Larry King should be embarrassed. During his “love fest” with the Prime Minister of Israel last week, (Larry King Live, July 7, 2010), he left so many questions unasked. Benjamin Netanyahu talked peace, bemoaning the fact that Israel wanted so much to have peace Yet others either refused to “recognize the Jewish state that exists in the Middle East, that wants to live in peace and security with its neighbors.” OR, he complained that he had no negotiating partner on the Arab side who is willing to come from Ramallah to Jerusalem to “get down together to talk peace and make peace.”
Netanyahu complained that Hamas is still holding Gilad Shalit, a Jewish soldier, in prison and has done so for four years. “I would hope that International condemnation is directed there. That’s where it belongs and not against Israel, a struggling democracy, striving to live and make peace with its neighbors.” I agree. I wish Hamas would release their one prisoner, whom the whole world knows by name. But King did not ask about the 8,000 Palestinians being held in Israeli prisons, including some 300 children, some held for more than six years. We never hear their names.[1]
James Petras, in his new book analyzing the United Nation’s Goldstone Report sums up Israel’s efforts for peace. In response to the idea that the world is “picking on” Israel, he writes:
Israel holds the ‘world record’ in the number of towns and villages ethnically cleansed (over 500 and counting); number of refugees deported (4 million and counting); number of homes demolished (60 thousand and continuing); and has imprisoned more civilians per capita than any other country (250,000 and growing). Israel is the country with the highest number of protective US Security Council vetoes (over 100) preventing the world body from condemning Israeli war crimes.[2]
Netanyahu talks peace, saying that real leaders, meaning himself, are always willing to sit down together and talk. “Abbas should just come to Jerusalem. It’s only 10 minutes away. That’s when you have traffic. Without traffic, it’s seven minutes.”
As I listened to him, it became clear to me that Netanyahu wants two things: talk and Palestine.
He talks peace and the whole time he is talking, his troops are tearing down homes in East Jerusalem which have been owned by Palestinian families for generations. Suddenly, they do not have the “right to exist,” Their homes are being destroyed to make room for settlements for Jews only. All of the “go along to get along” policies of Abbas have not stopped the expansion of one settlement. While talking peace, Netanyahu continues to create “facts on the ground” which restrict the movement of Palestinians within Palestine. His so called ‘security wall” has little to do with security and everything to do with separating Palestinians from their farms, water, schools and hospitals.
Omar Hajaj, whose village is being surrounded by Israel’s “security wall” says, “We will soon be caged like a zoo animal.”[3] I wish King had asked Netanyahu how the total encirclement of Al-Walajah could lead to peace. Netanyahu talked about not leaving a stone unturned in his quest for peace and bragged about easing his siege of Gaza to allow more essential items in. However, according to Mel Frykbere, last week:
Israel has received international praise for its decision to ease its crippling blockade on Gaza following the country’s deadly assault on a humanitarian flotilla trying to bring desperately needed humanitarian aid to the coastal territory. But according to the UN human rights organizations, the easing of the blockade is insufficient in meeting Gaza’s needs.
He explains:
During the week after June 20, 695 trucks of goods entered Gaza. This compares with 2,400 per week prior to the closure and meets only 30 percent of Palestinian needs.[4]
Maxwell Gayland, UN Deputy Special and Humanitarian Coordinator for the Middle East says:
What we need to see is an improvement in Gaza’s water, sanitation, power grid, educational and health sectors. Gaza’s economy is shot to pieces and its infrastructure is extremely fragile.[5]
It seems obvious to anyone except Larry King that while talking peace, Netanyahu wants Palestine, all of it and without too many Palestinians.
Thomas Are
July 18, 2010
[1] See Breaking Down the Walls, Report of the Middle East Study Committee to the 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) p.69.
[2] James Petras, War Crimes in Gaza and the Zionist Fifth Column in America. (Clarity Press, Atlanta, 2010) p. 12.
[3] Salim Saheb Ettaba, Palestinian Villagers Battle Plan to Wall Them In. (Yahoo News,) July 11, 2010.
[4] Mel Frykberg, Israel Chokes Gaza Despite Announced Easing, (Antiwar.com original,) July 15th, 2010.
[5] Quoted by Frykberg above.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Water, Water, and Less Water
For years, I have lived up on a mountainside in North Georgia. It’s not a mansion, but it is ours and we are happy. At least we were until some pretty rough looking guys built a house right up the road from us. I went up to investigate and lo, they had built a big house on my property. I took my case to international court and I won, but nothing happened. There is no enforcement of the law. My neighbors love guns and have a lot of them. So they keep adding to their house on my land and there is nothing I can do. Also, I noticed and smelled open raw sewage, coming from their house running down through my yard. When I went up to investigate, I saw that they had built a wall around my pond. It is my pond and my sole water source. It should be enough for both of us, but they have walled it off and are piping my water to their family on the other side of the mountain. My water supply has dried up. I have resorted to building a large water barrel on the roof on my house to try to capture rainwater, but my neighbors drive by and shoot holes in the tank just to see my little supply of water drain out on the ground. Sometimes I get frustrated.
Of course, none of this story is true for me. I live in a beautiful community with wonderful neighbors. I have all the water I need. But this is precisely what is happening to the Palestinians seeking to survive on their own land.
Soon after the 1967 war, Israel transferred control over all the sources of water in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to the military. The reason is simple: 80 percent of the mountain aquifers, the region’s largest reservoirs, are located under the West Bank and Israel desires the great majority if it for her use. Though the aquifer is the sole source for residents of the West Bank, Israel uses 83 percent of its annually available water for the benefit of Israeli cities and its settlements, while West Bank Palestinians use the remaining 17 percent.[1] “Both the Jordan River and the Palestinian aquifers have been over-pumped by Israel…The average settler in the West Bank uses almost six times as much water per day as the Palestinians who live there.[2]
It is not unfair to say that Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982, killing over 19,000 and making 100,000 homeless, to get to the Litani River, invaded the Golan Heights in 1967 to get to the under ground water resources of Syria, walled off the city of Qalqilya to control the largest aquifer of the West Bank and sealed off the Jordan River by roads and settlements.
Israel’s continued brutal occupation of Palestine and refusal to accept any peace treaty has very little to do with security and much to do with WATER. Water is even being used as a weapon. “Palestinians attempt to collect rainwater in rooftop cisterns...are vulnerable to Israeli rifle fire and house demolitions.”[3]
In the West Bank, about 50 groundwater wells and more than 200 cisterns have been destroyed or isolated from their owners by the construction of the separation barrier, affecting the domestic and agricultural needs of more than 122,000 people.[4]
And that part about sewage running through Palestinian yards? That’s true too.
