Israel’s Fight For Survival? A Pro-Palestinian Response to Rep. Waxman (D-CA) by Adam Miller

www.waxman.house.gov/news_files/news_articles_israel_fight_4_19_02.htm Original Document at Rep. Waxman’s Website

Israel is not engaged in a fight for its survival. Its survival was long ago guaranteed by western colonial powers and the United Nations. On the 54th anniversary of its founding, Israel is still mired in the sins from which it was birthed, the sin of ethnic cleansing and the will to completely eradicate an indigenous people and culture via the militaristic, violent containment and demolition of Palestinian society.

Within the past four years of the al Aqsa Intifada, there have been no less than three cease fires initiated not by Israel, but by the Palestinian militant factions. Each and every one of these “hudnas” was never formally recognized by Sharon and in the continuance of the Israeli policy of targeted assassinations of both military and civilian Palestinian resistance figures, house demolitions and continued illegal settlement development, broke down very soon after their respective attempted declarations and accompanying cessation of violence from the Palestinian side. That is, the olive branch has been extended repeatedly by the Palestinians, who are fighting a guerilla war against one of the world’s greatest armies, to the Israelis, who are merely fighting for their alleged “security.” Each and every time, every effort on the part of the Palestinians to return to the bargaining table and end the violence was actively ignored by Israel. Sharon’s will to bring the Palestinians to their knees via unending violence has continued unchecked and remains to this day unabated.

To label all acts of Palestinian resistance “terrorism” is to completely ignore the root cause of that resistance, which began in 1948 and continues to this day. The 1967 Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza is only a part of the ongoing tragedy, and the illegal Israeli settlement activity in these areas is simply an obvious example of what has all along been the modus operandi of Israel via American tax dollar support; that is, the complete expropriation of all of Palestine and the total destruction of all Palestinian civil society. Even and especially during the time of Barak and the Camp David and Taba talks with Arafat and the PA, Israel stepped up its settlement building, so that during this period of the alleged “peace process,” more Palestinian land was expropriated by Israel than during any other previous Israeli government. Because Palestinians are always directly and personally involved with all illegal land expropriation via loss of precious aquifers and agricultural land, all Palestinians were aware of this phenomenon at the time. The provocative appearance of Sharon and several hundred armed, Israeli bodyguards at the al Aqsa mosque in 2000 was a match to this tinder-keg of emotion. Certainly someone with the tactical prowess of a successful military career in one of the world’s most lethal fighting armies knew exactly the series of events for which he was a primary catalyst. Just as Sharon posed as the provocateur for the beginning of the al Aqsa Intifada, so he seeks to continue the fight today, thus, his “unilateral” withdrawal from Gaza, which seals the lock on the door of that open air prison by maintaining Israeli control of all points of entry and exit, land and sea, and all airspace.

To blame Palestinian resistance to Israeli Occupation on anti-Semitism that is part of a programmatic, institutionalized education system within Palestinian society is chutzpah at its blindest. Though well over 70% of Palestinians now endorse a two-state solution which would address the “security needs” of Israel completely, Israel still maintains a total military lock down on all Palestinian movement within the Territories, thereby condemning every man, woman and child to the indignity and indecency of life in prison. Still, however, most remarkably, most Palestinians are not anti-Semites, per se, as much as being anti-Israel, as it relates to their own, personal deprivations of basic human rights.

All of the acts of terrorism that Waxman blames on the PLO were in fact committed before Arafat and Fatah ever formally recognized the existence of the Jewish state. This glossing over of fact is part of the Israeli propagandist policy of garnering sympathy for its illegal Occupation via simply ignoring, or retelling, large portions of the historic struggle of the Palestinians for basic human rights. Arafat put this struggle on the world stage. No one other human being has ever done so much for the just cause of the Palestinian people. Moreover, and much more specifically important for the “security” of Israel, Arafat led many disparate Palestinian fighting factions into one general consensus that actually recognized the existence of the Jewish state of Israel and began negotiating on borders dictated by the events of 1967, not 1948. Without Arafat, this certainly never would have happened. It seems, via Sharon’s actions, however, that this is still too much to give back to the Palestinians and will never truly happen. Many MK’s at the Knesset, reflecting their right-wing Jewish constituencies within Israeli society, do not even recognize the term “Palestinian,” unless it refers to Jews who lived in Palestine during the British Mandate. So they intend to “legalize” the West Bank settlements, keep all of Jerusalem, negate any Palestinian claim to refugee Right of Return, and regard Jordan as the real Palestinian state.

