Pro Lebanon
This is a blog for all Lebanese and friends of Lebanon.
Monday, May 12, 2008
Celebrating 60 Years

On 14 May, people will celebrate the 60th anniversary of the founding of the modern state of Israel. There will be parades, parties, remembrances, speeches, and the like from Jerusalem to New York to Rio de Janeiro. Usually, the independence of a state is celebrated, rightfully so, as a happy occasion and the liberation from oppression or dominance by outsiders in your own land. What will happen on the 14th, however, will be a perverted reverse of this where the invaders will celebrate in someone else’s land. Sixty years of occupation and the anniversary of the brutal and barbaric removal of the native population of the Mediterranean coast west of the Jordan River known as Palestine. Why is it that world leaders and organizations will be publicly celebrating the anniversary of a conquest? Should we celebrate the anniversary of the arrival of the Spanish in the Yucatan? Perhaps the United States can celebrate with parades the removal of the Creek and Cherokee peoples from Georgia and North Carolina via the Trail of Tears or Russia’s annexation of Poland following the Congress of Vienna or, more recently, China’s conquest of Tibet; celebrations all.

 

Israelis claim they have a “right” to this land because it is their native homeland from some 6,000 or so years ago. That’s a bold statement. We could use this “logic” to overthrow many of the world’s governments and displace hundreds of millions of people. Forget all the time people have lived where they are and the generations that have developed their lands and formed communities. What else can we do for the zionists? Shall we give them Baghdad or Istanbul? Maybe throw Cairo in for good measure. My point is that the argument that the modern Israel exists where it does and that there is some ancient right to that land is absurd. Live where you are and develop communities there or move somewhere else but you can’t forcibly displace a people to carve a new fatherland.

 

Imagine how the world would react if a people had the audacity to claim that because of a series of tragedies in which large numbers of that group were killed some how justified the taking of someone else’s land because of some ancient claims to it. Imagine also that this people raised a massive army to defend itself from ever again suffering the tragedies that had befallen it in recent decades. They then claim a God-given right to their land and destiny and none had the right to call them into question. It was divine right that allows them to use their armed forces to march into other lands with impunity and intervene any way they see fit. They can march into neighbouring territories and clamp down on the native population, kill them, assault them, and suppress them all in the name of “security” and claim any opposition to this oppression as TERRORISM. Certainly the world would fully support the invading country’s “right” of self defence. Any country that threatened to wipe them out has to be an evil that must be challenged as a severe threat to “peace”. The terrorist subversives that are in this “homeland” must be rounded up and separated from the rest of the population whose ancient homeland it is. They should be sent to “camps” for the sake of security and must be constantly scrutinized as any of them could attack the rightful citizens of the homeland. Walls and barriers must be built to contain them as food and energy are rationed from them to better support the homeland and its “rightful” inhabitants. In this nation that clearly has a “right to exist”, many people argue that the world would be better off if the previous inhabitants that are now in camps and in “security zones” just weren’t around anymore. It would be a “final solution” to this problem. We would all celebrate the independence of this country and its right to exist, wouldn’t we?

 

No, I’m not referring to the claim by the Nazis that Germany and the Rhineland was their ancient homeland and that the Jews were a threat to their existence and terrorist trying to subvert the government and suppress the German race. Nor was I referring to the invasion of Poland by Germany to control the influx of terrorists but the West Bank and the assault against the Arabs who have been living there for thousands of years too. I also wasn’t referring to the concentration camps used to exterminate so many innocent people, Jews, Roma, homosexuals, Poles, etc by the Nazis but I was referring to the camps established by Israel in Gaza and the West Bank and also in Lebanon to control the Palestinians. Israel says the land they’re on is theirs by right and that the Palestinians are terrorists that just shouldn’t be around. The Israeli’s homeland must be protected so barriers are set up and camps established to deal with this threat until they can come up with a final solution of their own.

