We were a Sunday School class and we talked about “justice.” I was amazed. Many churches all over America can go for years without approaching the subject of justice, especially when it gets specific, like when relating to the injustice inflicted by Israel upon the Palestinians.
In fact, with few exceptions, I mostly agree with Brian McLaren:
My disillusionment was intensified by what was happening in the Christian community in America during the 1980s and 1990s. A large number of Protestant and Catholic leaders had aligned with a neoconservative political ideology, trumpeting what they called “conservative family values,” but minimizing biblical community values. They supported wars of choice, defended torture, opposed environmental protection, and seemed to care more about protecting the rich from taxes than liberating the poor from poverty or minorities from racism. They spoke against big government as if big was bad, yet they seemed to see big military and big business as inherently good. They wanted to protect unborn human life inside the womb, but didn’t seem to care about born human life in slums or prisons or nations they considered enemies. They loved to paint gay people as a threat to marriage, seeming to miss the irony that heterosexual people were damaging marriage at a furious pace without any help from gay couples…They interpreted the Bible to favor the government of Israel and to marginalize Palestinians, and even before September 11, 2001, I feared that through their influence Muslims were being cast as the new scapegoats, targets of a scary kind of religiously inspired bigotry.[1]
But, this church was different. It sponsored a class which struggled with these issues, especially the Israel/Palestinian situation. I left the class encouraged.
Then, I went to the worship service. Being Advent, we sang, "O Come, O Come Emmanuel and ransom captive Israel." How many, I wondered, while singing this hymn made a distinction between Israel of the Old Testament and the modern state of Israel? Multiplied by every church in America, I wondered how much influence our liturgy might have in equating the nation-state of Israel with God and our understanding of ancient covenants. What else could explain our disregard for the plight of the Palestinians at the hands of one of the mightiest military forces on earth?
Every Christmas, millions of Americans sing, “The First Noel,” with its refrain, “born is the King of Israel.” We sing, "The God of Abraham be Praised" with seldom a thought that Ishmael was the first born son of Abraham. We turn to the Responsive Readings and recite, “The God of Jacob is our Refuge." I wondered how many Psalms refer to the "God of Jacob?” Psalm 72:18 reads, “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who alone does wondrous things.” A few pages over we celebrate God’s victory in battle for God “remembered his steadfast love and faithfulness to the house of Israel. (Psalm 98:3) and “Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.” (Psalm 121:4)
When sexist language became a “no no” in the church, all the arguments, “surely everyone understands that ‘man’ includes all humankind, and that God ‘Himself,’ was not a sexual being,” did not overcome the emotional influence of sexist language. I wonder if the same is not emotionally true of “Israel” as God’s only chosen people, with a real estate deal which lasts forever?
How many make the distinction between ancient Israel and the modern, powerful state? Of course, we are talking more than rhetoric. It is a matter of placing the “power” of Israel over prophetic Judaism. Marc Ellis, who is best described as a faithful Jew, asks, “Can power offer liberation from suffering if another people, in this case the Palestinians, is suffering so that Jews can have power?”[2] Affirming Liberation Theology, Ellis writes:
God is against injustice and against those who structure society in an unjust way for their own benefit. These assertions are cast in theological language, which says that God in the Bible is with the poor and the marginalized and against injustice and wealth accumulated in unjust ways. This biblical God still stands with the world’s poor and marginalized. In the struggle between the poor and the wealthy God takes sides.[3]
Challenging the church, he says, “It is incumbent upon all Christians to do the same.” I agree. We need to be careful with our language lest we cover up God’s call for justice with emotional liturgy.
Thomas Are
December 4, 2010
[1] Brian McLaren, A New Kind of Christianity. (HarperOne, 2010) p.6-7.
[2] Marc H. Ellis, Judaism Does Not Equal Israel. (The New Press, New York. 2009.) p.xix.
[3] Ibid. p.43.
Friday, December 3, 2010
Monday, October 25, 2010
Embarrassment
Years ago, I pleaded with my Congressional representative to take a stand regarding the suffering of the Palestinians. I shared with him what I had seen on a recent visit into Gaza and the West Bank. I talked about people being shut up in refugee camps, the lack of food, water, medical care and education. “Life there is unfair, and its harshness is supported by our government.”
He thought for a while. “I am as concerned for the suffering of the Palestinians as anyone,” he responded. “But I am not going to do or say anything that will get me labeled, ‘anti-Semitic.’”
After a little more pleading, I said something like: “I am beginning to understand politicians. You are not moved by right or wrong, by justice or even your religious professions. The only thing that will get a response from you is the fear of being embarrassed. So, what if I got about 300 people out of my congregation to come down here and picked your office with signs saying that you support the torture of children?”
He registered a little surprise and said, “You wouldn’t do that.”
I came back with, “I would if I could.”
I think that what is true for politicians may also be true for Israel and her supporters. For years, the American Jewish community has uplifted Israel as a shining “miracle” of democracy and freedom, an inspiration to the world. Support for Israel has been a hundred percent with no consideration for right or wrong, justice, or Jewish ethics. However, two things are happening which seem to be an embarrassment for Zionist supporters, especially in America and especially among young Jews.
First - Research done by the new Jewish historians almost universally declares that the glorious story of Israel’s founding is more fiction than fact. The real history of 1948-1949 unveils a lop-sided blood bath of ethnic cleansing. Leon Uris lied.
