My first reaction was, "Sigh, Jews are attempting to re-enact
the Holocaust on others."
I've stopped caring about the Israel-Palestinian thing, really.
They're like two children fighting over a cookie jar, and have
broken it two dozen times, the cookies are broken and full of glass
bits but they're still tumbling around the floor like morons.
Typical first reactions would be, "Hey, that's not right! The
Holocaust was the industrialized and mechanized mass-murdering of
people. And what Israel does is far far away from that."
Yes, that may be true, but has anyone ever considered how
earlier events had turned out, on the year 1948 when the state of
Israel was born?
In April 1948, the same month as the infamous massacre at Deir
Yassin and the mortar attack on Palestinian civilians in Haifa's
market square, Plan Dalet was put into operation. This authorised
the destruction of Palestinian villages and the expulsion of the
indigenous population outside the borders of the state.
In July 1948, 70,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes in
Lydda and Ramleh in the heat of the summer with no food or water.
Hundreds died. It was known as the Death March.
In all, 750,000 Palestinians became refugees. Some 400 villages
were wiped off the map. That did not end the ethnic cleansing.
Thousands of Palestinians (Israeli citizens) were expelled from the
Galilee in 1956. Many thousands more when Israel occupied the West
Bank and Gaza. Under international law and sanctioned by UN
resolution 194, refugees from war have a right to return or
compensation. Israel has never accepted that right.
A lot of people in the West are utterly incapable of sympathy or
solidarity with the Palestinians, because they are Muslim, because
they are not white, because they look like the enemy in their own
"War on Terror" The cheerleading for Israel, no matter what they
do, and the callous dismissal of Palestinian suffering with "they
had it coming" is absolutely sickening.
It is spurious to compare Israeli actions with the Holocaust, or
to equate IDF troops with Nazi Stormtroopers, there is no
similarity in intention, or in scale, but like an abused child, the
state of Israel reacts in an abuse way itself, born in violence it
knows no other way to behave.
Insulated from the true disastrous impact of their actions by an
impenetrable belief in their own victimhood, they refuse to
acknowledge their responsibility, as the regional superpower, to
exercise some moral leadership.
Until Israel grows up and stops being led by the nose by Hamas
though cycle after cycle of violence and oppression, they will
never be able to guarantee their citizens safety, and the
Palestinians won't be able to hope for any future at all.
Yet despite all that, has anyone ever noticed that America
has been giving Israel plenty of free passes? What they have done,
would've made America wag its collective finger at any other
country and immediately paste the "Axis of Evil" label on it.
- Development of nuclear weapons despite not being party to the
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty opened for signature on July 1
1968. North Korea has done the same, and the West is giving hell to
it. But not to Israel. It's useless to give Israel trouble over it
because USA would immediately veto any discussion about it.
- Not recognizing the result of a democratically-elected government
(Hamas), which Hamas admittedly got itself voted in out of merit in
being more capable in providing basic services to their own
people.
- An invasion into sovereign territory, Lebanon, where the United
Nations would've slammed Israel right away if it was done by some
other nation, like Iran. Useless to give Israel trouble about it
because USA will immediately use its veto powers.
- Hemming in an entire populace and cutting them off from the
outside world. Basically, a ghetto. UN may/may not give Israel
trouble about it, but will be veto'd by USA anyway.
etc.
One may argue that Hamas is not an appropriate government for
the Palestinians, but who are we to decide? Did Woodrow Wilson not
declare self-determination for all during the formation of the
League of Nations? Did the US military not invade two separate,
sovereign nations and attempt to instill democracy to their
political systems? Hamas' election has been democracy in action,
just as they desire to spread to the world, but they had rejected
it.
For a nation that prides its own armed forces to be "Protectors",
"Liberators", and "Warriors", from that action mentioned above, it
has become farcial to claim to be "Liberators" when they refuse to
accept the results of a democratic election. It makes them no
better than a certain Robert Gabriel Mugabe.
Is this all about US-bashing? No. What I do care about, is
how people perceive human suffering. I will quote the US
Constitution, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all
men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with
certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and
the pursuit of Happiness. " All men are equal. What sickened me is
how people have been saying, "Ha ha! The IDF is going
to kick some ass!" without pondering about
the unfortunate misery and suffering this will endow unto even more
people. Neither do I condone what the Palestinians have been doing
with their rockets to Israel, but it's not
right at all to be crying out in joy when the other
party strikes out to make things even worse than they already
are.
...and who started it first?
