By Steve Halpern
This past week the world learned of a raid organized by Palestinians living in the Israeli Occupied Territory, known as the Gaza Strip. The political organization Hamas took responsibility for that raid. Those Palestinians who allied themselves with Hamas broke through the wall separating the Gaza Strip from Israel. They then murdered hundreds of civilians and kidnapped over one-hundred hostages.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallat responded to that raid arguing that Israel is fighting "human animals." Gallat backed up his words by organizing the bombing of the 2.3 million people who live in the Gaza Strip. He also cut off the two roads that supply those 2.3 million people with supplies.
Today the Israeli government is denying the residents of Gaza food, water, and electricity. We might consider that the German Nazis who were led by Adolf Hitler murdered six million Jews. However, before those Jews were murdered, the Nazis gave them small amounts of food and water.
In the United States there are laws against cruelty to animals. Consciously denying food and water to animals is a crime in this country. So, Mr. Gallat believes that the Palestinian people do not deserve the same treatment as animals.
Gallat's father, Michael, fought the Nazis as a partisan in Belarus. In my opinion, Micheal Gallat's efforts in those years were heroic. The film Defiance is a nice portrayal of the Jewish guerilla struggle against the Nazis at that time.
Then, Michael Gallat came to Palestine in 1948 and joined in the Israeli armed forces that drove about 700,000 Palestinians from their homeland. In my opinion, while Michael Gallat's struggle against the Nazis was heroic, his effort to rob Palestinians of their homeland was criminal. Michael Gallat named his son Yoav after an Israeli military operation carried out against Egypt in 1948.
While Yoav Gallat labels Palestinians as "animals" he is the Defense Minister of a government that has been occupying the Gaza Strip and the West Bank for decades. The residents of those occupied territories do not have the right to vote in Israeli elections. Yet the entire Israeli government claims that Israel is a "democracy."
People all over the world are asking a basic question. How and why did the Israeli and Palestinian people come to this catastrophic place in history? In this blog, I will ask a different question. How and why did people who live all over the world come to this catastrophic place in history?
In looking at this question, I will explore events that the international press has ignored when reporting on these events.
The Declaration of Independence—July 4, 1776
The Declaration of Independence was written by the former President Thomas Jefferson, who was also a slave owner. This Declaration was a list of grievances people in the thirteen colonies had against the British. Those grievances provoked the colonists into armed revolution.
One of those grievances was the idea that the British had given support to "merciless Indian Savages."
So, Jefferson viewed Native Americans as "Savages." He also supported the laws that made African Americans chattel slaves. Yet in his Declaration he also argued that,
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."
Then Jefferson wrote the words that I believe continue to be relevant today.
"Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and provide new Guards for their future security."
The 100 years war against Native Americans
Clearly the so-called "founding fathers" of this country didn't really believe that all men had "certain unalienable rights." The facts are that the wars against the First Nations of this country took place from the time of the so-called American Revolution to the massacre at Wounded Knee in South Dakota, over a span of more than 100 years.
During the war of 1812, the Shawnee people sided with the British against the United States government. Their leader was Tecumseh.
Tecumseh was repulsed by Native Americans who abused prisoners and said he would not fight with anyone who mistreated prisoners.
The Shawnee held prisoners from the United States during the war of 1812. Those prisoners testified that they were treated well when they were detained by the Shawnee. Those prisoners clearly disagreed with Thomas Jefferson when he argued that Native Americans were "merciless Indian Savages."
38 Nooses
Scott W. Berg wrote a book titled 38 Nooses. This book documents the story behind President Abraham Lincoln's order to execute 38 people from the Dakota nation.
The Dakota people had been self-sufficient for generations. However, when farmers began moving into Southern Minnesota, Dakota leaders signed a treaty with the government. They would no longer be able to hunt, fish, and farm for the food they needed. The government would provide allotments of food that would allow them to survive. However, in the 1860s that wasn't happening.
So, the Dakota met with Andrew Myrick, the agent who was charged with supplying the Dakota with allotments of food. Myrick had been selling that food so he could enrich himself. When the Dakota met with Myrick he had access to ample amounts of food.
