Archive for December, 2008

The World Needs To Speak

December 30, 2008 at 10:13 am · Filed under Blogroll ·Tagged , , , , , , , ,

It is my belief that all serious activists should have a major issue; something that they spend the majority of the activist time focusing on. If, while focusing on that issue, a call for help or support is made by another activist, then help should be given. However, when we start to focus on a number of different things at the same time, things can get a bit diluted and often times nothing is actually accomplished. That said- the occupation and genocide being committed by the state of Israel has not been my ‘issue’. Maybe because I feel something connecting me to Israel (I am Jewish, my maternal grandparents survived the holocaust, and I have family in Israel) I have been paying attention here and there for the past couple years to what has been happening. I began to grow angrier and angrier during the past few months while reading about the slow starvation and murder of Palestinians unlucky enough to be living on the Gaza strip, but when Israel launched an offensive I just couldn’t sit still anymore. While this is still not my issue, I have made it my job to scream at the top of my lungs. I know there are not many people who read this blog, but I’ll continue to write in here and hope it changes minds or gets at least one person to speak out when they otherwise would not have. I am pissing off a lot of family members by voicing my opinion on this matter, but innocent human beings are being killed by a country that houses members of my family, with bombs and guns that are paid for with my tax dollars, so I will not shut up. I speak to my family or read interviews with clinically insane Zionists and the thing that is most commonly expressed is that, “it’s a bad thing that so many [Palestinians, Iraqis, Afghans, Lebanese…] have to die, but we are doing this to prevent another holocaust.” In my opinion, this is complete and utter bullshit that anyone with even a half of a good eye can see through. Holocausts are not prevented by committing pre-emptive holocausts; all that is going to happen is that more and more people are going to hate Jews. As I’ve said in this blog dozens of times- killing people is not a good way to make friends.

I woke up this morning and was blown away (as happens most mornings) by this Glenn Greenwald blog. I sometimes think that I get a warped sense of the world- I’m a Peace Studies student who goes to a hippie school located in a town that is one of the most liberal in the world. Everyone I converse with about the Israel/Palestine situation seems to take the same side as me, but I usually attribute that to the type of people I talk to. However, when reading Greenwald’s blog and seeing that:

“A new WorldPublicOpinion.org poll of 18 countries finds that in 14 of them people mostly say their government should not take sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Just three countries favor taking the Palestinian side (Egypt, Iran, and Turkey) and one is divided (India). No country favors taking Israel’s side, including the United States, where 71 percent favor taking neither side.”

I literally almost shat myself. Not just the majority of people in Boulder, not just the (very high) majority of people in the US, but the majority of people (and governments) of the entire world think that what Israel is doing should not be tolerated. Many Zionists will take this to mean that the world is filled with Anti-Semites, but this is not the case at all. 71% favor taking neither side; no one is saying that countries should be allowed or encouraged to arm Palestine to the teeth in order to have a fair fight, what they’re saying is that we should support both sides. When a family is blown up by a Palestinian suicide bomber our president should be at a press conference condemning the attack… as long as he is in front of the same podium condemning Israel’s absolutely insane, lopsided response. We (and I say we because it is our money that is paying for it) send billions of dollars worth of weapons to the state of Israel every single year, yet we get up in arms if anyone is training people for the Palestinian side. We send extra weapons express to Israel during genocides like what is happening now or what happened two years ago in Lebanon, yet get angry when a Palestinian has no other option than to shoot a ten year old rocket at an Israeli settlement. We need to all come together and scream as loud as we can or no one is going to hear us.

We live in a democracy; if 71% of the people vote for a political candidate, that candidate wins. If 71% of people vote to make a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage in California, the bill passes. However, when 71% feel strongly that the US should stop sending one of the most murderous countries in the world tons and tons of weapons, we are completely ignored. Almost every member of Congress, – Democrat or Republican – the President and his people, and the President elect and his people all rushed to the microphone in the past few days to make it clear that Israel is acting in order to survive and the US will do whatever is in her power to help. If half of the 71% of our country makes this a big deal, things will have to change. That would be over one hundred million USers writing letter to the media to demand fair coverage; over one hundred million mindful people calling their representatives to remind her or him that their job is represent what we want. One hundred million people spread out over every town and city in the country occupying the offices of these same representatives if there is no positive response. And it eventually would mean voting these people out of office. Right now, the people who represent us understand that if they speak out against this war, they will stop receiving a lot of money. They should not fear lobbyists more than they fear and respect their constituency; that is not a democracy!!

Two quick things before I go- 1) there are hundreds of rallies and vigils going on across the country in support of the Palestinians- find one online and go to it! 2) If you read one thing for the rest of the week- read this. If you are not convinced that both the US and Israel are terrorist nations, you should get a CT Scan.

