UN APPROVED DESTRUCTION OF PALESTINE

PALESTINE SERIES: 4/4

Palestine Is Still Bleeding!

 (Part 4 of 4)

Remembering 29^th November, 1947 - The Destruction Day

Here’s The Truth! Anybody Listening?

(Compiled by: M. Javed Naseem)

“On 29^th November, 1947, the United Nations General

Assembly voted 33 to 13, with 10 abstentions and one

absent, in favor of the modified Palestine Partition Plan."

Joseph Weitz:

In 1948, Joseph Weitz , director of the Jewish National Land Fund and head of the 3rd “Transfer Committee” stated:

“ We must direct our war towards the

removal of as many Arabs as possible

from boundaries of our state.”

Between 1947 and 1949, there were 45 reported massacres including the Yehida Massacre, Al-Sheikh Massacre, Beit Daras Massacre, Dahmesh Massacre, and the better known Deir Yassin Massacre, in which more than 250 people were murdered (25 pregnant women were bayoneted in the abdomen and 52 children were beheaded) as well as the Dawayma Massacre in which 100 people were killed, including children who were murdered by fracturing their heads with sticks.

In 1948, about 935,000 Palestinians (85% of the indigenous population of Palestine at that time) were forced off their land, in some cases at gunpoint, in other cases through massacres or threats of massacres like the massacre at Deir Yassin. As a result, 530 of an estimated 550 total villages were completely destroyed or depopulated. Over 78% of Palestinian land was confiscated for the establishment of a state for Jewish people. The “State of Israel” was established in May, 1948 and the colonial system, put in place by the British, was transferred to the new Zionist settlers’ state.

Excerpts From Interview With Jimmy Carter

By Elisabeth Braw,

Senior Reporter, Metro International

“Israelis' policy is to confiscate Palestinian territory”

– Jimmy Carter

Israel and Gaza are again attacking each other, Syria is descending into civil war, four American diplomats killed in Libya: the Middle East is more fragile than ever. "Both sides should cease all hostilities," says former US President Jimmy Carter. "Israel should end its blockade of Gaza, and Western countries should work to facilitate reconciliation between Hamas and their Palestinian rival, Fatah. As long as Gaza remains isolated, the situation in and around Gaza will remain volatile."

Israel's leaders don't want a Palestinian state, Carter tells Metro in an exclusive interview with Metro. Carter, who still conducts international negotiations and is now a member of The Elders, won the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize. He just returned from a visit to the Middle East.

The chances of a Palestinian state are fading. Whose job is it to fix this situation?

The peace process has been pretty well dormant for the past three years. Of course, in the past we played a key role in being the mediator and conveyor of meetings, but that's not happening either. The first priority would be for the Israelis and Palestinians to take the initiative. But the Israelis have continued with their massive settlement program in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and the Palestinians say they won't negotiate as long as Israel is continuing to take over their territory, so there's deadlock. The United States is looked upon by the rest of the international community as the primary interlocutor, so the European Union members don't take action. As a result, there's no intermediary who can move things forward and initiate peace talks.

President Obama says he supports a Palestinian state, but even so there's a deadlock. Does it take even more than the support of a US President to get a Palestinian state?

I think the big change is that the Israeli leaders have decided to abandon the two-state solution. Their policy now is to confiscate Palestinian territory, and they've announced publicly that it the Palestinians have to recognize not just Israel but Israel as a Jewish state, even though 20% of the Israeli community are non-Jews. Netanyahu has also decided that even the Jordan valley has to be under Israeli control. So, those factors indicate quite clearly that Netanyahu has decided that the two-state solution is not what he wants. He wants what is being called Greater Israel, Eretz Israel. That's a new development, and I think everyone recognizes this.

(Courtesy: The Huffington Post and Metro)

(www.huffingtonpost.com/elisabeth-braw/jimmy-carter-israelis-pol_b_2144182.html)

Excerpts from:

“The Inconvenient Truth About Israel”

By: Ben Cohen,

Editor of the Daily Banter.com

The Obama Administration's continued refusal to criticize Israel for its ruthless killing of aid workers off the coast of Gaza highlights a fundamental problem with the way in which the Israeli/Palestinian conflict in America is portrayed.

The premise upon which the debate is based on is fundamentally flawed, and in some cases overtly racist. The American media and the intellectual classes operate within the logic that Israel is the victim of Arab aggression and is simply defending itself from hostile neighbors --the Muslim countries are anti-Semitic and hell bent on the destruction of Israel and cannot ever be negotiated with. Israel, the story goes, is a democracy and an ally of the United States, and therefore justified in anything it does to protect itself.

There is one inconvenient truth that shoots a deadly arrow in this narrative, and it isn't an easy one to swallow.

The truth is that the creation of the Jewish state was based on the theft of land from an indigenous people. While Jews would prefer to believe that their country is a 'miracle in the desert,' for the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, it is an everlasting nightmare.

The pro-Israel narrative continues with its portrayal of Arab aggression, noting the wars in 1948, 1967 and 1973 as proof that the country was under perpetual attack. While it is true that the Arab nations attacked Israel after it declared itself a nation in 1948, it must be remembered that if Mexican immigrants declared a state of Mexico in Arizona, it is unlikely the U.S government would not see it as an act of aggression and take immediate military action.

The wars in 1967 and 1973 were started by Egypt and Syria, not the Palestinians, and the Israelis used it as an excuse to annex more Palestinian land (Gaza, the Sinai Peninsula, the Golan Heights and the West Bank), an act illegal under international law. The Palestinians, as always, suffered the consequences of competing empires.

The continued occupation of the Palestinian people and the relentless expansion of the Israeli state is a text book definition of colonization. The Palestinians have a right to resist this occupation, and the onus is on Israel to stop it so that peace talks can resume.

From: Veterans News Now – VNN:

George Galloway: Free Palestine

"Free Palestine, Free Afghanistan, Free Speech" - George Galloway

(Speech made at St. Andrew's Wesley United Church, Vancouver, Canada, Monday, November 21, 2010).

George Galloway Speaking in Vancouver, British Columbia :

“The Palestinians are the victims of one of the greatest crimes of

the 20th century now bleeding into the 21st century”, he notes.

“Israel has broken more U.N. Security Council Resolutions

than all the other countries of the World combined. They

have broken more international law than all the countries

of the world put together.
The Palestinians who are the victims of terrorism

are called the terrorists, and the Israelis who are

the ‘Terrorists’ are referred to as the victims by

Zionist-controlled politicians and Zionist-controlled

media in the West.”

