? When
will we act in accordance with the American Creed abroad? If we don't want to
fight one fruitless, unwinnable war after another, we need to abandon injustice
and establish peace through justice.
(2) The only non-violent path to peace is through justice. If this is not
self-evident, please read Nobel Peace Prize laureate Nelson Mandela's testimony
by clicking on this
link.
To make a long story short, after fifty years of using non-violent methods with
little or no success, Mandela's group, the African National Congress, elected to
use violent methods (starting with sabotage, in the hope that deaths could be
avoided), because non-violent methods clearly do not work when the "superior"
class rigs the laws and courts against the "inferior" class. Non-violent methods
only worked for Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. because British and American
courts began to find the "superior" class guilty of crimes, rather than their
victims. Anyone who comes to understand this simple truth will see the real
problem in Israel/Palestine today. The laws and courts are rigged against the
Palestinians. Therefore, they have no recourse except violence. If Israel
establishes equal rights, fair laws and fair courts for Jews and non-Jews alike,
then peace through justice becomes possible, and people on both sides who break
fair laws can be prosecuted, convicted and jailed. But it is not a crime to
break an illegal law. If it was, the American Revolution would have been
criminal and treasonous, and the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising would be
criminals rather than heroes. It is important to note that Mandela was
considered a “terrorist” by the United States
and South Africa.
Why? Because in our hypocrisy Americans laud George Washington, while
conveniently labeling the freedom fighters of other nations “terrorists.” Washington chose to kill
people of his own race and creed, and we laud him to the skies. Why did we label
Mandela a “terrorist”? Because we hypocritically reserve rights for ourselves
which we deny to people far more oppressed than white Americans ever were. If
Americans were to study Mandela’s case, and compare his case to the case of the
Palestinians we call “terrorists” today, they will be in for a real shock. If
Washington and Jefferson were correct that it was their right and duty to oppose
the tyranny of anyone who denied them their freedom and human rights, then
surely the Palestinians have every right to resist every attempt of Israel to
deny them freedom and justice. This is why establishing justice is so important,
for both sides. The only non-violent path to peace is through justice.
Israel
has complete military dominance over the Palestinians, just as the British once
had complete military dominance over Americans. If the British had
unconditionally granted Americans equal rights and justice, there would have
been no need for the American Revolutionary War. Now Israel is in the position of the
imperial British monarchy.
(3) Something essential changed in 1776. Before 1776, and the American
Declaration of Independence, "inferior" classes of people largely believed or
accepted that they were inferior, and that it was their lot to be ruled by
"superior" classes of people. But since 1776, and especially since the advent of
radio, television, the Internet, Google, email, cell phones and Twitter, all the
people of the earth now believe that they, too, are fully equal to all other
human beings. Therefore, the Palestinians will never accept the idea that they
are inferior to the Jews. Nor should they. The government of
Israel
has adopted tactics that worked once, in the distant, receding past. Yes, white
men were once able to subdue Native Americans and Australian Aborigines. But
they were not in the right, and this was before imperialism gasped its last
dying breath. The Indians and Aborigines were moved far away from their white
usurpers, where no one had to see and contemplate their suffering. But this is
not the case in Israel/Palestine today. All the world sees the suffering of the
Palestinians. Now, when a plague strikes
Gaza
and multitudes of innocents die, all the world will see the magnitude of this
new Holocaust, the Nakba. Then the floodgates of anger against Israel and the United States will open. This is
inevitable. And so it really doesn't matter whether Jews and Americans agree
with me. What matters is that Jews and Americans cannot afford to allow Gazans
to die in large numbers, or for other Palestinians to continue to suffer from
the injustices inflicted on them by Israel
and the United States.
The suffering and deaths of the Palestinians cannot be hidden or ignored. Israel has miscalculated, because its leaders
plan to slowly nibble away at the West Bank,
dividing and conquering the Palestinians. But they have turned their backs on Gaza, written off the
Gazans, and forgotten that human immune systems can only handle so much
malnutrition, fear, stress and despair, before they implode. But this impending
crisis now gives us the opportunity to achieve peace through justice, if we can
persuade highly intelligent, highly literate Jews to see Israel's folly and
change course, while there is still time.
Like Jefferson's truths, I believe these truths
are self-evident. It seems "logical" to say that Israel has the
right to "defend" its security and interests. But this is only true if
Israel's laws and courts are just. The "laws"
of American slaveowners were clearly unjust. It was no crime for slaves to break
them. The "laws" of the Nazis were clearly unjust. It was no crime for the Jews
of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising to break them. Those Jews were not criminals, but
heroes. But then it is only logical to say that the Palestinians who resist the
racist and therefore illegal "laws" of Israel are also heroes and freedom
fighters. Almost no one wants to hear this. It is far more convenient to call
the Palestinians "terrorists." Jews and Americans point out the rockets
Palestinians fire at Israelis. Yes, but what does the United States
do, when our rights and security are imperiled? We unleash torrents of missiles
and bombs, killing far more civilians in a few days than the Palestinians have
killed in years of resistance.
