- "Anti-occupation, anti-apartheid and anti-dehumanization
is not anti-Semitism nor anti-Israel. Pro-peace, pro-human rights and pro-freedom
is not pro-Palestinian. The power of freedom is pointing out when it is
being denied. The search for justice and equality comes not from hiding
from fear of criticism but rather from taking the road less traveled up
the mountain of truth." -Manuel Valenzuela
-
- What were Sharon and the Israeli government thinking
when they decided to decapitate Hamas through the assassination of its
founder, Sheik Ahmed Yassin? If the state sponsored murder of Yassin was
not so recklessly self-defeating, one might be inclined to think that Sharon
is on a mission to implode the state of Israel.
-
- The evaporation of a wheelchair-laden Yassin through
American Apache helicopter missiles underscores the vicious cycle the state
of Israel has thrust upon itself for years on end. Its ceaseless terror-inducing
actions on an occupied and resisting people continue to haunt it and its
own citizens; its continued oppression, violence and dehumanization on
the indigenous people of Palestine inevitably always boomerangs, yet Israel
does not relent, nor understands, nor seems to care about the consequences
of its actions.
-
- As if addicted to perpetual death, fear and violence,
the state of Israel continues to escalate a war it cannot win, an occupation
it cannot escape and a state of siege it does not fully care to understand.
Israel has through the years only increased its oppression of a population
it cannot erase, no matter how hard it tries to cleanse the Holy Land of
its native inhabitants. It continues to masochistically seek the principle
of kill and be killed, of cause and effect and action and reaction, making
one wonder if suffering and hardship are necessary ingredients for life
in the Middle East. For decades Israel has tried everything to no avail,
collective punishment, virtual imprisonment, economic genocide, killing,
maiming, oppressing, occupying, cleansing and dehumanizing. Does it not
see that her continued actions are leading not to the "promised land"
but rather straight to hell on Earth and that life is only getting harder
and much less safe?
-
- The trouble in the Middle East stems from the fact that
a European people with no continuity with the land arrived and colonized
a native population that did. Today, this colonization has morphed into
outright apartheid and dehumanization. The state of Israel, it must be
understood, was born in sin. It was created in large part thanks to the
ethnic cleansing and dispossession of a native people who today are trapped
in large concentration camps of suffering and utter decay, living encaged
in the last vestiges of their original land. Israel's birth coincided with
the spawning of serious crimes against humanity that have through time
only been exacerbated, continuing to this day with ever more barbaric levels
of suppression, persecution and subjugation.
-
- Israel was a dream of European Zionists who colonized
the native Palestinian people (thanks to the British) who had contiguously
occupied the land for millennia. These Zionists arrived and proceeded to
open the floodgates of European Jewish immigration onto Palestine. Hundreds
of thousands arrived while hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forced
out, oftentimes with a barrel of a gun pointed their way. Immigrants took
possession of those lands and buildings left behind by the indigenous population.
-
- Arab-Israeli wars that followed drove still more natives
out of their lands and lives, pushing them further away from their historical
homes. Large sections and populations of Jordan, Syria, the West Bank and
Gaza are today but vast refugee camps for those who were ethnically cleansed
from their livelihoods in order to appease the Zionist dream of a Jewish
state in the so-called "promised land."
-
- Those who would deny this reality should be categorized
along with Holocaust non-believers and those revisionists of history who
would have the world believe otherwise. The reality of the formation of
Israel has been tried to be made to disappear into the dustbins of forgotten
history, for the truth of how the "promised land" was acquired
would no doubt send waves of disgust into those who today believe in the
perceived nobility and blessings of the creation of Israel and the humanity
and enlightenment of modern man. Indeed, to study the history of the formation
of Israel is to undertake a study into colonization, occupation, oppression,
apartheid and the worst in the human condition.
-
- The latest act in the violent and horrendous tragedy
that is the cycle of revenge and death in the Middle East will only assure
that the Arab world, as well as the world at large, continues its exponentially-increasing
animosity and resentment toward Israel and the Zionists who seem not to
care about the growing tremors of negative energy seemingly emanating from
all corners of the globe.
-
- >From Europe to Africa and Latin America to Asia,
millions of human beings not privy to American corporate media whitewashing
and manipulation are fully aware of the crimes against humanity emanating
from the government of Ariel Sharon. What Americans are made ignorant to,
thanks to a Zionist-friendly corporate media, the rest of the world sees
as an outright travesty, akin to the worst devastation of a people committed
by an oppressor state. That the vast majority of American citizens have
been made completely ignorant to such a monstrosity taking place in modern
times speaks volumes of the level of control and power the corporate media
maintains over the population. Fortunately, the rest of the world does
not have a fog-filled mirror from which to gaze at reality.