“THEY ARE NEVER punished. SHAME, SHAME ON THE WEST.”

See the video (sponsored by stopwar.ca) at: http://vimeo.com/17139623

(Courtesy: www.veteransnewsnow.com/2013/11/01/george-galloway-free-palestine/)

From ‘Goodreads.com’:

Noam Chomsky:

“Hamas is regularly described as 'Iranian-backed Hamas, which is dedicated to the destruction of Israel.' One will be hard put to find something like 'democratically elected Hamas, which has long been calling for a two-state settlement in accord with the international consensus'—blocked for over 30 years by the US and Israel. All true, but not a useful contribution to the Party Line, hence dispensable.”

“The new crimes that the US and Israel were committing in Gaza as 2009 opened do not fit easily into any standard category—except for the category of familiarity.” 

– Noam Chomsky (Gaza in Crisis).

“Israel's demonstration of its military prowess in 1967 confirmed its status as a 'strategic asset,' as did its moves to prevent Syrian intervention in Jordan in 1970 in support of the PLO. Under the Nixon doctrine, Israel and Iran were to be 'the guardians of the Gulf,' and after the fall of the Shah, Israel's perceived role was enhanced. Meanwhile, Israel has provided subsidiary services elsewhere, including Latin America, where direct US support for the most murderous regimes has been impeded by Congress. While there has been internal debate and some fluctuation in US policy, much exaggerated in discussion here, it has been generally true that US support for Israel's militarization and expansion reflected the estimate of its power in the region.

The effect has been to turn Israel into a militarized state completely dependent on US aid, willing to undertake tasks that few can endure, such as participation in Guatemalan genocide. For Israel, this is a moral disaster and will eventually become a physical disaster as well. For the Palestinians and many others, it has been a catastrophe, as it may sooner or later be for the entire world, with the growing danger of superpower confrontation.” 

– Noam Chomsky.

“People who call themselves supporters of Israel are actually supporters of its moral degeneration and ultimate destruction.” 
― Noam Chomsky

Susan Abulhawa:

“They had bombed and burned,killed and maimed,plundered and looted. Now they had come to claim the land.” 
― Susan Abulhawa, (Morning in Jenin).

“Israeli occupation exposes us very young to the extremes of our emotions, until we cannot feel except in the extreme.” 
― Susan Abulhawa, (Morning in Jenin)

“For if life had taught her anything, it was that healing and peace can begin only with acknowledgment of wrongs committed.” 
― Susan Abulhawa,

Christopher Hitchens:

“You can't have occupation and human rights.” 
― Christopher Hitchens

A.J. Deus:

“The custom to put others in the line of fire is a recurring theme in Judaism. It boils down to the Levite Korahites’ willingness to sacrifice their ordinary Jewish subjects in order to ensure their own survival. This should be a historic warning to modern-day Israelites: their orthodox government would not hesitate to risk the lives of the many for the sake of the survival of the few in the orthodox elite. The citizens of Israel will have to think about how to remove the systemic threat that comes from within their own ranks.”
― A.J. Deus

Norman G. Finkelstein:

“Goldstone has done terrible damage to the cause of truth and justice and the rule of law. He has poisoned Jewish-Palestinian relations, undermined the courageous work of Israeli dissenters and—most unforgivably—increased the risk of another merciless IDF assault.” 
― Norman G. Finkelstein, 

(Goldstone Recants: Richard Goldstone Renews Israel’s License to Kill).

Isaac Asimov:

 
“I am frequently asked if I have visited Israel, whereas yet, it is simply assumed that I have. Well, I don’t travel. I really don’t, and if I did, I probably wouldn’t visit Israel. I remember how it was in 1948 when Israel was being established and all my Jewish friends were ecstatic, I was not. I said: what are we doing? We are establishing ourselves in a ghetto, in a small corner of a vast Muslim sea. The Muslims will never forget nor forgive, and Israel, as long as it exists, will be embattled. I was laughed at, but I was right. I can’t help but feel that the Jews didn’t really have the right to appropriate a territory only because 2000 years ago, people they consider their ancestors, were living there. History moves on and you can’t really turn it back. (#92 ff.)” 

– Isaac Asimov, (Asimov Laughs Again).

Nelson Mandela:

"If you want peace and democracy, I will support you.

If you want formal Apartheid, we will not support you.

If you want to support racial discrimination and

ethnic cleansing, we will oppose you."

(Nelson Mandela's memo to Thomas Friedman about Israel & Palestine, by Nelson Mandela, in Jefferson Corner - America's Speaker's Corner, 28 March 2001.)

Dear Thomas,

I know that you and I long for peace in the Middle East, but before you continue to talk about necessary conditions from an Israeli perspective, you need to know what’s on my mind. Where to begin? How about 1964? Let me quote my own words during my trial. They are true today as they were then: “I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”

Today, the world, black and white, recognize that Apartheid has no future. In South Africa it has been ended by our own decisive mass action in order to build peace and security. That mass campaign of defiance and other actions could only culminate in the establishment of Democracy.

Perhaps it is strange for you to observe the situation in Palestine or more specifically, the structure of political and cultural relationships between Palestinians and Israelis, as an Apartheid system. This is because you incorrectly think that the problem of Palestine began in 1967. This was demonstrated in your recent column “Bush’s First Memo” in the New York Times on March 27, 2001.

You seem to be surprised to hear that there are still problems of 1948 to be solved, the most important component of which is the right to return of Palestinian refugees. The Palestinian-Israeli conflict is not just an issue of military occupation and Israel is not a country that was established “normally” and happened to occupy another country in 1967. Palestinians are not struggling for a “state” but for freedom, liberation and equality, just like we were struggling for freedom in South Africa.

In the last few years, and especially during the reign of the Labour Party, Israel showed that it was not even willing to return what it occupied in 1967; that Settlements remain, Jerusalem would be under exclusive Israeli sovereignty, and Palestinians would not have an independent state, but would be under Israeli economic domination with Israeli control of borders, land, air, water and sea.

Israel was not thinking of a “state” but of “separation”. The value of separation is measured in terms of the ability of Israel to keep the Jewish state Jewish, and not to have a Palestinian minority that could have the opportunity to become a majority at some time in the future. If this takes place, it would force Israel to either become a secular democratic or bi-national state, or to turn into a state of Apartheid not only de facto, but also de jure.

