28 November 2015

APARTHEID ISRAEL AND ITS ACTIONS OF EXTREMITY APPROACHING GENOCIDE

Madness in Hebron: Hashem Had No Enemies, Yet Hashem Was Hated


He gently took my hand. Almost caressed it, wishing to know how I felt. His gaze created intimacy. His eyes were kind. Both his handshake and his eyes were tender, tender but penetrating. I knew, knew immediately that he had experienced something. Something that had affected him deeply.

I had had to climb over the wall from his neighbor. It was partially dismounted. There was no longer a path to the house. Everything was blocked. Directly behind the house, on top of a small hill, was a long house. Israeli flags were draping the windows. I saw a man sitting with an automatic weapon. We looked at each other. He did not seem to like my presence. He was an Israeli settler. He was my host’s neighbor.

Within a few meters; one who tries to steal the land and homes, another who just wants to remain. Stay in the house that had been his family home for so long. The settler with the automatic weapon, on the other hand, had not lived there for very long. They came and went. Many did not stay long.

Hashem had no enemies. But Hashem was hated, hated by the settlers. Right here, they were planning to continue the expansion. Could wait but did not want to wait too long. It was like different groups of criminal settlers were competing against each other. To win meant to be the one who expanded the fastest. But Hashem’s house was in the way.

Hashem’s wife Nisreen welcomes me. While she tells me how they had broken the window last night, Hashem sets the table. Nisreen is carrying a little girl. The family is growing. I see that she is not comfortable talking about last night’s events. It had been a large group. They had been loud. It was the neighbors, up on the hill, just behind the house. They had broken the window and woken up the whole family. She told me with a sad voice that there was no one to call; the Israeli soldiers would not come in the middle of the night to ward off the settlers. They would not come during the day either. They never came.

Her neighbor at the front had also been hit. They did not dare to go outside either. They only had one another and the two families tried to support each other.

We sit at the table. Hashem begins to talk about the destroyed grapevines and olive trees. Nisreen sits beside him. Has her hand on his shoulder. Supporting him. Now the worry is gone. Sometimes she fills in. Adds where Hashem forgets or misses something important. That time they had also come during the night. The family had a few grapevines and olive trees along the path between the house and the wall. One morning they were all cut off. The roots remained as well as the crowns but in between there was a small gap. One can kill in many ways. The settlers use all the means at their disposal.

Some young settler girls came a few nights ago. They rushed toward the house. Shouted ‘whore’ at Nisreen and ‘bastards’ at her children. They screamed like maniacs. For a while, they were on all sides. In the morning, Hashem started clearing up. Washed the walls clean of feces. They had painted Stars of David on the doors. As he cleaned the path leading to the door, with the sawed off olive trees and grapevines on one side, they continued to throw garbage and feces.

When we sit at the table we see a woman and a man, a wife and husband who are so fused together that nothing can come between them. They are committed to each other and for their right to live in their own house. They are very alone where they are sitting. I can see dignity, I can feel dignity. For a moment, I am envious of their inner strength. Not of anything else.

I listen, taking in every word, every movement. There is a calm in the room. We share the bread that Nisreen has just baked. It is warm. Warm like the warmth of being together. There is a constant stream of people to this table. We come from all over the world. It will be a meal that stays within all of us. That transforms.

I think about the crazy people who are allowed to continue doing what they are doing. That a few hundred individuals are protected by thousands of soldiers. It becomes so clear that they should not be here. No settlers, no Israeli soldiers. Large parts of the Israeli project are illegal. Violate normal human relations.

Nor should trees be cut down or burned. We do not like to see feces on doors. Within me, I become deeply sad when I see a Star of David in the wrong place. I do not understand how someone can come up with the idea of painting this particular symbol on a Palestinian home.

For all of us who had the privilege of visiting Hashem and his family, what was going on there and is allowed to continue was incomprehensible. It still continues while country after country intensifies their relations with the occupying power.

More than twenty years ago, apartheid ended in South Africa. We thought, then, that it would never return. We were wrong. In Palestine, apartheid deepens day by day, and virtually all western countries allow it to continue. And on each bullet that is used to oppress and degrade Palestinians, there is an invisible dollar sign.

 A flow of huge amounts of dollars are transferred to Israeli bank accounts so that the oppression in Hebron and other places can continue.

A few days ago, Hashem was killed. Hashem did not come home and his wife today mourns her beloved husband. His three children, the eldest of whom is 13 years old, do not understand why their father is never coming back.

