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I happened to awaken in the wee hours to catch a portion of Dr. Carlos Russell's "Thinking It Through," the late hour remnant of African American programming on WLIB (1190 AM in NYC) that Air America has not yet preempted -- midnight - 5 a.m. Carlos I know well from the time we worked together when he was Dean of our School of Contemporary Studies at Brooklyn College, CUNY, in the early 1970s.
Carlos had raised the sensitive topic of Israel/Palestine and how we could most help in achieving peace there? It got me (sleepily) thinking and I eventually called in with a few analytical observations.
It seems to me that we are dealing with TWO dangerous factions on both sides over there. The bulk of the people want peace and to get on with their lives, but the haters on both sides AND the propagandists who try to justify or defend them (here as well as there) are blocking peace and fueling the on-going pattern of tit for tat killings. Let us never forget that Sadat and Rabin, peace-makers, were murdered by haters stimulated by the ugly PROPAGANDA emanating from their OWN communities!
I personally have sympathy for both sides over there -- Palestinians, who were cruelly driven out of their homes and who are being slaughtered at a 3:1 ratio by Israelis, and Israelis who are being murdered by Palestinians and who have lived with a history of Pauline-induced anti-Semitic pogroms for two millennia, culminating in the ultimate horror of the Holocaust and who understandably fear more of the same.
I suggested that rockets from the air -- fired by Israelis into homes, crowds, cars -- are just as terrifying to people being targeted as suicide bombings on the ground. A recent study reports that the vast majority of both Palestinian and Israeli children are suffering terror induced post traumatic stress. This does not bode well either for these kids' psychological development as humane individuals or for peace keeping efforts down the line. I well remember as an eight-year-old my own personal hatred of the "Japs" and "Nazis" who had just attacked us.
I noted that the propagandists on both sides are stimulating the killing, rather than curbing it, although I can again sympathize with the impulse to defend one's own and condemn one's enemies.
I observed that the U.S. in the heat of election year politics (our pols generally as well the Bush administration) is not fulfilling the critical peace-making role that only we can play. We are among other things intimidated by powerful propagandizing groups, e.g. AIPAC (American Israeli Public Affairs Committee http://www.aipac.org/ and ZOA (Zionists Organization of America) http://www.zoa.org/
Both of these organizations are using propaganda in an effort to silence critics of Israel: politicians, academics, and "self-hating(?) Jews"! Need it be added that words are sometimes less destructive than bombs -- but not always!
I noted that only two American Presidents had worked effectively towards peace in the Middle East by cutting through the propaganda smoke screens -- Carter who achieved a truce between Egypt and Israel) and Clinton who almost made it with Rabin prior to his assassination. NONE of our presidential candidates (nor Hillary) DARES to make such a move towards peace-making this election year, lest they be viciously targeted by the propagandists!
There are 4 groups responsible for the on-going killing in the Middle East:
1) HATERS -- psychopathic killers on both sides who want to kill innocent people and take it all away from the others: 'drive Israel into the sea' or "expel the aliens from Judea/Eretz Israel' -- programs of ethnic cleansing/genocide.
2) PROPAGANDISTS bent on justifying MY side and thereby stimulating distrust and hatred on BOTH sides while goading on the killers and provoking ever more murders. Both shamelessly play upon the hate fantasies, fictions, and random tall tales promulgated by current and ancient story tellers.
3) POLITICIANS who want to dodge these ugly realities so as to win the next election without being tarred by the propagandists -- and the academics, media, and others who play along with them.
4) The REST OF US who are diverted by all this red herring stuff from seeing the above for what it is and doing something about it.
Bottom Line: We must all stop our dodging and weaving and do what we can to re-start the peace-making process. Each day we delay means the loss of yet more innocent lives. If we remain silent, we are guilty as those whom we would condemn. -- "A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy) -- Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies] http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood
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