”Thomas! If you follow the polls in Israel for the last

30 or 40 years, you clearly find a vulgar racism that

includes a third of the population who openly declare

themselves to be racist. This racism is of the nature of:

“I hate Arabs” and “I wish Arabs would be dead”.

If you also follow the judicial system in Israel, you

will see there is discrimination against Palestinians, and

if you further consider the 1967 Occupied Territories,

you will find there are already two judicial systems in

operation that represent two different approaches to

human life: One for Palestinian life and the other for

Jewish life. Additionally there are two different approaches

to property and to land. Palestinian property is not

recognized as private property because it can be confiscated.”

As to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, there is an additional factor. The so-called “Palestinian autonomous areas” are Bantustans. These are restricted entities within the power structure of the Israeli Apartheid system.

The Palestinian state cannot be the by-product of the Jewish state, just in order to keep the Jewish purity of Israel. Israel’s racial discrimination is daily life of most Palestinians. Since Israel is a Jewish state, Israeli Jews are able to accrue special rights which non-Jews cannot do. Palestinian Arabs have no place in a “Jewish” state.

Apartheid is a crime against humanity. Israel has deprived millions of Palestinians of their liberty and property. It has perpetuated a system of gross racial discrimination and inequality. It has systematically incarcerated and tortured thousands of Palestinians, contrary to the rules of international law. It has, in particular, waged a war against a civilian population, in particular children.

The responses made by South Africa to human rights abuses emanating from the removal policies and Apartheid policies respectively, shed light on what Israeli society must necessarily go through before one can speak of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East and an end to its Apartheid policies.

Thomas, I’m not abandoning Mideast diplomacy. But I’m not going to indulge you the way your supporters do. If you want peace and democracy, I will support you. If you want formal Apartheid, we will not support you. If you want to support racial discrimination and ethnic cleansing, we will oppose you.

When you figure out what you’re about, give me a call.

(Courtesy: http://www.keghart.com/Mandela-Palestine)

  

From :  1948 – Lest We Forget Palestine

(www.1948.org.uk/)

British Foreign Office, June 1920:

The Balfour Declaration “has also been interpreted as giving priority to a small minority of Jews over the mass of people in Palestine. It is idle to propose that preference should be given to one-tenth who has gone to the country (Palestine) only lately over the nine-tenths who have been there, from father to son, for generations”.

Lord Sheffield:

Commenting on the possible appointment of Herbert Samuel as the first British High Commissioner to Palestine: “there is no doubt that the people of the country (Palestine), when you select a man of the religion of only one-tenth of the inhabitants and send him to rule the whole country, must feel suspicious”.

(Lord Sheffield as quoted in a Foreign Office document, June 1920).

Yoram Kaniuk, Israeli Writer:

“The state I took part in founding had ended long ago and I am not interested in what it has become. It is ludicrous, blunt, vile, dark, sick and it will not last”.

Yoram Kaniuk, Israeli writer (May 1930-June 2013):

In 2011, Kaniuk won a milestone ruling in Israel’s constitutional law when the district court in Tel Aviv accepted his appeal to change the clause in his Israeli identity card from “Jewish” to “No Religion”. His grandson followed suit.

Theodor Herzl, Founder of Political Zionism, May 1896:

"Without preparation, I told [Michael von] Newlinsky that we imagine that Palestine would be given to us for £20 million ($100 million [in 1896]). Two million would be given to Palestine on the basis of the capitalization of its present [1896] yield of £80,000 annually. With the other £18 million, we should free Turkey from the Control Commission”.
(Theodor Herzl, founder of political Zionism, 1860 - 1904, from a Personal Diary entry 18^th May, 1896).

"We shall endeavor to expel the poor population [of Palestine] across the border unnoticed, procuring employment for it in the transit countries, but denying it any employment in our country”.
(Theodor Herzl, founder of political Zionism, 1860 - 1904, from a Personal Diary entry 12^th June, 1895).

Matityahu Peled, Israeli General:
"If we keep these lands, popular [Palestinian] resistance to the occupation is sure to rise, and Israel's army will be used to quell that resistance, with disastrous and demoralizing results”.
(Israeli General Matityahu Peled, 1923 - 1995, addressing Israeli cabinet meeting under Levi Eshkol, immediately after the June 1967 war).

Mohandas Gandhi, 1938:

"Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French. It is wrong and in-human to impose the Jews on the Arabs. What is going on in Palestine today cannot be justified by any moral code of conduct. The mandates have no sanction but that of the last war. Surely it would be a crime against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestine can be restored to the Jews partly or wholly as their national home.”
(Mohandas Gandhi, 1938)

Ronnie Kasrils, Jewish S/African Minister:

"Apartheid was an extension of the colonial project to dispossess people of their land. That is exactly what has happened in Israel and the occupied territories; the use of force and the law to take the land. That is what apartheid and Israel have in common.
(Ronnie Kasrils, the Jewish South African cabinet minister and former ANC guerrilla, on a visit to Jerusalem, February 2009).

Hendrik Verwoerd,

S/African Prime Minister, 1958-1966):

"The Jews took Israel from the Arabs after the Arabs had lived there for a thousand years. Israel, like South Africa, is an apartheid state."
(Hendrik Verwoerd, the South African prime minister from 1958 until his assassination in 1966, and architect of the "grand apartheid" vision of the Bantustans).

Atlas of Palestine, 1948:

"If the Israelis and others want to know why the conflict still persists today, they can review the information here [The Atlas of Palestine 1948] and wake up from their collective amnesia about what really happened in Palestine in 1948".
Dr Salman Abu-Sitta, author of the impressive 400-page "Atlas of Palestine, 1948" (published  by The Palestine Land Society, 2004)

George Antonius, Lebanese Diplomat:

"No code of morals can justify the persecution of one people in an attempt to relieve the persecution of another”
(George Antonius 1891-1942, Lebanese-Egyptian author and diplomat).

Dr. Haider Abdul-Shafe’e:

"The Zionists have not changed their objectives since the Basel Conference of 1897”.
(Dr. Haider Abdul-Shafe'e, Former Head of The Palestinian Delegation to The Madrid Peace Conference - In Conversation, (Just Before He Died September 2007) with Professor Francis Boyle).

Bertrand Russell,

British Philosopher, Historian:

"Every new conquest [by Israel] becomes the new basis of the proposed negotiation from strength, which ignores the injustice of the previous aggression”
(Bertrand Russell 1872 - 1970, Philosopher, Historian & Social Critic - Excerpt from his last letter written in 1970 just before his death).

