Treat Palestinians Like Jews
By Robert Scheer
Truthdig: June 2, 2010
It was an act of international terrorism, pure and simple. There can be no
valid claims of self-defense on the part of Israeli commandos who attacked a
ship of protesters in international waters, killing nine civilians and
kidnapping more than 600 others-including 15 international reporters who
were prevented from filing their stories by a nation that claims to be the
beacon of democracy in the Mideast.
Trust me, I do not come to this viewpoint lightly. This is an issue I have
written about with anguish ever since I visited Gaza and the West Bank
immediately after the Six-Day War 43 years ago, and the fact that those
apartheid zones still stand in oppressive isolation from the norms of human
rights is a sad commentary on our profession. There is no subject on which
American journalists so disgrace themselves by embracing a double standard
or about which our politicians are permitted the kind of hypocritical
cop-out once again demonstrated by the tepid response of the Obama
administration.
If nothing else, this assault on decency by the Israeli government was
clearly intended to derail the peace talks that President Barack Obama has
encouraged. But instead of calling Israel on its savagery, the U.S. is
virtually alone in the world in its embarrassingly mild rebuke. The
politicians cave so shamelessly because they know that media will be
obsequiously tolerant of such immoral equivocation.
The last time I wrote about Israel and Gaza, the San Francisco Chronicle
suddenly decided to stop running my weekly column. No great hardship-I have
other outlets-but I would be lying if I denied the apprehension I feel every
time I dare write critically about Israel and brace myself for the charge
that I am yet another "self-hating Jew." A charge certain to be leveled
against even Hedy Epstein, the 85-year-old Holocaust survivor who at last
report was attempting to board yet another aid boat, the Rachel Corrie,
named after a heroic American protester who was bulldozed to death by
Israelis in 2003.
The first time I encountered that bewildering criticism of Jews who dare to
be morally consistent-despite that being our historical obligation-was when
I was an editor at Ramparts and nearly bankrupted the magazine in attempting
to cover the Six-Day War, during which Israel grabbed control of Gaza and
the West Bank. We had assigned the legendary journalist I.F. Stone to write
about the war, thinking it a wise choice, given that he had accompanied the
first boats of Jewish displaced persons from World War II traveling to found
the state of Israel. Back then he celebrated that quest: "These Jews want
the right to live as a people, to build as a people, to make their
contribution to the world as a people. Are their national aspirations any
less worthy of respect than those of any other oppressed people?"
But then he wrote after the Six-Day War that he felt compelled to deal also
with the oppression of the Palestinians and their desire for a home. His
report was balanced and fair, which of course was a problem to some of the
Ramparts investors who strongly favored honest journalism on every subject
except Israel.
I upset them further by traveling to Egypt and Israel at the end of the
Six-Day War and visiting newly occupied Gaza, where I questioned the
assertion of top officials, including Moshe Dayan, that they would bring
freedom to the Palestinians there that the previous Egyptian and Jordanian
occupiers had denied. It never happened, because the intentions of occupiers
to improve the lot of the conquered become moot if the occupiers insist on
continuing their reign of power. How easy it is to forget that the
Palestinians were not the ones who attacked Israel at the time of the
Six-Day War. On the contrary, it was their previous overlords, Egypt and
Jordan, with which Israel has long since had relatively good relations. An
accommodation of occupiers made above the head of the occupied.
There is no such thing as a morally acceptable occupation, and as the
oppressed resist they will become more violent in their desperation. In turn
the occupiers will show their true colors as oppressors. As the great
Israeli writer Amos Oz wrote in Tuesday's New York Times, " . Ever since the
Six-Day war in 1967, Israel has been fixated on military force." He
excoriates the prevailing Israeli view "that the Palestinian problem can be
crushed instead of solved." That is the essence of the problem and the
solution: End the crushing occupation and begin to solve the problem of
providing the Palestinians, as well as the Jews, with a viable homeland.
***
Naomi Klein | Blinding the Witnesses
Naomi Klein, Naomi Klein.org
The Israeli militarists appear to resent outsiders coming to Israel telling
them how to live, so did Bull Conner and the Klan. What is Israel if it
cannot sustain non-violent demonstration?
READ and see MORE at
http://www.readersupportednews.org/off-site-opinion-section/123-123/2130-blinding-the-witnesses
***
From: "Sid Shniad" <shniad@gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, June 07, 2010 4:27 PM
http://jewish-ship-to-gaza.jimdo.com/home/home/Jewish Ship to Gaza
*Jews for Peace - Ships to Gaza*
We're a group of German and international Jews living in Germany who are
sending a ship with goods and musical instruments to Gaza. We're part of a
larger European project that is sending supplies in the spring of 2010.
We're acquiring a ship, loading it up in Germany, then picking up passengers
(Jewish and non-Jewish, German and non-German) at a Mediterranean port.
Among the goods being shipped are urgently needed things like medicines,
baby food, bedding, children's clothes, school materials; but also painting
equipment and musical instruments. We believe cement isn't the only thing
needed for rebuilding - we call on our politicians to provide these urgently
needed building materials! - but also things to help heal the soul. We hope
our musical instruments will contribute a little towards this.
Our schools in particular can make a very significant contribution: Children
in Gaza are prevented from studying through lack of materials. This is why
we're looking for schools to donate school material; at a later point we
plan to work on twinning schools or classes.
*Solidarity against the occupation!*
Gaza is still lying in ruins. Children play on top of heaps of rubble, all
that remains of their homes. They have no toys. Their schools have no
writing or learning materials. There are long lists of the books they need.
They have no warm clothes for the winter, often they have neither gas nor
electricity for heating.
Water is in short supply and is contaminated. Damaged plumbing and drainage
systems can't be repaired. The hospitals are short of medicines, medical
equipment, wheelchairs and prosthetics.
Houses can only be provisionally rebuilt in clay. Essentials for daily
survival have to be brought into Gaza through tunnels, often carried
by young people who are risking their lives. Soon even these tunnels will be
blocked off.
Through the expropriation of their land and the prohibition on fishing, the
people of Gaza are denied their basic means of earning a living.
They lack freedom, the right to human dignity and our active solidarity.
"The Palestinians don't need resounding promises of financial support, they
need real political solidarity against the occupation!"
Clemens Messerschmidt
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