>From: Mazin Qumsiyeh <mbq2@email.med.yale.edu> >Reply-To: mazin.qumsiyeh@yale.edu >To: mazin@al-awda.org >Subject: Free speech? >Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 19:51:58 -0500 >This article was sent to Debbie Ducro, a American-Jewish journalist with >the Kansas City Jewish Chronicle. She published it, and was fired the >next day! > >-------------- > >Quest for Justice", By Judith Stone > >I am a Jew. I was a participant in the Rally for the Right of Return to >Palestine. It was the right thing to do. > >I've heard about the European holocaust against the Jews since I was a >small child. I've visited the memorials in Washington, DC and Jerusalem >dedicated to Jewish lives lost and I've cried at the recognition to what >level of atrocity mankind is capable of sinking. > >Where are the Jews of conscience? No righteous malice can be held >against the survivors of Hitler's holocaust. These fragments of humanity >were in no position to make choices beyond that of personal survival. We >must not >forget that being a survivor or a co-religionist of the victims of the >European Holocaust does not grant dispensation from abiding by the rules >of humanity. > >"Never again" as a motto, rings hollow when it means "never again to us >alone." My generation was raised being led to believe that the biblical >land was a vast desert inhabited by a handful of impoverished >Palestinians living with their camels and eking out a living in the >sand. The arrival of the Jews was touted as a tremendous benefit to >these desert dwellers. Golda Mier even assured us that there "is no >Palestinian problem." > >We know now this picture wasn't as it was painted. Palestine was a land >filled with people who called it home. There were thriving towns and >villages, schools and hospitals. There were Jews, Christians and >Muslims. >In fact, prior to the occupation, Jews represented a mere 7 percent of >the population and owned 3 percent of the land. > >Taking the blinders off for a moment, I see a second atrocity >perpetuated by the very people who should be exquisitely sensitive to >the suffering of others. These people knew what it felt like to be >ordered out of your home at gun point and forced to march into the night >to unknown destinations or face execution on the spot. The people who >displaced the Palestinians knew first hand what it means to watch your >home in flames, to surrender >everything dear to your heart at a moment's notice. Bulldozers leveled >hundreds of villages, along with the remains of the village inhabitants, >the old and the young. This was nothing new to the world. > >Poland is a vast graveyard of the Jews of Europe. Israel is the final >resting place of the massacred Palestinian people. A short distance from >the memorial to the Jewish children lost to the holocaust in Europe >there is a leveled parking lot. Under this parking lot is what's left of >a once flourishing village and the bodies of men, women and children >whose only crime was taking up needed space and not leaving graciously. >This particular burial marker reads: "Public Parking". > >I've talked with Palestinians. I have yet to meet a Palestinian who >hasn't lost a member of their family to the Israeli Shoah, nor a >Palestinian who cannot name a relative or friend languishing under >inhumane conditions in an Israeli prison. Time and time again, Israel is >cited for human rights violations to no avail. On a recent trip to >Israel, I visited the refugee camps inhabited by a people who have >waited 52 years in these 'temporary' camps to go home. Every Palestinian >grandparent can tell you the name of their village, their street, and >where the olive trees were planted. Their grandchildren may never have >been home, but they can tell you where their great-grandfather lies >buried and where the village well stood. The press has fostered the >portrait of the Palestinian terrorist. But, the victims who rose up >against human indignity in the Warsaw Ghetto are called heroes. Those >who lost their lives are called martyrs. The Palestinian who tosses a >rock in desperation is a terrorist. > >Two years ago I drove through Palestine and watched intricate sprinkler >systems watering lush green lawns of Zionist settlers in their new >condominium complexes, surrounded by armed guards and barbed wire in the >midst of a Palestinian community where there was not adequate water to >drink and the surrounding fields were sandy and dry. University >professor Moshe Zimmerman reported in the Jerusalem Post (April 30, >1995), "The [Jewish] children of Hebron are just like Hitler's youth." > >We Jews are suing for restitution, lost wages, compensation for homes, >land, slave labor and back wages in Europe. Am I a traitor of a Jew for >supporting the right of return of the Palestinian refugees to their >birthplace and compensation for what was taken that cannot be returned? > >The Jewish dead cannot be brought back to life and neither can the >Palestinian massacred be resurrected. David Ben Gurion said, "Let us not >ignore the truth among ourselves...politically, we are the aggressors >and they defend themselves...The country is theirs, because they inhabit >it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we >want to take away from them their country..." > >Palestine is a land that has been occupied and emptied of its people. >It's cultural and physical landmarks have been obliterated and replaced >by tidy Hebrew signs. The history of a people was the first thing >eradicated by the occupiers. The history of the indigenous people has >been all but eradicated as though they never existed. And all this has >been hailed by the world as a miraculous act of G-d. We must recognize >that Israel's existence is not even a question of legality so much as it >is an illegal fait accompli realized through the use of force while >supported by the Western powers. The UN missions directed at Israel in >attempting to correct its violations of have thus far been futile. > >In Hertzl's "The Jewish State," the father of Zionism said, "...We must >investigate and take possession of the new Jewish country by means of >every modern expedient." I guess I agree with Ehud Barak (3 June 1998) >when he said, "If I were a Palestinian, I'd also join a terror group." >I'd go a step further perhaps. Rather than throwing little stones in >desperation, I'd hurtle a boulder. > >Hopefully, somewhere deep inside, every Jew of conscience knows that >this was no war; that this was not G-d's restitution of the holy land to >it's rightful owners. We know that a human atrocity was and continues to >be perpetuated against an innocent people who couldn't come up with the >arms and money to defend themselves against the western powers bent upon >their demise as a people. > >We cannot continue to say, "But what were we to do?" Zionism is not >synonymous with Judaism. I wholly support the rally of the right of >return of the Palestinian people. >
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