http://www.orlandosentinel.com/orl-edpreese12071201jul12.story
Palestinians can absorb whatever Israel hurls at them
By Charley Reese
Orlando Sentinel
July 11, 2001, 11:14 PM EDT
The Israelis bulldozed another 14 Palestinian homes this week in a
refugee camp in Gaza. The United States said the act was
"provocative."
Actually, it was a war crime. Actually, what the Israelis have been
doing to the Palestinians has been correctly characterized by the
International Red Cross as war crimes and by a United Nations official
as "an affront to civilization."
But, hey, you misled, sleeping Americans, you don't know what a
breakthrough it is for the U.S. State Department to utter even the
mildest criticism of some Israeli atrocity.
"Provocative."
Wow. Golly gee whiz. Old George W. Bush promised he would provide
leadership, and that's real leadership, calling a war crime
"provocative." Finally, after eight months of refusing to utter even
that bland a criticism, he managed to say the destruction of homes so
precious to such terribly poor people is "provocative."
It is such an improvement over Warren Christopher. When he was
secretary of state, the Israelis were indulging in one of their
periodic and gratuitous artillery attacks against villages in South
Lebanon.
A group of about 100 Lebanese women and children fled to a United
Nations compound for safety. It didn't matter. The Israelis fired on
it deliberately, as a subsequent U.N. investigation demonstrated. They
were all killed, along with the U.N. peacekeepers. Bits and pieces of
their flesh hung like grotesque decorations, dripping blood from
shattered debris and blasted trees.
Do you know what Christopher said?
"The United States urges both sides to show restraint."
I wonder how he expected the shattered flesh of the dead Lebanese
women and children to show restraint. Perhaps he thought that they
should not bleed so profusely from their wounds. I think that was the
very first time I felt ashamed to be an American, listening to that
rat-faced, cold-blooded international lawyer brushing off an atrocity
like a crumb on his expensive coat sleeve.
One day, Americans are going to wake up from more than 50 years of
Zionist propaganda and suddenly feel like strangers in a strange land,
to borrow the title of an old science-fiction work. They're finally
going to see the simple truth:
Israelis drove Palestinians out of their own country and confiscated
their land and wealth. Israelis refused to allow (and still refuse)
Palestinian refugees to return, despite United Nations resolutions
instructing them to do so.
In 1967, the Israelis attacked and took the West Bank, Gaza and East
Jerusalem. Since then, they have ruled it and still rule, despite
U.N. resolutions against their actions.
Now, after dragging out so-called peace negotiations for 10 years --
how can the simple question, "When are you going to withdraw from the
territories you illegally occupy?" take 10 years? -- the drama is
heading toward a climax.
The Israelis have tried economic strangulation. They have tried to
force the Palestinians to accept a chopped-up pseudo-country. They
have tried killing their children, demolishing their homes and
assassinating their leaders. They tried uprooting their agricultural
orchards and sealing the Palestinians off from normal travel.
By the way, where are you environmentalists while the Israelis commit
this environmental atrocity? Don't you know how long it takes for an
olive tree to reach maturity and start bearing fruit? I thought you
were concerned about the environment. Oh, excuse me -- not when it's
a Palestinian environment. My mistake. I sometimes forget who is a
hypocrite and who isn't, because there are so many these days.
What's next, of course, is for the Israelis to take off the bloody
glove and commit one super massacre in an attempt to drive the
Palestinians out or to break their spirit. This is what the
Palestinians expect. They are bracing for it. They know that the
Israelis have elected the one politician, Ariel Sharon, willing to do
it.
They figure they can absorb that blow. If the survivors can rise from
the rubble and say to the Israelis, "You can bury us here, but you can
never drive us out of our own country," then the Israelis will have
exhausted their options. They will dump Sharon and replace him with
somebody who will finally, at long last, do some serious talking.
It's already terrible what the Palestinians are going through, and
this new assault, when it comes, will be far worse. They need the
support now of decent people with the courage to stand up for human
rights. As you can see, the Bush administration prefers to remain on
its knees. Most members of Congress are afraid even to do that. They
prefer the supine position, total prostration.
If you can't find the courage to speak out against evil financed with
your tax money, then at least watch as Palestinian children show you
how real men and women live and die with honor.
Reach Charley Reese at 407-420-5315 or creese@orlandosentinel.com.
Copyright © 2001, Orlando Sentinel
