Palestine
Series: 3/4
Due To Deception, Injustice, Conspiracy & Betrayal
By The World Powers,
(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:
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
March 30, 2011
My Speech
for
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
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.
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 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
11:30 AM 800,000
children of Gaza
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
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
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.
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)
***********
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