 

The Israelis are merely mirroring the horrors done to them by the Nazis, albeit on a much smaller scale. In psychology, it is believed that many times the victim of an abuse will become an abuser themselves. Unfortunately, it seems this has infected zionists in “Israel” and the Palestinians will soon catch this affliction themselves. So, will I be one of those celebrating the 60th anniversary of the blitzkrieg in Palestine? No. It is certainly not because I have anything against the Jewish people or their faith. I respect what they’ve been through and their many contributions to humanity. When an innocent Jew is persecuted and I have the power to stop or prevent it, inshallah, I will. This is merely a criticism of zionism and the brutal policies of the zionists in the Mediterranean. Just as we celebrated a victory over fascism in Europe in 1945, I hope to one day celebrate the victory over zionism in the Middle East and the rise of a sovereign, independent Palestine with Jerusalem as its capital. The Jews don’t have to go anywhere and should be free to live there and worship freely. I’m not even opposed to keeping the state of Israel around for this. It must, however, fully recognize that their claim as sole inhabitants and right of dominance over this land is flawed and must be corrected. Still, I don’t understand how we were so horrified by the actions of Nazism but the world will celebrate similar atrocities committed by zionism.

posted by amiratlanta, in anniversary, Olmert, zionists @ 6:34 AM, ,
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(2) comments


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On June, 13, 2008 6:10 PM , Ari
from United States said:

Wow. I wish I had the time to adequately pick this apart, but alas, at the moment i do not. I will, however, say a couple of quick comments. First off, it seems to be a tendency to eschew the claim of the Jewish people to that land and say that the only people who have a rightful claim to it are those who were there when it was part of the Ottoman and British empires. True, we could keep going further and further back until we eventually say that all lands should go back to ne rightfully ruled by single celled organisms, but that's not very productive. I would, however, like you to mark that your choice of who should have control over that land is arbitrary and temporally linked to the creation of the United States, the normative beginning of what we here in the U.S., and many others throughout the world, look at as the beginning of modern political space.
I will, then, ask you this: If you want to claim the start of this as 1948, have you asked the question as to why the Palestinians didn't make any attempts to throw out the British? No matter how you look at it, between 1920 and 1948, the British were the authoritative power of the area. You may claim that the Balfour declaration was proof that the British favored the Jews, but the declaration can be seen now as a sort of attempt at appeasement.
TO be very brief and without much explanation, it was, arguably, the presence of the British in Palestine (you can also go back to the Ottoman empire), that worked to create and maintain tension between Jews and Arabs in the area. Look at the Balfour declaration, and then look at the fact that the Arabs in the area decided to fight with the occupying British forces. This all leads to the supposition that the hatred of one group for another was carefully constructed by occupying powers.
your rhetoric is hateful and meant to insight fear and contempt. this is not the way to address the situation. as a historically situated problem, we need t

On June, 13, 2008 6:12 PM , Ari
from United States said:

to recognize that the schism has little, if anything to do with the ideological differences. Arabs and Jews alike have spent the last hundred years holding each other in contempt because of outside governing powers. This is a problem that needs to be looked at as deeper than who has a right to this land. Legitimate fears exist on both sides, but that only clouds the fact that most of the fears come down to xenophobia.
You'll notice that I haven't said anything regarding your equation of Israeli politics and actions to those of the Nazi's. I don't think you realize the full weight of what it is you say. I can not simply brush off your claim by saying that it was an absurd one because that would lend legitimacy to your argument in that I haven't adequately defended my position. Your statement, short as it may be, demands a thousand criticisms. To simply address one aspect of why what you say is wrong would not do the opposing argument any justice. No, it demands a book, or more.
I wish I could write more, but our friendship has clouded my ability to argue anymore, especially in light of the way some of what you said denigrates who I am, my family and loved ones, as well as our friendship. I can write that off when someone like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says it. I can't, however, do the same when a friend does. It is insulting and belittling.



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