The other night Anna Baltzer spoke so movingly about Palestinian children never getting to see the sea. Here is an essay that lawyer Diana Buttu wrote for NPR. I don't believe it was ever read on air, of course:
"Please, take some pictures of the sea. I need my son to know that Palestine is bigger than just our town and a few checkpoints."
I took the camera in disbelief: Majda lived less than 10 miles from the
sea.
"Have you been to the sea, Majda?," I asked.
"No. I have made requests to the Israeli authorities, but they have always been denied."
…Peace will never come to this region until the Palestinians are granted their freedom. It has been just more than 40 years since the start of Israel's military rule over the Palestinians. Every day I wonder whether Majda and her son will ever enjoy a day of freedom — or even visit the sea.
I believe, deeply believe, that Palestinians and Jews ought to be equals in this holy land. I believe more Americans would act on behalf of Palestinians if they were aware of discriminatory Israeli policies. I believe the inability of Majda's son to travel to the sea in his homeland smacks of Jim Crow and apartheid and that it is in everybody's interest to right this wrong without further delay
"Have you been to the sea, Majda?," I asked.
"No. I have made requests to the Israeli authorities, but they have always been denied."
…Peace will never come to this region until the Palestinians are granted their freedom. It has been just more than 40 years since the start of Israel's military rule over the Palestinians. Every day I wonder whether Majda and her son will ever enjoy a day of freedom — or even visit the sea.
I believe, deeply believe, that Palestinians and Jews ought to be equals in this holy land. I believe more Americans would act on behalf of Palestinians if they were aware of discriminatory Israeli policies. I believe the inability of Majda's son to travel to the sea in his homeland smacks of Jim Crow and apartheid and that it is in everybody's interest to right this wrong without further delay
Related posts:
- Liberal Jews’ Inability to Denounce Neocons Is Like Blacks’ Embrace of Michael Vick
- Have Saddle, Will Travel: Why Dennis Ross Keeps His Job While Presidents Come and Go
- Israel smacks Pope down on talk of Palestinian homeland
- Lessons of US occupation don’t travel
- Palestinians Are Finally Welcome in Washington
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Peace will never come until Palestinians are granted their freedom
AND
Peace will never come until Israel is recognized and accepted by the Arab and Islamic world.
Israel is (reluctantly) recognised by the Arab world (which includes a large Christian minority, notably in Palestine).
This is as good as it gets or will get for several generations. Acceptance for land thieves and racial murderers is a big ask…
Americans need to get the full data.
When they do (will take more 9/11s with public awareness of the motivation), you will quickly see a resolution good long term for both the Israelis and Palestinians.
Our Fourth Estate is badly skewed.
The conditions still remain, however the Arab world (and the dissenting world) gets there is up to them.
Palestinian justice constructs a one-legged table.
Israel-Palestine/Arab World-greater world constructs a three-legged table (capable of bearing weight).
What is this fasciation that Phil has for the Jim Crow era? Why constantly limit Civil Rights injustices to the South, and why compare the South to Israel? Israel is what it is, and should stand on its own as a symbol of violence, hatred and injustice.
Show me examples of blacks in the Jim Crow South being encouraged to leave the country and becoming nationless, bombed and killed, stuck in refugee camps, put under military curfew, napalmed (if the accusations are correct) and generally at the mercy of inernational institutions that are intentionally dismissive at best.
I know that Phil has a warped view of the South and the Jewish role in the Civil Rights movement, but the constant comparison of segregation in the South to Israel's war on Palestine doesn't even make sense.
The South during Jim Crow (which is what Phil usually means) was more a case of petty, reactionary bigotry and a separate and unequal system designed to uphold a weak and largely isolated and defeated power structure. Israel, on the other hand, is an international Zionist movement with massive financial, political, military and media support, that intends to make war upon and dispossess the peoples of what it considers Greater Israel. Zionists don't even make an effort at paternalism! How can one not see the difference?
"Among ourselves it must be clear that there is no place in our country for both peoples together… The only solution is Eretz Israel, or at least the western half of Eretz Israel, without Arabs, and there is no other way but to transfer the Arabs from here to the neighboring countries, transfer all of them, not one village or tribe should remain…" -Joseph Weitz, Deputy Chairman of the Board of directors of the Jewish National Fund (JNF) from 1951 to 1973, former Chairman of the Israel Land Authority
"Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist. Not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahial arose in the place of Mahlul; Kibbutz Gvat in the place of Jibta; Kibbutz Sarid in the place of Huneifis; and Kefar Yehushua in the place of Tal al-Shuman. There is not a single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population." -Moshe Dayan, in Haifa, quoted by Ha'aretz, April, 4 1969.
"It is a mistake to draw a moral line between Israel and the Occupied Territories; it is all occupied territory. The 1967 war, as a result of which Israel conquered and occupied East Jerusalem, the West Bank of the Jordan River, and the Sinai Peninsula, was a continuation of the process that began in 1948. It will be drearily familiar to any who know the history of the displacement of the Indians from the lands they occupied in North America. Today it would be called “ethnic cleansing.” -Noel Ignatiev
Hey, how about Witty as the hero in High Noon?
"How can one not see the difference [between the Jim Crow South and Israel]?" — Todd
Sure, there are differences. But when Hillary Clinton stands on an AIPAC stage and claims that Israel represents "America's values," somebody needs to call her on it. Since Americans are notoriously insular, making a comparison of Israeli apartheid to the US civil rights struggle frames the issue in terms they can understand, whether perfectly on point or not.
In the case of Palestinians not having access to the sea, the comparison shows Israel to be worse than the Jim Crow South, as you suggested. When I went to the beach at Galveston as a kid, blacks weren't allowed at Stewart Beach — they had their own bathhouse at a more remote location. In Israel, by comparison, the Palestinian N-words can't even get to the beach, owing to the checkpoints.
"American values," my bleeding ass. Israel never had a Civil Rights Act of 1964. Never had a Voting Rights Act of 1965. Never had a Fair Housing Act of 1968. And bigots like Witty wanna keep it that way, with the master race in charge.
Giving money to this apartheid country is a stinking disgrace. Too bad Oreobama, who's too young to remember Jim Crow, has sold out to the folks who keep Israel this way. He workin' for DA MAN — YASSUH!
Peace will never come until Palestinians are granted their freedom
AND
Peace will never come until Israel is recognized and accepted by the Arab and Islamic world.
AND
Peace will never come until Israel ends the WestBank occupation.
AND
Peace will never come until Palestinians are granted their freedom
AND
the zionists will continue this chant indefinitely while their diplomats carry on endless negotiations so they cannot be accused of oppression because they are working so hard to change things. Left to them this would go on for centuries.
Its still an AND formulation, as is all peace.
So, if you ignore the valid needs of Israel in the equation (or if you ignore the valid needs of Palestine and Palestinians), then you only pick sides.
And, picking sides (rather than making mutual peace), especially from a distance, by those that don't have anything real at stake (say family), is potentially a harmful approach.
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