The Holocaust is over… has been for 65 years. The Nakba is still going on and has been for 62 years. We often hear of the Holocaust but seldom do we hear of the Nakba. Nakba Now is the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. Another name for it is ETHNIC CLEANSING.
Uri Avnery, former member of the Israeli Knesset explains:
Ethnic cleansing does not have to take the form of a dramatic expulsion, as in 1948, it can take place quietly, in a creeping process, when more and more Palestinians simply give up. That is the great dream of the settlers and their partners: to make life for the Palestinians so miserable that they take their families and leave.[1]
Israel’s program of occupation carves up the West Bank into small, disconnected and impoverished enclaves. More than 200 settlement communities, filled with 470,000 Jewish occupiers, gobble up more and more land every day. Many settlements built right over homes that used to be owned by Palestinian families. Settler violence against unarmed Palestinians is documented and beyond debate.
Since the Oslo Accords in 1993, there are three times as many settlers and Israel has annexed 42% of Palestinian land for even more settlements. Yet, amazingly, the average Israeli citizen thinks that they are the ones compromising, that, “no concessions they make to the Palestinians will ever be enough… Palestinians will always demand more concessions until there is no Israel.”[2]
Nakba Deniers don’t even see Israel’s SEPERATION WALL.
Israel continues to build a “security fence” that turns towns into open air prisons. Its route, encircling communities and water resources, belies the purpose of security. It not only separates Palestinian families from the rest of Palestine, it isolates 350,000 Palestinians on the Israeli side of the wall, isolating them with 80% of the West Bank settlers. They no longer live in the West Bank, nor are they allowed to live in Israel. Dwelling amid an electronic fence, watchtowers, sniper posts, mine fields, surveillance cameras and patrols with killer dogs, it is hard to feel like anything more than a prisoner in your own land.
Nakba Deniers forget about POLITICAL PRISONERS and their families.
Someone said to me, “What the Palestinians need now is a Gandhi or King.” They have probably had one but he has more than likely been assassinated or is languishing among 8,000 others in an Israeli jail, who have been arrested in the middle of the night, detained without charge or convicted by “secret evidence,” which neither he nor his lawyer (if he ever had one) was allowed to see, answer or challenge. Chances are he has been convicted by confessions made while being tortured.[3]
Nakba Deniers underestimate the misery caused by the DEMOLITION OF HOMES, the epitome of Nakba denial. Human beings cannot live without a home.
The Israeli Committee Against House Demolition (ICAHD) takes, as its main focus, and its vehicle for resistance, Israel’s policy of demolishing Palestinian homes in the occupied Territories – over 24,000 homes destroyed since 1967. The motivation for demolishing these homes is purely political: to either drive the Palestinians out of the country altogether, or to confine the four million residents of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza to small, crowded, impoverished and disconnected enclaves, thus effectively foreclosing any viable Palestinian entity and ensuring Israeli control. In more than 95% of the cases the homes demolished had nothing to do with security. Their inhabitants did not commit any acts of terror…; Taken against the background of Israel’s systematic destruction of more than 500 Palestinian villages, towns and urban neighborhoods in 1948 and after, and its ongoing policy of demolishing the homes of Israeli (Arab) citizens – some 20-40,000 homes in the so called “unrecognized villages” are slated for demolition – the picture that emerges is one of ethical cleansing.[4]
Nakba Deniers treat the MASSACRE OF GAZA as none of our concern.
To say that 1,387 Palestinians lost their lives is just a statistic. (As opposed to nine Israeli, four by friendly fire.) Even pointing out that most of those killed were noncombatants, including many women and children fails to grip our emotions. But the massacre was more than a statistic to 78 year old Mustapha Al Jamal when F-16s fired missiles into his neighborhood. Jamal, who survived the Nakba of 1948 when he was 11 years old, lost his home, and six sons. Today, a year after the “war,” he is still homeless. “Life is not getting better,” he said. “It’s slowly getting worse for many people.”[5]
It’s true, Hamas, over a period of eight years, fired 12 tons of rocket payloads into Israel in response to the blockade which kept food, medicines, fuel, and electricity from entering Gaza. At the same time, Israel dropped 100 tons of high explosives on Gaza during the first day of the of Operation Cast Lead, targeting schools, chicken farms, health clinics and sanitation facilities. As a result, every day, Gaza, with a population density exceeding that of Hong Kong, dumps 65 million liters of raw sewage into the Mediterranean,[6]
Rachelle Marshall writes:
A year after the invasion Israel’s three year blockade of Gaza is tighter than ever, with the results that Gaza’s crippled infrastructure has not been built and thousands of Gazans remain homeless in the midst of another winter. Because Israeli bombs destroyed the sanitation 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 of 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.”[7]
Nakba Deniers accept as normal or necessary Israel’s MILITARY CHECK POINTS, which often serve as centers of humiliation and even death for those trying to get to their jobs, schools or hospitals. .
