[Peace-discuss] Re: [Peace] Proposed Flier for Saturday

[Karen Medina]

I agree with Carl's statement that we need to point out the US guilt
in all this. Without this point clearly made, the flier will be too
easy to dismiss. -karen medina

> no mention of the US government's responsibility (and hence ours).
>>> The crimes detailed on the recto (with the exception of the first) would
>>> be impossible without US permission and support.
>>>
>>> It will be dismissed by pro-war types as anti-semitic.

What If Israel Were in Your
Neighborhood?
! In 1948, Israel drove Palestinians from their homes into the Gaza Strip.
! In 1967, Israel occupied and colonized Gaza.
! In 2005, Israel withdrew its soldiers and colonists, but retained total
control of the air, sea, and land. More than one and a half million
Palestinians were imprisoned in Gaza.
! For over two years, the Israeli military often withheld food, medicine,
fuel, electricity, and drinking water.
! Israel broke a five-month truce on November 4, 2008 raiding the Gaza
Strip and killing a Palestinian. Hamas retaliated with rocket fire. Israel
then killed five more Palestinians.
! The periodic hostilities between 2002 and the December 27, 2008
invasion by Israel caused about two dozen Israeli deaths.
! During roughly the same period, Israeli forces killed about 2,700
Palestinians in Gaza by assassinations, aerial bombings, and armed
raids.
! Since the December 27 invasion, 13 Israelis have been killed. But more
than 1,300 Palestinians have been killed, including 410 children and
104 women.
! An additional 4,560 Palestinians reportedly have been wounded,
including 1,600 children and 678 women.
! Israel's assault on the Gaza Strip cannot be justified as self-defense.
Under the Nuremberg Principles, as affirmed by U. N. resolution 95, an
unjustified armed attack is aggression, a crime against peace.
If you (or I) were Palestinian
By Yossi Sarid, Haaretz Daily Newspaper, Israel
a candidate for prime minister, (was asked) what he would do had he been born
Palestinian and Barak replied frankly: "I would join a terror organization."
This is not my own answer; terrorism by individuals or organizations
or states is
always aimed at exacting casualties in a civilian population that has
not drawn any
blood. Not only is terror blind - consuming both the saint and the
sinner - it also
expands the circle of the hot-headed, whose blood rises to their
brains: Our blood
is on their heads, their blood is on our heads. And when an account of
the blood of
the innocent is opened, who can pay it in full, and when?
I hate all the terrorists in the world, whatever the purpose of their struggle.
However, I support every active civil revolt against any occupation,
and Israel too
is among the despicable occupiers. Such revolt is both more just and more
effective, and it does not extinguish one's spark of humanity. And
perhaps I'm just
too much of an old codger to be a terrorist.
But, and pay attention to this but, if a normative young person has a
spontaneous
answer that is different from mine, and that answer also escaped the mouth of an
Israeli lieutenant general, then every individual must see himself as
though his son
is running with the wrong crowd. If things were the other way around, our
son-whom-we-loved would be a damned terrorist, almost certainly, because he is
of the third and fourth generation of refugeehood and oppression, and whence
cometh salvation? He has nothing to lose but his chains.
Whereas we, his mother and father, would be weeping for the departing son
because he will never return to see the land of his birth and us, except in his
photograph on the wall as a shahid, a martyr. Would we detain him before he
carries out his plan? Would we be able to hold him back if we wanted to? Would
we not understand what he is feeling? What Ehud Barak understood in his day -
would that be impossible for us to understand?
Young people who have no future will easily give up their future,
which they can't
see on the horizon. Their past as guttersnipes and their present as cursed
unemployed idlers lock the opening to their hope: Their death is
better than their
life, and their death is even better than our life, as their
oppressors - that is how
they feel. From the day they are born to the day they leave this
earth, they see their
land ahead, to which they will not come as free people.
There are no good and bad peoples; there are only leaderships that behave
responsibly or insanely. And now we are fighting those whom a goodly number of
us would be like, had we been in their place for 41 and a half years.