Jewish editor sacked for publishing article
This article was sent to Debbie Ducro, an American-Jewish journalist with the
Kansas City Jewish Chronicle. She published it, and was fired the next day.
Quest for justice
By Judith Stone
I am a Jew. I was a participant in the Rally for the Right of Return to
Palestine. It was the right thing to do.
I've heard about the European holocaust against the Jews since I was a small
child. I've visited the memorials in Washington, DC and Jerusalem dedicated to
Jewish lives lost and I've cried at the recognition to what level of atrocity
mankind is capable of sinking.
Where are the Jews of conscience? No righteous malice can be held against the
survivors of Hitler's holocaust. These fragments of humanity were in no
position to make choices beyond that of personal survival. We must not forget
that being a survivor or a co-religionist of the victims of the European
Holocaust does not grant dispensation from abiding by the rules of humanity.
"Never again" as a motto, rings hollow when it means "never again to us alone."
My generation was raised being led to believe that the biblical land was a vast
desert inhabited by a handful of impoverished Palestinians living with their
camels and eking out a living in the sand. The arrival of the Jews was touted
as a tremendous benefit to these desert dwellers. Golda Meir even assured us
that there "is no Palestinian problem".
We know now this picture wasn't as it was painted. Palestine was a land filled
with people who called it home. There were thriving towns and villages, schools
and hospitals. There were Jews, Christians and Muslims.
In fact, prior to the occupation, Jews represented a mere seven per cent of the
population and owned three per cent of the land.
Taking the blinders off for a moment, I see a second atrocity perpetuated by
the very people who should be exquisitely sensitive to the suffering of others.
These people knew what it felt like to be ordered out of your home at gun point
and forced to march into the night to unknown destinations or face execution on
the spot. The people who displaced the Palestinians knew first hand what it
means to watch your home in flames, to surrender everything dear to your heart
at a moment's notice. Bulldozers levelled hundreds of villages, along with the
remains of the village inhabitants, the old and the young. This was nothing new
to the world.
Poland is a vast graveyard of the Jews of Europe. Israel is the final resting
place of the massacred Palestinian people. A short distance from the memorial
to the Jewish children lost to the holocaust in Europe there is a levelled
parking lot. Under this parking lot is what's left of a once flourishing
village and the bodies of men, women and children whose only crime was taking
up needed space and not leaving graciously. This particular burial marker
reads: "Public Parking".
I've talked with Palestinians. I have yet to meet a Palestinian who hasn't lost
a member of their family to the Israeli Shoah, nor a Palestinian who cannot
name a relative or friend languishing under inhumane conditions in an Israeli
prison. Time and time again, Israel is cited for human rights violations to no
avail. On a recent trip to Israel, I visited the refugee camps inhabited by a
people who have waited 52 years in these 'temporary' camps to go home. Every
Palestinian grandparent can tell you the name of their village, their street,
and where the olive trees were planted. Their grandchildren may never have been
home, but they can tell you where their great-grandfather lies buried and where
the village well stood. The press has fostered the portrait of the Palestinian
terrorist. But the victims who rose up against human indignity in the Warsaw
Ghetto are called heroes. Those who lost their lives are called martyrs. The
Palestinian who tosses a rock in desperation is a terrorist.
Two years ago I drove through Palestine and watched intricate sprinkler systems
watering lush green lawns of Zionist settlers in their new condominium
complexes, surrounded by armed guards and barbed wire in the midst of a
Palestinian community where there was not adequate water to drink and the
surrounding fields were sandy and dry. University professor Moshe Zimmerman
reported in the Jerusalem Post (30 April, 1995), "The [Jewish] children of
Hebron are just like Hitler's youth."
We Jews are suing for restitution, lost wages, compensation for homes, land,
slave labour and back wages in Europe. Am I a traitor of a Jew for supporting
the right of return of the Palestinian refugees to their birthplace and
compensation for what was taken that cannot be returned?
The Jewish dead cannot be brought back to life and neither can the Palestinian
massacred be resurrected. David Ben Gurion said, "Let us not ignore the truth
among ourselves...politically, we are the aggressors and they defend
themselves...The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to
come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them
their country...".
Palestine is a land that has been occupied and emptied of its people. Its
cultural and physical landmarks have been obliterated and replaced by tidy
Hebrew signs. The history of a people was the first thing eradicated by the
occupiers. The history of the indigenous people has been all but eradicated as
though they never existed. And all this has been hailed by the world as a
miraculous act of God. We must recognise that Israel's existence is not even a
question of legality so much as it is an illegal fait accompli realised through
the use of force while supported by the Western powers. The UN missions
directed at Israel in attempting to correct its violations of have thus far
been futile.
In Hertzl's 'The Jewish State' the father of Zionism said: "We must investigate
and take possession of the new Jewish country by means of every modern
expedient." I guess I agree with Ehud Barak ( 3 June 1998) when he said, "If I
were a Palestinian, I'd also join a terror group." I'd go a step further
perhaps. Rather than throwing little stones in desperation, I'd hurtle a
boulder.
Hopefully, somewhere deep inside, every Jew of conscience knows that this was
no war; that this was not G-d's restitution of the holy land to it's rightful
owners. We know that a human atrocity was and continues to be perpetuated
against an innocent people who couldn't come up with the arms and money to
defend themselves against the western powers bent upon their demise as a
people.
We cannot continue to say, "But what were we to do?" Zionism is not synonymous
with Judaism. I wholly support the rally of the right of return of the
Palestinian people.
Contact Independent Catholic News tel/fax: +44 (0)20 7267 3616
PoEtEsS
"Praise your struggles for they surprise you with many rewards…"Zohra Moosa
(Deaf Poet)
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{Invite (mankind, O Muhammad ) to the Way of your Lord (i.e. Islam) with wisdom
(i.e. with the Divine Inspiration and the Qur'an) and fair preaching, and argue
with them in a way that is better. Truly, your Lord knows best who has gone
astray from His Path, and He is the Best Aware of those who are guided.} (Holy
Quran-16:125)
{And who is better in speech than he who [says: "My Lord is Allah (believes in
His Oneness)," and then stands straight (acts upon His Order), and] invites
(men) to Allah's (Islamic Monotheism), and does righteous deeds, and says: "I
am one of the Muslims."} (Holy Quran-41:33)
The prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: "By Allah, if
Allah guides one person by you, it is better for you than the best types of
camels." [al-Bukhaaree, Muslim]
The prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) also said, "Whoever
calls to guidance will have a reward similar to the reward of the one who
follows him, without the reward of either of them being lessened at all."
[Muslim, Ahmad, Aboo Daawood, an-Nasaa'ee, at-Tirmidhee, Ibn Maajah]
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