Nakba Deniers look the other way instead of calling Israel to accountability for
CLOSURES and
JEWISH ONLY ROADS and the
UPROOTING OF OLIVE TREES and the
DENIAL OF BASIC HUMAN RIGHTS, including
SEPARATE LAWS FOR SETTLERS AND PALESTINIANS, such as
THE RIGHT TO LEAVE AND REENTER THEIR OWN COUNTRY.
Nakba Deniers accept the dumping of Israeli
WASTE AND SEWAGE IN THE OCCUPIED TERRITORIES.
Little by little, with very little attention from the world community, Israel is squeezing Palestinians from their land with checkpoints, earth mounds, Black Hawk helicopters, F16 bombers, sulfur bombs, tear gas, sound grenades, guns and bullets while all the time disallowing the delivery of food, medicine, fuel and electricity to sustain life. .
In 2002, Moshe Ya’alon, the Israeli Army Chief of Staff, declared, “The Palestinians must be made to understand in the deepest recesses of their consciousness that they are a defeated people.”[8] Arnon Sofer, father of Sharon’s separation Plan put it even stronger:
When 2.5 million people have to live in a closed off Gaza, it’s going to be a human catastrophe. Those people will become even bigger animals than they are today, with the aid of an insane fundamentalist Islam. The pressure at the border will be awful. It’s going to be a terrible war. So, if we want to remain alive, we will have to kill and kill and kill. All day and every day. If we don’t kill, we will cease to exist. The only thing that concerns me is how to ensure that the boys and men who are going to have to do the killing will be able to return home to their families and be normal human beings.[9]
My adversary said, “There will never be peace until the Palestinian mothers stop teaching their children to hate Jews.” I responded, “Mothers don’t have to teach their children fear and hatred. Children look around and learn from experience. Israel has its narrative which we hear often. Until we also hear and acknowledge the Palestinian narrative, the Nakba, Israel will show little interest in ending the occupation.
Thomas Are
August 16, 2010
[1] Uri Avnery, Is a Two State Solution still Possible? A Fantasy The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, July, 2010, p.16
[2] Walter Reich, The Despair of Zion, Published in The Wilson Quarterly, Summer, 2010. p. 50.
[3] According to the Middle East Study Committee Report to the 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, “Some 8,000 Palestinians arrested in 2008 or in previous years were still imprisoned at the end of the year. This included some 300 children and 550 people who were held without charge or trial under military detention orders, including some who have been held for up to six years.” p. 69.
[4] Jeff Helper, Obstacles to Peace, A Re-framing of the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict. (Published by ICAHD, 2009) p. 1.
[5] See Mohammed Omer, Life Upside Down: One Year After Israel’s Winter War on Gaza. Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, March 2010, p.16.
[6] See Delinda Hanley, ANERA’s Bill Corcoran Describes Gaza One Year Later: Picking Up the Pieces, The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, April 2010, p.9
[7] Rachelle Marshall, U.S. Placates Israel and Opens New War Front While Ignoring Palestinians, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, March 2010, p. 7
[8] Jeff Helper, Obstacles to Peace, The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, p.26
[9] Quoted in The Jerusalem Post weekend supplement Up Front, May 21, 2004. p.4. Cited in Helper above., p.34. “Kill as many Arabs as possible and talk as much as possible about Peace,” became the formula of political strategist Reuven Adler, used to lead Sharon and Olmert to power and repeated in Livni’s successful election campaign of 2009. Cited by Helper, p.24.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Nakba Denial - Then (Part One)
It is beyond me to understand how anyone with average intelligence can deny the Holocaust. The evidence is overwhelming. The testimony of many witnesses and the scars they bare are literally “undeniable.” It is also beyond me to understand how anyone with average intelligence can deny the Nakba. (The word means “catastrophe and refers to the Palestinian narrative of Israel’s treatment of the native inhabitants of Palestine. A better word might be the “atrocity. ) The evidence is overwhelming. The testimony of many witnesses and the scars they bare are literally “undeniable.” Alan Hart, a personal friend of Golda Meir and British journalist writes, “In my view, Nakba Denial – denial of Zionism’s ethnic cleansing of Palestine – is as obscene and as evil as Holocaust denial.”[1]
Hart tells of traveling with a Jewish friend to meet Golda Mier. They visited for five hours. They both loved it. Yet, in spite of the bond of friendship sealed by years of working and socializing together, his Jewish neighbor would not read Hart’s book. “If what I believe about that war (1967) is not true, everything crumbles,” he explains.[2]
To deny the holocaust, one has to swim against the stream and choose ignorance. On the other hand, Nakba Deniers may simply go with the flow and be carried along by the media, the Zionist lobby and the Christian Right Fundamentalists. If we remember the Holocaust to insure “never again,” then awareness of the Nakba, which is still very much alive, becomes the essential ingredient to “peace.” Yet, the Nakba of 1948 lurks unnoticed, like the pink elephant in the room in any discussion of the “troubles in the Middle East.” It taints every celebration of Israel’s right to exist. We often hear of the miracle of making the desert bloom. We seldom hear the rest of the story. It is a painful history. But it must be acknowledged if we are to ever understand the rage of the Palestinians.