Rajah Shehadeh, co-founder of Al-Haq tells of his feet getting wet while walking through a Palestinian village:
We soon realized that we had walked into the open sewers of the Jewish settlement of Talmon…which did not have a collection system for treating sewage, which was just disposed of down the valley into the land owned by Palestinian farmers.[5]
The London based newspaper, The Independent, reports the dumping of raw sewage into Palestinian lands;
Across the occupied West Bank, raw untreated sewage is pumped every day out of the Jewish settlements, along large metal pipes, straight onto Palestinian land. From there, it can enter the groundwater and the reservoirs, and become poison.[6]
Years ago, I sat in the home of a Palestinian family in Hizma. Looking straight out from the bullet pot-marked home was a settlement on top of the hill. To the left was another one and to the right, still another. Israel not only confiscated the land on which these huge apartments were built, but also land for parks, libraries, government buildings, schools, swimming pools and roads…and roads…and more roads, on which Arabs were not allowed to drive or even cross. However, the most devastating effect of all this encroachment was the drying up of water wells. Israel siphons off so much water that it lowers the water table and the wells of Hizma dry up. “We aren’t even allowed to dig deeper to get water in our own well,” my host explained.
“How would the Israelis know if you slipped out here and dug your well a little deeper?" I asked.
“They would notice if we reached water.” He answered.
In the meantime, the wells in Hizma are dry. And any resistance, even peaceful demonstrations, are reported in the West as acts encouraging terrorism.
Thomas Are
July 7, 2010
[1] Breaking Down the Walls, Report of the Middle East Study Committee to the 219th General Assembly (2010) of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), p.80.
[2] Baylis Thomas, The Dark Side of Zionism, (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. New York. 2009.) p.232.
[3] Ibid., Thomas, p.233.
[4] Steadfast Hope, Published by Israel/Palestine Mission Network of the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A. p. 27.
[5] Breaking Down the Walls. p.82.
[6] Ibid., p. 82.
Of course, none of this story is true for me. I live in a beautiful community with wonderful neighbors. I have all the water I need. But this is precisely what is happening to the Palestinians seeking to survive on their own land.
Soon after the 1967 war, Israel transferred control over all the sources of water in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to the military. The reason is simple: 80 percent of the mountain aquifers, the region’s largest reservoirs, are located under the West Bank and Israel desires the great majority if it for her use. Though the aquifer is the sole source for residents of the West Bank, Israel uses 83 percent of its annually available water for the benefit of Israeli cities and its settlements, while West Bank Palestinians use the remaining 17 percent.[1] “Both the Jordan River and the Palestinian aquifers have been over-pumped by Israel…The average settler in the West Bank uses almost six times as much water per day as the Palestinians who live there.[2]
It is not unfair to say that Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982, killing over 19,000 and making 100,000 homeless, to get to the Litani River, invaded the Golan Heights in 1967 to get to the under ground water resources of Syria, walled off the city of Qalqilya to control the largest aquifer of the West Bank and sealed off the Jordan River by roads and settlements.
Israel’s continued brutal occupation of Palestine and refusal to accept any peace treaty has very little to do with security and much to do with WATER. Water is even being used as a weapon. “Palestinians attempt to collect rainwater in rooftop cisterns...are vulnerable to Israeli rifle fire and house demolitions.”[3]
In the West Bank, about 50 groundwater wells and more than 200 cisterns have been destroyed or isolated from their owners by the construction of the separation barrier, affecting the domestic and agricultural needs of more than 122,000 people.[4]
And that part about sewage running through Palestinian yards? That’s true too.
Rajah Shehadeh, co-founder of Al-Haq tells of his feet getting wet while walking through a Palestinian village:
We soon realized that we had walked into the open sewers of the Jewish settlement of Talmon…which did not have a collection system for treating sewage, which was just disposed of down the valley into the land owned by Palestinian farmers.[5]
The London based newspaper, The Independent, reports the dumping of raw sewage into Palestinian lands;
Across the occupied West Bank, raw untreated sewage is pumped every day out of the Jewish settlements, along large metal pipes, straight onto Palestinian land. From there, it can enter the groundwater and the reservoirs, and become poison.[6]
Years ago, I sat in the home of a Palestinian family in Hizma. Looking straight out from the bullet pot-marked home was a settlement on top of the hill. To the left was another one and to the right, still another. Israel not only confiscated the land on which these huge apartments were built, but also land for parks, libraries, government buildings, schools, swimming pools and roads…and roads…and more roads, on which Arabs were not allowed to drive or even cross. However, the most devastating effect of all this encroachment was the drying up of water wells. Israel siphons off so much water that it lowers the water table and the wells of Hizma dry up. “We aren’t even allowed to dig deeper to get water in our own well,” my host explained.
“How would the Israelis know if you slipped out here and dug your well a little deeper?" I asked.
“They would notice if we reached water.” He answered.
In the meantime, the wells in Hizma are dry. And any resistance, even peaceful demonstrations, are reported in the West as acts encouraging terrorism.
Thomas Are
July 7, 2010
[1] Breaking Down the Walls, Report of the Middle East Study Committee to the 219th General Assembly (2010) of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), p.80.
[2] Baylis Thomas, The Dark Side of Zionism, (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. New York. 2009.) p.232.
[3] Ibid., Thomas, p.233.
[4] Steadfast Hope, Published by Israel/Palestine Mission Network of the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A. p. 27.
[5] Breaking Down the Walls. p.82.
[6] Ibid., p. 82.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Ari Fleischer condemns Helen Thomas???