Little Crow was the leader of the Dakota and he informed Myrick that his people were starving and he would like some of the food that his people had been promised.
Myrick answered that Little Crow and the Dakota could "Eat grass."
The Dakota didn't immediately respond to those words. They had a meeting and discussed their options. They clearly could have starved to death. Or they could go to war and get the food that they were supposed to have because of a treaty with the United States government. They chose to go to war. In fact, when a nation violates a treaty, this is an act of war.
The farmers in Minnesota resisted when the Dakota mobilized to confiscate food. In all, the Dakota murdered about 400 people in southern Minnesota. After the United States Army defeated and captured the Dakota, the prisoners were put on trial. According to the Constitution people are supposed to have a trial when they are accused of a crime. However, the Constitution doesn't say that those trials need to be conducted in a language that defendants can understand.
The trials of the Dakota were held in English, a language most of the Dakota didn't understand. Those trials were fast-tracked and took about ten minutes. Initially the military ordered executions of 303 Dakota. However, Lincoln reduced that number and ordered the execution of 38. Lincoln felt the need to order those executions because he wanted votes from Minnesota in the upcoming elections.
During the Civil War, General Ulysses S. Grant needed to find a way to feed the troops under his command. Grant confiscated food from farmers who supported his enemy the Confederacy. If those farmers resisted those confiscations, they were executed.
Military historians viewed that policy by General Grant as brilliant. Grant would be elected to be President of the United States. For carrying out a similar policy, the Dakota received 38 nooses.
The Montgomery Bus Boycott
In the year 1954 Rosa Parks refused to sit in the back of a municipal bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Police officers arrested Parks for violating the Jim Crow laws of those years. Then for 385 days the Black people of Montgomery refused to ride on the busses in that city. As a result of those actions, the government reversed the law and Black people won the right to sit anywhere they wanted on those buses.
We might consider that the people who supported the Montgomery Bus Boycott engaged in a nonviolent action. We might also consider that the Black people who lived in Montgomery in those years had advantages that the people who live in the Gaza Strip today do not have.
While there was tremendous repression, a viable leadership emerged that worked to organize the boycott. While Back people in those years didn't have basic rights, they had access to jobs, food, housing, and water. People living in the Gaza Strip today do not have access to those things.
America on Fire
I was born and raised in Newark, New Jersey. In 1967 I was fourteen-years-old. That was the year a rebellion erupted in the city. Black people were experiencing systematic racist discrimination. There was routine police brutality. When the police brutalized a taxi driver by the name of John Smith the city erupted in protest.
The governor ordered the National Guard to occupy Newark. The Guard proceeded to murder about 24 tax paying residents. Three of those murdered were children.
Elizabeth Hinton wrote an important book titled America On Fire. At the end of her book, Hinton has a seventy page list of rebellions that took place over a twenty year period by the Black community protesting racist police brutality. The 1967 rebellion in Newark was one of the rebellions on that 70 page list.
The author James Baldwin explained why those rebellions erupted. This explanation echoed the idea Ralph Ellison wrote about in his novel The Invisible Man.
Baldwin argued that when a young Black person steals a television from a store she or he doesn't really want that television. What these people are saying is that they are not invisible and that they do indeed exist.
Again, we need to compare the experience of people who participated in those rebellions to the experience of people who live in the Gaza Strip today. While those people lived in an institutionalized racist country, they had access to jobs, food, water, and the right to vote. People who live in the Gaza Strip do not have these things.
September 11, 2001
On September 11, 2001, hijackers took control of commercial jets and flew those jets into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Those actions caused the deaths of over 3,000 people. Thousands more suffered life-changing injuries.
Unlike the bombings of Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, the world witnessed the utter horror of those actions. People from around the world mourned the deaths of those who had been murdered. Many people became understandably enraged by those actions. The United States government used those murders as a pretext to go to war against the people of Iraq and Afghanistan.
When a reporter asked Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld why the United States was using cluster bombs in those wars, he gave the following response.
The U.S. used cluster bombs "because they kill people."
516 people murdered in Philadelphia in 2022
In the year 2022, 516 people lost their lives because of murders in Philadelphia. I've seen masked teenagers fire indiscriminately in videos displayed by the news media in the city.
