Thanks to Al-Hewar's email bulletin, I've belatedly discovered this refreshingly level-headed and honest op-ed from a week ago by Jewish American professor and activist Randall Kuhn, which points out the inanity and moral repugnance of the "America would do the same" analogies trotted out by so many spineless American politicians to justify Israel's carnage in Gaza.
Washington Times - KUHN: When Israel expelled Palestinians: (emphasis added)
In the wake of Israel's invasion of Gaza, Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak made this analogy: "Think about what would happen if for seven years rockets had been fired at San Diego, California from Tijuana, Mexico."
[...]
Think about what would happen if San Diego expelled most of its Hispanic, African American, Asian American, and Native American population, about 48 percent of the total, and forcibly relocated them to Tijuana? Not just immigrants, but even those who have lived in this country for many generations. Not just the unemployed or the criminals or the America haters, but the school teachers, the small business owners, the soldiers, even the baseball players.
What if we established government and faith-based agencies to help move white people into their former homes? And what if we razed hundreds of their homes in rural areas and, with the aid of charitable donations from people in the United States and abroad, planted forests on their former towns, creating nature preserves for whites to enjoy? Sounds pretty awful, huh? I may be called anti-Semitic for speaking this truth. Well, I'm Jewish and the scenario above is what many prominent Israeli scholars say happened when Israel expelled Palestinians from southern Israel and forced them into Gaza. But this analogy is just getting started.
What if the United Nations kept San Diego's discarded minorities in crowded, festering camps in Tijuana for 19 years? Then, the United States invaded Mexico, occupied Tijuana and began to build large housing developments in Tijuana where only whites could live.
And what if the United States built a network of highways connecting American citizens of Tijuana to the United States? And checkpoints, not just between Mexico and the United States but also around every neighborhood of Tijuana? What if we required every Tijuana resident, refugee or native, to show an ID card to the U.S. military on demand? What if thousands of Tijuana residents lost their homes, their jobs, their businesses, their children, their sense of self worth to this occupation? Would you be surprised to hear of a protest movement in Tijuana that sometimes became violent and hateful? Okay, now for the unbelievable part.
Think about what would happen if, after expelling all of the minorities from San Diego to Tijuana and subjecting them to 40 years of brutal military occupation, we just left Tijuana, removing all the white settlers and the soldiers? Only instead of giving them their freedom, we built a 20-foot tall electrified wall around Tijuana? Not just on the sides bordering San Diego, but on all the Mexico crossings as well. What if we set up 50-foot high watchtowers with machine gun batteries, and told them that if they stood within 100 yards of this wall we would shoot them dead on sight? And four out of every five days we kept every single one of those border crossings closed, not even allowing food, clothing, or medicine to arrive. And we patrolled their air space with our state-of-the-art fighter jets but didn't allow them so much as a crop duster. And we patrolled their waters with destroyers and submarines, but didn't even allow them to fish.
Would you be at all surprised to hear that these resistance groups in Tijuana, even after having been "freed" from their occupation but starved half to death, kept on firing rockets at the United States? Probably not. But you may be surprised to learn that the majority of people in Tijuana never picked up a rocket, or a gun, or a weapon of any kind.
Note the final sentence of my excerpt. Where is this crucial insight from the war-mongering coverage in the MSM?
I'm not exactly a Washington Times fan, but I must give the Devil his due: The Times may often be rabidly jingoistic and Islamophobic, but it occasionally allows dissent within its op-ed pages from the Beltway's Middle East madness that is unthinkable in America's newspaper of record (and allegedly liberal) New York Times.
As usual, I'm disgusted by how instinctively so many American "leaders" rationalize any violence, no matter how disproportionate or indiscriminate, against Palestinians. The Palestinians' dehumanization in the American psyche truly is complete. Goebbels would be proud.
The Bard said it well in "The Merchant of Venice":
hindered me half a million; laughed at my losses,
mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my
bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine
enemies; and what's his reason? I am a Jew. Hath
not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs,
dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with
the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject
to the same diseases, healed by the same means,
warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as
a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed?
if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison
us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not
revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will
resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian,
what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian
wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by
Christian example? Why, revenge. The villany you
teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I
will better the instruction.
Seems particularly apropos (and prophetic), doesn't it?
When Israel kills so wantonly and lawlessly, how can it profess outrage when the Palestinians "better the instruction" and continue the bloody cycle?
Or are only Israelis permitted to seek revenge when wronged?
Salaam,
Great article. People need to be reminded of these factors in order to draw FAIR conclusions. Sadly, I think most people in America still do not have a clue about the realities of Gaza (and some wouldn't even want to know if provided the chance).
I think you're right about the Shakespeare quote. It is eery how prophetic that statement is.
Posted by: sabiwabi | January 20, 2009 at 08:39 AM