This week’s editorial in The Nation entitled Free Gaza summarizes:
The United States has had ample opportunity to change its one sided policy, which has resulted in continued warfare, occupation, misery and death for Palestinians and Israelis. Israel’s occupation would not have been possible without tens of billions in US military aid, without dozens of UN vetoes cast by Washington, without the State Department’s back-room strong-arming of other nations. It would not have been possible without the dishonesty of a US media establishment that habitually twists or simply refuses to report basic facts about the Israel-Palestine conflict -- and is often less critical then the media in Israel. It would not have been possible without the active collusion or cowardly silence of the vast majority of the Democratic Party and liberal policy establishment, which for too long has bowed under the intimidation of AIPAC and other right-wing Zionist organizations, including Christian Evangelicals, all of which claim to defend Israel but which in fact support the most retrograde forces in Israeli society – elements that are leading Israel on a path of self–destruction.[1]
Helen Thomas did not have to read a magazine to know that the press has not fulfilled its responsibility. In 2006, she wrote: “Have American journalists forgotten that their role is to follow the truth, without fear or favor, wherever it leads them”?[2] She has lived with US press deceptions for over 60 years. Perhaps she was frustrated by the biased and impotent media. Perhaps she “misspoke when she said, “Jews should get the hell out of Palestine”. But consider where she is coming from. As a child of Lebanon, she watched the 1982 invasion of her parental home with little condemnation of Israel by the US media. Robert Fish, described by the New York Times as “probably the most famous correspondent in Britain.” wrote:
“Have we forgotten the 17,500 dead – almost all civilians, most of them children and women – in Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon; the 1,700 Palestinian civilian dead in the Sabra-Shitila massacre; the 1996 Qana massacre of 106 Lebanese civilian refugees, more than half of them children, at a UN base; the massacre of the Marwahin refugees who were ordered from their homes by the Israelis in 2006 then slaughtered by an Israeli helicopter crew; the 1,000 dead of that same bombardment and Lebanese invasion, almost all of them civilians.”[3]
Does Ari Fleischer, who condemned Helen Thomas for not yielding to the party line, really not see a difference in African Americans brought to this country against their will and the brutal occupation of Palestine by Zionist Jews? If American blacks had invaded “our” country by force, stolen our nation by ethnic cleansing, and claimed 78 percent of our land, we might think it was a reasonable suggestion that they return form where they came. (A better parallel might be to send whites back to Europe and give the land back to the Native Americans.)
Perhaps Ari “misspoke,” or at least let his bias dominate any sense of justice and truth. This is the guy who publically judged Jimmy Carter, saying, “I honestly don’t believe the man has a moral compass.” And it was Fleischer, when working for George W. Bush, who over and over again, linked Saddam Hussein to Weapons of Mass Destruction in order to promote an unnecessary war against Iraq. And he questions the integrity of Helen Thomas?
Perhaps Thomas is also frustrated by the political impotence of our leaders and the Christian Right’s distortions of the teaching of Jesus. Obviously, she was not talking about Israel proper, (with or without a moral right to exist). Israel is here to stay, and rightly so. There are many Jewish children who have never known any home but Israel. But, there are also Palestinian children who have never known any home but Palestine. However, this has not prevented the leaders of Israel from calling for the “transfer” of non-Jews to Jordan, Syria or Lebanon, without a word of condemnation from Ari Fleischer.
Thomas Are
June 16, 2010
[1] The Nation, June 21, 2010, p. 3
[2] Helen Thomas, Watchdogs of Democracy, (Scribner, 2006) p. xiii.
[3] Robert Fisk, Why Do They Hate the West So Much, We will Ask, The Independent, January 7, 2009
The United States has had ample opportunity to change its one sided policy, which has resulted in continued warfare, occupation, misery and death for Palestinians and Israelis. Israel’s occupation would not have been possible without tens of billions in US military aid, without dozens of UN vetoes cast by Washington, without the State Department’s back-room strong-arming of other nations. It would not have been possible without the dishonesty of a US media establishment that habitually twists or simply refuses to report basic facts about the Israel-Palestine conflict -- and is often less critical then the media in Israel. It would not have been possible without the active collusion or cowardly silence of the vast majority of the Democratic Party and liberal policy establishment, which for too long has bowed under the intimidation of AIPAC and other right-wing Zionist organizations, including Christian Evangelicals, all of which claim to defend Israel but which in fact support the most retrograde forces in Israeli society – elements that are leading Israel on a path of self–destruction.[1]
Helen Thomas did not have to read a magazine to know that the press has not fulfilled its responsibility. In 2006, she wrote: “Have American journalists forgotten that their role is to follow the truth, without fear or favor, wherever it leads them”?[2] She has lived with US press deceptions for over 60 years. Perhaps she was frustrated by the biased and impotent media. Perhaps she “misspoke when she said, “Jews should get the hell out of Palestine”. But consider where she is coming from. As a child of Lebanon, she watched the 1982 invasion of her parental home with little condemnation of Israel by the US media. Robert Fish, described by the New York Times as “probably the most famous correspondent in Britain.” wrote:
“Have we forgotten the 17,500 dead – almost all civilians, most of them children and women – in Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon; the 1,700 Palestinian civilian dead in the Sabra-Shitila massacre; the 1996 Qana massacre of 106 Lebanese civilian refugees, more than half of them children, at a UN base; the massacre of the Marwahin refugees who were ordered from their homes by the Israelis in 2006 then slaughtered by an Israeli helicopter crew; the 1,000 dead of that same bombardment and Lebanese invasion, almost all of them civilians.”[3]
Does Ari Fleischer, who condemned Helen Thomas for not yielding to the party line, really not see a difference in African Americans brought to this country against their will and the brutal occupation of Palestine by Zionist Jews? If American blacks had invaded “our” country by force, stolen our nation by ethnic cleansing, and claimed 78 percent of our land, we might think it was a reasonable suggestion that they return form where they came. (A better parallel might be to send whites back to Europe and give the land back to the Native Americans.)
Perhaps Ari “misspoke,” or at least let his bias dominate any sense of justice and truth. This is the guy who publically judged Jimmy Carter, saying, “I honestly don’t believe the man has a moral compass.” And it was Fleischer, when working for George W. Bush, who over and over again, linked Saddam Hussein to Weapons of Mass Destruction in order to promote an unnecessary war against Iraq. And he questions the integrity of Helen Thomas?
Perhaps Thomas is also frustrated by the political impotence of our leaders and the Christian Right’s distortions of the teaching of Jesus. Obviously, she was not talking about Israel proper, (with or without a moral right to exist). Israel is here to stay, and rightly so. There are many Jewish children who have never known any home but Israel. But, there are also Palestinian children who have never known any home but Palestine. However, this has not prevented the leaders of Israel from calling for the “transfer” of non-Jews to Jordan, Syria or Lebanon, without a word of condemnation from Ari Fleischer.
Thomas Are
June 16, 2010
[1] The Nation, June 21, 2010, p. 3
[2] Helen Thomas, Watchdogs of Democracy, (Scribner, 2006) p. xiii.
[3] Robert Fisk, Why Do They Hate the West So Much, We will Ask, The Independent, January 7, 2009
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Reminds me of a Story Jesus Told
Television widely reported that Israel had sent an emergency field hospital and a team of doctors to Haiti.
I had two feeling as I watched this newsworthy event. At first, I thought, this is Israel at its best. But then almost immediately that feeling jumped to ambiguity. Right next door to Israel is the Gaza Strip which was also devastated, not by an earthquake, but by man-made bombs which destroyed hundreds of innocent lives and thousands of buildings, all deliberately imposed by Israel. Was this humanitarian aid to Haiti a smokescreen to draw attention away from the pain and misery caused by Israel on a people for whom Israel is responsible?