At the founding of the State of Israel, acts of violence were designed to frighten Arabs into fleeing for their lives. One of the best documented examples was the village of Deir Yassin. On April 9, 1948, in the struggle to rid the land of Arabs, the Stern gang, headed by Yitzak Shamir, and the Irgun, headed by Menachem Begin, conducted the massacre of the Arab village of Deir Yassin. Jews claim 100 people were killed, Arabs say it was 250. The commander of the Haganah, Zvi Ankori described what he witnessed:
I saw cut-off genitalia and women’s crushed stomachs. It was direct murder. Soldiers shot everyone they saw, including women and children. Parents begged commanders to stop the slaughter, to please stop shooting.[3]
No one denies that most of those slashed to death were women and children. Jewish terrorist shot people on their homes and threw their bodies into the streets as a message to neighboring Arab villages. Survivors of the raid tell stories of Israeli soldiers starting to kill early in the morning and continuing all day. They killed everyone they saw, including old people and children. One pregnant woman had her stomach cut open with a butcher’s knife.[4]
The attack on Dier Yassin dramatically widened the gulf of hatred and fear that separated Palestinians and Jews. Zionists say it was not terror, it was war, even justified by their Scriptures. “We have no alternative...we were just defending our land.”[5] Begin himself wrote:
Out of evil, however, came good. This Arab propaganda spread a legend among Arabs and Arab troops, who were seized with panic at the mention of Irgun soldiers. In the results it helped us. Panic overwhelmed the Arabs of Eretz Israel...Kolonia village...was evacuated overnight. Bethlehem was also evacuated.[6]
Deir Yassin was not alone. Village after village felt the sting of Israeli massacres. Unwanted villages were destroyed., Out of more than 550 villages in the territory occupied by Israel, only 121 survived. The rest were taken over by Jews or bulldozed. In the first wave of immigrants, approximately 200,000 Jews moved into abandoned Arab houses. Jewish children played with toys the Arab children had left behind when expelled from their homes.
By the end of the fleeing, only 165,000 of over 800,000 Arabs remained in Israel. Many were forced to march in blood soaked clothes through the streets of Jerusalem past jeering on-lookers, never to be seen again.[7]
The Nakba of 1948 was as if I interrupted your church service, walked up front and announced, “I am from the United Nations and we, (without your vote,) have decided to give North Georgia back to the Cherokee Indians.
No, you can’t go home to collect your belongings. Your home is no longer yours.
No, there will be no compensation.
No, you do not have time to find your children. You are to load up on the bus we are providing for you. Just follow the young men with the machine guns. Of course, this is all for your own good, you understand. You will spend this night in a barbed wire compound. Tomorrow you will be force marched over the hills. Some of you, especially the elderly will die on the march. Parents may be separated from your children, and some of you will never see your little ones again or even know what happened to them.
You are to be placed in a Refugee Camp and most of you will live behind cement barrels and barbed wire for the rest of your life. You have never committed a crime, nor have you ever been tried in any court. You just happened to live in a land that Israel wanted.
By the way, the U.N. is prepared to take care of you. In fact, the U.N. is going to spend eleven cents a day to provide you with food, shelter, clothing, health care and education for your children.[8]
You will wait every day for the world’s conscience to rise up and come to your defense, but to this day, that has not happened. In fact, most of the power brokers of the world think all this is a good idea and will donate $16 million a day to help the Cherokees break up all this concrete and tear down all these ugly parking lots and restore North Georgia to the “garden” it was before all you white folks moved in and messed it up.