-
- This helps explain the growing wave of anti-Semitism
throughout the planet, which seems to only be on the rise. It is actions
such as the killing of Sheik Yassin and the horrific treatment of millions
of Palestinians that is giving birth to a resurgent anger against the Israeli
and, by consequence, Jewish people who, justifiably or not, rightfully
or wrongly, are imputed to the actions of the Israeli government by a world
increasingly resentful of the barbaric treatment of an occupied and oppressed
people. With every continued massacre, American missile killing and maiming,
bullet penetrating the backs of children, demolition of houses and crops,
and further acts of collective punishment, anti-Semitism will only increase
worldwide.
-
- Soon, the day will come when the hatred is so strong,
when the animosity and resentfulness is so powerful that Israel will become
more than the pariah it is steadily becoming. The wrath of the world will
envelope Israel and the ramifications will be disastrous to both Israelis
and Jews alike. It might become the ultimate rogue state, banished from
the fraternity of nations.
-
- Whether we like it or not, the reality is that in this
world Israel's actions are imputed onto the over 13 million Jews who inhabit
this world, and it will be them who suffer as a result of the decisions
of Sharon and the Israeli government. The consequences of continued occupation
and decimation will devastate the millions of good, peace-loving and innocent
Jews around the world. The cauldron of hatred being spawned as a direct
result of what Israel is doing in Palestine will reverberate vociferously,
growing to levels not seen in 60 years, condemning another generation of
Jews whose innocence is being despoiled by Sharon and the zealous Zionists
who care not what ramifications their actions spring forth.
-
- Sheik Yassin's death at the hands of Sharon has opened
a new Pandora's Box for the region and the world. A troubled region has
been made even more volatile and unstable, becoming an explosive cocktail
of death, hatred, revenge and fervor that might spread worldwide. Seething
anger has transformed itself into malevolent calls for revenge and bloodshed,
and soon a sea of red will litter the streets of the Holy Land. Fear of
what will surely come has once more permeated Israeli and Palestinian energies.
Both societies are bracing for the actions and reactions, for the eye for
an eye that will surely follow and the unrelenting malevolence that the
Holy Land has become.
-
- Terror in backpacks will continue to be the only damaging
weapon the oppressed people can use. It is the ultimate smart bomb, powerful
explosives strapped onto the bodies of young people who are in such dire
straits of hopelessness and hatred that they are ready to explode themselves
next to Israelis. When rocks, anger and seething hatred do not work the
desperate resort to desperation and the suicide bomber is born. Combined
with misery and hopelessness, it traverses into Israeli cities and sends
screams and inhuman emotions rocketing through Israeli society once more.
The suicide bomber, the poor man's guided missile, will once more be sent
to blast and kill Israelis who by their submissive acquiescence of Sharon's
terror campaign allow for the carnage to continue.
-
- Terror in the skies will continue to rain down on Palestinian
cities and towns, thanks to American Apache helicopters pummeling the West
Bank and Gaza with their hellish missiles of death and destruction. On
the ground, Abrams tanks will encircle towns and cities, destroying everything
in their path. IDF forces will shoot indiscriminately, killing women, children
and babies with the same zeal they possess for the death of a Hamas member.
Enveloped in razor-sharp wire or fences, Palestinians will be under curfew,
a simple term meaning imprisonment. Collective punishment will continue,
lands will be confiscated and the sloth-like ethnic cleansing of an entire
race of people will live on.
-
- The right-wing Likud government has systematically provoked
the wrath of Palestinians through its harsh collective punishment, its
continued dehumanization and the incessant unleashing of terror through
American Apache helicopters and Abrams tanks. Likud has survived by fostering
the current cycle of violence that has attached itself to the fears of
Israeli citizens. In essence, it has maintained power through the continued
shedding of blood, both Jewish and Muslim. It is therefore in its best
interest to maintain the status quo, using Israelis and their fears to
hold its grip on power. Israel's citizens are being used, becoming pawns
in the game of power, in essence easily disposable bodies possessing the
blood and flesh necessary for the cameras to record and disseminate the
carnage and the fear necessary to control the population. Through fear
Likud thrives and survives; through the maiming of body parts and splashing
of blood Sharon maintains his hegemony over the Israeli people.
-
- The world is tired that the greatest threat to world
peace and stability comes from a minute part of the world involving a few
million people (out of a world population of over 6 billion). We are tired
that so much of our security is determined by those entities fighting for
a land promised by ancient myths and fables, by primitive peoples with
archaic outlooks seeking antiquated solutions in bygone times. The world
is tired of the continued shedding of human blood for cynical purposes
that is sending the entire globe perilously close to world war. It is hard
to believe that one area, no bigger than a small American state, is the
cause of so much trouble and anxiety and that in a simmering second can
help engulf the world in flames.
-
- The greatest threat to world peace is the continued occupation
of Palestinian land and the criminal oppression of the Palestinian people.
The world is tired of the inequality, the unfairness, the injustice, the
dehumanization, the apartheid and the crimes against humanity being committed
in the Middle East. It is tired of an oppressor categorically treating
like caged animals a race of humanity whose only crime was continuously
living in land deemed Holy by Zionists.
