[Peace-discuss] Fwd: Haaretz: "If if were the reverse"

[Alfred Kagan]

>Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2004 09:59:24 -0400
>To: SRRT Action Council <srrtac-l at ala.org>
>From: MCR <iskra at earthlink.net>
>Subject: [SRRTAC-L:14447] Fwd: Haaretz: "If if were the reverse"
>Reply-To: srrtac-l at ala.org
>Sender: owner-srrtac-l at ala.org
>
>The following is a remarkably revealing editorial appearing in the 
>Israeli newspaper Ha'retz. It was sent to me by the American 
>Humanist Society's "elibrarian" , Mary Beaty.
>
>It is for informational purposes only, but it puts many things in perspective.
>
>Mark Rosenzweig
>==========================================
>
>>Status:  U
>>From: "elibrarian \(earthlink\)
>>Subject: Haaretz: "If if were the reverse"
>>Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2004 08:46:15 -0400
>>
>>This is (to me) an astonishing editorial.
>>I have always felt that we should hear from Israelis
>>themselves on the IDF and the Wall and the Occupation -
>>the rest of us, even Tikkun, are outsiders, really.
>>
>>So I find this article from Haaretz in Jerusalem
>>written by an Israeli to be so remarkable I have
>>sent it to the ADL. - M
>>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`
>>
>>"If it were the reverse"
>>======================
>>By Gideon Levy
>>Haaretz
>>18 July 2004
>>
>>What would happen if a Palestinian terrorist were to
>>detonate a bomb at the entrance to an apartment
>>building in Israel and cause the death of an elderly
>>man in a wheelchair, who would later be found buried
>>under the rubble of the building? The country would be
>>profoundly shocked. Everyone would talk about the
>>sickening cruelty of the act and its perpetrators. The
>>shock would be even greater if it then turned out that
>>the dead man's wife had tried to dissuade the terrorist
>>from blowing up the house, telling him that there were
>>people inside, but to no avail. The tabloids would come
>>out with the usual screaming headline: "Buried alive in
>>his wheelchair." The terrorists would be branded
>>"animals."
>>
>>Last Monday, Israel Defense Forces bulldozers in Khan
>>Yunis, in the Gaza Strip, demolished the home of
>>Ibrahim Halfalla, a 75-year-old disabled man and father
>>of seven, and buried him alive. Umm-Basel, his wife,
>>says she tried to stop the driver of the heavy machine
>>by shouting, but he paid her no heed. The IDF termed
>>the act "a mistake that shouldn't have happened," and
>>the incident was noted in passing in Israel. The
>>country's largest-circulation paper, Yedioth Ahronoth,
>>didn't bother to run the story at all. The blood libel
>>in France - a woman's dramatic tale of being subjected
>>to an anti-Semitic attack, which later turned out to be
>>fiction - proved a great deal more upsetting to people.
>>There we thought the assault was aimed against our
>>people. But when the IDF bulldozes a disabled
>>Palestinian to death? Not a story. Just like the
>>killing, under the rubble of her home, of Noha
>>Maqadama, a woman in her ninth month of pregnancy,
>>before the eyes of her husband and children, in El
>>Boureij refugee camp a few months earlier.
>>
>>And what would happen if a Palestinian were to shoot an
>>Israeli university lecturer and his son in front of his
>>wife and their young son? That's what happened 10 days
>>ago in the case of Dr. Salem Khaled, from Nablus, who
>>called to the soldiers from the window of his house
>>because he was a man of peace and the front door had
>>jammed, so he couldn't get out. The soldiers shot him
>>to death and then killed his 16-year-old son before the
>>eyes of his mother and his 11-year-old brother. It's
>>not hard to imagine how we would react to the story if
>>the victims were ours.
>>
>>But when we're implicated and the victims are
>>Palestinians, we prefer to avert our eyes, not to know,
>>not to take an interest and certainly not to be
>>shocked. Palestinian victims - and their numbers, as
>>everyone knows, are far greater than ours - don't even
>>merit newspaper reports, not even when the chain of
>>events is particularly brutal, as in the examples
>>above. This is not an intellectual exercise, but an
>>attempt to demonstrate the concealment of information,
>>the double morality and the hypocrisy. The indifference
>>to these two very recent incidents proved again that in
>>our eyes there is only one victim and all the others
>>will never be considered victims.
>>
>>If a European cabinet minister were to declare, "I
>>don't want these long-nosed Jews to serve me in
>>restaurants," all of Europe would be up in arms and
>>this would be the minister's last comment as a
>>minister. Three years ago, our former labor and social
>>affairs minister, Shlomo Benizri, from Shas, stated: "I
>>can't understand why slanty-eyed types should be the
>>ones to serve me in restaurants." Nothing happened. We
>>are allowed to be racists. And if a European government
>>were to announce that Jews are not permitted to attend
>>Christian schools? The Jewish world would rise up in
>>protest. But when our Education Ministry announces that
>>it will not permit Arabs to attend Jewish schools in
>>Haifa, it's not considered racism. Only in Israel could
>>this not be labeled racist. The heritage of Golda Meir
>>- it was she who said that after what the Nazis did to
>>us, we can do whatever we want - is now having a late
>>and unfortunate revival.
>>
>>What would happen if a certain country were to enact
>>legislation forbidding members of a particular nation
>>to become citizens there, no matter what the
>>circumstances, including mixed couples who married and
>>raised families? No country anywhere enacts laws like
>>these nowadays. Apart from Israel. If the cabinet
>>extends the validity of the new Citizenship Law today,
>>Palestinians will not be able to undergo naturalization
>>here, even if they are married to Israelis. We have the
>>right, you see. And if the illegal Israeli immigrants
>>in the United States were hunted down like animals in
>>the dark of night, the way the Immigration Police do
>>here, would we have a better understanding of the
>>injustice we are doing to a community that wants
>>nothing other than to work here?
>>
>>What would we say if the parents of Israeli emigrants
>>were separated from their children and deported,
>>without having available any avenue of naturalization,
>>no matter what the circumstances? And how would we
>>classify a country that interrogates visitors about
>>their political opinions as soon as they disembark from
>>the plane at the airport and bars them from entering it
>>the security authorities look askance at the opinions
>>they express? What would happen if anti-Semites in
>>France were to poison the drinking water of a Jewish
>>neighborhood? Last week settlers poisoned a well at
>>Atawana, in the southern Mount Hebron region, and the
>>police are investigating.
>>
>>And we still haven't said anything about a country that
>>would imprison another nation, or about a regime that
>>would prevent access to medical treatment for some of
>>its subjects, according to its national identity, about
>>roads that would be open only to the members of one
>>nation or about an airport that would be closed to the
>>other nation. All this is happening in Israel and is
>>pulling from under us the moral ground that makes it
>>possible for us to complain about racism and anti-
>>Semitism abroad, even when they actually erupt.
>>
>>http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/452564.html
>>
>>Mary Beaty   UN NGO American Humanist Association
>>777 United Nations Plaza, NY 10017  http://cebo.org
>>---------------------------------------------------
>>~  Quis Custodiet ipsos custodes? ~


-- 


Al Kagan
African Studies Bibliographer and Professor of Library Administration
Africana Unit, Room 328
University of Illinois Library
1408 W. Gregory Drive
Urbana, IL 61801, USA

tel. 217-333-6519
fax. 217-333-2214
e-mail. akagan at uiuc.edu