Rachelle Marshall writes:
A year after the invasion Israel’s three-year blockade of Gaza is tighter than ever, with the result that Gaza’s crippled infrastructure has not been rebuilt and thousands of Gazans remain homeless in the midst of another winter. Because Israeli bombs destroyed the sanitary system, many Gazans are not only cold and hungry, but forced to drink contaminated water. Amnesty International’s British director Kate Allen said of the current situation, “The wretched reality endured by 1.5 million people in Gaza should appall anybody with an ounce of humanity. Sick, traumatized and impoverished people are being collectively punished by a cruel policy imposed by Israeli authorities.[1]
Akiva Eldar, writes in Haartz, a leading newspaper published in Jerusalem, “Israel’s compassion in Haiti can’t hide our ugly face in Gaza.”[2]
As I pondered this, I opened up a Middle East magazine and there staring me in the face was a picture, taken on January 18, 2010 in Gaza City, of Palestinians bringing money and goods they had collected for the victims in Haiti. I guess victims anywhere can identify with victims everywhere.
I am dumbfounded by the lack of media coverage of this amazing gesture by Palestinians. Television reported the medical teams sent by Israel out of its abundance, but I did not hear a word about the Palestinian charity sent out of their poverty. I guess if you have spent years demonizing a people it is hard to suddenly reverse and show them as decent, sympathetic and caring human beings.
I am also wondering if former presidents Clinton and Bush will send a “thank you” note to the Palestinians. Both of these world leaders have been in Haiti raising awareness and funds for the victims of a massive earthquake which destroyed the homes and infrastructure of much of that country. The astonishing thing to me is that the Palestinians, who themselves have been the victims of enormous destruction, responded with gifts for the people of Haiti. .
Bush and Clinton seldom draw attention to the “earthquake” that has been hitting the Palestinians for the last 60 years because they both backed Israel’s program of making life for a Palestinian unbearable, including settlements, checkpoints, a separation wall, road blocks, illegal detentions and assassinations. It would be interesting to see how they would word a thank you note to the people of Gaza and West Bank.
Reminds me of a parable Jesus told about the widow’s mite.
Thomas Are
April 18, 2010
[1] Rachelle Marshall, U.S. Placates Israel and Opens New War Front while Ignoring Palestinians, The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, March 2010, P. 7.
[2] Akiva Eldar, Haartz, January 18, 2010.
I had two feeling as I watched this newsworthy event. At first, I thought, this is Israel at its best. But then almost immediately that feeling jumped to ambiguity. Right next door to Israel is the Gaza Strip which was also devastated, not by an earthquake, but by man-made bombs which destroyed hundreds of innocent lives and thousands of buildings, all deliberately imposed by Israel. Was this humanitarian aid to Haiti a smokescreen to draw attention away from the pain and misery caused by Israel on a people for whom Israel is responsible?
Rachelle Marshall writes:
A year after the invasion Israel’s three-year blockade of Gaza is tighter than ever, with the result that Gaza’s crippled infrastructure has not been rebuilt and thousands of Gazans remain homeless in the midst of another winter. Because Israeli bombs destroyed the sanitary system, many Gazans are not only cold and hungry, but forced to drink contaminated water. Amnesty International’s British director Kate Allen said of the current situation, “The wretched reality endured by 1.5 million people in Gaza should appall anybody with an ounce of humanity. Sick, traumatized and impoverished people are being collectively punished by a cruel policy imposed by Israeli authorities.[1]
Akiva Eldar, writes in Haartz, a leading newspaper published in Jerusalem, “Israel’s compassion in Haiti can’t hide our ugly face in Gaza.”[2]
As I pondered this, I opened up a Middle East magazine and there staring me in the face was a picture, taken on January 18, 2010 in Gaza City, of Palestinians bringing money and goods they had collected for the victims in Haiti. I guess victims anywhere can identify with victims everywhere.
I am dumbfounded by the lack of media coverage of this amazing gesture by Palestinians. Television reported the medical teams sent by Israel out of its abundance, but I did not hear a word about the Palestinian charity sent out of their poverty. I guess if you have spent years demonizing a people it is hard to suddenly reverse and show them as decent, sympathetic and caring human beings.
I am also wondering if former presidents Clinton and Bush will send a “thank you” note to the Palestinians. Both of these world leaders have been in Haiti raising awareness and funds for the victims of a massive earthquake which destroyed the homes and infrastructure of much of that country. The astonishing thing to me is that the Palestinians, who themselves have been the victims of enormous destruction, responded with gifts for the people of Haiti. .
Bush and Clinton seldom draw attention to the “earthquake” that has been hitting the Palestinians for the last 60 years because they both backed Israel’s program of making life for a Palestinian unbearable, including settlements, checkpoints, a separation wall, road blocks, illegal detentions and assassinations. It would be interesting to see how they would word a thank you note to the people of Gaza and West Bank.
Reminds me of a parable Jesus told about the widow’s mite.
Thomas Are
April 18, 2010
[1] Rachelle Marshall, U.S. Placates Israel and Opens New War Front while Ignoring Palestinians, The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, March 2010, P. 7.
[2] Akiva Eldar, Haartz, January 18, 2010.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Negotiating Partner
James Baker was feeling sorry last Sunday for Israel because Israel had no negotiating partner in her search for peace. Speaking to Fareed Zakaria on GPS, Baker pointed out that the Palestinians are now divided. What can Israel do? Hamas now governs in Gaza, the PA rules in the West Bank. Poor Israel. Disappointed again. No chance for peace.
Of course, it never crosses Israel’s mind to lift the siege on Gaza. Even materials needed to rebuild those 22,000 buildings destroyed by Israeli planes and tanks are not allowed in.
Freezing settlement construction and reducing the pain caused by the wall snaking throughout the West Bank would be a step toward a reasonable peace. It might even help if Israel ceased assassinating Palestinian leaders.
I wish Baker could see that it’s not the lack of peace partners, but Israel’s determination to create “facts on the ground,” and its brutal occupation that complicates any step toward peace.
Who in the world could think that Israel is the least bit interested in peace when every day more and more Palestinian land is confiscated, olive trees are uprooted, homes are demolished and young Palestinians are imprisoned? Netanyahu openly declares his opposition to any Palestinian state and Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s Foreign Minister, threatens to wipe Palestine off the map. On assuming office Lieberman announced the Mideast peace process was dead.