Second - The attack on the Mavi Marmara and the murder of nine humanitarian aid volunteers, including an American, shocked much of the world. Before the flotilla, it was the 23 day massacre of the population of Gaza, shut in and bombarded, which killed 1390 people, according to B’tsalem. Before that the 2006 bombardment of Lebanon, dropping four million cluster bombs, killing more than a thousand people, mostly civilians, the 2003 murder of Rachel Corrie and Tom Hurndall, the 1983 massacre of unarmed refugees in Sabra and Shatila, the 1982 bombardment of Lebanon, and the 1967 Six Day War against Egypt, Jordan and Syria. Uninterrupted throughout this history is the occupation with settlements, checkpoints, mass imprisonments, the stealing of land and water and the construction of an apartheid wall. Add all this up, and these are just the most outstanding crimes that cause Israel embarrassment.
Reacting to last winter’s invasion of Gaza and the midnight raid by commandos on the unarmed passengers of the Freedom Flotilla:
--Students at Cornell University lined pathways with 1300 black flags commemorating the dead in Gaza.[1]
--Turkish parliament voted unanimously to “revisit the political, military and economic relations with Israel.
-- Nicaragua suspended its diplomatic relations with Israel.
--Norway reconfirmed its arms ban on Israel and called on all other states to follow Norway’s position which excludes trading arms with Israel.
--Swedish dockworkers decided to blockade all Israeli ships and cargo to and from Israel.
--The South African trade union federation, COSATU, called for greater support for the international boycott, divestment, and sanction campaign against Israel, urging all South Africans to refuse to buy or handle any good from Israel or have any dealings with Israeli businesses.
--In the United Kingdom the largest trade union, UNITE, unanimously voted to boycott all Israeli companies.
-- In Oakland, California, union members and community activist set a historical precedent by blocking the offloading of an Israeli ship for 24 hours. And
-- The student body of Evergreen State College voted with a 79 percent majority to divest from companies that profit from the occupation.[2]
Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions will not bring Israel down. The destruction of Israel is not the goal But what DBS will do is embarrass Israel and its supporters,
According to Jewish scholar Norman Finkelstein, professor at City University of New York:
The increased and brutal frequency of war in this volatile region has shifted international opinion. One poll registering the fallout from the Gaza attack of 2008-09 in the United States found that Americans voters calling themselves supporters of Israel plummeted from 69 percent before the attack to 49 percent in June 2009, while voters believing that the United States should support Israel dropped from 69 percent to 44 percent.[3]
Jewish pollster, Steven Cohen in a 2005 survey found that, “the attachment of American Jews to Israel has weakened measurably in the last two years.”
The survey found 26 percent who said that they were “very” emotionally attached to Israel, compared with 31 percent who said so in a similar survey conducted in 2002. Some two-thirds, 64 percent, said they follow the news about Israel closely, down from 74 percent in 2002, while 39 percent said they talk about Israel frequently with Jewish friends, down from 53 percent in 2002. …48 percent said “Israel matters a lot” compared with 58 percent in 2002. Just 57 percent affirmed that “caring about Israel” is a very important part of my being Jewish,” compared with 73 percent in a similar survey in 1989.[4]
Hopefully, with enough embarrassment, Israel will lose more of its American Jewish support, which might be the best hope Palestinians have for some relief. At least a little embarrassment might be a good influence on our politicians.
Thomas Are
October 25, 2010
[1] “Poll Show Dip in American Voters Supporting Israel” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, (June 16, 2009, Cited by Norman Finkelstein, Ever Fewer Hosannas, published in Midnight on the Mavi Marmara, Edited by Moustafa Bayoumi, p. 262
[2] Omar Barghouti, Our South Africa Moment, Cited in Midnight on the Mavi Marmara, Edited by Moustafa Bayoumi, p. 276-278.
[3] Op cit, Finkelstein, p. 256.
[4] From the same article cited by Norman Finkelstein, p. 258-93
He thought for a while. “I am as concerned for the suffering of the Palestinians as anyone,” he responded. “But I am not going to do or say anything that will get me labeled, ‘anti-Semitic.’”
After a little more pleading, I said something like: “I am beginning to understand politicians. You are not moved by right or wrong, by justice or even your religious professions. The only thing that will get a response from you is the fear of being embarrassed. So, what if I got about 300 people out of my congregation to come down here and picked your office with signs saying that you support the torture of children?”
He registered a little surprise and said, “You wouldn’t do that.”
I came back with, “I would if I could.”
I think that what is true for politicians may also be true for Israel and her supporters. For years, the American Jewish community has uplifted Israel as a shining “miracle” of democracy and freedom, an inspiration to the world. Support for Israel has been a hundred percent with no consideration for right or wrong, justice, or Jewish ethics. However, two things are happening which seem to be an embarrassment for Zionist supporters, especially in America and especially among young Jews.
First - Research done by the new Jewish historians almost universally declares that the glorious story of Israel’s founding is more fiction than fact. The real history of 1948-1949 unveils a lop-sided blood bath of ethnic cleansing. Leon Uris lied.
