Haitham Sabbah responds to the teargassing at the Ohio mosque with the challenge:
"Imagine this headline: “Chemicals sprayed into Synagogue, Children Hurt”. Imagine how this headline would be blurting out of every mass media outlet, out of every politician’s mouth…"
I have a different test. Consider this headline: "New Land Confiscation Orders in the Northern Valley: A Systemic Israeli Policy of Silent Deportation," which is all about land being taken away from Palestinian farmers in the Jordan Valley in the occupied West Bank to make way for military installations.
Or this headline: "Israeli settlement sewage contaminating Palestinian water supply," which says that a couple hundred thousand Jewish settlers produce more waste water than 2.3 million Palestinians do in the West Bank and that this presents a major environmental hazard.
Or consider this headline, "Swedish human rights worker viciously attacked by Jewish extremists in Hebron," which is about a 19-year-old human rights worker who was struck across the face by a young religious settler wielding a bottle, breaking her cheekbone, as he and his friends spat at her and fellow volunteers "like rain" and chanted "We killed Jesus, we'll kill you!"
All headlines in the last couple days–and just imagine that these events were taking place in the old Soviet Union and the attacks were directed at Jews or at human rights workers trying to help Jews. Imagine that. Well you don't have to stretch your mind much; because I remember the fury here over persecution of and discrimination against Jews in the Soviet Union–actually lesser abuses than what the Palestinians have suffered–and I remember how my community responded, the exertions it went to, the bumper stickers on cars, the speeches in Congress, and the way they moved my government to act. Never again.
Thanks to David Bloom for passing along these stories.