You will be maligned, misrepresented, stereotyped as thieves and terrorist and frankly, the Cherokees and those who feel guilty for your mistreatment wish you would simply go away.”[9]
May 15, 1948, the State of Israel was declared by the United Nations, giving 56 percent of the land to Israel; including all the coast land, the cereal and industrial lands. Palestinians were pushed up into the hills or locked up into refugee camps. Many of those who survived are still there, in some cases looking across the hills at the homes that used to be theirs in which Jews now live. In the early years of confinement, Palestinians would sneak back into their home territory to harvest their own crops or steal food for their families, only to be labeled “thieves” and “lawless scavengers” by their Jewish occupiers.
Arnold J. Toynbee said, -
The treatment of the Palestinian Arabs in 1947 and 1948 was as morally indefensible as the slaughter of six million Jews by the Nazis...though not comparable in quantity to the crimes of the Nazis, it was comparable in quality.[10]
General history, even filled with facts and numbers, can leave us a little detached. It came across more disturbing when told by a guest in my home. When he was nine years old, his father gathered the family together. “A monster named Hitler up in Europe has been killing Jews. He is dead now but he took their money and homes from them. Soon,” father told them, “some who escaped from him will be coming to Palestine. We are going to help them get re-established. In fact, a family will probably move in with us until they can build a home of their own.”
Young Elias Chacour was excited. It was fun moving clothes and belonging out of one side of their house to make room for ‘their cousins.’ After all,” father said, “We all came from Abraham. They are our blood brothers.”
But, they did not come in as guest. Zionist soldiers had no interest in sharing anything. They broke into his house, pulled his mother by her hair and rounded up the villagers of Biram into a barbed-wire compound, leaving their homes, possessions and even loved ones behind. Elias and all the people of Biram were forced to spend days and nights on the wet and rocky ground in a nearby olive orchard. A week later, they walked over the hills to the small cross-road village of Gish. “You will live here,” the Israeli soldiers barked. “Biram is not your home anymore. It is ours. Come back and you will be shot!”
What happened to the people of Gish? No one knew until a few days later, Elias was playing ball with his friends, as nine year old boys would do, when someone knocked the ball down into a dry ravine. He ran to retrieve the ball, reached down and suddenly saw a hand sticking out of the ground. He had just discovered the people of Gish. They had been murdered and buried in a mass grave.”.
Multiply the story of Biram and Gish by thousands of Palestinians who in the coming years of Israel’s new power and every nine year old Elias kid can tell of being frightened, accused of hiding weapons, called terrorists and beaten by Jewish soldiers, all for the State of Israel, while the world looked to other way.
This partial part of the story of Nakba 1948 is disturbing. But it is a part which must be remembered if there is every to be peace and security for Israel and Palestine. The popular, sanitized version only feeds to anger, mistrust and violence.
Thomas Are
August 4, 2010
[1] Alan Hart, Zionism, The Real Enemy of the Jews. Volume Three, Conflict without End. (Clarity Press, Atlanta, 2010) p. 366.
[2] Hart, Ibid., p.370.
[3].Lanni Brenner, The Iron Wall: Zionist Revolutions From Jabotinsky to Shamir, (Zed Books, Ltd. 1984). P. 97. And Ralph Schoenman, The Hidden History of Zionism, (Veritas Press, Santa Barbara, California, 1988) p.33.
[4].Quoted in David Hirst, The Gun and the Olive Branch: The Root of Violance on the Middle East, Faber and Faber, 1977) p. 141. Cited in Clifford Wright, Facts and Fables: The Arab-Isreli Conflict, (London, Kegan Paul International. 1989) p.19
[5].”Rights Group Accuses Israel of Violence Against Children in Palestine Uprising,” The Washington Post, May 17, 1990.
[6].Ibid.
[7].Ibid.
[8] Alan Hart, Arafat, Terrorist or Peace Maker, (Sidewick & Jackson, London, 1984) p. 95.
[9]. Read it for yourself. Read Blood Brothers, by Elias Chacour, The Iron Wall, by Avi Shlaim, and Paul Findley’s Deliberate Deceptions, and Israel’s Sacred Terror, by Livia Rokach, Justice and Only Justice, by Naim Ateek, Healings, by Rabbi Michael Lerner. This history is well documented by reputable historians and scholars.
[10].Na’im Ateek, Justice and Only Justice, Orbis Press, Maryknoll, New York, 1989.) p.32.