Second - The attack on the Mavi Marmara and the murder of nine humanitarian aid volunteers, including an American, shocked much of the world. Before the flotilla, it was the 23 day massacre of the population of Gaza, shut in and bombarded, which killed 1390 people, according to B’tsalem. Before that the 2006 bombardment of Lebanon, dropping four million cluster bombs, killing more than a thousand people, mostly civilians, the 2003 murder of Rachel Corrie and Tom Hurndall, the 1983 massacre of unarmed refugees in Sabra and Shatila, the 1982 bombardment of Lebanon, and the 1967 Six Day War against Egypt, Jordan and Syria. Uninterrupted throughout this history is the occupation with settlements, checkpoints, mass imprisonments, the stealing of land and water and the construction of an apartheid wall. Add all this up, and these are just the most outstanding crimes that cause Israel embarrassment.
Reacting to last winter’s invasion of Gaza and the midnight raid by commandos on the unarmed passengers of the Freedom Flotilla:
--Students at Cornell University lined pathways with 1300 black flags commemorating the dead in Gaza.[1]
--Turkish parliament voted unanimously to “revisit the political, military and economic relations with Israel.
-- Nicaragua suspended its diplomatic relations with Israel.
--Norway reconfirmed its arms ban on Israel and called on all other states to follow Norway’s position which excludes trading arms with Israel.
--Swedish dockworkers decided to blockade all Israeli ships and cargo to and from Israel.
--The South African trade union federation, COSATU, called for greater support for the international boycott, divestment, and sanction campaign against Israel, urging all South Africans to refuse to buy or handle any good from Israel or have any dealings with Israeli businesses.
--In the United Kingdom the largest trade union, UNITE, unanimously voted to boycott all Israeli companies.
-- In Oakland, California, union members and community activist set a historical precedent by blocking the offloading of an Israeli ship for 24 hours. And
-- The student body of Evergreen State College voted with a 79 percent majority to divest from companies that profit from the occupation.[2]
Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions will not bring Israel down. The destruction of Israel is not the goal But what DBS will do is embarrass Israel and its supporters,
According to Jewish scholar Norman Finkelstein, professor at City University of New York:
The increased and brutal frequency of war in this volatile region has shifted international opinion. One poll registering the fallout from the Gaza attack of 2008-09 in the United States found that Americans voters calling themselves supporters of Israel plummeted from 69 percent before the attack to 49 percent in June 2009, while voters believing that the United States should support Israel dropped from 69 percent to 44 percent.[3]
Jewish pollster, Steven Cohen in a 2005 survey found that, “the attachment of American Jews to Israel has weakened measurably in the last two years.”
The survey found 26 percent who said that they were “very” emotionally attached to Israel, compared with 31 percent who said so in a similar survey conducted in 2002. Some two-thirds, 64 percent, said they follow the news about Israel closely, down from 74 percent in 2002, while 39 percent said they talk about Israel frequently with Jewish friends, down from 53 percent in 2002. …48 percent said “Israel matters a lot” compared with 58 percent in 2002. Just 57 percent affirmed that “caring about Israel” is a very important part of my being Jewish,” compared with 73 percent in a similar survey in 1989.[4]
Hopefully, with enough embarrassment, Israel will lose more of its American Jewish support, which might be the best hope Palestinians have for some relief. At least a little embarrassment might be a good influence on our politicians.
Thomas Are
October 25, 2010
[1] “Poll Show Dip in American Voters Supporting Israel” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, (June 16, 2009, Cited by Norman Finkelstein, Ever Fewer Hosannas, published in Midnight on the Mavi Marmara, Edited by Moustafa Bayoumi, p. 262
[2] Omar Barghouti, Our South Africa Moment, Cited in Midnight on the Mavi Marmara, Edited by Moustafa Bayoumi, p. 276-278.
[3] Op cit, Finkelstein, p. 256.
[4] From the same article cited by Norman Finkelstein, p. 258-93
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Mavi Marmara
As you might imagine, from time to time I get responses to my blogs. Some of them express disagreement.
On June 21st, I received: “Do not single out Israel for your criticism -- should we be surprised that the world focused on 9 deaths on the Gaza flotilla (despite the fact, yes, fact, that there were people on that flotilla who were hoping to be martyrs) and almost nothing was said about the actual genocide in Kyrgystan?”
I single out Israel because my government supports Israel’s actions by giving billions of dollars every year which are used to steal land and water, imprison, humiliate and even kill the people of Palestine.
On June 16th, I received a video link showing Israeli soldiers unloading caches of arms: “A tip of the hat to Fred Leder for this Israeli Flix video. This video shows that during the unloading of the M/S. Mavi Marmara Turkish vessel in the Israeli port of Ashdod, behind the bags of flour were boxes of heavy weapons and ammunition: mortars, artillery shells, bazookas, without counting a trunk where more than one million euros was found intended for Hamas. This video should be widely distributed as evidence of why the IDF Naval commandos were dispatched to intercept the six vessels including the M/S Mavi Marmara. Clearly the Turkish AKP Islamist government is complicit in permitting this military cargo to be loaded on the 'peaceful' Free Gaza Flotilla. Please distribute this video widely. If you had any doubt about what was on the flotilla, here is the video. The French explains that the arms on display were hidden behind sacks of grain. Why these criminals were released is beyond me.”
The email invited me to react to such obvious footage. I responded that if this were an authentic filming, the Israeli government and Fox News would have been all over it. Why has no responsible news agency exposed this to the world, especially since the Turkish government inspected the ship and its cargo before allowing it to proceed to Gaza? The ships had been inspected at all ports for weapons and none were ever found.[1] This video was a deliberate hoax designed to justify an act of overpowering aggression in violation of international laws.