Bertrand Russell, British Philosopher, Historian:

“No people anywhere in the world would accept being expelled en masse from their own country; how can anyone require the people of Palestine to accept a punishment which nobody else would tolerate?”
(Bertrand Russell, British philosopher, mathematician, historian, social reformer, and pacifist, 1970).

Beshara Doumani, UCLA, California:

"It's really quite an amazing fact that [the Palestinians] are such a household name but we know so little about them: who they are, how they came to be, what do they want, how they live."
(Beshara Doumani, Associate Professor of History at UCLA – California).

Arnold Toynbee, Universal Historian:

"The Arabs have been there [in Palestine] for thirteen centuries - that is to say, for as long as the Jews during their first occupation of a patch of the country and for nearly twice as long as the Ten Tribes that constituted the ancient Kingdom of Israel”.
(Arnold Toynbee 1889 - 1975, Universal Historian (from the foreword to "The Transformation of Palestine").

Martin Levi van Crevel, Israeli Historian:

"We [Israel] possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets...most European capitals are targets of our air force.”

”The Palestinians should be deported. Two years ago, only 7% or 8% of Isarelis were of the opinion that this would be the best solution. Two months ago [January 2010] it was 33%. Now, according to a Gallup Poll, the figure is 44%.”
(Martin Levi van Crevel, (b 1946) Israeli Military Historian and Theorist).

Ben Gurion, First Prime Minister of Israel:

"Erect a Jewish State at once, even if it is not in the whole of the land [of Palestine]. The rest will come in the course of time. It must come.”
(Ben Gurion, accepting Lord Peel's Commission recommending, in 1936, that Palestine be partitioned).

Yitzhak Rabin, Israeli Prime Minister, 1993:

"No return to the 1967 borders. No discussion on the Permanent Status [of a Palestinian State]. No withdrawal from the Jordan Valley. No negotiations with the PLO. No to a Palestinian State”.
(Yitzhak Rabin. Israeli Prime Minister – 1993)

Lord A.J. Balfour, British Foreign Secretary:

"Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-long traditions, in present needs, in future hopes of far profounder import than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land.”
(Lord Arthur James Balfour, British Foreign Secretary (1916-1919). The 'Balfour Declaration' was named after him).

Moshe Dayan, Israeli General:

“Our American friends offer us money, arms, and advice. We take the money, we take the arms, and we decline the advice.”
---
“We are a generation of settlers, and without the steel helmet and gun barrel, we shall not be able to plant a tree or build a house”
---
“There is not one single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population”
(Moshe Dayan, Israeli General).

Farid Esack, S/African Minister:

"My dear Palestinian brothers and sisters, I have come to your land and I have recognized shades of my own."
(Farid Esack - South African Writer and Political Activist - Minister in Nelson Mandela's Government).

Mahmoud Darwish, Palestine’s National Poet:

"My homeland is not a suitcase, and I am no traveller"
(Mahmoud Darwish - Palestine's national poet).

Barack Obama, US President:

“There will be times when nations - acting individually or in concert - will find the use of force not only necessary but also morally justified.”
(No, not Bush, Cheney or Rumsfeld, but President Barack Obama in his speech accepting the Nobel Peace Prize 2009).

Barack Obama, US President, 2009:

"The settlements have to be stopped in order for us to move forward".
(Barack Obama, U.S. President, 2009).

Jimmy Carter, Ex-US President:

“The pre-eminent obstacle to peace is Israel's colonization of Palestine. Israel's occupation of Palestine has obstructed a comprehensive peace agreement in the Holy Land, regardless of whether Palestinians had no formalized government, one headed by Yasser Arafat or Mahmoud Abbas, or with Abbas as president and Hamas controlling the parliament and cabinet."
(Jimmy Carter, U.S. President who negotiated the Camp David peace accord, 1979).

Miguel Brockman,

President, UN-General Assembly, Nov. 2008:

“More than twenty years ago, we in the United Nations took the lead from civil society when we agreed that sanctions were required to provide a non violent means of pressuring South Africa to end its violations.
Today, perhaps we and the United Nations should consider following the lead of a new generatipon of civil society who are calling for a similar non violent campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions to pressure Israel to end its violations.”
(Miguel D'Escoto Brockman, President of the U.N. General Assembly, 29th November, 2008).

Israel Katz, 2009:

The U.S. gave $2.4 billion in aid to Israel in 2008. However, "the cash does not entitle a U.S. President to tell us how to live."
(Israel Katz (Efrat Illegal Settlement), 2009).

David Cameron, British PM:
"Let me be clear! The Israeli attack on the Gaza flotilla was completely unacceptable...we will expect the Israeli inquiry to be swift, transparent and rigorous.”
"Let me also be clear that the situation in Gaza has to change. Humanitarian goods and people must flow in both directions. Gaza cannot and must not be allowed to remain a prison camp."
(British PM, David Cameron, 27 July 2010, Ankara, Turkey).

Arie Lipo, Jewish Spiritual Leader:

"We build small havens here. We are the people of the Bible. If Obama fights what God has done in bringing the people of th Bible here...he will fall. Now the question is: Who is the boss? God? or Obama?"
(Arie Lipo, Spiritual Leader of Havat Gilad Illegal Settlement, 2009).

Ariel Sharon, Israeli PM:

"Grab the hilltops and stake your claim. Everything we don't grab will go to them (the Palestininans)".
(Ariel Sharon, Israeli PM, 1998).

Paul Craig Roberts, Economist:

“The reason that Israel has been able to appropriate Palestine unto itself with American aid and support is that Israel controls the explanation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. At least 90% of Americans, if they know anything at all of the issue, know only the Israeli propaganda line. Israel has been able to control the explanation, because the powerful Israel Lobby brands every critic of Israeli policy as an anti-semite who favors a second holocaust of the Jews.”
(Paul Craig Roberts, economist, 2007)

Nelson Mandela, S/African President:

“The so-called ‘Palestinian autonomous areas’ are Bantustans. These are restricted entities within the power structure of the Israeli apartheid system.”
(Nelson Mandela, President of South Africa, 2001)

Howard Zinn, Jewish, American Historian:

“I think the Jewish State was a mistake, yes, (…) it was probably the worst thing that the Jews could have done. What they did was join the nationalistic frenzy, they became privy to all of the evils that nationalism creates …”

Ehud Barak, Israeli PM:

“I imagine that if I were a Palestinian of the right age, I would, at some stage, have joined one of the terror organizations.”
(Ehud Barak, Israeli general and prime minister 1999 – 2001).

