It has been a while since I have written anything on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The reason was not a lack of interest, but a tremendous lack of time due to a challenging business environment. But as the clock passes midnight less than twenty-four hours after Israel assassinated Sheik Ahmed Yassin, these words keep me from sleeping and demand comment;
Enough is enough.
How long will the US allow Israel to violate international law? How long will America prop up the failed experiment known as Zionism?
How long will Israel be allowed to create its own rules… murdering and maiming children in the name of self defense? Over 1000 children have been killed by Israel since the second uprising against its illegal occupation began. Israel’s weapon of choice is not a suicide belt, but an Apache helicopter powered by missiles; all supplied by Uncle Sam.
Enough is enough.
Many who are reading this have a rose-colored view of Israel and therefore a distorted view of Palestinians. Most of the readers actually believe Israel is a democracy. It is no more a democracy than South Africa during apartheid.
How long will the world sit idly by while Israel claims in the name of "self defense" an unlimited capacity to inflict unmentionable human suffering?
How long will the Arab people allow their leadership to represent interests in opposition to their own people? On Friday (3/19/04), King Abdullah of Jordan visited Ariel Sharon. The meeting was supposed to be secret. It was there that the King was told of Sharon’s plan to assassinate Yassin. King Abdullah never knew that Sharon planned to leak the "secret" visit. The leak was made to embarrass this boy king who has not yet learned the game of power.
Is it the case that Sharon leaked Abdullah’s visit to destabilize Jordan while laying the groundwork for Yassin’s assassination? Sharon wants to destabilize the region to "save" Israel. In a destabilized Middle East, the fog of war might allow Sharon to expel Palestinians from their homeland. He full well knows that the assassination will not go unanswered. Israel is desperate and this is certain to create chaos.
Enough is enough.
One can smell Israeli desperation. Why else would a 67-year- old, quadriplegic who was nearly blind be such a threat that Israelis would kill him without benefit of a trial? Is this democracy in action? Is this the standard for democracies in the Middle East that the US wishes to set up?
What made Sheik Ahmed Yassin such a threat? I can tell you in a sentence. Yassin embodied an idea. That idea was an end to Zionism as a political ideology. Zionism is the notion that a state should be defined by religion or ethnic designations. Yassin made flesh the idea that Zionism was a moral outrage…and since Israel could not eradicate the idea, they settled for eradicating his flesh.
But the idea remains. And let me state it clearly for all to read and hear. Zionism is an evil ideology that INHERENTLY corrupts its followers. Yassin did not invent the idea for which he was assassinated, he merely personified it. Apache helicopters cannot eradicate this idea. Missiles, "Made in the USA" cannot destroy this idea.
Enough is enough.
There are many people that shrink in timidity when discussing Zionism as the root cause of the Middle East problems. One Arab-American writer told me it was an "unwritten rule" that one could never get published in US papers if Zionism was mentioned. Israel executes people without benefit of trial, labels themselves a democracy, and yet writers are not "allowed" to tell the truth regarding what inevitably is the ultimate cause of THE problem?
When stating clearly that one-person, one-vote is the only solution that will survive becomes off limits in discussion, Orwellian rhetoric triumphs over reality. Make no mistake about it, the world knows that every US president has blood on his hands…from Truman to Bush "43". Why?
Israel could not survive as a garrison state without the active and behind-the-scenes support of the US. This support threatens US interests more than any other alliance in the world. A rational foreign policy that is not beholden to oil companies, not beholden to financial interests, not beholden to a cadre of pro-Zionist elements inside Washington is needed to move beyond the morally and culturally bankrupt ideology that designates preferential treatment of one category of man over another.
Enough is enough.