An email on June 3rd tops them all. “I believe that the ship should have been sunk to rid the world of all those terrorists and their supporters. I am sorry that you have such tunnel vision and I worry about your safety.”
He calls them the terrorists. The 700 participants on the Mavi Marmara represented over thirty countries. They were doctors, human rights activists, professors, a U.S. diplomat, a Nobel Peace laureate, in addition to clergy and journalist from around the world. What exposes this charge is that anyone who seeks relief for the suffering Palestinians can be automatically labeled a terrorist. The real question is how he can so casually assign heinous motives to such distinguished volunteers? Is a terrorist anyone who feels empathy for their beleaguered fellow human beings? After forty years of occupation, 90 percent of the people in Gaza have no clean water to drink, and two-thirds of the population live without adequate food, medical care, sanitation systems, electricity and fuel.
Chris Hedges, whom some look upon as the twenty-first century Amos, writes;
Name us as human beings who believe that when one of us suffers all of us suffer, that we never have to ask for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for us all, the tears of the mother in Gaza are our tears, that the wails of the bloodied children in Al Shifa Hospital are the wails of our own children.
Let me close tonight with one last name. Let me name those who send these tanks and fighter jets to bomb the concrete hovels in Gaza with families crouching, helpless, inside, let me name those who deny children the right to a childhood and the sick the right to care, those who torture, those who carry out assassination in hotel rooms in Dubai and on the streets of Gaza City, Those who deny the hungry food, the oppressed justice and foul the truth with official propaganda and state lies. Let me call them, not by their honorific titles and positions of power, but by the name they have earned for themselves by draining the blood of the innocent into the sands of Gaza,. Let me name them for who they are: terrorist.[2]
Of course, the Israeli government said that it would have gladly delivered the supplies by land if they had been asked to do so. However, such an offer belies that fact that what was being delivered by the flotilla was precisely those emergency supplies that Israel had denied entrance into Gaza for years. These “terrorists” carried no weapons, but were armed with X-ray machines, wheelchairs, crutches and medical equipment, seesaws and sliding boards. These were ordinary people, full of compassion, seeking to help ordinary people, deliberately denied the basic necessities of life.
Israel claims that they were only defending themselves. Then why did they confiscate all recording equipment, cameras and lap tops? Why jam the ships satellite communications systems to prevent contact between journalist and the outside world?[3] Why refuse to cooperate with any unbiased international investigation and keep all passenger isolated until Israel’s spin filled the airways unchallenged? Ben Saul, co-director of the Sydney Center for International Law, who is published by the Oxford University Press, said, “One cannot illegally attack a ship and then claim self-defense.”[4]
Why attack a ship in the darkness of night after it had reversed its course and was steaming as fast as it could away from Gaza?[5] Why did the commandoes drop percussion bombs onto the deck and fire weapons before attacking the ship? The humanitarian workers defended themselves with whatever they had such as their own bare hands, sling shots, and water hoses. According to The Guardian, nine people, including a nineteen year old American born high school student, were shot no less than a total of thirty times. Even after the passengers had “surrendered,” the Israelis refused to offer medical assistance to the wounded. Why?
So, from time to time I get responses to my blogs and I am grateful for them, even those that express disagreement.
Thomas Are
October 17, 2010
[1] Moustafa Bayoumi, Midnight on the Mavi Marmara, (Haymaker Books, Chicago, 2010,) p. 2
[2] Chris Hedges, The Tears of Gaza Must be Our Tears, Hedges made these remarks August 5, 2010 in New York City at a fund-raiser for sponsoring a U.S. boat to break the blockade of Gaza. Cited in Other Voices, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, November 2010, p. OV-6.
[3] Lara Lee, What Happened to us is Happening in Gaza, Cited in Bayoumi, Midnight on the Mavi Marmara, p. 30. Filmmaker, Lara Lee said, “I decided to join the Freedom Flotilla after going to Gaza a few months before and seeing firsthand the devastation there. After hearing the pleas of the people living in Gaza to have the blockade lifted, I felt I must do something.”
[4] Moustafa Bayoumi, Midnight on the Mavi Marmara, p.6.
[5] Ibid., p.3.
On June 21st, I received: “Do not single out Israel for your criticism -- should we be surprised that the world focused on 9 deaths on the Gaza flotilla (despite the fact, yes, fact, that there were people on that flotilla who were hoping to be martyrs) and almost nothing was said about the actual genocide in Kyrgystan?”
I single out Israel because my government supports Israel’s actions by giving billions of dollars every year which are used to steal land and water, imprison, humiliate and even kill the people of Palestine.
On June 16th, I received a video link showing Israeli soldiers unloading caches of arms: “A tip of the hat to Fred Leder for this Israeli Flix video. This video shows that during the unloading of the M/S. Mavi Marmara Turkish vessel in the Israeli port of Ashdod, behind the bags of flour were boxes of heavy weapons and ammunition: mortars, artillery shells, bazookas, without counting a trunk where more than one million euros was found intended for Hamas. This video should be widely distributed as evidence of why the IDF Naval commandos were dispatched to intercept the six vessels including the M/S Mavi Marmara. Clearly the Turkish AKP Islamist government is complicit in permitting this military cargo to be loaded on the 'peaceful' Free Gaza Flotilla. Please distribute this video widely. If you had any doubt about what was on the flotilla, here is the video. The French explains that the arms on display were hidden behind sacks of grain. Why these criminals were released is beyond me.”