Henry Siegman, Director of the U.S./Middle East Project in New York, writes:
It is now widely recognized in most Israeli circles – although denied by Israel’s government – that the settlements have become so widespread and so deeply implanted in the West Bank as to rule out the possibility of their removal (except for a few isolated and sparsely populated ones) by this or any other government unless compelled to do so by international intervention, an eventuality until now considered unlikely.[1]
He adds:
Israel has crossed the threshold from “the only democracy in the Middle East” to the only apartheid regime in the Western world.
Israel does need to negotiate, but Israel’s battle is with itself. Is Yahweh Israel’s God or is the State of Israel Israel’s God? And the Jews of the world need to choose between upholding the high ethical standards of Judaism or forfeiting its moral values in support of the continued brutality of the State.
I wish Zakaria had challenged James Baker’s bias and asked about the suffering of the Palestinians, but I guess in the American media it is not to be.
Thomas Are
February 26, 2010
[1] Henry Siegman, Imposing Middle East Peace, The Nation, January 25, 2010., p.18.
Of course, it never crosses Israel’s mind to lift the siege on Gaza. Even materials needed to rebuild those 22,000 buildings destroyed by Israeli planes and tanks are not allowed in.
Freezing settlement construction and reducing the pain caused by the wall snaking throughout the West Bank would be a step toward a reasonable peace. It might even help if Israel ceased assassinating Palestinian leaders.
I wish Baker could see that it’s not the lack of peace partners, but Israel’s determination to create “facts on the ground,” and its brutal occupation that complicates any step toward peace.
Who in the world could think that Israel is the least bit interested in peace when every day more and more Palestinian land is confiscated, olive trees are uprooted, homes are demolished and young Palestinians are imprisoned? Netanyahu openly declares his opposition to any Palestinian state and Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s Foreign Minister, threatens to wipe Palestine off the map. On assuming office Lieberman announced the Mideast peace process was dead.
Henry Siegman, Director of the U.S./Middle East Project in New York, writes:
It is now widely recognized in most Israeli circles – although denied by Israel’s government – that the settlements have become so widespread and so deeply implanted in the West Bank as to rule out the possibility of their removal (except for a few isolated and sparsely populated ones) by this or any other government unless compelled to do so by international intervention, an eventuality until now considered unlikely.[1]
He adds:
Israel has crossed the threshold from “the only democracy in the Middle East” to the only apartheid regime in the Western world.
Israel does need to negotiate, but Israel’s battle is with itself. Is Yahweh Israel’s God or is the State of Israel Israel’s God? And the Jews of the world need to choose between upholding the high ethical standards of Judaism or forfeiting its moral values in support of the continued brutality of the State.
I wish Zakaria had challenged James Baker’s bias and asked about the suffering of the Palestinians, but I guess in the American media it is not to be.
Thomas Are
February 26, 2010
[1] Henry Siegman, Imposing Middle East Peace, The Nation, January 25, 2010., p.18.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
My Thanks to Ben
Several weeks ago, my new friend, Ben, who was actually a U.S. Congressman from 1967 to 1975, handed me a book. Ben is a self-described conservative who comes across to me as one who would rather blow up a Muslim nation than talk with it. He is Mr. Military with strong opinions. Upon leaving congress, Ben chaired the Heritage Foundation for six years. So, you can understand my surprise when he handed me THE CLASH OF FUNDAMENTALISMS saying, “This is a great book.” Below is my response.
To my new friend Ben,
You are right about the Book, THE CLASH OF FUNDAMENTALISMS
I immediately had two surprises:
(1) I was surprised that I had not known about or read this book, and
(2) I was surprised that you had known about and read this book.
Just goes to show how easy it is for me to be wrong.
There is so much in this book that I appreciate that I hardly know where to begin. However, here are some gleanings which I wish the American public had a chance to know. In fact, I believe that we need to know if there is to be peace in the Middle East.
In his Introduction to the paperback Edition, Tariq Ali says:
My argument that the most dangerous “fundamentalism” today – the “mother of all fundamentalisms” is American imperialism – has been vindicated over the last eighteen months. (p.xiii).
Of course, this was written in 2002, when 9/11 was still strong in his mind. Looking toward the buildup of our invasion of Iraq, he asked:
Why is the current regime in the United States so determined to wage this war? There are three major considerations. The first is that Iraq, a major oil producer remains outside of the control of the United States. The second is the size of the Iraq’s army – it is now the only force in the region that could threaten Greater Israel. And third, to wean the pro-Zionist Jews away from the Democrats… the Christian fundamentalists of the Republican Party make no secret of their unflinching support for every Israeli atrocity. After all, the Old Testament decrees that the Land of Israel belongs to the Jews. (p. xv)
Responding to Tom Friedman’s comment, “I have no problem with a war for oil,” Ali writes:
In reality, Friedman did not need to stray as far as East Asia to discover a rogue state that is currently far more dangerous than Iraq. There is a perfectly good example of one in the Middle East and not so far from Iraq. This is a country that regularly invades neighboring states, defies UN Security Council Resolutions, occupies territories that it was not legally permitted to steal, treats the inhabitants of these territories as if they were Untermensch and possesses an arsenal of nuclear and chemical weapons. Israel, however, is the great untouchable of American politics. After 11 September, both Congress and the Senate agreed to resolutions giving the Israeli regime a blank cheque approving all its future actions in advance… The result of all this is a tame US media which barely reports the daily suffering of the Palestinians. (p. xvii)
A few pages over, still in the Introduction, he writes:
If the Untied States had been serious in its oft-stated desire to stop the flow of recruits to organizations like al-Quida, it would have concentrated on ending the occupation of Palestine. Ariel Sharon has been supported by Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld in his attempt to obliterate the political identity of the Palestinians … the blank cheque given to Israel by the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives is without precedent in recent history…Sharon does not even try and conceal the fact that his aim is a major ethnic cleansing (“transfer”) of the Palestinians from the West Bank. Gaza will be transformed into a modern equivalent of an Indian reservation. Thus he is pursuing with direct physical force and by making everyday life unbearable for the Palestinians living in the occupied territories.
(p. xxiii)
This was written in 2002, but little has changed. He warns:
We have to move beyond the simplistic argument that “they hate us because they’re jealous of our freedoms and our wealth.” This is simply not the case.
We have to understand the despair, but also the lethal exaltation, that drives people to sacrifice their own lives. If Western politicians remain ignorant of the cause and carry on as before, there will be repetitions. (p.3)
When I have said things similar to this, people have accused me of “Wanting America to be attacked again.” It seems to me, the only Congress person who gets it is Dennis Kucinich.
Ali is right when he says that at the creation of the state of Israel:
Palestinians became the discarded offspring of history. (p. 89) From the moment of its foundation, the Zionist leaders of Israel were determined to depopulate the country.. Palestinians were a non-people. (93). In 1938, Ben-Gurion defended the concept of “compulsory transfer” to the Jewish Agency Executive and argued, “I favour partition of the country because when we become a strong power after the establishment of the state, we will abolish partition and spread throughout all of Palestine. (p. 94).