Edward Herman, Economist, Analyst:

"If Jews in France were required to carry identification cards designating them Jews (even though French citizens), could not acquire land or buy or rent homes in most of the country, were not eligible for service in the armed forces, and French law banned any political party or legislation calling for equal rights for Jews, would France be widely praised in the United States as a "symbol of human decency" (New York Times) and paragon of democracy? Would there be a huge protest if France, in consequence of such laws and practices, was declared by a UN majority to be a racist state?"
Edward S. Herman, economist and media analyst, 1994

Moshe Dayan, Israeli General, 1956:

“What cause have we to complain about their fierce hatred to us? For eight years now, they sit in their refugee camps in Gaza, and before their eyes we turn into our homestead the land and villages in which they and their forefathers have lived.”
(Moshe Dayan, Israeli general, 1956).

Anthony Eden, British PM:

"For the simple reason, we, who have not been through the horrors of an occupation by a foreign power, have no right to pronounce judgment upon what that country does which has been through all that".
(Anthony Eden (Prime Minister of the United Kingdom 7 April 1955 – 10 January 1957, interviewed in the "Sorrow and the Pity", a documentary on WWII directed by Marcel Ophuls).

(Courtesy: www.1948.org.uk/)

***********

JEWISH MYTHS OF DEMOCRACY AND DANGER TO THEIR EXISTENCE

Palestine Series: 3/4

Due To Deception, Injustice, Conspiracy & Betrayal

By The World Powers,

Palestine Is Still Bleeding!

(Part 3 of 4)

Jewish Myths of Democracy And

Threat To Their Existence

(Compiled by: M. Javed Naseem)

Miko Peled was born in Jerusalem into a well-known and influential Israeli Zionist family. His father was a famous General in the Israeli Army, where Miko also served his time. When Miko's niece was killed by Palestinian suicide bombers, you may have expected the family to put Palestinians at fault, but surprisingly they blamed the state of Israel, and their violent torturing and persecution for driving people to such sadness that they would take their own lives.

The General’s Son Talks:

Through his father's deep knowledge of the Israeli war of terror, together with his own research, Miko Peled ruins the myths surrounding the Israel and Palestine situation, and delivers a truth so damning that many Jews and Israel supporters will not be able to bear it. He reveals facts such as the original expelled Jews are not the ones returning, and they are not their descendants either, covers the double standards regarding the right of return, which doesn't apply to Palestinians, and dispels the myth that there has been a conflict for ages by producing proof that it was peaceful up until 1947 when Israel launched their illegal attacks.

Goodreads.com adds:

In 1997, a tragedy struck the family of Israeli-American Miko Peled: His beloved niece Smadar was killed by a suicide bomber in Jerusalem. That tragedy propelled Peled onto a journey of discovery. It pushed him to re-examine many of the beliefs he had grown up with, as the son and grandson of leading figures in Israel's political-military elite, and transformed him into a courageous and visionary activist in the struggle for human rights and a hopeful, lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

The General's Son:

Journey of an Israeli in Palestine

A Book Written By Miko Peled

Esteemed African-American author Alice Walker has contributed a very moving and thoughtful Foreword to The General's Son.
The journey that Peled traces in this groundbreaking memoir echoed the trajectory taken 40 years earlier by his father, renowned Israeli general Matti Peled. In The General's Son, Miko Peled tells us about growing up in Jerusalem in the heart of the group that ruled the then-young country, Israel. He takes us with him through his service in the country's military and his subsequent global travels... and then, after his niece's killing, back into the heart of Israel's conflict with the Palestinians. The book provides a compelling and intimate window into the fears that haunt both peoples-- but also into the real courage of all those who, like Miko Peled, have been pursuing a steadfast grassroots struggle for equality for all the residents of the Holy Land.

Link: www.goodreads.com/book/show/13540289-the-general-s-son

March 30, 2011

My Speech for

Palestine Awareness Week at SDSU

By Miko Peled

I want to begin by thanking the members of AIPAC the Jewish Zionist community who are here tonight. I am glad that they decided to set aside time to express solidarity with the people of Palestine. I know that you will listen to the tapes and view the recordings of my remarks tonight and you will study them well and hopefully you will realize that you are supporting evil. You see, I too came from a deeply Zionist background, far more Zionist and Jewish than most of you here tonight. My grandfather was a signer on the Israeli declaration of independence, and my father, a general, one of the giants who planned and executed Israel’s most definitive military victories, namely 1948 and 1967. So I know what you were taught and I know what you think. But it’s time to sweep away the Zionist myths and uncover the truth so that we may all finally live in peace. The myths I will address tonight are the three most common myths:

1. The myth of 1948.
2. The myth of the existential threat of 1967.
3. The myth of the Jewish democracy.

I want to read to you a passage from my upcoming book The General’s Son, and I quote: “Growing up we were taught to believe that the Arabs had left Eretz Israel partly on their own and partially at the directive of their so called leaders, and that therefore taking their land and homes was morally OK. It never occurred to us that even if they did leave willingly, we had no right to prohibit their return. But then Israeli historians had found that what Palestinians have been saying for decades was true”, end quote. In other words when Palestinians claim something is true we doubt it but when Israelis claim it themselves, well now that is a different story. So, Israeli historians found that Israel and Palestine are at the exact same place. But when Israel was created it was created on the ruins of Palestine.

Now, although Palestine was not a state yet, it would have become one had it not been so thoroughly destroyed. Palestine had bustling cities where commerce and trade were taking place, they had a middle class, they had judges and scholars and a rich political life and indeed they had culture and a unique identity that set them apart from the rest of the Arab world. What the Palestinians did not have, the one thing in which they did not invest was a military. And while they constituted the vast majority of the population, when the Jewish militias attacked, they were helpless.

“In 1948 the Jewish militia became the Israeli army

but between the end of 1947 and the beginning of 1949

they destroyed close to 500 towns and villages and

exiled close to 800,000 Palestinians who to this day

are not permitted to return.”

The Jewish community in Palestine at the time was small, numbering less than half a million people but it had developed its own state like institutions separate from those of the Palestinians. Based on the principle of Hafrada, or segregation, they had developed their own schools, a nationalized health care system, a quasi government and a strong, well trained militia with young men like my father who were dedicated to creating a Jewish state in Palestine disregarding the existence of the vast majority of the population who were, Palestinians.