The email invited me to react to such obvious footage. I responded that if this were an authentic filming, the Israeli government and Fox News would have been all over it. Why has no responsible news agency exposed this to the world, especially since the Turkish government inspected the ship and its cargo before allowing it to proceed to Gaza? The ships had been inspected at all ports for weapons and none were ever found.[1] This video was a deliberate hoax designed to justify an act of overpowering aggression in violation of international laws.
An email on June 3rd tops them all. “I believe that the ship should have been sunk to rid the world of all those terrorists and their supporters. I am sorry that you have such tunnel vision and I worry about your safety.”
He calls them the terrorists. The 700 participants on the Mavi Marmara represented over thirty countries. They were doctors, human rights activists, professors, a U.S. diplomat, a Nobel Peace laureate, in addition to clergy and journalist from around the world. What exposes this charge is that anyone who seeks relief for the suffering Palestinians can be automatically labeled a terrorist. The real question is how he can so casually assign heinous motives to such distinguished volunteers? Is a terrorist anyone who feels empathy for their beleaguered fellow human beings? After forty years of occupation, 90 percent of the people in Gaza have no clean water to drink, and two-thirds of the population live without adequate food, medical care, sanitation systems, electricity and fuel.
Chris Hedges, whom some look upon as the twenty-first century Amos, writes;
Name us as human beings who believe that when one of us suffers all of us suffer, that we never have to ask for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for us all, the tears of the mother in Gaza are our tears, that the wails of the bloodied children in Al Shifa Hospital are the wails of our own children.
Let me close tonight with one last name. Let me name those who send these tanks and fighter jets to bomb the concrete hovels in Gaza with families crouching, helpless, inside, let me name those who deny children the right to a childhood and the sick the right to care, those who torture, those who carry out assassination in hotel rooms in Dubai and on the streets of Gaza City, Those who deny the hungry food, the oppressed justice and foul the truth with official propaganda and state lies. Let me call them, not by their honorific titles and positions of power, but by the name they have earned for themselves by draining the blood of the innocent into the sands of Gaza,. Let me name them for who they are: terrorist.[2]
Of course, the Israeli government said that it would have gladly delivered the supplies by land if they had been asked to do so. However, such an offer belies that fact that what was being delivered by the flotilla was precisely those emergency supplies that Israel had denied entrance into Gaza for years. These “terrorists” carried no weapons, but were armed with X-ray machines, wheelchairs, crutches and medical equipment, seesaws and sliding boards. These were ordinary people, full of compassion, seeking to help ordinary people, deliberately denied the basic necessities of life.
Israel claims that they were only defending themselves. Then why did they confiscate all recording equipment, cameras and lap tops? Why jam the ships satellite communications systems to prevent contact between journalist and the outside world?[3] Why refuse to cooperate with any unbiased international investigation and keep all passenger isolated until Israel’s spin filled the airways unchallenged? Ben Saul, co-director of the Sydney Center for International Law, who is published by the Oxford University Press, said, “One cannot illegally attack a ship and then claim self-defense.”[4]
Why attack a ship in the darkness of night after it had reversed its course and was steaming as fast as it could away from Gaza?[5] Why did the commandoes drop percussion bombs onto the deck and fire weapons before attacking the ship? The humanitarian workers defended themselves with whatever they had such as their own bare hands, sling shots, and water hoses. According to The Guardian, nine people, including a nineteen year old American born high school student, were shot no less than a total of thirty times. Even after the passengers had “surrendered,” the Israelis refused to offer medical assistance to the wounded. Why?
So, from time to time I get responses to my blogs and I am grateful for them, even those that express disagreement.
Thomas Are
October 17, 2010
[1] Moustafa Bayoumi, Midnight on the Mavi Marmara, (Haymaker Books, Chicago, 2010,) p. 2
[2] Chris Hedges, The Tears of Gaza Must be Our Tears, Hedges made these remarks August 5, 2010 in New York City at a fund-raiser for sponsoring a U.S. boat to break the blockade of Gaza. Cited in Other Voices, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, November 2010, p. OV-6.
[3] Lara Lee, What Happened to us is Happening in Gaza, Cited in Bayoumi, Midnight on the Mavi Marmara, p. 30. Filmmaker, Lara Lee said, “I decided to join the Freedom Flotilla after going to Gaza a few months before and seeing firsthand the devastation there. After hearing the pleas of the people living in Gaza to have the blockade lifted, I felt I must do something.”
[4] Moustafa Bayoumi, Midnight on the Mavi Marmara, p.6.
[5] Ibid., p.3.
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Peace Talk Breakthrough
My mind leapt when I read in the Christian Science Monitor of a “Breakthrough in Middle East Talks.” Maybe I have been wrong. Maybe Israel is going to finally take a step toward peace by abandoning settlements in the occupied territories. Maybe Israel is going to reroute the wall which has caused so much pain and destruction to Palestinian families, or at least, maybe Israel is going to stop taking 80 percent of Palestinian water for Israeli use only or reduce the number of checkpoints. All kinds of possibilities ran though my mind. But no, an agreement to "more talk" was the breakthrough.
