a primer on Israel/Palestine, and emotional non-sequiturs

I began this blog years ago with the intention of spreading the truth about the plight of the Palestinians, wrongly maligned in the United States and inaccurately portrayed in history by "The Story of Israel" that is accepted without question in the U.S.

The first years of this blog make up a tutorial on the situation in Israel/Palestine. As this foundation has been built, my postings have tapered off. But I have found an excellent tutorial that covers the period from the start of Zionism through 2014 from the Middle East Research and Information Project. It is 16 pages of small print, but it covers the subject all in one place.

Few will read it.

It is a fact that emotions rather than facts determine the views of most people. Learning about any subject takes effort and few will bother to understand foreign affairs particularly with a mainstream media that paints a ridiculously simplistic picture that any TV viewer can effortlessly watch. If you or I have a generally good or bad feeling about something, even a full presentation of facts that show the feeling is unfounded will be resisted. It is the "my country right or wrong" idea and we see it now in the outright anger that greets new data showing global warming to be real.

Eyes glaze over and attention wanders when Americans should be paying careful attention to a situation that could well bring our country to grief is discussed. Today, in 2018, the U.S. policy in the middle east is the policy that Israel wishes it to be. Donald Trump has moved the U.S. embassy for Israel to Jerusalem, the Israeli settlements continue to expand, Palestinians are murdered by Israeli soldiers sniping them down at the Gaza border, and Iran is demonized. The policy of Benjamin Netanyahu is the policy of Donald Trump.

Rather than attend to the facts, people will support Israel for reasons that have nothing to do with the situation over there. For example, one might say "I have a good Jewish friend that I know strongly supports Israel. He knows more about it than I do and I wouldn't feel right not supporting him." Can you see there is no logical connection here?

Or how about, "I know about the Holocaust and the Jews deserve a place of their own where they feel secure." This thinking disregards entirely the people who are native to Palestine that were ejected by force when Zionists took the area for themselves exclusively in 1948 and continue to take more today. Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir once said, "After the Holocaust, Jews are allowed to do anything." It is the same logic.

If my neighbor is terribly wronged by others, does that give him a license to throw me out of my house though I had nothing to do with the wrong done him, because he says he would feel safer having my house for his exclusive use?

The above reasoning is not rational. The only way to take a stand on any issue is to base it on facts that can be used to build an opinion that can be defended. Many Americans who are Jews are revolted by what they see going on in Israel and openly repudiate it, Jewish Voice for Peace being a large group of such people. They base their view on what they know to be true about Israel. Listen to what they say. I do.

Israelis ask for international pressure against Israel

I once wondered what might happen if Palestinians simply marched, unarmed, against the Israeli barriers erected on Palestinian land, whether it be the huge concrete wall or simply the 500 foot deep "no-go" zone in Gaza. Could the Palestinians do what Gandhi had done when he resisted the British presence in India with mass protest that placed human bodies against armed force?

In the last months, I got my answer. Palestinians did exactly that and were shot down at random by Israeli soldiers sniping at them from behind a fence hundreds of feet from where the Gazans stood demonstrating, no threat to Israel. Here is a photo of a Palestinian shot in the face with a tear gas canister, something designed to disperse people, to injure them.

Things have gone so far in Israel that Israelis, a small minority, are asking the outside world to intervene. Of course, there have always been Israeli human rights groups, such as B'Tselem, Breaking the Silence and others I list on this site that have worked against the extreme rightward movement of Israeli society but I think the members of these groups all realize change will not come from the inside.

Here is an essay by two Israelis asking for international intervention, intervention that the United States, alone, always prevents. This protection of a serial violator of international law show that modern Israel is the creation of the United States, ironic for a country that once claimed to be for liberty and justice for all.

Life under occupation now has an icon

This video about Ahed Tamimi is remarkable for the fact that there is so much photographic evidence of the oppression of the Palestinians in the lifetime of this one girl. Israel has done to her family just about everything that it does to the Palestinians in general and her face is caught throughout as she grows from a child to a teen seeing it all in her home and village. It will not be surprising if she becomes and icon.

This new video is an example of how sophisticated the resistance to Israeli occupation has become. Superb cinematography portrays the plight of the Palestinians as that of people about to drown, yet in fact it is their great numbers and their steadfastness that keeps them from that fate. Rather than being afloat, they stand on the solid ground of their own existence and history. Whatever happens, the Palestinians are not going away and will be a living indictment of Israel as long as their oppression continues.

The Story of Palestine (short video)

In contrast to the more detailed and lengthy account from Abby Martin I posted last month, here is a very short, simple but powerful video presenting the plight of the Palestinians. It shows how artistry can aid a good cause. (the picture is not a link)

How Palestine Became Colonized (teleSUR)

This is a comprehensive account of the history of Palestine and Zionism that resulted in the situation we have at present. The graphic is not a link.

Trump and Netanyuhu, two of a kind

Israel's newspaper, Haaretz, continually puts the American press to shame with excellent articles that go right to the heart of issues the mainstream media in the United States will not touch. Here is a perfect example, Protesting Bigots and Demagogues at AIPAC? Don't Stop at Trump, Call Out Netanyahu Too by Roy Isacowitz.

Some excerpts:

"AIPAC, that bastion of Jewish values...has given repeated and resounding standing ovations, year after year, to Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli demagogues and racists, who not only talk the talk – as Trump has done so far – but walk the walk, as well.

Israel has already built the wall that Trump only talks about. It has blighted the lives of millions of Muslims, as Trump says he would like to do. Its behavior has been far more bellicose than anything Trump has exhibited so far and its racism is not only more extreme, but a lot more deadly.

The supporters of Israeli Trumpism have assassinated a prime minister, gunned down worshippers in a mosque, burned a Palestinian baby to cinders in its bed and committed thousands of other racist atrocities. But when the Israeli Trump-in-chief arrives in Washington, he is feted by AIPAC as the true representative of Jewish values. The anti-Trump."