In 1948 the Jewish militia became the Israeli army but between the end of 1947 and the beginning of 1949 they destroyed close to 500 towns and villages and exiled close to 800,000 Palestinians who to this day are not permitted to return. So, it turns out that the creation of Israel had not, after all, been a haphazard fight in which the Arabs fled their homes due to the directives of their own leaders. It had been a systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing by the Jewish militia involving massacres, terrorism, and the wholesale looting of an entire nation.

My mother remembers the homes of the Palestinians who were forced to leave West Jerusalem. She herself was offered one of those beautiful spacious homes but refused. She could not bear the thought of living in the home of a family that was forced out and now lives in a refugee camp. She said the coffee was still warm on the tables as the soldiers came in and began the looting. She remembers the truckloads of loot, taken by the Israeli soldiers from these homes.

Once the state was established, Israel had worked

tirelessly to efface the remnants of prior Palestinian

existence by demolishing towns and villages and

historic sites including an estimated two thousand

mosques. I recall the Israeli TV series Tkuma or

“Rebirth,” (an outstanding series that describes the

rebirth of the Jewish people and the establishment

of the Jewish state. In one interview a veteran brigade

commander of 1948 was asked if it was true that the

Jewish forces burned down Arab villages. He looked up

slowly into the camera and said: “Like bonfires”.

(He replied, they burnt like bonfires.)

After the war was over, the Palestinians who remained within the newly created Jewish state were forced to become citizens of a state that forced itself upon them and they were designated as “The Arabs of Israel” a designation that denies them a national identity and rights. They are Arabs in a Jewish state and they are citizens of a state that is despised by all its neighbors.

Another widely accepted Zionist myth is that in 1967 Israel had to defend itself against an existential threat as invading Arab armies were about to wipe it off the face of the earth. And it just so happened that miraculously the Israelis won and conquered lands to the north, east and south defeating three massive armies. Well, setting aside the countless books that have been written in Hebrew, English and Arabic and documentaries that were filmed and disprove this myth, and clearly show that Israel attacked in order to conquer, as part of the research for my book, I sat for days at the Israeli army archives reading through the minutes of the meetings of the Israel army general staff. Here is another quote from my book:

“In a stormy meeting of the IDF top brass and the Israeli cabinet that took place on the 2nd of June, 1967, my father General Matti Peled told the cabinet in no uncertain terms that the Egyptians needed at least a year and a half in order to be ready for a full scale war. His point was that the time to strike a devastating blow against the Egyptian army was now, not because of an existential threat but because the Egyptian army is NOT prepared for war. The other generals agreed. But the cabinet was hesitant. The cabinet members and Prime Minister and a tug-of-war of unimaginable proportions ensued.”

During that same stormy meeting my father said to the Prime Minister: “Nasser (Egyptian President Gamal Abdul Nasser) is advancing an ill prepared army because he is counting on the cabinet being hesitant. He is convinced that we will not strike. Your hesitation is working in his advantage.”) No mention of an existential threat but of an opportunity to assert Israeli strength. Years later this was confirmed by other Generals, including the butcher Ariel Sharon.

In the end the cabinet succumbed to the enormous pressure placed on them by the generals and approved a pre-emptive attack against Egypt, that began on June 5, 1967. Again I quote:(The surprise attack led to the total destruction of Egypt’s air force, the decimation of the Egyptian army, and the re-conquest of the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula in a matter of days. The Israeli army also knew the Syrian army was in shambles, and the Jordanians were no match to the IDF strength.

After the campaign against Egypt went so smoothly, the generals, turned their attention to the West Bank and the Golan Heights, two regions Israel had coveted for many years. Both had strategic water resources and hills overlooking Israeli territory, and the West Bank contained the heartland of Biblical Israel, and the crown jewel, the Old city of Jerusalem. In six days it was all over. Arab casualties were estimated at 15,000, (15,000 dead in 6 days!) Israeli casualties 700, and the territory controlled by Israel had nearly tripled in size. Israel had in its possession not only land and resources it had wanted for a long time, but also the largest stockpiles of Russian-made arms outside of Russia. Israel had once again asserted itself as a major regional power.)

Now here is where something of immense proportion takes place: remember this was 46 years ago (At a meeting of the General Staff after the Six Day War, Chief of Staff Yitzhak Rabin was beaming with the glory of victory. But when the meeting was nearing its end, my father raised his hand. He was called on, and he spoke of the unique chance the victory offered—to solve the Palestinian problem once and for all. For the first time in Israel’s history, we were face to face with the Palestinians, without other Arabs between us. Now we had a chance to offer them a state of their own in the West Bank and Gaza. He claimed with certainty that holding on to the West Bank and the people who lived in it was contrary to Israel’s long-term strategy. Popular resistance to the occupation was sure to arise, and Israel’s army would be used to quell that resistance, with disastrous and demoralizing results. It would turn the Jewish state into an increasingly brutal occupying power and eventually into a bi-national state. This was nothing short of prophetic as today we live this exact reality. As he was saying this, the future leaders of the Intifada (the Palestinian uprising) were still lying in their cradles.)

His words were ignored, his claims brushed aside and instead, blinded by their newly gained access to places with mythical/biblical names like Hebron and Bethlehem, Shilo and Shcem Israeli leaders began a massive settlement project to settle Jews in the newly conquered land. A few years later my father called on Israel to negotiate with the PLO: The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). He claimed that Israel needed to talk with whoever represented the Palestinian people, the people with whom we shared this land. He believed only peace with the Palestinians could ensure our continued existence as a state that was both Jewish and democratic.)  Now, all these years later people talk of creating a Palestinian state in the WB but that option no longer exists.

The myth of Israel being a democracy is still being perpetuated even in light of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. While Jewish Israelis over there and AIPAC over here like to think they are the only rightful citizens of their land and will argue that they live in a democracy, this is far from being true. Israel has been in control of the West Bank for over four decades and had built and invested heavily in the West Bank. But Palestinians who make up the vast majority of the population in the West Bank are excluded from any of it. In other words, 100% of the construction in the West Bank was done to bring Jews into the WB and exclude the close to 3 million Palestinians whose land this belongs to in the first place. 3 million Palestinians are left out, disenfranchised even as they see their lands taken, their homes destroyed and roads, malls, schools and gated communities being built for Jews only with no access to them or their families. Some democracy!