Leave a Comment

Why Are Some People So Blind?

December 28, 2008 at 9:31 am · Filed under Blogroll ·Tagged , , , , , ,

I have said it before and I will say it again; I am an anti-Zionist Jew. My mother’s side of the family tends to be on the liberal side of things when it comes to most things; until Israel is brought up, then they seem to become blind to the fact that Palestinians are human beings. It’s wrong that we are in Iraq, it’s wrong that innocents are dying in Afghanistan, but the hundreds of Palestinian children and civilians who die every year don’t matter because they threaten the livelihood of Israel. They see some member of Hamas (which actually makes up a very small percentage of the population) fire a rocket into an empty field, hurting no one and they think all Arabs want to kill all Jews. Then when Israel responds by preventing every single resident of the Gaza strip from getting food, water, medical supplies, and gas it’s fine because that’s what Israel needs to do to survive. When more people start joining groups like Hamas, the Israelis point and say, “see; this is why we need to kill them”. They don’t bother to ask why a group who is against the country that is killing their families recruits these starving uneducated children so easily. So, Hamas fires some more rockets; again killing no one and what is Israel’s response? Bomb the living shit out of masses of innocent civilians. Children died? Innocent civilians died? So what?

“Israeli intelligence reported 225 people dead, mostly Hamas military leaders with some functionaries, besides, and perhaps 400 wounded. The Palestinians announced 300 dead, probably as a reflex in order to begin their whining about disproportionate Israeli acts of war. And 600 wounded.”

Those whining Palestinians; how dare they complain when another, way more powerful country randomly kills between 225 and 300 of their people? I understand the need for a Jewish state. I think Palestinians firing rockets at innocent civilians is wrong. I’m convinced that Palestinians blowing themselves up among groups of innocent civilians is wrong, but systematically torturing and killing an entire country is not a correct response. I think 9/11 (assuming it transpired as the government tell us it did) was a horrible, horrible act. I was within eyesight of the towers as they fell, a neighbor died, dozens of people I know had their lives turned upside down, I couldn’t sleep through the night for almost a year. However, I do not think that killing over a million innocent Afghans and Iraqis is the proper response to something like that. Why are people – especially people who have seen six million of their brothers and sisters wiped out – so blind to see the humanity of brown people? Why can’t people see past the present and acknowledge the reasons as to why this is happening? Did the Palestinians just wake up in the morning and decide to hate the entire country of Israel? Do Palestinian kids think, “man, I would really like to go to college and become a lawyer or doctor, but I think I’d rather blow myself in a crowded market”? Do Zionists and other blind supporters of Israel think that the blame is 100 percent on the side of the Arabs?

Like I said above (and before) I understand the need for a Jewish state; the Jewish Holocaust was a horrible thing that we – as a world – can never allow to happen again, but we can’t prevent one genocide by committing another. Most of the world (in fact, most of the population of even this country- including Jews) wants this one-sided bombardment to end. Even the countries – like Egypt and Jordan – who are strongly against Hamas, are condemning these attacks as barbaric. I’m sure there are some Palestinians who are bad, I’m sure there are some who want nothing more than to see the complete and utter destruction of the state of Israel, but so what? Does every single human fucking being living in Palestine have to live a life of fear and suffering because of this? What’s going to happen when – and the time is coming – the United States doesn’t weld the power that it does now? What’s going to happen when countries like Russia, China, Iran, and Venezuela become as powerful as the US? Israel is making a lot of enemies right now; enemies that – no matter what any Zionist says – would not be enemies if their families and friends weren’t getting blown up and humiliated on a daily basis. Aren’t we learning anything from the war on terror? Killing innocent civilians en masse does not make friends.

Comments (3)

Land of the Free

December 26, 2008 at 9:10 am · Filed under Blogroll ·Tagged , , , ,

I have written a lot about the strange concept of everyone on earth being a human being. I think a lot of people dismiss this as some hippie shit (and it is, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true) while others scoff and say, “Obviously everyone is human, everyone knows that”, but I beg to differ. If we all not only completely understood that each and every person that passes us by on the street or that we see on TV or in the mall is a human being who deserves the same rights and freedoms as you and I, but we also kept this at the forefront of out mind at all times, can you imagine what would happen? We would be forced to talk to homeless people because we would have actual sympathy for their situation. We would not get scared and cross the street when we see (seemingly) shady people walking towards us, because we would know that it is just an act; that the teenager who is full of piercings and wearing scary clothes only wants attention. We would not be able to watch American Idol when we know that innocent human beings all over the world are being shot, stabbed, blown up, raped, and tortured with our money in our names because how can you when you know that these people breath, eat, and shit just like you?