Describing the Six Day War,
I saw the photographed children who had suffered napalm burns, but this was a stateless people ignored by the Arab world and left to rot. In the West few politicians knew or cared. Riddled with guilt for the Judeocide of the Second World War, they turned a blind eye to Israeli atrocities…At the Civil Hospital in Damascus I saw further evidence of chemical weapons. Several patients had been burnt by napalm. We were told of the disappeared doctors, of how the Israelis had captured five doctors in the medical tent on the front and shot them dead. (p.123)
I remember preaching about the abuse of the Shah. It helps to understand the takeover of our Embassy to read:
Systematic torture and corporal punishment, prohibited in Iran from the early Twenties to the late Sixties, had returned under the shah. His secret police, Savak, became notorious throughout the world, mentioned each year as gross violations of human rights and dignity by Amnesty International. (p. 135)
And it seems that we never stopped bombing Iraq:
In August 1999 the New York Times reported: American warplanes have methodically and with virtually no public discussion been attacking Iraq. In the last eight months, American and British pilots have fired more than 1,100 missiles against 359 targets in Iraq. In October 1999 American officials were telling the Wall Street Journal they would soon run out of targets – “We’re down to the last outhouse.”… Blockade by land and sea has caused still greater suffering… people are denied the basic necessities of existence, its soil is polluted by uranium-tipped warheads. (p. 145)
Ali questions the motive for invading Iraq when there is:
Israel – a state founded on an original process of ethnic cleansing – had long defied UN resolutions mandating a relative equal division of Palestine, repeatedly seized large areas of neighboring territory, and was in occupation not only of the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and the Golan Heights, but a belt of Southern Lebanon at the time. Far from resisting this expansionism, the United States continue to support, equip and fund it. … Washington supervises the reduction of the Palestinians to a few shrivelled bantustans at Israel’s pleasure. … Iraq’s seizure of Kuwait was not in the West’s interest, since it posed the threat that two thirds of the world’s oil reserves would be controlled by a modern Arab state… (p.147)
He sums up his book by quoting Isaac Deutscher:
A rational relationship between Israel and Arabs might have been possibly if Israel had at least attempted to establish it… Israel never even recognized the Arab grievance. From the outset Zionism worked towards the creation of a purely Jewish state and was glad to rid the country of its Arab inhabitants. No Israeli government has ever seriously looked for any opportunity to remove or assuage the grievance. They refused even to consider the fate of the huge mass of refugees unless the Arab states first recognized Israel, unless, that is, the Arabs surrender politically before starting to negotiate. (p. 402)
Ben, this author makes arguments that I have been spouting for twenty five years. Thanks for putting me on to this book. You are right. It is a great book.
Your new friend, TOM
Ben’s response to me was. “I did not mean to imply that I endorsed this book. I just thought you would like it.” The more we talked, the more certain I was that he had not read it. But, I did and I am glad.
Thomas Are
February 17, 2010
To my new friend Ben,
You are right about the Book, THE CLASH OF FUNDAMENTALISMS
I immediately had two surprises:
(1) I was surprised that I had not known about or read this book, and
(2) I was surprised that you had known about and read this book.
Just goes to show how easy it is for me to be wrong.
There is so much in this book that I appreciate that I hardly know where to begin. However, here are some gleanings which I wish the American public had a chance to know. In fact, I believe that we need to know if there is to be peace in the Middle East.
In his Introduction to the paperback Edition, Tariq Ali says:
My argument that the most dangerous “fundamentalism” today – the “mother of all fundamentalisms” is American imperialism – has been vindicated over the last eighteen months. (p.xiii).
Of course, this was written in 2002, when 9/11 was still strong in his mind. Looking toward the buildup of our invasion of Iraq, he asked:
Why is the current regime in the United States so determined to wage this war? There are three major considerations. The first is that Iraq, a major oil producer remains outside of the control of the United States. The second is the size of the Iraq’s army – it is now the only force in the region that could threaten Greater Israel. And third, to wean the pro-Zionist Jews away from the Democrats… the Christian fundamentalists of the Republican Party make no secret of their unflinching support for every Israeli atrocity. After all, the Old Testament decrees that the Land of Israel belongs to the Jews. (p. xv)
Responding to Tom Friedman’s comment, “I have no problem with a war for oil,” Ali writes:
In reality, Friedman did not need to stray as far as East Asia to discover a rogue state that is currently far more dangerous than Iraq. There is a perfectly good example of one in the Middle East and not so far from Iraq. This is a country that regularly invades neighboring states, defies UN Security Council Resolutions, occupies territories that it was not legally permitted to steal, treats the inhabitants of these territories as if they were Untermensch and possesses an arsenal of nuclear and chemical weapons. Israel, however, is the great untouchable of American politics. After 11 September, both Congress and the Senate agreed to resolutions giving the Israeli regime a blank cheque approving all its future actions in advance… The result of all this is a tame US media which barely reports the daily suffering of the Palestinians. (p. xvii)
A few pages over, still in the Introduction, he writes:
If the Untied States had been serious in its oft-stated desire to stop the flow of recruits to organizations like al-Quida, it would have concentrated on ending the occupation of Palestine. Ariel Sharon has been supported by Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld in his attempt to obliterate the political identity of the Palestinians … the blank cheque given to Israel by the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives is without precedent in recent history…Sharon does not even try and conceal the fact that his aim is a major ethnic cleansing (“transfer”) of the Palestinians from the West Bank. Gaza will be transformed into a modern equivalent of an Indian reservation. Thus he is pursuing with direct physical force and by making everyday life unbearable for the Palestinians living in the occupied territories.
(p. xxiii)
This was written in 2002, but little has changed. He warns:
We have to move beyond the simplistic argument that “they hate us because they’re jealous of our freedoms and our wealth.” This is simply not the case.
We have to understand the despair, but also the lethal exaltation, that drives people to sacrifice their own lives. If Western politicians remain ignorant of the cause and carry on as before, there will be repetitions. (p.3)
When I have said things similar to this, people have accused me of “Wanting America to be attacked again.” It seems to me, the only Congress person who gets it is Dennis Kucinich.
Ali is right when he says that at the creation of the state of Israel:
Palestinians became the discarded offspring of history. (p. 89) From the moment of its foundation, the Zionist leaders of Israel were determined to depopulate the country.. Palestinians were a non-people. (93). In 1938, Ben-Gurion defended the concept of “compulsory transfer” to the Jewish Agency Executive and argued, “I favour partition of the country because when we become a strong power after the establishment of the state, we will abolish partition and spread throughout all of Palestine. (p. 94).