After the meeting, it was all smiles as Abbas and Mr. Netanyahu appeared briefly before the press. The news of the meeting’s concrete achievement – an agreement to hold more talks later this month – was presented as a breakthrough.[1]
However, on the ground, few Palestinians have much hope in the talks. “Had this been the first round of talks, then we would have hoped for a good solution,” said Reem Abu Latif, an architectural engineer. “However, this is the 20th time, and we know the results. Now we are expecting nothing. Nor do we care.”[2]
That’s it. They have agreed to more talk. That’s the break through? In the meantime, Israel announced, not the vacating of settlements, not even a continuation of a partial freeze on building settlements. But according to Peace Now, and reported in Haartz:
2,066 new homes would be ready for continued West Bank construction as soon as a moratorium on settlement building is lifted this month, a report by the Israeli left-wing NGO Peace Now said Sunday, adding that work on another 11,000 potential units could hypothetically start as well.[3]
Two thousand! Just numbers to most pro-Israeli Americans, but not so for the thousands of Palestinians who receive demolition orders for their homes, barns, fields and greenhouses. These are real people with real problems and need to feed their families like all the rest of us but they are seldom seen by an Israeli or recognized by an American.
Israel intends to build new settlements immediately after the September 26th “slow up” is over. Abbas has pledged to walk out unless settlement building is stopped. Of course, Netanyahu knows this so his commitment is to build more settlements. I fear that Hillary Clinton does not have the political will to stand up for justice. So, where does that leave us? Clinging to straws in an ocean of rhetoric. The “peace talks” are focused far more on talk than on peace.
Thomas Are
September 25, 2010
[1] Joshua Mitnick, Abbas goes out on a limb for peace, Christian Science Monitor, September 13, 2010, p.10.
[2] Ibid, Christian Science Monitor. September 13, 2010. p. 10
[3] Chaim Levenson Peace Now: 2,066 settlement homes to be built as soon as freeze ends., Haartz, Sunday September 12, 2010.
After the meeting, it was all smiles as Abbas and Mr. Netanyahu appeared briefly before the press. The news of the meeting’s concrete achievement – an agreement to hold more talks later this month – was presented as a breakthrough.[1]
However, on the ground, few Palestinians have much hope in the talks. “Had this been the first round of talks, then we would have hoped for a good solution,” said Reem Abu Latif, an architectural engineer. “However, this is the 20th time, and we know the results. Now we are expecting nothing. Nor do we care.”[2]
That’s it. They have agreed to more talk. That’s the break through? In the meantime, Israel announced, not the vacating of settlements, not even a continuation of a partial freeze on building settlements. But according to Peace Now, and reported in Haartz:
2,066 new homes would be ready for continued West Bank construction as soon as a moratorium on settlement building is lifted this month, a report by the Israeli left-wing NGO Peace Now said Sunday, adding that work on another 11,000 potential units could hypothetically start as well.[3]
Two thousand! Just numbers to most pro-Israeli Americans, but not so for the thousands of Palestinians who receive demolition orders for their homes, barns, fields and greenhouses. These are real people with real problems and need to feed their families like all the rest of us but they are seldom seen by an Israeli or recognized by an American.
Israel intends to build new settlements immediately after the September 26th “slow up” is over. Abbas has pledged to walk out unless settlement building is stopped. Of course, Netanyahu knows this so his commitment is to build more settlements. I fear that Hillary Clinton does not have the political will to stand up for justice. So, where does that leave us? Clinging to straws in an ocean of rhetoric. The “peace talks” are focused far more on talk than on peace.
Thomas Are
September 25, 2010
[1] Joshua Mitnick, Abbas goes out on a limb for peace, Christian Science Monitor, September 13, 2010, p.10.
[2] Ibid, Christian Science Monitor. September 13, 2010. p. 10
[3] Chaim Levenson Peace Now: 2,066 settlement homes to be built as soon as freeze ends., Haartz, Sunday September 12, 2010.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Another Peace Talk
I look upon the “peace talks,” scheduled this week, with about as much enthusiasm as an okra sandwich served on stale bread without mayonnaise. “But, talking is better than shooting,” we hear from the news media. However, that is not the choice. When Israel is involved, talking becomes a cover for shooting. How many times has Israel come to the table talking peace only to increase settlements, destroy more homes, construct more Jewish only roads, man more check points and steal more water from the occupied territories. All the talking has not dismantled one mile of the wall enforcing all of the above “facts on the ground” which makes a joke of peace talks.
Can anyone imagine that Israel has any intention of pulling a half million settlers out of the West Bank, relinquishing control of its water, returning the Golan Heights with its rich agricultural lands or allowing the refugees of Gaza access to the world? Israel has had a dozen opportunities to grant any of those “concessions” in previous peace talks.[1] Every one has been met with more military rule, expansions and assassinations Is there any reason to think that suddenly Israel is going to have a change of heart under the leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu?
Or, that the United States will suddenly become an “honest broker.”
The US relationship with Israel has been one whereby the US has turned a blind eye to Israel’s breach of international law and negotiated agreements with the Palestinians. Political pressure from military contractors, oil companies, construction and high-tech companies, neo-conservative ideologies, Christian Zionists, and the “Israel Lobby” have combined to provide almost unconditional support in Congress for whatever the Israeli government says and does. No US president to date has been able to consistently or effectively resist that pressure for long.[2]
Considering the US veto of twenty-two UN Security Council resolutions condemning Israel, the supply of US weapons, and the enormous financial aid given annually to Israel, can anyone believe that the US is able to be unbiased in its brokering?