And that is not the worst of it. Water, the scarcest resource of all is controlled and distributed by the Israeli water authority, including the large amounts of water that exists within the WB. According to Betselem, the Israeli human rights organization the ground water from the Mountain Aquifer is a shared water source for Israeli and Palestinians. It is the largest and highest quality water source in the area, producing 600 million cubic meters (mcm) of water annually. Israel holds almost complete control of the aquifer and exploits 80 percent of the production for its needs, leaving the remainder for the Palestinians’ use. “The discriminatory and unfair division of shared water resources creates a chronic water shortage in the West Bank, and is liable to harm Palestinians’ health.”

The World Health Organization recommends a minimal per capita daily consumption of 100 liters. The daily per capita consumption in Israel is 242 liters, the consumption in the West Bank is 73 liters per person. “In certain districts, consumption was as low as 37 liters (Tubas District), 44 (Jenin District), and 56 (Hebron District).” So, Palestinians have to buy their own water back from Israel, as Israel does not recognize Palestinian rights to the water that exists under Palestinian land. As absurd as it sounds Palestinian farmers are prohibited from digging wells on their own land. When seen as a per year distribution it is even more alarming.

Israel distributes the water as follows: Per capita, Israeli Jews receive 300 cubic meters of water per year. Per capita Palestinians receive 85 cubic meters per year. (World Health Organization recommends 100 per year) Per capita, Jewish settlers in the WB are allocated 1500 cubic meters of water per year. In other words while Palestinians have barely enough to drink, Jewish settlers not 500 yards away have swimming pools and green lawns. So does anyone seriously think that this can go on forever? Democracy indeed!

Now in light of the peoples uprising in the Middle East we can expect to see dictatorial regimes falling like dominos. Can we expect that 5 million Palestinians will continue to live under a regime that is democratic for Jews but is a brutally oppressive one to Palestinians? There are close to 6 million Israeli Jews and 5.5 million Palestinians sharing the same country under different laws.

My father who was a military giant but had also spent years fighting for justice for the Palestinian cause, was often asked about the question of Palestinian terrorism. I mention his reply in my book because it is classic: “Terrorism,” I recall him saying in an interview on Israeli television, “is a terrible thing. But the fact remains that when a small nation is ruled by a larger power, terror is the only means at their disposal. This has always been true, and I fear this will always be the case.”

My father’s predictions have all come true. The work of the Israel lobby in this country not withstanding, people around the world are beginning to realize that there are in fact two nations who live between the Jordan River and the Med sea and that the brutal regime under which Palestinians live is unacceptable.

And speaking of AIPAC, I remember seeing many of you, the mighty San Diego AIPAC bunch who are sitting here tonight, at the vigil that was held for the innocent victims murdered by Israel in Gaza. It was held a couple of months ago in Balboa Park. You were draped in the Israeli flag, singing and dancing as we who were there too, separated from you by a line of police and a sense of morality tried to recall the names of over 1400 dead, innocent civilians, police officers, children, women and men who were killed by the state of Israel in a matter of three weeks.

Those were three weeks of such death and destruction that one can hardly comprehend. I recall stories of the Israeli air force pilots who flew sortie after sortie, dumping hundreds of tons of bombs on Gaza, exposing a civilian population to unimaginable horror and then returning home to their families to celebrate the Jewish holiday of Hanukah, you see the attacks took place during Hanukah. Then these pilots, having enjoyed the celebration slept well in the comfort of their homes and their beds only to get up the next morning and do it again, and again, and again.

I recall that during the vigil you who were draped in the Israeli flag held signs that told of the warning the Israeli army gave the people of Gaza prior to the attacks. They dropped thousands of leaflets to let the besieged people of Gaza know that this nightmare was about to begin. I can only imagine the mother who saw the warnings. Knowing that the death and destruction were pending and knowing also that there was no where to go, nowhere to take her children no where to hide them from the fire, the smoke, the chemicals and the phosphorous that melts the flesh and won’t be extinguished – no where to go because Israel had imposed a siege, a never ending lockdown on the people of Gaza. So for the Israeli air force pilots, young men who Israelis and Jewish Zionists everywhere consider their finest, this was nothing more than shooting fish in a barrel as they began their merciless onslaught at precisely 11:25 am on December 27, 2008.

December 27, 2008 – A date that will forever be etched in

our memory as one of the darkest and most shameful days

in the long history of the Jewish people. A day when the

Jewish State committed horrendous shameful crimes by

dropping hundreds of tons of bombs at the precise time

that Gaza children were out on the street. Between 11 and

11:30 AM 800,000 children of Gaza are on their way to

school or returning home from school, it is at this time that

the two shifts of the school day change. That was the time

chosen by the Israeli decision makers to begin the assault.

To emphasize the how criminal this is, I want to read to you the quote from Charles Glass a veteran writer and middle east reporter: In “The Tribes Triumphant” arguably the one of the best books ever written about the Middle East, journalist Charles Glass describes children in Gaza on their way to school in the morning. Everyone should read his book, by the way, and here is what he writes about children in Gaza: “..in smocks of blue or grey little girls with white fringe collars, boys leading their younger brothers…with canvas bags of books on their backs, hair brushed back and faces scrubbed .. Thousands and thousands of children’s feet padding the dusty paths between their mother’s front doors and their schools…Gaza is a children’s land. …beautiful youngsters so innocent that they could laugh even in Gaza.” these are the people Israel attacked on that dark, dark December day.

“…for as we know, there are 800,000 children in Gaza, and

Israel did not spare them the horror. Hard to imagine!”

Those of you who are here because you support Israeli brutality will no doubt claim that Israeli had the right to act as it did because it was acting in self-defense – self-defense from Kassam rockets fired by Hamas militants in Gaza. Thousands of rockets were launched to kill innocent civilians in Israel.

I know a thing or two about Kassam rockets. I was sitting with my children and relatives in a kibbutz, a stones throw from Gaza relaxing on a Saturday afternoon as the rockets began flying over us and the alarms went off. It was frightening. Just this last December a Kassam rocket fell in the same kibbutz near the kindergarten, when children were present. The children were hurt. There were bloody scratches, shattered glass everywhere and several children were hospitalized in a state of shock. I saw the hole in the ground created by the rocket, the size of a large soccer ball. And then I remembered what a crater made by a one-ton bomb looks like. It is the size of a city block. Children do not suffer shock or scratches, they are decimated and burned and buried in the rubble and suffocated from the fumes. Now, multiply that by 100 and multiply that again and again and keep in mind that in Gaza population density is one of the highest in the world 10k per sq mile. Yet the Israeli lobby will justify this. Those among you who are Jewish will be familiar with the story in the book of Genesis, chapter 18, verses 23-26: God decides to destroy the city of Sodom and Abraham, the patriarch chastises him and says “wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked, perhaps there be fifty righteous within the city” and God promises he will spare the city if he finds 50 righteous people. But in Israel today there is no Abraham, for as we know there are 800,000 children in Gaza and Israel did not spare them the horror. Hard to imagine!