Hart tells of traveling with a Jewish friend to meet Golda Mier. They visited for five hours. They both loved it. Yet, in spite of the bond of friendship sealed by years of working and socializing together, his Jewish neighbor would not read Hart’s book. “If what I believe about that war (1967) is not true, everything crumbles,” he explains.[2]
To deny the holocaust, one has to swim against the stream and choose ignorance. On the other hand, Nakba Deniers may simply go with the flow and be carried along by the media, the Zionist lobby and the Christian Right Fundamentalists. If we remember the Holocaust to insure “never again,” then awareness of the Nakba, which is still very much alive, becomes the essential ingredient to “peace.” Yet, the Nakba of 1948 lurks unnoticed, like the pink elephant in the room in any discussion of the “troubles in the Middle East.” It taints every celebration of Israel’s right to exist. We often hear of the miracle of making the desert bloom. We seldom hear the rest of the story. It is a painful history. But it must be acknowledged if we are to ever understand the rage of the Palestinians.
At the founding of the State of Israel, acts of violence were designed to frighten Arabs into fleeing for their lives. One of the best documented examples was the village of Deir Yassin. On April 9, 1948, in the struggle to rid the land of Arabs, the Stern gang, headed by Yitzak Shamir, and the Irgun, headed by Menachem Begin, conducted the massacre of the Arab village of Deir Yassin. Jews claim 100 people were killed, Arabs say it was 250. The commander of the Haganah, Zvi Ankori described what he witnessed:
I saw cut-off genitalia and women’s crushed stomachs. It was direct murder. Soldiers shot everyone they saw, including women and children. Parents begged commanders to stop the slaughter, to please stop shooting.[3]
No one denies that most of those slashed to death were women and children. Jewish terrorist shot people on their homes and threw their bodies into the streets as a message to neighboring Arab villages. Survivors of the raid tell stories of Israeli soldiers starting to kill early in the morning and continuing all day. They killed everyone they saw, including old people and children. One pregnant woman had her stomach cut open with a butcher’s knife.[4]
The attack on Dier Yassin dramatically widened the gulf of hatred and fear that separated Palestinians and Jews. Zionists say it was not terror, it was war, even justified by their Scriptures. “We have no alternative...we were just defending our land.”[5] Begin himself wrote:
Out of evil, however, came good. This Arab propaganda spread a legend among Arabs and Arab troops, who were seized with panic at the mention of Irgun soldiers. In the results it helped us. Panic overwhelmed the Arabs of Eretz Israel...Kolonia village...was evacuated overnight. Bethlehem was also evacuated.[6]
Deir Yassin was not alone. Village after village felt the sting of Israeli massacres. Unwanted villages were destroyed., Out of more than 550 villages in the territory occupied by Israel, only 121 survived. The rest were taken over by Jews or bulldozed. In the first wave of immigrants, approximately 200,000 Jews moved into abandoned Arab houses. Jewish children played with toys the Arab children had left behind when expelled from their homes.
By the end of the fleeing, only 165,000 of over 800,000 Arabs remained in Israel. Many were forced to march in blood soaked clothes through the streets of Jerusalem past jeering on-lookers, never to be seen again.[7]
The Nakba of 1948 was as if I interrupted your church service, walked up front and announced, “I am from the United Nations and we, (without your vote,) have decided to give North Georgia back to the Cherokee Indians.
No, you can’t go home to collect your belongings. Your home is no longer yours.
No, there will be no compensation.
No, you do not have time to find your children. You are to load up on the bus we are providing for you. Just follow the young men with the machine guns. Of course, this is all for your own good, you understand. You will spend this night in a barbed wire compound. Tomorrow you will be force marched over the hills. Some of you, especially the elderly will die on the march. Parents may be separated from your children, and some of you will never see your little ones again or even know what happened to them.
You are to be placed in a Refugee Camp and most of you will live behind cement barrels and barbed wire for the rest of your life. You have never committed a crime, nor have you ever been tried in any court. You just happened to live in a land that Israel wanted.
By the way, the U.N. is prepared to take care of you. In fact, the U.N. is going to spend eleven cents a day to provide you with food, shelter, clothing, health care and education for your children.[8]
You will wait every day for the world’s conscience to rise up and come to your defense, but to this day, that has not happened. In fact, most of the power brokers of the world think all this is a good idea and will donate $16 million a day to help the Cherokees break up all this concrete and tear down all these ugly parking lots and restore North Georgia to the “garden” it was before all you white folks moved in and messed it up.