However, the main reason that I am pessimistic about these talks is that Hamas, the democratically elected government of Palestine, has been banned from the conversation. In spite of several offers of peace,[3] the US and Israel still brush them off as a “terrorist organization.” Hamas resistance is called terrorism. Attacks on Palestinians by the Israeli army is always called “self defense.”
What kind of negotiation can take place when only one side has all the power and enjoys the unquestioned backing of the only super power on the globe? I am not optimistic. If only I were wrong.
Thomas Are
September 4, 2010
[1] Among them: Madrid, 1991; Oslo Declaration, 1993; Wye River, 1998; Camp David, 2000; Arab League, (22 countries) 2002; Road Map developed by the Quartet, (US, UN, Russia and EU) 2002; Annapolis Peace Conference, 2007.
[2] The Israel/Palestine Mission Network of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) publication, Steadfast Hope, (January 2010) p. 33.
[3] Hamas Prime Minister, Ismail Haniyah, offered “a 10 year cease-fire to create an atmosphere of calm.” Reported in New York Times, June 20, 2007.
Haniyah, in front of 11 members of the European Union Parliament said that he would accept the 1967 borders with Israel. Reported in Haartz, Nov. 9, 2008.
Hamas chief Khaled Meshal offered immediate cease-fire, including prisoner swap, and the acceptance of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders with Israel. Reported in Wall Street Journal, July 31, 2009.
Can anyone imagine that Israel has any intention of pulling a half million settlers out of the West Bank, relinquishing control of its water, returning the Golan Heights with its rich agricultural lands or allowing the refugees of Gaza access to the world? Israel has had a dozen opportunities to grant any of those “concessions” in previous peace talks.[1] Every one has been met with more military rule, expansions and assassinations Is there any reason to think that suddenly Israel is going to have a change of heart under the leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu?
Or, that the United States will suddenly become an “honest broker.”
The US relationship with Israel has been one whereby the US has turned a blind eye to Israel’s breach of international law and negotiated agreements with the Palestinians. Political pressure from military contractors, oil companies, construction and high-tech companies, neo-conservative ideologies, Christian Zionists, and the “Israel Lobby” have combined to provide almost unconditional support in Congress for whatever the Israeli government says and does. No US president to date has been able to consistently or effectively resist that pressure for long.[2]
Considering the US veto of twenty-two UN Security Council resolutions condemning Israel, the supply of US weapons, and the enormous financial aid given annually to Israel, can anyone believe that the US is able to be unbiased in its brokering?
However, the main reason that I am pessimistic about these talks is that Hamas, the democratically elected government of Palestine, has been banned from the conversation. In spite of several offers of peace,[3] the US and Israel still brush them off as a “terrorist organization.” Hamas resistance is called terrorism. Attacks on Palestinians by the Israeli army is always called “self defense.”
What kind of negotiation can take place when only one side has all the power and enjoys the unquestioned backing of the only super power on the globe? I am not optimistic. If only I were wrong.
Thomas Are
September 4, 2010
[1] Among them: Madrid, 1991; Oslo Declaration, 1993; Wye River, 1998; Camp David, 2000; Arab League, (22 countries) 2002; Road Map developed by the Quartet, (US, UN, Russia and EU) 2002; Annapolis Peace Conference, 2007.
[2] The Israel/Palestine Mission Network of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) publication, Steadfast Hope, (January 2010) p. 33.
[3] Hamas Prime Minister, Ismail Haniyah, offered “a 10 year cease-fire to create an atmosphere of calm.” Reported in New York Times, June 20, 2007.
Haniyah, in front of 11 members of the European Union Parliament said that he would accept the 1967 borders with Israel. Reported in Haartz, Nov. 9, 2008.
Hamas chief Khaled Meshal offered immediate cease-fire, including prisoner swap, and the acceptance of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders with Israel. Reported in Wall Street Journal, July 31, 2009.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Quiet Transfer
From the time I learned my own name until the day my mother died, any time I faced a problem, she would say, “Just come home.” I used to laugh at her simple solution. At the same time, I felt a sense of peace and security in knowing that no matter what, I had a home to come to.
I can only imagine what it must feel like to wake up in the middle of the night, hear a crash and realize that the Israelis have come to knock your house down. You may have been warned. At least, the authorities sometimes left a demolition notice somewhere on or near your property. Of course, a thousand other Palestinians have received the same notice and since Israel randomly executes the demolition of a house, it means that no one can rest easy. You never know when the Caterpillar D-9 will come rumbling down the road in search of your house.
“My morning routine,” says Neimah Dandi, whose home in Anata was finally demolished in November 2004 after a wait of eight years, “consisted of getting out of bed, going to the window to see if the bulldozers were approaching, then going to the bathroom.”[1]
Palestinian homes may be destroyed even when a neighbor draws the short straw.