Describing the Six Day War,
I saw the photographed children who had suffered napalm burns, but this was a stateless people ignored by the Arab world and left to rot. In the West few politicians knew or cared. Riddled with guilt for the Judeocide of the Second World War, they turned a blind eye to Israeli atrocities…At the Civil Hospital in Damascus I saw further evidence of chemical weapons. Several patients had been burnt by napalm. We were told of the disappeared doctors, of how the Israelis had captured five doctors in the medical tent on the front and shot them dead. (p.123)
I remember preaching about the abuse of the Shah. It helps to understand the takeover of our Embassy to read:
Systematic torture and corporal punishment, prohibited in Iran from the early Twenties to the late Sixties, had returned under the shah. His secret police, Savak, became notorious throughout the world, mentioned each year as gross violations of human rights and dignity by Amnesty International. (p. 135)
And it seems that we never stopped bombing Iraq:
In August 1999 the New York Times reported: American warplanes have methodically and with virtually no public discussion been attacking Iraq. In the last eight months, American and British pilots have fired more than 1,100 missiles against 359 targets in Iraq. In October 1999 American officials were telling the Wall Street Journal they would soon run out of targets – “We’re down to the last outhouse.”… Blockade by land and sea has caused still greater suffering… people are denied the basic necessities of existence, its soil is polluted by uranium-tipped warheads. (p. 145)
Ali questions the motive for invading Iraq when there is:
Israel – a state founded on an original process of ethnic cleansing – had long defied UN resolutions mandating a relative equal division of Palestine, repeatedly seized large areas of neighboring territory, and was in occupation not only of the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and the Golan Heights, but a belt of Southern Lebanon at the time. Far from resisting this expansionism, the United States continue to support, equip and fund it. … Washington supervises the reduction of the Palestinians to a few shrivelled bantustans at Israel’s pleasure. … Iraq’s seizure of Kuwait was not in the West’s interest, since it posed the threat that two thirds of the world’s oil reserves would be controlled by a modern Arab state… (p.147)
He sums up his book by quoting Isaac Deutscher:
A rational relationship between Israel and Arabs might have been possibly if Israel had at least attempted to establish it… Israel never even recognized the Arab grievance. From the outset Zionism worked towards the creation of a purely Jewish state and was glad to rid the country of its Arab inhabitants. No Israeli government has ever seriously looked for any opportunity to remove or assuage the grievance. They refused even to consider the fate of the huge mass of refugees unless the Arab states first recognized Israel, unless, that is, the Arabs surrender politically before starting to negotiate. (p. 402)
Ben, this author makes arguments that I have been spouting for twenty five years. Thanks for putting me on to this book. You are right. It is a great book.
Your new friend, TOM
Ben’s response to me was. “I did not mean to imply that I endorsed this book. I just thought you would like it.” The more we talked, the more certain I was that he had not read it. But, I did and I am glad.
Thomas Are
February 17, 2010
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Response to Barbara's blog
Several people have sent to me the same Web page, entitled, THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN JEWS AND MUSLIMS. Unfortunately, it does not say who wrote it. One person said, “This tells the whole story.” Well, this does not tell the whole story. It does not even scratch the surface of the whole story. Here is the response I promised.
As I have often said, Jews are good people, intelligent and committed to social justice. They led the fight for civil rights during the 1960s. However, many American Jews have a blind spot when it comes to Israel. It is not really their fault. They hear only one side of a conflict in the media and from most of our politicians.
--The Jews are NOT promoting brain washing children in military training camps, teaching them how to blow themselves up and cause maximum deaths of Jews and other non Muslims.
Well, yes they do. If not in schools, their political leaders openly malign Arabs as sub-human. “In 1982, Prime Minister Menachem Begin described the Palestinians, in a speech in the Knesset, as "two legged beasts” Former Israeli Army Chief of Staff Raphael Eitan likened the Palestinians to “drugged cockroaches.” This is not just rhetoric. In July 1981 the Israeli Air Force bombed an apartment building in a residential neighborhood of Beirut killing 300 Palestinian civilians without a single Israeli leader expressing concern about the morality of it.[i] Of course, that was a long time ago. But little has changed. On July 22, 2002 Israeli jets fired a one ton rocket into an apartment in Gaza, killing one Hamas leader and 14 innocent people, half of them children. Last winter, Israel dropped bombs again on Gaza killing more than 1,400, many of them women and children, choosing targets that maximize deaths, such as schools and mosques. Of course, Netanyahu denies this but white phosphorus and the Goldstone investigation prove otherwise. To date, Israel totally controls the borders of Gaza, creating the world’s largest open air prison, where 70% of Gazans subsist on less than a dollar a day and 60% have no daily access to water.[ii]
--The Jews don’t hijack planes, nor kill athletes at the Olympics or blow themselves up in German restaurants. There is NOT one single Jew that has destroyed a church. There is NOT a single Jew that protests by killing.
Well, again, not quite true. According to Clifford Wright, “The first airplane hijacking was committed by Israel. On December 12, 1954 a civilian Syrian airliner was hijacked by Israel shortly after take-off.” Wright goes on, “The first car-bomb was an invention of the Zionist, as was the assassination of United Nations personnel. A Zionist truck-bomb blew up the King David Hotel in Jerusalem killing 88 in 1946.”[iii]
And as I write this, the headlines on today’s London Times online reads, “Settlers attack West Bank mosque and burn holy Muslim books.” (At the same time, other settlers brought new copies of the Koran to the Arab community denouncing the acts of their neighbors.
--the Jews don’t traffic slaves, nor have leaders calling for Jihad and death to all the infidels.
As for not killing in protest, Israel’s policy of killing Palestinians by the thousands is a matter of public record, including the Gazans bombarded to death last winter.
--Perhaps the world’s Muslims should consider investing more in standard education and less in blaming the Jews for all their problems.
This puzzles me. Palestinians have put great emphasis in education in spite of the fact that Israel does all it can to make it difficult for them. I remember visiting a school in Gaza where girls were studying accounting and computer science in spite of the fact that there were no jobs for them when they finished school. I also think of the American volunteers who escort Arab children to school in Hebron to protect them from the violence of Israeli settlers. Crying out, “Please don’t hurt the children,” they were attacked, beaten with chains and clubs and left on the path with broken bones.[iv] They were not armed. It’s hard for a culture to produce Nobel Prize winners when they are routinely driven from their schools by occupiers.
--If the Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more violence.
If the Jews put down their weapons today, there would be no more Israel.
