President Bush frequently asserts that “Israel has a right to
defend itself.” Yet, he fails to concede that the Palestinian
people have the very same right to defend themselves against those
who do them harm.
Similarly, the President is probably right in his assertion that all people want
to be free. Yet, while talking about a “road map” toward Palestinian
statehood, he has done nothing of consequence to end Israeli control over virtually
every aspect of Palestinian society. If he knew how much America’s forefathers
in the 18th century yearned to be free from British occupation, he would appreciate
the Palestinians’ desperate longing to rid themselves of the yoke of Israeli
oppression.
Israel’s rulers likewise have forgotten how much their ancient forefathers
craved to free themselves from their captivity in Egypt and Babylon and from
their subjugation by the Romans. What else but moral corruption would motivate
modern Israel to keep a neighboring nation under her yoke for 39 years?
Regrettably, instead of urging Israel’s leaders to put an end to the 39
years of abusive rule over the Palestinians, many ill-informed Americans keep
denouncing those in the Middle East who fight for their freedom against seemingly
insurmountable odds. When Israeli forces indiscriminately kill non-combatants
by the hundreds and destroy vital supply centers, such as a power plant in Gaza,
we find neo-conservatives characterize atrocities as militarily necessary operations
and the dead and wounded as “collateral damage.”
When desperate Palestinians react to Israeli assassinations with suicide bombings,
they find themselves routinely denounced as terrorists. Yet, realistically, all
indiscriminate violence against non-combatants is terror, regardless of whether
it is being committed by military forces or by civilians.
We Americans are not helping our Israeli friends if we ignore or condone their
violation of human rights in the name of territorial security. It is utterly
hypocritical to extol the right to self-defense and national independence for
Israelis and then blatantly deny this right to Palestinians.
If Israel’s leaders had abstained from the excesses of their occupation
regime, the resistance movements of Hamas in Palestine and Hezbollah in Lebanon
would never have arisen and employed the terror of suicide bombings to counter
the terrorist acts of the occupation forces.
It was Israeli killings of civilians in Gaza that prompted Hezbollah’s
rocket attacks on targets in northern Israel. Realistically, however, Hezbollah,
just like the other Arab resistance groups, fails to recognize that any kind
of uprising against Israel’s armed forces--the strongest military power
in the Middle East--does not stand a chance to succeed. For better or worse,
the peoples of the Middle East need to realize that they will only become free
nations if and when the government of Israel and its financier, the government
of the United States, mercifully allow them to be in control of their own region.
Israel’s leaders also fail to understand that even if they succeeded in
eliminating Hezbollah and Hamas, the Muslim resistance against the occupation
of Palestine is bound to continue unabated. So strong is the anger of the seething
masses throughout the region against the new Anglo-American colonialism in the
Middle East! The longer the U.S. continues to support Israel’s occupation
of the Palestinian territories, the more damage will be done to America’s
once shining reputation as advocate of human rights and national self-determination.
The American Rabbi Michael Lerner, a leader of the Jewish renewal movement, eloquently
expressed his sorrow about the latest Arab-Israeli confrontation: “The
people of the Middle East are suffering again, as militarists on all sides, and
cheerleading journalists, send forth missiles, bombs, and endless words of self-justification
for yet another pointless round of violence between Israel and her neighbors.
For those of us who care deeply about human suffering, this most recent episode
in irrationality evokes tears of sadness, incredulity at the lack of empathy
on all sides, anger at how little anyone seems to have learned from the past,
and moments of despair, as we once again see the religious and democratic ideals
subordinated to the cynical realism of militarism.”