In the house above theirs, they can hear celebration. Victory songs are being sung while continuing to shout ‘whore’ and ‘bastards’. The soldiers look away. Let the crazy people continue to be crazy. The international community also lets the madmen continue. No obligations are placed on Netanyahu to end the occupation. The criminals are fully protected.

Yesterday, a 73‐year old woman was killed. She was driving her car in Hebron, on her way to lunch. An 11‐second movie is published on the web. An Israeli soldier seems to have had enough. Perhaps he has witnessed far too much of the madness. Nobody knows.

I know that many murderers are on the loose in Hebron. Innocent people are being killed. Sometimes you get killed while driving past some Israeli soldiers, or while opposing the illegal occupation, the ongoing colonization of Palestine, or you are killed while questioning the Israeli oppression, an oppression that has led to apartheid.

Palestinians have been deprived of their human rights. To resist is a crime.





16 November 2015

THE TERRORISM ROUTINE: PARIS, HERE WE GO AGAIN - ARTICLE FROM COUNTERPUNCH


The Terrorism Routine: Paris, Here We Go Again



Every time a mass killing occurs, the nation and the media go through a by-now well-worn routine. First, there is the expressed shock by the media, who are soon on the scene. If it is a large enough killing, Obama gets into the act by putting on an air of righteousness and condemning it (a lot of condemnations by now from him, to no avail). Then there is a minute by minute description of what is going on, particularly wall-to-wall filming of police actions. Then eyewitnesses are sought to describe the panic and carnage and their tales of how they managed to survive. If it is a large enough slaughter, “terrorism experts” are brought onto the talking head television screen, but not even one person is included who would contradict them (in our so-called democracy where there is supposedly freedom of speech).

Soon after that the networks are on the search for some sort of heroes, those who did something to further avert or to diminish “what could have been a larger tragedy.” Law enforcement is likewise depicted in a warm-hearted way as saviors, though they did not prevent anything (just as ordinarily they do not prevent crime in society yet they do attack Blacks, Hispanics, poor Whites, etc., but are lauded nonetheless) and are there after the fact walking or running around, with patrol lights flashing everywhere. In the workplace around the water cooler the talk is of “Did you hear about…? How awful!” Soon arrive the flowers and wreaths on the scene of the victimizations and other somber ceremonies very solemnly portrayed on TV.

Never in all these hundreds of 24/7 hours is anyone asking about our perpetration of terrorism in the Middle East and elsewhere, where we have slaughtered millions from at least the Vietnam War onward, and certainly no one discusses what the CIA itself refers to as the predictable and consequent “blowback.” The U.S. itself created ISIS, just as we did Osama bin Laden and just as we are at this very moment using terrorists such as al Nusra and others to attack Syria and elsewhere and the Contras to attack Nicaragua some time before that, and on and on ad nauseam. Obviously we do not much discuss what we can do or could have done constructively that is different than our going to those countries to blow up people without any compunction or conscience even though we claim to be Christian. In a word, we only use the word “carnage” to refer to when they punch us back.

Simply, a ten-year old understands that when he or she is punched, he or she will likely reciprocate. However, there are some of us who sometimes analyze these situations and we wind up saying that we never seem to learn. We are not going to learn. How is anyone going to learn anything when the U.S. objective is material, to get their oil and other resources or to further our corporate interests? The public is not going to learn when we don’t care about the carnage we have been inflicting on others, since there is not even a cursory discussion of such, and there is not going to be, as you will see.

During the television coverage of Paris, a number of commercials interspersed in it were saturated with the blood and gore of upcoming movies, and it should go without saying that so is American life overall in practically any and all aspects, from murders to employer violence (my own father died from the practice of employer violence) against workers causing death and destruction to domestic violence to sexual assault, and so forth. This is not to mention the extensive 24/7 violence throughout our history against Blacks, Hispanics, poor Whites, women, etc.

Clearly the media that most people watch is not going to help viewers when in fact such media are sponsored by the very oil companies and others who are contractors making billions from war profiteering, and do not expect such media to bite the hand that feeds them millions of dollars. As just one example, the anchor Anderson Cooper himself was with the CIA. Is anyone expecting for the word “blowback” to cross his lips? The countless people we have killed and are killing we do not deem worthy of wall-to-wall coverage here.

 No one here is going to shed tears and say “how awful” in regard to the carnage we inflict on others. No one here is going to go lay a wreath at the site where we blew people up. The entire routine thus continues.
Jose Martinez is a university professor.

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90 years old, political gay activist, hosting two web sites, one personal: http://www.red-jos.net one shared with my partner, 94-year-old Ken Lovett: http://www.josken.net and also this blog. The blog now has an alphabetical index: http://www.red-jos.net/alpha3.htm

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