There is no reasonable means to smear the line between al Qaeda and the Palestine Liberation Organization, the latter existing solely for the purpose of establishing a Palestinian nation and the former for no real political or strategic goal besides disrupting Western hegemonic powers over Arab and Muslim land, people and resources. To put it plainly, there is no connection between the two. Of course, there are Palestinians who, as Muslim Arabs, remain completely dubious about America’s real intentions in Iraq and the rest of the Middle East, and so give emotional support as individuals to the cause of al Qaeda, but it must be strongly emphasized that there is absolutely no connection between any organizational structure of al Qaeda and the PLO. Blurring this very real line between the two suggests either a complete myopia concerning all events staged in the name of Palestinian human rights, thereby revealing that Waxman feels that all Arabs are the same, or at the worst, is a concerted propaganda campaign that seeks to systematically strip the PLO of its ability to operate freely as an agent for its people. In this last sense, Waxman himself becomes an operative for the agents of chaos he purports to fight.

The “peace process” as we know it today is a deflated shambles because it was never intended as a fair and just conclusion to the Palestinian tragedy initiated in 1948. Until this process adopts a more balanced stance that fairly addresses Right of Return of all Palestinian refugees in the Territories and the world Diaspora, there will be no end to the violence. Palestinians have not been fighting for their basic human rights for 54 years to negotiate it all away right now, in favor of allowing Jewish “right of return” to a state that is only 54 years old, while completely abrogating Palestinians, themselves, of that same privilege. Palestinians, if ever allowed to come home, would be returning, where those places have not already been destroyed or occupied illegally, to ancestral land and houses that have been in their families for centuries, even millennia. Indeed, in reality both indigenous Jews and Arabs might very well all be descended from the same Canaanite stock, in many instances. As DNA research is carried out in Lebanon, just to the north, we can get a glimpse of what is undoubtedly true in Israel also, that besides the Ashkenazi Jews who emigrated to Israel from Europe before and after its founding, Palestinian Jews and Arabs might very well be of one ethnicity, and two religions – not, as we are led to believe, of two ethnicities. This new scientific research might even hopefully be the hammer that pounds our swords into plowshares, as we are properly educated as to the total connectedness in Palestinian heritage that is shared by Jews and Arabs.

As the primary arbiter of all progress towards any political solution, American government and the American people must not be led into the trap of labeling all anti-Israeli sentiment as anti-Semitic. Indeed, this does no justice to the cause of quelling via peaceful means the very real threat of racism felt all over the globe. Of course anti-Semitism exists, and it must absolutely be fought with every intelligent means necessary. The same, just principle, applied to anti-Arab racism is equally true, as it is true of racism against any ethnic group. The Palestinians have as much or as little connection to this real threat of racism as anyone else. Jews in Israel and the rest of the world are just as guilty, or not.

Mr. Waxman, before you point the finger of blame away from Israel and America, I would counsel you to consider the nature of terrorism and the roots of terror. Are they not embodied in and made real by the denial of basic human rights to an entire civilization that has been kept under constant military occupation since 1967? Could not the longest military occupation of a total people in modern history be the primary act of terror that induces all violent response? It is confounding that Jews, having suffered unspeakably during the Holocaust in Europe, have seemingly forgotten the very lack of humanity that caused their own suffering, thereby inflicting a similar tragedy on another people besides themselves. The father beats the son, who becomes the father who beats his own son, ad nauseam.

America, take note, and support real freedom and human rights for all Palestinians, who must not abdicate these inalienable guarantees, all for a political solution that would only be to their detriment. Though stateless, Palestinians are vibrant members of our world society and active participants in the struggle for global human rights.

That’s what this is all about.