-
- The world is tired of the one-sided fiction that comes
out of Israel that distorts the reality of what is occurring and makes
terrorists of an oppressed people resisting occupation. We are sick and
tired of government leaders doing nothing but plucking their anal whiskers
while millions of people are rotting away their existence in a cesspool
of misery and hopelessness, trapped in cages of squalor, deprived of opportunity
and at living a life worthy of a human being.
-
- What is happening in Palestine affects us all, whether
we like it or not. The ramifications of not heeding the warning signs emanating
from the region will endanger all corners of the globe. The assassination
of Sheik Yassin will no doubt unleash a wave of violence that will reverberate
throughout the globe. Already warnings are being sent that the US will
be a target. There is no reason to doubt this claim, as America is increasingly
responsible for the violence in the region.
-
- Sharon does not sit on the porcelain god contemplating
his next murder without the consent of George W. Bush in Washington. Whatever
flatulent winds of decrepit uneasiness arise from the Sharon toilet are
always smelled in the White House. It is, therefore, highly unlikely the
Bush administration did not give its thumbs up to the killing of Sheik
Yassin. Hamas knows this, as do many in the growing list of al Qaeda inspired
groups sprouting throughout the globe thanks to Bush's false foray into
Iraq. With the growth of anti-Americanism reaching troubling proportions
worldwide and when the same level of hatred is now espoused for America
as for Israel, we can be assured America's role in the Sharon action will
not go unpunished. We have all been made less safe as a result.
-
- A new front of hatred has opened up, a new enemy declared.
America is now in the crosshairs of yet other militant groups. Bush's support
for Sharon and Israel has placed targets on our backs. The war on terror
is turning into the war of error. American support for the barbaric treatment
by Israel of the Palestinians has set free mechanisms of animosity and
resentment against the US. Its citizens have as a result been imputed with
the same zeal of hatred as is found for Israelis and George W. Bush. Today,
America and Israel are seen as one and the same, the Great Satan and its
Zionist puppeteer. The same adverse feelings are now felt for us as for
Israelis and Zionists, and this is very troubling.
-
- Sharon's assassination of the head of Hamas now leaves
open the murder of any leader and/or his minions anywhere in the world.
State-sponsored murder is against international law, but, like all else
it decides to do concerning the Palestinians, Israel flaunts its arrogance
to the world, blatantly and with American support and protection, breaking
and failing to comply with international law while paying no attention
to the cries of an outraged world.
-
- Terrorism, whether Palestinian or Israeli, should not
be defined by the crudeness of weapons or the poverty of the oppressed.
It should not be allowed through legitimacy of government, acquiescence
by America or pressure from lobbying groups. Terrorism is terrorism, be
it through suicide bombers or Apache helicopter missiles. The latter is
the terror of the rich while the former is that of the poor. To accede
to one while condemning the other is to anoint Israel while castigating
Palestinians. It is to support the terrorism of the oppressors while condemning
the resistance of the oppressed.
-
- War exists between Palestinians and Israelis, just as
it has since Zionists first arrived in Palestine. One party receives tens
of billions of dollars in financial and military assistance from the US,
not to mention political protection for its actions; the other must resort
to rocks, Molotov cocktails and suicide bombers. Resistance to occupation
will not stop with the death of Sheik Yassin or with ethnic cleansing of
a people. History teaches us that the occupied will fight to the death
for their land and dignity, for their livelihood and homes. History, from
ancient to modern, seems not to register with the Likud government.
-
- As long as two peoples hate each other, inflicting terrible
suffering, death and destruction onto one another and existing in a virtual
state of war there will be no peace. One group came and took what did not
belong to them; the other is fighting for its existence and survival. Armageddon
to the region might yet arrive like a thunderous and powerful storm destroying
everything in its path if the same elements continue decimating themselves
much longer.
-
- As long as Israel keeps upsetting the karmic forces of
the universe the possibility exists that someday soon it will find itself
not dealing with a suicide bomber but rather a suicide bomber carrying
a nuclear suitcase or backpack. If the state of Israel continues on its
self-destructive path this growing reality will become a self-serving inevitability.
The futility of "separation barriers" and "security fences"
will thus come to light.
-
- Walls of protection and defense are better left to the
days of the Old Testament, not in modern times of missiles and chemical,
biological, and nuclear proclivity. Resistance to occupation can never
be stopped; human nature guarantees it. The days of nuclear proliferation
are upon us, as are the means to unleash vapors of hellish heat onto Israeli
cities and mushroom clouds rising high into the Holy Land's sky. Sharon
would be well advised to think long and hard of this looming threat before
planning his next murder or act of clandestine ethnic cleansing. The continued
and future existence of his nation might very well hang in the balance.
-
- - Manuel Valenzuela is a social critic and commentator,
activist, writer and author of "Echoes in the Wind," a novel
to be published in Spring of 2004. His articles appear weekly on axisoflogic.com
where he is also contributing editor.
-
- Copyright © 1998-2004 Online Journalô. All
rights reserved.
-
- http://www.onlinejournal.com/Commentary/032604Valenzuela/032604valenzuela.html
|