Jewish author, Jeff Helper writes:
When homes are demolished in military actions or as acts of deterrence and collective punishment, there is no process. No formal demolition orders, no warning, no time to remove furniture or personal belongings, often barely time to escape the home falling down around your ears. This can happen to your home, or to the home of a neighbor whom the Israeli authorities have targeted. Nuha Maqqdmah Sweidan, a Gazan mother of 10 and nine months pregnant, was killed when the house next to hers was dynamited by Israeli troops. “We were in bed, the children were asleep,” her husband related to Amnesty International. “There was an explosion and walls collapsed on top of us. I started to dig in the rubble with my hands. First I found my two little boys and my three year old girl… My wife remained trapped under the rubble with our youngest daughter. She was holding her when the wall fell on her…”[2]
So far, over 24,145 homes have been destroyed since 1967 in West Bank and over 4,000 in Gaza during last winter’s massacre. 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.”[3] I am sure that a father who cannot protect his family or provide a home for his children must feel exactly what the Chief wants him to feel, defeated. Any Palestinian, at any age, any where or at anytime, for any reason may find himself harassed, denied water, freedom of movement or homeless to make room for more Jewish only roads or settlements, even in Jerusalem, On the other hand, not one Jewish home has been destroyed to make room for anything Palestinian.
Most of us remember the announcement of 1600 new Jewish only housing units in Arab East Jerusalem. Vice President Joe Biden was in Israel to talk about another “talk about peace” when it was made. Netanyahu apologized for the “timing” of the announcement. At the same time, Elie Wiesel put a full page ad in the New York Times,[4] saying, “Jerusalem is above politics…And, contrary to certain media reports, Jews, Christians and Muslims ARE allowed to build their homes anywhere in the city.” As I read that, I wondered if Wiesel was joking or deliberately lying. At any rate he is out of touch with reality. To say such a thing flies into the teeth of every human rights organization, both Jewish and Gentile, reporting on what is actually happening in his beloved city, Wiesel celebrates the fact that Jews can, “pray at the Wall, the last vestige of Solomon’s temple.” In view of evictions, home demolitions, and laws applied exclusively to Arabs that privilege Jews only, he leaves me wondering what in the world do they pray for and what kind of God do they pray to.
I thank God that my home is protected by a Constitution promising liberty and justice for all, and that I have a choice to NOT live in Jerusalem.
Thomas Are
August 31, 2010
[1] Jeff Helper, Obstacles to Peace, Published by Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, 2009, p.51.
[2] Ibid., p. 49.
[3] Jeff Helper, Obstacles to Peace, The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, p.26
[4] April 18, 2010, p. 11.
I can only imagine what it must feel like to wake up in the middle of the night, hear a crash and realize that the Israelis have come to knock your house down. You may have been warned. At least, the authorities sometimes left a demolition notice somewhere on or near your property. Of course, a thousand other Palestinians have received the same notice and since Israel randomly executes the demolition of a house, it means that no one can rest easy. You never know when the Caterpillar D-9 will come rumbling down the road in search of your house.
“My morning routine,” says Neimah Dandi, whose home in Anata was finally demolished in November 2004 after a wait of eight years, “consisted of getting out of bed, going to the window to see if the bulldozers were approaching, then going to the bathroom.”[1]
Palestinian homes may be destroyed even when a neighbor draws the short straw.
Jewish author, Jeff Helper writes:
When homes are demolished in military actions or as acts of deterrence and collective punishment, there is no process. No formal demolition orders, no warning, no time to remove furniture or personal belongings, often barely time to escape the home falling down around your ears. This can happen to your home, or to the home of a neighbor whom the Israeli authorities have targeted. Nuha Maqqdmah Sweidan, a Gazan mother of 10 and nine months pregnant, was killed when the house next to hers was dynamited by Israeli troops. “We were in bed, the children were asleep,” her husband related to Amnesty International. “There was an explosion and walls collapsed on top of us. I started to dig in the rubble with my hands. First I found my two little boys and my three year old girl… My wife remained trapped under the rubble with our youngest daughter. She was holding her when the wall fell on her…”[2]
So far, over 24,145 homes have been destroyed since 1967 in West Bank and over 4,000 in Gaza during last winter’s massacre. 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.”[3] I am sure that a father who cannot protect his family or provide a home for his children must feel exactly what the Chief wants him to feel, defeated. Any Palestinian, at any age, any where or at anytime, for any reason may find himself harassed, denied water, freedom of movement or homeless to make room for more Jewish only roads or settlements, even in Jerusalem, On the other hand, not one Jewish home has been destroyed to make room for anything Palestinian.
Most of us remember the announcement of 1600 new Jewish only housing units in Arab East Jerusalem. Vice President Joe Biden was in Israel to talk about another “talk about peace” when it was made. Netanyahu apologized for the “timing” of the announcement. At the same time, Elie Wiesel put a full page ad in the New York Times,[4] saying, “Jerusalem is above politics…And, contrary to certain media reports, Jews, Christians and Muslims ARE allowed to build their homes anywhere in the city.” As I read that, I wondered if Wiesel was joking or deliberately lying. At any rate he is out of touch with reality. To say such a thing flies into the teeth of every human rights organization, both Jewish and Gentile, reporting on what is actually happening in his beloved city, Wiesel celebrates the fact that Jews can, “pray at the Wall, the last vestige of Solomon’s temple.” In view of evictions, home demolitions, and laws applied exclusively to Arabs that privilege Jews only, he leaves me wondering what in the world do they pray for and what kind of God do they pray to.
I thank God that my home is protected by a Constitution promising liberty and justice for all, and that I have a choice to NOT live in Jerusalem.
Thomas Are
August 31, 2010
[1] Jeff Helper, Obstacles to Peace, Published by Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, 2009, p.51.
[2] Ibid., p. 49.
[3] Jeff Helper, Obstacles to Peace, The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, p.26
[4] April 18, 2010, p. 11.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Nakba Denial - Now - (Part Two)
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.
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.
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