To more and more people watching the carnage of Israel ’s bombardment of Gaza
last summer, it seemed that Israel
is like a run away truck; picking up speed, engine red hot, exhaust spewing out poisonous gas, racing downhill,
no one at the wheel and heading for a crash. The question is, will we, the U.S. , crash
with it?
It seems that our congressional leadership is determined to
keep its blinders on even as more people around the world see that we are on the
wrong side of history.
Last month, the Swedish Prime Minister announced that his
country would become the first in the European Union to recognize Palestine as a state. A
week later, the British Parliament voted 274 to 12 to do the same, saying that
the British public is fed up with Israel ’s brutal occupation of
Palestinian land. Last month’s war against Gaza was the last straw. Some of the moral concerns expressed by the
parliamentarians sounded like a foreign language to our congress:
One lawmaker says that the occupation
is “much worse” than apartheid in South Africa . Another says that the
Balfour Declaration of 1917 now seems like a “sick joke,” because it never
guaranteed freedom to Palestinians. Many members offer frank descriptions of
Israeli detention of children and unending settlement expansion. Several
describe Israeli actions in Gaza
as war crimes. One mentions the use of terrorism by Mandela and Begin long
before Palestinians used the tactic. Labor and Conservative members alike speak
of the role of the Israel
lobby in the United States .[1]
Of course, recognition does not solve much. In fact, it
hardly solves anything. Recognition without rights is next to meaningless. After a cease fire and recognition, Gaza will still need food
and medicine, water and electricity. More than 450,000 people have been run
over. According to the United Nations:
At least 2,168 Palestinians
were killed, 519 children and 77 % were civilians.[2] 11,321
Palestinians were injured, 108,000 are currently homeless and over 1000
children will be permanently disabled.
142 families lost three or more family members in the same
incident. At least 220 schools were
damaged, with 22 completely destroyed.
62 hospitals were damaged, 278 mosques (73 completely demolished). Some of the mosques were historical sites
that dated back to the 7th century. The Gaza
George Galloway, member
of Parliament, identified himself as a life time friend of Israel , abstained from voting on the Parliament’s
recognition of Palestinian as a state because he said that such an act will not
solve the major problems facing Gaza :
I cannot support this motion as it
accepts recognition of the state of Israel ,
does not define borders of either state or address the central question of the
right of return of the millions of Palestinians who have been forced to live
outside Palestine .
Israel
was a state born in 1948 out of the blood of the Palestinians who were hounded
from their land. Since then it has grabbed ever more land from the Palestinian
people. In the last five years it has twice launched murderous assaults on the
Palestinian people of Gaza ,
some 1.8 million people crammed into what is in effect a prison camp. In the
wake of the most recent war on Gaza ,
Israel Israel has
defied UN resolution after UN resolution with impunity…[3].
Richard Ottaway, long time supporter of Israel said that Israel has made him “look like a
fool. I have to say to the government of Israel that if they are losing
people like me, they will be losing a lot of people.”[4]
Of course, it’s hard for the United
States government to condemn Israel for its barbaric bombing of
innocent unarmed people when we are providing the bombs to do it.
Marc Ellis asks:
What is to be thought of world
leaders who know the score in private and continually lie in public? They are
little better than the Israelis gathered on the border of Gaza who cheer each Israeli bomb strike.
Maybe
those Israeli bomb cheerleaders are not far off. Israel was born through violence. Israel has expanded
through violence. Israel
makes sure that there won’t be a Palestinian state through violence.[5]
What recognition does
do is send a message to the world and especially to the U.S. Congress that Palestine has not yet been
pushed under the rug. It also sends a
message to the people of Palestine
that they have not been forgotten in spite of all the efforts of self-serving
politicians, irresponsible media and silent pulpits. The British Parliament,
along with Sweden
and 130 other countries have said, we
have not forgotten you.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer once said that the church (synagogue and
Mosque) has three obligations to the State. First, to ask the State if its
actions are legitimate. Second, to aid the victims of State despotism. And third,
to jam the wheels of State when it runs over people. When a mad man drives down a crowed street, we
must put spikes in the spokes of the truck.[6]
Of course, the Israeli government never heard of Dietrich Bonhoeffer
and couldn’t care less about the British Parliament. But, an increasing number
of people both in the U.S.
and around the world watched the news from Israel/Gaza and are saying, there is
something wrong with this picture. And that angers Israel , which in itself makes me
feel that we may be clogging the wheels of the Zionist truck.
Thomas
Are
October 22,
2014
[1]
Mondoweiss, British Parliament Sends a
Message to Obama: The People see Israel
as a “Bully., Oct. 15, 2014
[3] George
Galloway, Why I Cannot Support This
Motion on Palestine
[4] Philip
Weiss, British Parliament Votes
Overwhelmingly to Recognize Palestinian
State
[5] Marc H.
Ellis, Burning Children, A Jewish View of
the War in Gaza
[6] Eric
Metaxas, Bonhoeffer, (Thomas Nelson, 2010) p.153-4.
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