The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #60281 Message #969346
Posted By: GUEST
19-Jun-03 - 06:42 PM
Thread Name: Palestinians aim to destroy peace proces
Subject: RE: Palestinians aim to destroy peace proces
What Americans need to Know -- but probably won't be told -- to Understand Palestinian Rage
By Eduardo Cohen
EXCERPT:
As the Persian Gulf War was raging I had what I felt to be the particular honor, as an American Jew, of being sponsored by the San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee on a fact finding mission to investigate Israeli human rights abuses carried out against Palestinians under emergency measures declared during the war. I had been reporting on US policy in the Middle East for more than ten years on KPFA and other California radio stations and I had been documenting and lecturing on anti-Arab racism in American popular culture and the news media...
...Not only have American reporters left out crucial information necessary to a comprehensive understanding of the conflict and the peace process, but for far to long they have demonstrated a mindlessly uncritical acceptance of even the most absurd Israeli arguments against making peace. Foremost of these is the oft used Israeli argument that Palestinian authorities must guarantee an end to terrorist attacks as a prerequisite to any Israeli agreements. It has always been a laughable argument, except to American journalists.
If the United States government could not prevent the bombings at Oklahoma City and the World Trade Towers and the Israeli government could not prevent the assassination of its own prime minister, how can Yaser Arafat possibly guarantee the end of terrorist acts by Palestinian elements outside of his control?...
...I sensed some of the frustration and anger that Palestinians feel when I spoke with a typical Palestinian farmer in the West Bank whose well of precious water, which he needed to irrigate his crops, had been confiscated by Israeli authorities so a nearby Jewish settlement could fill its swimming pools and water its green lawns.
I sensed some of what Palestinians felt when I interviewed more than a half dozen Palestinians whose homes had been dynamited or bulldozed by Israeli tractors because a teenage member of the family had tossed a rock at an Israeli troop carrier or because they tried to build an extra room without the building permit they knew Israeli officials would never provide.
It is almost ten years later and, again, the influx of settlers, the expansion of Jewish settlements, the building of Jewish roads, the demolition of Palestinian homes and the confiscation of Palestinian water all continue...
...Clearly there are virulently racist elements within the greater Palestinian community... but I found a real difference between Israeli racism against Arabs, based on a feeling of racial superiority, and Palestinian hatred of Jews which is an understandable Palestinian response to the policies of the Jewish government of Israel and a continuing Jewish occupation.
It is comparable to the difference between the hatred of Black Americans by Southern white racists during the Civil Rights Movement in the United States and the hatred many Black Americans felt towards whites as the result of the racist oppression they experienced. It is an important difference...