Rafah Kid Rambles will no longer be an active blog and has merged into the site Rafah Pundits.
I found a link to Uri Avnery’s article How Are You, Non-Violence? in which he imagines a debate between two of the young Palestinians who attended the mass meeting addressed by Arun Gandhi, the grandson of the Mahatma, in Abu-Dis last month.
The mock debaters discuss the 6-months of non-action by Palestinian militants during which Israel has been “enlarging the settlements, putting up new ‘outposts’ and continuing to build the racist wall.”
What change has been effected by the ICC ruling? What good would come of peacefull activism when the leaders of mass demonstrations are cut-down by Israeli snipers? As one of the arguments in Avnery’s piece goes, had it not been for the presence of Gandhi and Israeli witnesses, the people who scaled the wall during the meeting would have been shot down only to be described as terrorists by the Israeli army later on.
The article ends with Avnery’s own thoughts:
There are people amongst us who are ready for a compromise peace but have been led to believe that “there is no one we can talk with”, because “they” don’t want peace but seek to annihilate us. But we must understand that Palestinian violence, which causes so much bloodshed, is the predictable result of our cutting off every other road in front of them.
I am convinced that it is possible to put an end to violence in our country – if we offer the Palestinian people an alternative, non-violent way of achieving freedom and justice.
Anyone who believes that a wall will succeed in stopping suicide attacks might as well rely on the amulets of Kabbalist rabbis.
As newsmakers this week concentrate on the American press and its failings the issue of Israel and the horrendously one-sided coverage of the conflict will rarely, if at all, be cited amongst the chief complaints.
Consider this exceptional speech given by Bill Moyers to a Society of Professional Journalists conference on Sept. 11, 2004. He mentions Israel only in the context of its relationship with fundamentalist Christians who have recently rallied to the cause of Zionism, as they’ve been led to the trough of understanding the madness is a prophecy of the Book of Revelations, and since accepting this theory have been exerting their power and influence over politicians in Washington to continue giving their unconditional support to Israel. That example does nothing to explain the years upon years of biased reporting on this situation. He ends the speech with a nod to Martha Gellhorn, an outstanding journalist who took a lot of hits for her coverage of the Vietnam War for being too antiwar, but was embraced for her Zionism and known to be a passionate Arab-hater.
There are numerous talking points coming from both parties that leave my threshhold of calm and serenity awash in nauseous waves of Ivan-like intensity but the foulest is that we’re installing a model of democracy for the whole of the Middle East in Iraq.
Thanks to the press most Americans aren’t aware of how miserably we’ve failed to support and defend democratic principles in Israel. Iraq, which looks more and more like occupied Palestine every day, will be a failure as well and the press, for the most part, is either actively engaged in propogating myths and distortions or missing in action.
Moyers commented that Americans who thought the press shouldn’t have reported on the abuse occurring at Abu Ghraib “don’t want the facts to disturb their belief system about American exceptionalism.”
Americans need to understand that no one from the left or right of the mainstream press, the gov’t, or your friends and neighbors thanks to those institutions, will be rushing to enlighten you on the extent of our non-exceptionalism and our complete disregard for the human rights of Palestinians but ignorance is not an excuse.
The neocons and Israel are itching to do to Iran what we’ve done to Iraq. In his role as sock-puppet for the Cheney/Rumsfeld gov’t that planned this all along including shirking the blame when it fails George announced they will be diverting reconstruction funds to the military despite many Iraqis still going without electricity. When will the lights go on in America?