--Benjamin Netanyahu
This may fit Dick Chaney’s famous One Percent Doctrine, that is, it may be one percent true. But it is contradicted by the facts on the ground. Unarmed Palestinians are being pushed off of their land to make room for settlers. Their homes are frequently demolished by bulldozers, without giving the occupants time to gather their belongings. Olive trees and farmlands are being ploughed over to make room for the separation wall, deliberately keeping unarmed farmers from their fields, unarmed children from their schools and the unarmed sick from their hospitals. Just last winter, hundreds of unarmed Palestinians were bombed to death by Israel’s massacre into Gaza. It is not the Palestinians, but Israel’s top government officials advocating the “removal” of all Arabs from their homes to make room for greater Israel. Just this week Netanyahu announced plans to build 700 more settlements in Palestinian east Jerusalem.
All of this is to say that it is wrong to paint all Jews as innocent, just as it is wrong to paint all Jews as guilty. The attempt is always false. Jews are probably no better or no worse than the rest of humanity, but right now, the state of Israel is on a self destructive path. If the time comes when there is no more Israel, it will not be because the Arabs pushed them into the sea. It will be because of the moral corruption, arrogance and brutality corroding it from the inside. Look at history. Barbarism has never sustained a state.
[i] Clifford A. Wright, Facts and Fables, The Arab-Israeli Conflict. (Kagan Paul International, London. 1989) p.3.
[ii] Rachelle Marshall, Has Obama Made a Devil’s Bargain with Israel. Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, December 2009.
[iii] Op. cit. Clifford Wright, p. 49.
[iv] Alison Weir, Heroism in the Holy Land: Americans Beaten for Walking Children to School, The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, December 2004, p.13.
As I have often said, Jews are good people, intelligent and committed to social justice. They led the fight for civil rights during the 1960s. However, many American Jews have a blind spot when it comes to Israel. It is not really their fault. They hear only one side of a conflict in the media and from most of our politicians.
--The Jews are NOT promoting brain washing children in military training camps, teaching them how to blow themselves up and cause maximum deaths of Jews and other non Muslims.
Well, yes they do. If not in schools, their political leaders openly malign Arabs as sub-human. “In 1982, Prime Minister Menachem Begin described the Palestinians, in a speech in the Knesset, as "two legged beasts” Former Israeli Army Chief of Staff Raphael Eitan likened the Palestinians to “drugged cockroaches.” This is not just rhetoric. In July 1981 the Israeli Air Force bombed an apartment building in a residential neighborhood of Beirut killing 300 Palestinian civilians without a single Israeli leader expressing concern about the morality of it.[i] Of course, that was a long time ago. But little has changed. On July 22, 2002 Israeli jets fired a one ton rocket into an apartment in Gaza, killing one Hamas leader and 14 innocent people, half of them children. Last winter, Israel dropped bombs again on Gaza killing more than 1,400, many of them women and children, choosing targets that maximize deaths, such as schools and mosques. Of course, Netanyahu denies this but white phosphorus and the Goldstone investigation prove otherwise. To date, Israel totally controls the borders of Gaza, creating the world’s largest open air prison, where 70% of Gazans subsist on less than a dollar a day and 60% have no daily access to water.[ii]
--The Jews don’t hijack planes, nor kill athletes at the Olympics or blow themselves up in German restaurants. There is NOT one single Jew that has destroyed a church. There is NOT a single Jew that protests by killing.
Well, again, not quite true. According to Clifford Wright, “The first airplane hijacking was committed by Israel. On December 12, 1954 a civilian Syrian airliner was hijacked by Israel shortly after take-off.” Wright goes on, “The first car-bomb was an invention of the Zionist, as was the assassination of United Nations personnel. A Zionist truck-bomb blew up the King David Hotel in Jerusalem killing 88 in 1946.”[iii]
And as I write this, the headlines on today’s London Times online reads, “Settlers attack West Bank mosque and burn holy Muslim books.” (At the same time, other settlers brought new copies of the Koran to the Arab community denouncing the acts of their neighbors.
--the Jews don’t traffic slaves, nor have leaders calling for Jihad and death to all the infidels.
As for not killing in protest, Israel’s policy of killing Palestinians by the thousands is a matter of public record, including the Gazans bombarded to death last winter.
--Perhaps the world’s Muslims should consider investing more in standard education and less in blaming the Jews for all their problems.
This puzzles me. Palestinians have put great emphasis in education in spite of the fact that Israel does all it can to make it difficult for them. I remember visiting a school in Gaza where girls were studying accounting and computer science in spite of the fact that there were no jobs for them when they finished school. I also think of the American volunteers who escort Arab children to school in Hebron to protect them from the violence of Israeli settlers. Crying out, “Please don’t hurt the children,” they were attacked, beaten with chains and clubs and left on the path with broken bones.[iv] They were not armed. It’s hard for a culture to produce Nobel Prize winners when they are routinely driven from their schools by occupiers.
--If the Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more violence.
If the Jews put down their weapons today, there would be no more Israel.
--Benjamin Netanyahu
This may fit Dick Chaney’s famous One Percent Doctrine, that is, it may be one percent true. But it is contradicted by the facts on the ground. Unarmed Palestinians are being pushed off of their land to make room for settlers. Their homes are frequently demolished by bulldozers, without giving the occupants time to gather their belongings. Olive trees and farmlands are being ploughed over to make room for the separation wall, deliberately keeping unarmed farmers from their fields, unarmed children from their schools and the unarmed sick from their hospitals. Just last winter, hundreds of unarmed Palestinians were bombed to death by Israel’s massacre into Gaza. It is not the Palestinians, but Israel’s top government officials advocating the “removal” of all Arabs from their homes to make room for greater Israel. Just this week Netanyahu announced plans to build 700 more settlements in Palestinian east Jerusalem.
All of this is to say that it is wrong to paint all Jews as innocent, just as it is wrong to paint all Jews as guilty. The attempt is always false. Jews are probably no better or no worse than the rest of humanity, but right now, the state of Israel is on a self destructive path. If the time comes when there is no more Israel, it will not be because the Arabs pushed them into the sea. It will be because of the moral corruption, arrogance and brutality corroding it from the inside. Look at history. Barbarism has never sustained a state.
[i] Clifford A. Wright, Facts and Fables, The Arab-Israeli Conflict. (Kagan Paul International, London. 1989) p.3.
[ii] Rachelle Marshall, Has Obama Made a Devil’s Bargain with Israel. Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, December 2009.
[iii] Op. cit. Clifford Wright, p. 49.
[iv] Alison Weir, Heroism in the Holy Land: Americans Beaten for Walking Children to School, The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, December 2004, p.13.
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