You will be maligned, misrepresented, stereotyped as thieves and terrorist and frankly, the Cherokees and those who feel guilty for your mistreatment wish you would simply go away.”[9]
May 15, 1948, the State of Israel was declared by the United Nations, giving 56 percent of the land to Israel; including all the coast land, the cereal and industrial lands. Palestinians were pushed up into the hills or locked up into refugee camps. Many of those who survived are still there, in some cases looking across the hills at the homes that used to be theirs in which Jews now live. In the early years of confinement, Palestinians would sneak back into their home territory to harvest their own crops or steal food for their families, only to be labeled “thieves” and “lawless scavengers” by their Jewish occupiers.
Arnold J. Toynbee said, -
The treatment of the Palestinian Arabs in 1947 and 1948 was as morally indefensible as the slaughter of six million Jews by the Nazis...though not comparable in quantity to the crimes of the Nazis, it was comparable in quality.[10]
General history, even filled with facts and numbers, can leave us a little detached. It came across more disturbing when told by a guest in my home. When he was nine years old, his father gathered the family together. “A monster named Hitler up in Europe has been killing Jews. He is dead now but he took their money and homes from them. Soon,” father told them, “some who escaped from him will be coming to Palestine. We are going to help them get re-established. In fact, a family will probably move in with us until they can build a home of their own.”
Young Elias Chacour was excited. It was fun moving clothes and belonging out of one side of their house to make room for ‘their cousins.’ After all,” father said, “We all came from Abraham. They are our blood brothers.”
But, they did not come in as guest. Zionist soldiers had no interest in sharing anything. They broke into his house, pulled his mother by her hair and rounded up the villagers of Biram into a barbed-wire compound, leaving their homes, possessions and even loved ones behind. Elias and all the people of Biram were forced to spend days and nights on the wet and rocky ground in a nearby olive orchard. A week later, they walked over the hills to the small cross-road village of Gish. “You will live here,” the Israeli soldiers barked. “Biram is not your home anymore. It is ours. Come back and you will be shot!”
What happened to the people of Gish? No one knew until a few days later, Elias was playing ball with his friends, as nine year old boys would do, when someone knocked the ball down into a dry ravine. He ran to retrieve the ball, reached down and suddenly saw a hand sticking out of the ground. He had just discovered the people of Gish. They had been murdered and buried in a mass grave.”.
Multiply the story of Biram and Gish by thousands of Palestinians who in the coming years of Israel’s new power and every nine year old Elias kid can tell of being frightened, accused of hiding weapons, called terrorists and beaten by Jewish soldiers, all for the State of Israel, while the world looked to other way.
This partial part of the story of Nakba 1948 is disturbing. But it is a part which must be remembered if there is every to be peace and security for Israel and Palestine. The popular, sanitized version only feeds to anger, mistrust and violence.
Thomas Are
August 4, 2010
[1] Alan Hart, Zionism, The Real Enemy of the Jews. Volume Three, Conflict without End. (Clarity Press, Atlanta, 2010) p. 366.
[2] Hart, Ibid., p.370.
[3].Lanni Brenner, The Iron Wall: Zionist Revolutions From Jabotinsky to Shamir, (Zed Books, Ltd. 1984). P. 97. And Ralph Schoenman, The Hidden History of Zionism, (Veritas Press, Santa Barbara, California, 1988) p.33.
[4].Quoted in David Hirst, The Gun and the Olive Branch: The Root of Violance on the Middle East, Faber and Faber, 1977) p. 141. Cited in Clifford Wright, Facts and Fables: The Arab-Isreli Conflict, (London, Kegan Paul International. 1989) p.19
[5].”Rights Group Accuses Israel of Violence Against Children in Palestine Uprising,” The Washington Post, May 17, 1990.
[6].Ibid.
[7].Ibid.
[8] Alan Hart, Arafat, Terrorist or Peace Maker, (Sidewick & Jackson, London, 1984) p. 95.
[9]. Read it for yourself. Read Blood Brothers, by Elias Chacour, The Iron Wall, by Avi Shlaim, and Paul Findley’s Deliberate Deceptions, and Israel’s Sacred Terror, by Livia Rokach, Justice and Only Justice, by Naim Ateek, Healings, by Rabbi Michael Lerner. This history is well documented by reputable historians and scholars.
[10].Na’im Ateek, Justice and Only Justice, Orbis Press, Maryknoll, New York, 1989.) p.32.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Netanyahu's Peace Talk
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.
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.
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.
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