Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2001 19:03:39 -0400
Subject: FW: Israel



-- 
"solidarity means sharing the same risks" - Che
( la solidarita significa correre gli stessi rischi)

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From: Andrea Smith <rodenta-AT-yahoo.com>
To: m-fem-AT-csf.colorado.edu
Subject: Re: FW: Israel
Date: Tue, Apr 17, 2001, 6:25 PM


When we hear about the 'violence', we do not
distinguish between stone throwing and modern,
state-of-the-art military.  This is a story about
colonialism and imperialism, directed on an
international level by western economic powers. It is
about the Palestinian people resisting more than 100
years of dispossession of their lands, oppression of
their people AND political sovereignty that
constitutes genocide.  One CANNOT make a case that
Palestinans are, or have, commited, or attempted to
commit genocide upon the Isreali state.  (For those
who are sceptical, I suggest reading the UN Genocide
Convention) It the Israeli government and military who
has marginalized, murdered, and terrorized
Palestinians, creating five million refugees, all
backed by US funding and corporate interests.

It is also the story about Zionism.  Founded in the
late 1800's, Zionism argued that Jewish assimilation
into the resident countries was impossible- the only
solution was a Jewish state- preferably in Palestine.


For 2000 years, when jews spoke of 'returning to
Israel' it was only in the metaphoric sense- it was
not taken literally.  The idea of literally
"returning" to the 'Promised Land' was not only
politically questionable, it was also against Jewish
doctrine.  Religious Jews believed that they were not
entitled to return to Israel until after God had sent
the Messiah.  Many Jews still believe this, such as
the Neturei Karta.

 Jewish settlement in Palestine began in the late
1800's, many of whom were escaping the Russian and
Romanian pogroms.  Again in 1905, there was a second
wave of settlement after the failed Russian
Revolution.  Baron Rothschild, the exceedingly wealthy
and powerful, and an influential Zionist, personally
funded these jews to resettle.  This was not out of
humanitarian reasons, but for political reasons- to
establish a Zionist state in Palestine and use the
dispossessed to pave the way for further settlement.
In 1914 at a Zionist meeting in Paris, Chaim Weizman
came up with the slogan Aa country without a people
for a people without a country.  Zionists portrayed
Palestine as an empty land- terra rasa.  Jews who went
to Palestine were often shocked to see that people
actually lived there.

Max Nordau, second man to Theodore Herzl, one of the
founding fathers of Zionism, upon realizing that there
were people in Palestine, said to Herzl- "I never
realized this- we are committing an injustice."

On the world scale, Zionist leaders were attempting to
sway Western Governments to support the creation of a
Jewish homeland in Palestine.  At the time, Palestine
was under the rule of the Ottoman empire, which fell
after losing in WW 1.  The victors, forming the League
of Nations, signed a covenant which in Article 22
recognized Athe provisional independence of the former
Ottoman provinces.

Britain showed its continued support for the creation
of a Zionist state in Palestine through the Balfour
Declaration of 1917.

"His Majesty's Government view in favour the
establishment in Palestine of a national home for the
Jewish people . . . it being clearly understood that
nothing shall be done that may prejudice the civil and
religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in
Palestine."

In 1923, the Balfour declaration was written into the
League of Nations Mandate.

During World War 2, Zionist leaders represented
themselves internationally as the sole Jewish voice.
Many jews in Eastern Europe requested funds from the
Zionist organization, the Jewish Agency, in order to
flee Germany's advancing troops.  They were denied.
Yitzhak Greebaum, a member of the Jewish Agency said,
years later, that "when they asked me, couldn't you
give money out of the United Jewish Appeal funds for
the rescue of Jews in Europe.  I said NO and I say it
again NO.  One should resist this wave which pushes
the Zionist activities (that being the establishment
of Israel) to secondary importance."

 US involvement also beings with World War 2.  At the
pressure of US Zionist, and no doubt anti-Semites,
President Roosevelt passed immigration laws making it
harder for Jews to enter the US.  Morris Ernst,
Roosevelt's advisor, wrote in 1948 of his shock at the
refusal of American Jewish leaders to let European
Jews immigrate to the US rather than leaving Palestine
as the only option.  Thus, the Zionist organizations
were complicit in aiding the genocide of Jews in
Eastern Europe.