Israel
has killed far more Palestinian women and children than vice versa. And Israel conducts
a daily campaign of unrelenting, systematic terrorism against millions of
Palestinians, while Hamas has only around 3,000 members (from what I have read,
which is admittedly hearsay). If the United States
were to emulate Israel, the
next time members of a Mexican drug cartel killed Americans, we would build a
wall around Mexico City,
herd millions of innocent women and children inside, slam the gates shut, and
deny Mexican children the right to have crayons and coloring books. Then of
course some Mexican men would take pot shots at the guards who had deprived
their children of liberty. We would then use this “terrorism” as an excuse to
test new advanced weapon systems against the prisoners of Mexico City. Soon little girls would have the
flesh bubbling from their bodies due to white phosphorous bombs, while CIA
agents with joysticks guided drones overhead looking for "suitable" targets.
Yes, such things are happening in Israel. No, the United States doesn't treat its neighbors as
badly as Israel
treats the Palestinians. But in Afghanistan,
Pakistan and Iraq we are
coming damn close. CIA agents with joysticks are using drones to attack
"suitable" targets in
Pakistan. But they are killing far more
civilians than "bad guys." But why are we fighting wars on Muslim soil in the
first place? Primarily for two reasons: (1) our foolish support of the
injustices of Israel, which allow Israeli Jews to obtain "free" land and water
(which is incredibly expensive land and water for Palestinians, Americans and
the rest of the world), and (2) our relentless attempts to make other nations
favor our national interests over their own, particularly when oil is involved
(but we would have saved trillions of dollars by simply paying the going price
for oil, butting out of the affairs of other nations, and using the money we
saved on fruitless wars to develop renewable sources of energy).
The hypocrisy of Israel and
the United States
is abysmal. No one can take us seriously, when we talk about "democracy" and
"human rights." If we want to be taken seriously, we must first abandon
hypocrisy and stand for what we say we believe in: equal rights and justice. We
have done better and better at home. We have done reasonably well when dealing
with our closest neighbors, and nations with cultures similar to our own. But in
the Middle East
we have been our own worst enemies. If we want peace with Muslim nations, we
need to do two simple things: (1) stop supporting Israel's injustices, and stand for
equal rights, fair laws and fair courts for Jews and Palestinians alike, and (2)
get our troops off Muslim soil, for good, and accept that other nations have
every right to prefer their national interests to ours. It will be far less
expensive to pay the going rate for oil, than to drive it up while spending
trillions of dollars on unnecessary, fruitless, unwinnable war.
Nearly everything I had been told to believe about Israel and the Palestinians was
upside down, inside out. The situation of the Palestinians is far more dire than
that of the American Founding Fathers. Washington and Jefferson lived in
mansions, and yet they claimed the right to fight to the death, rather than
submit to the tyranny of an imperial British monarchy. If they had the right to
resist, and kill British troops of the same race and creed, does it make any
sense whatsoever to deny the Palestinians the right to resist, and use force if
necessary?
No, that would be hypocritical. We Americans find ourselves in the unfortunate
position of violating our own principles, and thus playing the hypocrite before
the eyes of an unbelieving world. No wonder no one pays any attention to our
words, or example, these days. But there is a solution: Israel must
unconditionally give the Palestinians their self-evident human rights, and
access to fair laws and fair courts. Then those fair courts can settle disputes
the way they're settled here in the United States: legally. The courts Israel
establishes must be able to set legal precedents, and they should be subject to
peer review by judges appointed by the UN. But unfortunately both Israel and the United States seem to be paralyzed.
Too many American politicians depend on pro-Israel votes and campaign
contributions. And so we need to make an "end run" around them. We can do this
by having the UN adopt a new resolution: one the US can't veto (as the US has vetoed so many UN resolutions
that would have brought the Palestinians relief in the past). This resolution
should be based on the American Creed of equal rights and justice for everyone.
And so here is the UN resolution I propose. This is my "simple plan for peace in
the Middle East": Israel must unconditionally grant Jews and non-Jews equal human rights, and access to
the same fair laws and fair courts, with the courts being able to set legal
precedents while being subject to peer review by judges appointed by the UN.
If such a UN resolution is put up for a vote, what would happen?
If the US doesn't veto the
resolution, and if Israel
complies, then Palestinians and Jews alike will be able to achieve peace through
justice. Atrocities against Palestinians will have to cease immediately, as will
atrocities against Jews. The Gazans can be saved from a devastating plague.