We might also think about the fact that many young people today have feelings of hopelessness. While there are available jobs, those jobs oftentimes do not pay enough for people to afford astronomical rents, tuition fees, or to raise families.
So, under those conditions many resort to drugs and or crime. Today, Philadelphia is a center for a billion dollar illegal drug business. Many young people who do not see a viable future and resort to selling drugs. With the competition for selling those drugs, there is violence.
Today the United States has more prisoners than any nation in the world. Because people are desperate to stay out of prison, there is more violence.
Yet, the United States is a wealthy country and there are resources to completely eliminate poverty. However, because we live in a capitalist system, the priority is corporate profits and not the needs of the 340 million people who pay taxes in this country.
The recent events in Israel and the Gaza Strip
Recently there were mass demonstration in Israel protesting Benjamin Netanyahu's effort to strip the judicial authorities in the country of their power. In effect, Netanyahu would like to be King of Israel where his personal authority would be the law of the land.
Then there was the raid by Palestinians that the news media labels as supporters of the political organization Hamas. Many of the leaders of Hamas do not live in the Gaza Strip. Israel doesn't want those leaders in Gaza and those leaders undoubtedly prefer to live outside Gaza, as place that has been labeled as an "outdoor prison."
However, 2.3 million people do live in the Gaza Strip. 50% do not have jobs. 50% do not have a sufficient amount of food. 90% of the population doesn't have access to clean water. Although the Gaza Strip is an Occupied Territory of the state of Israel, the people of Gaza do not have a right to vote in Israeli elections. Because of the repressive measures used by Hamas, it is extremely difficult for the people of Gaza to organize an independent political movement that challenges Israeli repression.
In a series of wars, the Israeli Air Force has bombed the people of Gaza causing thousands of deaths. The children of Gaza might be the most traumatized in the world. Most, no doubt, have friends or family members who were murdered, injured, or spent time in Israeli prisons.
So, in Gaza there is a considerable amount of rage. Clearly most people living in that area do not engage in terrorist actions. However, many people do engage in terrorist suicide missions.
The Palestinian raid into Israel has effectively eliminated most opposition to the Netanyahu dictatorship. In the past, President Joe Biden expressed criticism of the Israeli moves to compromise their judiciary. Now Biden says that he has Israel's back. He's supported that statement by sending warships to Israeli waters. In effect President Joe Biden, as well as governments in many countries have given their full endorsement to the unfolding genocide against the Palestinian people.
Clearly I'm opposed to the murders and kidnapping of Israeli civilians. However, the war that Israel is carrying out today will certainly lead to unimaginable horror. That war will escalate and the ultimate outcome will be both horrific and unpredictable.
Israel can end this war tomorrow
My opinion is that the Israeli government has the power to end this war tomorrow. How can this happen?
Today there are over 200,000 Palestinians who live in the United States. Those Palestinians have the right to own homes in any part of this country. They have the right to travel to any part of this country. They have the right to vote in national elections. They can get jobs where they can have enough money to purchase food and housing. They have access to clean water.
Palestinians who live in the Gaza Strip do not have the right to any of these things. My opinion is that we need to demand that the Israeli government immediately give every Palestinian who lives in the world the right to all these things. But first we need to demand an end to this criminal war.
We should keep in mind that according to Israeli law, Jewish people who live in any nation in the world have a right to Israeli citizenship. That right needs to be extended to every Palestinian who lives in the world.
Many people will view these demands as outrageous. My answer to those people is to ask the question. What kind of world do you want to live in?
My parents lived at a time when the Nazis murdered six million Jews. Those Jews didn't have the weapons to defend themselves against that holocaust.
Today, the Palestinian people are facing a similar holocaust initiated by someone who would like to view himself as King Benjamin Netanyahu.
The Nazis thought they had the power to murder six million Jews and get away with it. Then the Second World War erupted and sixty-seven million people died.
Today Israel is one of many nations that has access to atomic bombs. These are things we need to think about. We need to do whatever is necessary to stop this genocidal war against the Palestinian people.
No comments:
Post a Comment