President Truman carried on with this policy,
demanding increased admission of Jews to Palestine.
Even more involved was the recommendation to the UN
that Palestine be Aprovisionally partitioned into a
part Arab, part Zionist state.  Protests of all Arab
Nations, as well as Palestine, were to no avail.

The partition gave the Jewish population, who owned 7%
of the land was given 55% of Palestine, in spite of
being outnumbered by Palestinians 2 to 1.

>From 1947-1949, Zionist terror squads began what were
called 'Land Clearing Operations' which forcibly
removed people from their homes, their villages,
destroying their property and orchards, creating
780,000 refugees, and destroyed 416 villages.

On May, 14, 1948, the State of Israel was proclaimed.
Even members of the World Zionist Organization opposed
the decision to establish the state of Israel, hoping
for a peaceful, diplomatic settlement.

A civil war and then a regional war followed and when
the armistice agreements were signed there was a
Jewish State- Israel, but no Palestinian State nor
international Jerusalem, both of these being taken
over and divided between Israel and Jordan.  In 1967,
in what is known as the '6 day war',(more aptly called
the 6-day turkey shoot) Israel stole the Sinai
Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem, and the
West Bank.

 The evictions and oppression of Palestinians by the
Israeli government continued, with further attacks by
Israel on Egypt, Lebanon, and Palestine.  In fact the
former prime minister of Israel, Golda Meir continued
on with the tune of Terra Rasa "It is not as though
there was a Palestinian people and we came and threw
them out and took their country away from them. They
did not exist."

With the continued outright denial of their existence,
hundreds of thousands of refugees and with talk going
no where fast, the Palestinian people rose up in
resistance, what was the Intifada. Lasting from
1987-1989, the Intifada left 85 Israelis dead and 900
Palestinians killed.  That's 10 to 1.

The Oslo Accords were signed by Yasir Arafat, the
Chairman of the PLO, and then Israeli Prime Minister
Yitzak Rabin.  The peace process agreed to and by
Rabin called for the redeployment of Israeli troops
from most areas of dense Palestinian concentration to
other parts of the West Bank, but not for their full
withdrawal from the territory.  Israeli settlements-
whose presence even Israel's closest ally, the US, had
always considered a violation of international law-
were to remain in place.  Israel retained authority
over most of the land, and all the settlers, roads,
water, and borders, while the Palestinians gained
civil control- NOT sovereignty- over a tiny portion of
the West Bank.

Israel has violated more than 12 United Nation
resolutions, without reprimands.  Yet the media
continues to vilify arabs and violent irrational
fundamentalists and ruthless terrorists.

Perhaps that's to justify the spending of US
taxpayers= money on Israel. The US plays an
instrumental role in the theft of Palestine and the
attack on Arab Nations by Israel.   Israel, with seven
million people, is about the size of Greater Toronto.
Yet it receives an incredible 10 million a day in US.
military and economic aid.

 Since 1967 Israel has received 77 billion dollars in
aid.  This is not including huge amounts of 'donated
surplus' military equipment, foreign aid subsidies,
and 16.4 billion in loan forgiveness.  Representing
the interests of Wall Street and corporations, the US
government is interested in protecting the profits of
the giant military contractors, banks and corporations
that control the global oil markets.  It is strategic
to have a Friendly Ally such as Israel, the most armed
state in the oil-rich Middle East.

US imperialism is also deeply afraid that a viable
Palestinian state, even a small one, would become a
center of revolution in the Middle East.  It would
inspire millions of people throughout the Arab world
to resist the International Monetary Fund's demands
and US corporate control of their economies.

Yet the US is an 'impartial' mediator in the current
"peace process".  In fact, so impartial that the CIA
is directly involved. Former Israeli prime minister
Netanyahu gave the CIA the role of supervising the
relations between Israel and Arafat.

In any discussion of Palestine and Isreal, it is
absolutely necessary to consider the political economy
which has driven both Zionist and Western capitalism.
To do anything else to impovrish the richness of
history and reduce colonialism to merely a religious
squabble.


Futher Reading:

Weizfeld, Eibie.ed.  The End of Zionism: And the
Liberation of the Jewish People.  Clarity Press:
Atlanta, GA. 1989.

David, Ron.  Arabs & Isreal For Beginners. Writers and
Readers Publishing: New York.  1993.

Bauman, Zygmunt.  Modernity and the Holocaust.
Cornell University Press: Ithaca, NY. 1989

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