These books deal with memories of the Holocaust, occupation, and national socialism. As I review what has occurred and reoccurred in the occupied areas of Palestine in recent weeks, I believe the shoes of certain NAZI occupying acts fits what we have been witnessing.
This does not mean Hamas leadership and certain Palestinians have not done bad or horrible things in the past years, but it does mean that Israel as a state is living up to neither its forefathers’ historical promises to not see the past repeated, nor is it living up to bilateral U.S. nor international laws to which it purports to be a democratic and God-fearing member.
For example, in the aforementioned interview on DN by Phyllis Bennis, one hears these appropriate claims: “The kind of weapons that we’re seeing being used, the use of white phosphorus, for instance, which was used not only in civilian areas, which is all of the Gaza Strip, is one giant civilian area. There is nowhere to hide. That’s been the conclusion of Amnesty International, that when Israeli notifications to people in Gaza said, ‘You should flee, because we are going to bomb your home, we are going to attack your neighborhood, there is a Hamas person who lives next door,’ there is nowhere in Gaza to flee in this most densely populated area.”
In short, what if we in 1943, as Americans, had personally witnessed Jews being told to flee a compound or be threatened with certain death—only to see them shot in the back while they were fleeing.
We Americans in 1943 would have stated, “We must do something! Or something must be done!”
Moreover, after the war, we would have sought to see that such acts never happen again under any regime.
Now, it is January 2009!
What the hell are we Americans going to put up with before we use suasion to get Israel, the state, and others in the Middle East to stop the damnable war crimes??????
. . . . and I don’t want blindly unfair and unjust state of Israel supporters or worshippers falling back on those weak words, “Oh, they shot at us first!!”
FINAL NOTES
According to Robert Pastor, who is a senior adviser to the Carter Center and a professor at American University who met with exiled Hamas political leader Khaled Meshaal in Damascus on Dec. 14, along with former President Jimmy Carter: “[B]oth sides violated the key elements of the ceasefire. The rockets never absolutely completely stopped, even though they went from about 250 a month to fewer than three a month. From the standpoint of Israel , that may not have been good enough. On the other hand, from the principal concern of Hamas, which was to open the barriers, Israel really never tried very hard to open them. The numbers of trucks, on average, that went in increased from 100 to 200, but the amount that was supposed to go in was roughly 750 a day. Israel never came close to that. I think, as I said, to make the ceasefire work, both sides need to comply.”
Most importantly, thousands of experts in negotiations around the globe who have observed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over these past months agree with Pastor, who reports, “I think, with regard to the question of whether Israel had an alternative than to invade in Gaza, I think the answer is obvious, that it did, that an effective ceasefire, full compliance with the agreement, would have stopped the rockets without the terrible loss of life that occurred.”
If you don’t believe that many experts concur that Israel ’s latest war a losing choice was, check out some of these articles and discussions:
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/1/23/noam_chomsky_obamas_stance_on_gaza
http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/5783
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
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