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The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is an example of an oppressor-oppressed situation. Only the naïve, biased, ignorant or the immensely brainwashed would not be able to see who the oppressor is and who the oppressed are. The simple fact is that the Israeli government and army have taken and are still taking the lands of the Palestinians away from them. This has happened despite numerous UN accords which the Israelis have consistently ignored – hence Israel has been repeated violating International Law. Settlements are being built in Palestinian-owned land (over 40 new ones over the last year). Often these settlements are built after the unjust bulldozing of Palestinian homes. Many have been made homeless, landless and jobless as a result of the illegal Israeli occupation of their land. If this level of injustice does not create desperate conditions – then what level does?
How would you feel if you were told that the once-prosperous land of your people for over a thousand years was suddenly taken away from you by the British and Americans and given to another group of people, with only a few tiny chunks left for you? Then, this group of people does nothing to recompense you. You see every day travelling to and from school the difference between the poverty-infested desolation that is the occupied territories and the developed rest of Israel. Then these oppressors start bulldozing your house. You have to build it again, they bulldoze it again. Their settlements start propping up in your people’s territory. And then you hear the “enemy” talking about the mass ethnic cleansing of your people. Your young friend throws stones at the Israeli army. They shoot him dead. A bomb meant to destroy a military outpost hits your cousins’ house and she as well as her two younger sisters die. How would you feel?
The Palestinian people have a deep wound caused by the exodus from Palestine, the horrors of massacre and exile and the numerous refugees created. All these are recognized in UN and International Law but attempts by the Palestinians to rebuild after their losses have repeatedly been ensnared by more and more Israeli concessions. The massacres mentioned have been carried out since 1945 and although in the early cases the Palestinians were at fault as they chose to go to war, in the early 1970s there were thousands of murders which seem to the Palestinians simply for the aims of the Zionist dream of Israeli expansion. These are still cemented in the bitter memories of many Palestinians:
The main example of a massacre carried out by the Israel security forces that continually haunts many Palestinians to this day is the Sabra and Shatila large-scale massacre of Palestinian civilians. Other than the death of thousands of innocent Palestinians, this made some Palestinians certain that they are being targeted because of their national origin. Thomas Friedman, a pro-Israeli American journalist, stated, “Afterward, the Israeli soldiers would claim they did not know what was happening in the camps. They did not hear the screams and shouts of people being massacred. They did not see the wanton murder of innocents through their telescopic binoculars. Had they seen, they would have stopped it immediately. All of this is true. The Israeli soldiers did not see innocent civilians being massacred and they did not hear the screams of innocent children going to their graves. What they saw was a “terrorist infestation” being “mopped up” and “terrorist nurses” scurrying about and “terrorist teenagers” trying to defend them, and what they heard were “terrorist women” screaming. In the Israeli psyche you don’t come to the rescue of “terrorists.” There is no such thing as “terrorists” being massacred. Many Israelis had so dehumanised the Palestinians in their own minds and had so intimately equated the words “Palestinian,” “PLO,” and “terrorists” on their radio and television for so long, actually referring to “terrorist tanks” and “terrorist hospitals,” that they simply lost track of the distinction between Palestinian fighters and Palestinian civilians, combatants and non-combatants.” This paints a distressing picture of utter Israeli contempt of the Palestinian people, and under this context there is considerable doubt cast over the “security operations” we witness being carried out today. The numerous disgusting stories of Palestinian babies being trampled to death by Israeli forces, and pregnant women being targeted are surely the stuff of nihilistic fantasy, and whether true or not persist in disturbing many Palestinians. When the current Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, actually calls the Palestinians “two-legged animals”, this point is hammered home to all of us.
Pictures of ambulances and hospitals being bombed by the Israeli army also hugely worry many Palestinians. Even buildings such as schools, orphanages, mosques, churches and refugee camps have been attacked. What is this meant to achieve? What the Israeli government and army are carrying out can only be defined as “state terrorism” – this is not as inherently evil as suicide bombing, but nevertheless causes terror, is hugely unfair and is carried out by the state and hence the phrase has been coined. Israel’s policy of punitive counterattacks sometimes kills anywhere between 50 to 100 Arabs for every Jewish fatality. People who say the Israelis are defending themselves are deluded, as destroying peoples’ homes, building on their land and the disrespect of human lives is unjust in the strongest sense that the word can be used. The Israeli army also has a very poor record of human rights abuses to the Palestinians, including consistent and gross examples of house destructions, maimings and torture of innocent and guilty alike. These are repeatedly mentioned by the UN and a great deal of human rights groups (a number of which are Jewish) but are repeatedly ignored by the Israeli Government. The fact that the Israeli army often refuses foreign reporters to film their actions or give first hand accounts, and have, together with the US, consistently refused to accept UN Peacekeepers to monitor the conflict (whereas the Palestinian Authority has accepted these) shows that there is something very dark lurking in the shadows.
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N Gadd
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Feedback I have received N Gadd | Jun 5th, 2002
After receiving much feedback from many people about this article, I must say that there are a few striking omissions that I have made and these will be addressed before the second version, because I agree with them completely.
Firstly, it is increasingly evident that the first steps for peace have to be taken by the Palestinian Authority and that only when the terror networks are destroyed can anything positive happen.
Also, a very important issue is that in many Palestinian schools there is substantial hate-mongering, and blaming of all of the Palestinians' problems on the Israelis. Clearly the brainwashing of the Palestinian youths is another huge problem.
Looking at both sides, I have also forgotten to mention the dehumanization which allows either side to not feel guilty when they are committing all sorts of crimes. This is much more pronounced in the case of the Palestinian suicide bombers who think they are serving a just cause by murdering innocent civilians, or carrying out actions which are for the greater good, but we must also mention the prominent Israeli politicians such as Ehud Barak who make statements like "all Arabs are liars", a racist dehumanization which is the pretext of so much discrimination.
Other mistakes N Gadd | Jun 5th, 2002
I have been reliably informed by one of my friends who is a Zionist that Zionism is not expansionism (which is what I have equated it with in my essay) but rather the legitimate desire for a safe Israeli homeland. Hence I must apologize for this error.
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