Disputes can be settled in courts, without violence. If people on either side
break the law, they can be tried, convicted and jailed. Most of the violent
elements on both sides will end up in jail, and everyone willing to abide by the
law can live in increasing peace. Will the process be perfect? Of course not.
But what happened in the US after the civil rights movement
will eventually happen in Israel/Palestine. People who don't want go to jail
will obey the law, and find they can co-exist. People intent on violence will
increasingly constitute the minority, or they can go to jail.
If the US vetoes the
resolution, the hypocrisy of the US
will be clearly revealed on the world stage, but I don't think the US can veto a
resolution based on the American Creed.
If the US doesn't veto the resolution, and Israel does not comply, the refusal of Israel
to deny Palestinians equal rights and justice will be clearly revealed on the world stage, and Israel
will have demonstrated that it is not a democracy. Then the US and UN can
deal with the real problem: honestly, without hypocrisy. Israel is a
modernized nation which depends on imports, exports, tourism and people being
able to "globetrot" for political, economic, business, educational and
scientific purposes. Sanctions against Israel would be far more persuasive
than sanctions against less advanced nations. What Israel needs, more than any other nation, is to establish peace through justice,
because Israel is surrounded by a billion Muslims. What the Jews need, more than any other
people, is the American Creed of unconditional equal rights and justice for all
people. Even if the Israeli Jews protest bitterly, in the long run they will
benefit greatly by establishing true democracy and true justice. If it takes the
concerted effort of the world and sanctions to bring Israel to its
senses, the sooner we start, the better for everyone.
And just think: if peace through justice is established in Israel/Palestine,
then no one anywhere in the world will ever be able to say that peace through
justice is not possible. In recent days three paramilitary organizations in Northern Ireland
finally admitted that their weapons are no longer needed and began the process
of decommissioning them: the Red Hand Commando, the Ulster Defence Association
and the Ulster Volunteer Force. The IRA had decommissioned its weapons four
years prior. But what about years of senseless violence which left thousands of
people dead and far more wounded and traumatized? There is not an iota of
difference between the DNA of Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants. There is
hardly an iota of difference between the DNA of Jews and Arabs. Most Jews and
most Arabs are Semites. But really all human DNA is virtually identical. We
really are equal, after all. Our differences are primarily cultural: the way we
perceive and think about ourselves. The United States has proven that people
of widely divergent cultures can live together in peace. I live in the South (Tennessee)
in a multi-cultural neighborhood. Today we have white children and black
children running around in skimpy bathing suits, while Pakistani and Egyptian
women walk around wrapped from head to foot in long robes. No one bats an eye.
Why do we have increasingly better race relations in the
United States, even in the Deep South,
once the bastion of slavery and racial intolerance? Primarily because fair laws
and fair courts made it too expensive to practice racism. How many white
Americans actually hated minorities enough to surrender their freedom? In
reality, not very many. Even the worst racists value their freedom. As long as
unjust laws and unjust courts allowed white racists virtually free rein, many of
them did abuse minorities. But once fair laws and fair courts were established,
it became too expensive for white racists to abuse minorities. Racism was
largely defused, and the race bomb we all feared never blew up in our faces.
Once racism was largely defused by fair laws and fair courts, with every
generation racism has ameliorated. Why? Because younger people have been able to
see that we really can live together in peace. I am very happy to be able to
walk around my neighborhood, and smile at everyone without regard to race or
creed, and feel that we are all welcome. Will this happen in Israel/Palestine,
right away? No, not right away. But it will happen faster than most people
believe. Just think of how bad things were here in the South, only a few decades
ago. When Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, who dared dream that his
audacious dream would ever become a reality? But now we have a multi-racial,
multi-cultural president, Barack Obama. We also have Colin Powell, Clarence
Thomas, Jesse Jackson, Condoleezza Rice, Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, Sidney
Poitier, Michael Jackson, Oprah Winfrey, Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Magic
Johnson, and thousands of lesser-known but highly successful black CEOs,
business owners and scientists. The sky really is the limit.
But Americans have fallen short in believing and acting as if the citizens of
other nations have rights equal to ours. We have particularly fallen short in
regard to Muslims and Arabs, and most particularly in regard to Palestinians. If
we value the lives and futures of our own children and grandchildren, we must
correct this: now, today. The first step is the new UN resolution that I
mentioned above. With this simple UN resolution we can avert disaster for
Muslims, Jews, Christians, Hindus, agnostics, atheists . . . for everyone. How?
Simply by adhering to the creed that all human beings are equal, and living up
to it: at home and abroad.
Mike Burch
Independence Day
July 4, 2009
The HyperTexts