Imagine you are a twenty year old Guatemalan man; you grew up in total poverty, but always managed to get by. Now you are married with a couple kids and times are getting really hard; you work and work, but are barely able to put food on the table for your children. You’ve heard about people going to the United States, where jobs are supposedly plentiful and you can work just as hard, but make ten times the money. If you can manage to sneak the thousand or so miles to the border, get across, and then find people to help you, you can eventually get a job, make a bunch of money, send for your family, and live the good life that you deserve. You end up paying a smuggler your entire savings, spending days walking and hiding through Guatemala and Mexico, getting smuggled across the border like you’re something illegal, and find a job in some small USian town. You know you are being taken advantage of in the factory you’re working at – you’re making barely more than you were in Guatemala and they take money out for food and an overpriced place to stay – but who can you complain to. You spend your first couple months of salary paying off the person who got you your fake social security card- the social security card that you use to work, but that you will never be able to see the benefits of, because “illegal aliens” like yourself don’t get to retire. You are abused by your bosses, paid less than minimum wage, and haven’t even talked to your family in months, but you’re still chasing the American Dream. One day you’ll find something better or prove to your bosses that you deserve more money; you’ll be able to send for your family and buy a big house with a nice car in the driveway. One day. After all, this is the land of opportunity; surely someone will put an end to all the abuse you’re taking. Finally, the government gets wind of the fact that your employer has hundreds of employees who they are abusing and taking advantage of. Then this happens.

Things like that are happening every day in the US and things much worse are happening every day because of the policies of the US. They wouldn’t be happening (or at least not nearly as much) if we simply understood and kept in mind that we all deserve at least some kind of dignity and common respect.

Leave a Comment

A Simple Concept

December 25, 2008 at 9:29 am · Filed under Blogroll ·Tagged , , , ,

I know it’s Christmas and Hanukah and therefore time to spend money we don’t have, stuff ourselves full of food, and enjoy our families, but there are people (the majority of the world actually) who do not get to do any of this. There are people who earn less in a year than the poorest in the United States earn in a week. There are people who are forced to eat dirt because other, more powerful countries have decided that they are not worthy of actual food. There are people whose families have been killed or taken to secret prisons for doing nothing wrong- all in the name of democracy. We should definitely enjoy this day; we should spend it around family and friends and be thankful that we have them, but we should keep people less fortunate in our minds. If we need something to think about on this holiday, I have a concept to chew on for a little bit. It’s a concept that seems very simple; in fact, you probably already think you have grasped it, but you probably haven’t. Every single person on the face of this earth is a human being and should therefore enjoy certain inalienable rights. What I mean by this is that the life of a USer should not be worth more than the life of an Iraqi. An Israeli child should not get to eat dessert when a Palestinian teenager has not had a full meal in months. To quote Martin Luther King Jr., “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Think about that simple concept for a couple minutes; if everyone in the world realized that everyone else in the world is a human being, how could there be war? How could there be homelessness? How could there be people starving in a world that has more than enough resources?

It grows clearer and clearer each and every day that the Israelis are committing genocide (a Holocaust perhaps?) on the Palestinian people. There are some bad people in Palestine (like everywhere else). There are people who blow themselves up, there are people who fire rockets at random Israelis, and there are people who call for the death of Israel. This is a small number of the total population of Palestine and yet each and every citizen in the country is being denied food, water, gasoline, and basic healthcare because Israel feels like it, because Israeli people are viewed as more important – more human – than Palestinian people. Chris Hedges wrote a(nother) great blog about what is happening over there. If there are a few bad apples and, instead of doing what we can to get the rest of the population to turn against them we just randomly kill anyone we can, all we are doing is making more enemies. Imagine a Palestinian child with goals and dreams; this child is born and raised in maybe not the best country for these goals and dreams to be recognized. Maybe he is being told left and right that the reason why his country is like this is because of the Israelis and the Americans. If he walks down the streets and sees Israeli tanks (brought to you by the USA) shooting at his family and friends, reads articles about Israeli soldiers killing his schoolmates for throwing rocks, and is literally starving to death because Israel (with the rest of the world lending a hand) is blocking food from entering his country, this kid is probably going to listen to the people telling him or her that (s)he needs to destroy Israel. If, however, this same kid walks down the same streets and sees Israeli soldiers building (with US money) a new school, handing out food in bread lines, and talking to the children who are throwing rocks, maybe he grows up to be different. To me it is common sense; shoot at people and they probably won’t like you, treat them as human beings and try to help them and there’s a chance they won’t try to kill you.

People claim to celebrate Christmas because it is the anniversary of the birthday of Jesus Christ, but do they really believe that Jesus would watch what’s going on now and let it be? Do they believe that Jesus would be a USer who only sees as far as this countries border? I don’t really have much more to say and I know that there probably won’t be more than five people who read this (five people who probably already think this way), but I had to get it off my chest.

Leave a Comment