“So, those of you who wish to associate yourself with

Zionism and AIPAC and drape yourselves in the Zionist

flag, the flag that has come to symbolize intolerance, hate,

racism and brutality, feel free to do so. But know this:

When the trials begin, when the tribunals take their seat …

You will not be able to claim that you “did not know” because

we watched you dance as others were counting their dead.”

I am often accused of being one-sided and not mentioning Palestinians terrorism. Well this time I will: as my father said it decades ago, when a small nation is governed by a brutal larger power, some sort of violent resistance is to be expected. And the victims are always innocents.  As for my family’s brush with terrorism it was what drove us to learn more about the conflict and to reach out to our Palestinian neighbors: And the drive, the final push for me to reach out to Palestinians came as a result of a devastating tragedy:  I quote again from my book The General’s Son:

“Then, in the fall of 1997, disaster struck and my niece Smadar was killed by Palestinian suicide bombers. Hours later, there we were, driving along the road to the cemetery. Police escorted our procession on motorcycles, making way for vans carrying the devastated family members of another Jewish casualty. As we got out of the van, someone approached and asked me to carry the small coffin. My heart felt far heavier than the heart-breaking slight weight on my shoulders. Israelis and Palestinians, family members and friends from across the political spectrum, famous leaders and ordinary people, came to give eulogies or express their sorrow at this unspeakable loss. Smadar was laid to rest near my father, her grandfather, in a small hilltop cemetery just outside of Jerusalem. To this day my sister Nurit cannot forgive herself for leaving her baby girl alone out in the cold, damp ground. But when she came out of her room to face the thousands of mourners she did not ask for retaliation. She did not beg for revenge. Instead she said this:  “No real mother would want such a terrible thing to happen to another mother.”

It seemed impossible to carry on. But my mother always said that life was stronger than death. And so we went on. But something had changed. I felt I had to do something and I knew that meeting and talking to Palestinians was the right thing to do. And so I did. I began right here in San Diego where I was welcomed by the warm embrace of the local Palestinian community.

The experience of meeting Palestinian was comforting, liberating and heart-wrenching difficult. It was comforting because I found that we were very similar, it was liberating because I found we are not doomed to be enemies forever and it was heart wrenching because I realized I did not have full possession of the truth – that is where you my AIPAC supporting friends are right now: you are not in full possession of the truth and I suggest you get over it and join me in what was so eloquently described by the great Clovis Maqsoud as The “Constituency of Conscience”.

I can only imagine that the whites in S/Africa upon seeing the end of apartheid wanted so badly to hang on to their dying way of life, corrupt as it was. I can only imagine that white racists in the Southern states were doing the same as legalized racism and discrimination came to an end in this country. We see brutal tyrants everywhere these days, from Libya to the Gulf, states do the same – holding on even as they fall one by one.  Now, Zionists and their supporters do the same, holding on to the notion that a racist regime can last; that injustice and horror can last that crimes against others who are different can go unpunished. But we are near the end.

The Zionist dream of an ethnically, religiously homogenous state was shattered by the Zionists themselves with their insatiable hunger for land. In their own hands they created a bi national state, a state where half the population is not Jewish or Israeli but Palestinian Arab. True they have no rights, true also that they are not counted but that will change and sooner than you think.

Change will come because the non-violent resistance movement in towns and villages all over Palestine will prevail. In Beit-Umar, In Bil’in, in Nabi Saleh, in Silwan in Ni’ilin, in Shekh Jerrakh, in Maasara, dear friends Palestinians and Israelis who are committed to justice and democracy, organize non-violent marches every single week. And this is why we who believe in justice and democracy are optimistic. The people, grass roots Palestinian leaders who are dedicated and relentless.

“The past trumps the present in Israel – a state that

wants to eliminate the existence of people who live on

their land to solidify the myth of a glorious past.”

In East Jerusalem, just outside the walled old city and not far from the Jewish Quarter, sits the neighborhood of Silwan with close to 50,000 residents. Israel wants to expel families from Silwan in order to build an archeological park that glorifies its Jewish past. They claim that king David built a city there some 3000 years ago and they hope to find the remnants of this city under the homes of the people of Silwan. Thousands of families may have to leave so that Israel can build a park to glorify a conquest that took place 3000 years ago, never mind that not a shred of scientific evidence exists that such a king ever lived, any more than there is evidence the world was created in 6 days. The past trumps the present in Israel – a state that wants to eliminate the existence of people who live on their land to solidify the myth of a glorious past.

But the Palestinians constantly and stubbornly interfere with the Zionist myth making and so the Palestinians, men, women, children and the elderly along with their schools and mosques, churches and ancient cemeteries and all evidence of their existence must be destroyed so that Zionist claims to exclusive rights to the land may be substantiated.
So, those of you who wish to associate yourself with Zionism and AIPAC and drape yourselves in the Zionist flag, the flag that has come to symbolize intolerance, hate, racism and brutality, feel free to do so. But know this: When the trials begin, when the tribunals take their seat, when the “truth and reconciliation” commission begins its work and when you are finally shamed into admitting that you are wrong, remember to go down on your knees and beg for forgiveness of the people you so blatantly wronged. You will not be able to claim that you “did not know” because we watched you dance as others were counting their dead. Remember and never forget that you and I and these witnesses were here today. Because I will not forget you, they will not forget you and worst of all, your conscience will not let you forget that you draped yourself in the flag, you supported the killing and you mocked the bereaved.

The rest of us will move on, and along with the rest of the Middle East we will follow the example of the brave people of Egypt to create what will surely be tremendous accomplishment: A democratic, secular state in our shared homeland, A state where Muslims Christians and Jews live as equals. A shared state, a secular democracy, where every vote counts and people raise their children to love their diverse homeland with its multitude of cultures, its rich history and its promising future. It is true that there is a misguided assumption that sharing the land means nations have to be enemies but that is not true. Israelis and Palestinian will join together in their shared homeland and form something that is greater than the sum of its parts. Thank you very much.

(Courtesy: Miko Peled – Tear Down The Wall)

http://mikopeled.com/2011/03/30/my-speech-for-palestine-awareness-week-at-sdsu/

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