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CounterPunch
January
14, 2003
Palestinians and Native Americans
The Inherent
Struggle for Freedom and Justice
by RAMZY BAROUD
Few can be as blunt regarding the legacy of the
United States toward the native people of this land as the 26th
President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt. In his narrative,
"The Winning of the West," Roosevelt spoke about the
"spread of the English-speaking peoples over the world's
wasted spaces." He wrote: "The European settlers moved
into an uninhabited waste...the land is really owned by no one....
The settler ousts no one from the land. The truth is, the Indians
never had any real title to the soil."
In an interview with the British Sunday
Times, on June 15, 1969, former Israeli Prime Minister, Golda
Meir made similar claims, stating, "There was no such thing
as Palestinians. It was not as though there was a Palestinian
people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people
and we came and threw them out and took their country from them.
They did not exist."
While Native Americans and Palestinians
were the ancient indigenous peoples of their lands, this was
of little or no relevance to the foreign settlers. What really
mattered was "Manifest Destiny", what really mattered
was "Zionism".
Roosevelt goes on: "The world would
probably not have gone forward at all, had it not been for the
displacement or submersion of savage and barbaric peoples as
a consequence of the armed settlement in strange lands of the
races who hold in their hands the fate of the years."
In the mid forties, David Ben-Gurion
declared that Israel is adopting a system of "aggressive
defense. With every Arab attack we must respond with a decisive
blow: the destruction of the place or the expulsion of the residents
along with the seizure of the place."
My grandparents, mother and father, along
with nearly one million people were expelled from their land
after the brutal destruction of 418 villages and towns, and the
murder of thousands of Palestinians. They spread in all directions,
mostly on foot to clear space for the Chosen People. They settled
in refugee camps, concentration camps, which are still in existence
until today. My grandparents along with my mother and my older
brother are buried in one of those camps. My farther and my brothers
are still living there.
Ben Gurion retired in 1963, four years
before Israel invaded the rest of Palestine, the West Bank, Gaza,
and East Jerusalem. It created another tragedy, another dispossession,
all with the hope that the state of Israel can become purely
Jewish. Israel defied international law that called for the right
of return for Palestinians refugees. Instead, it instituted its
own law, shortly after its establishment in 1948, issuing the
right of return for Jews only. Any one of Jewish race, anywhere
in the world was and is still allowed to come to Palestine, granted
citizenship, to live free of charge on a land that is not his,
in a place where he does not belong.
Amid this savagery, land grabbing and
dehumanization of the victims, both the United States and Israel
have managed to convince themselves that the way they treated
their victims was in fact humane and civilized. "No other
conquering or colonizing nation has ever treated savage owners
of the soil with such generosity as has the United States,"
Roosevelt said.
But General Didi, from the Israeli army
begs to differ. He oversaw the historic invasion of Jenin last
year.
On April 02, 2002, Israel attacked the
camp for two weeks amid complete silence of the international
community. For two weeks, hundreds of Israeli tanks, US-apache
helicopters, F15 and F16 warplanes and thousands of soldiers
brutalized and terrorized the 13,000 inhabitants of the camp
living on just one square kilometer or land. The people of the
camp fought as much as homemade explosives, kitchen knives and
a few bullets could take them. They fought and refused to give
up since they new that this defeat would be their last. By the
end of the invasion, scores of Palestinian bodies were left to
decompose in the streets of Jenin as the Israelis refused to
allow access to the Red Cross to evacuate the dead. The entire
population of the camp was forced to evacuate, and nearly 2,000
homes were destroyed and severely damaged by Israeli army tanks,
bulldozers and air bombardment. .
This is what an Israeli army bulldozer
driver, who is known as "Kurdi Bear" said in his testimony,
of what took place in the camp as he narrated to the Israeli
newspaper Yidiot Ahronot:
"Many people were inside the houses
we started to demolish. They would come out of the houses while
we where working on them. I found joy with every house that came
down, because I knew they didn't mind dying, but they cared for
their homes. If you knocked down a house, you bury 40 or 50 people
for generations. If I am sorry for anything, it is for not tearing
the whole camp down. This is the way I thought in Jenin. I didn't
give a damn. If I had been given three weeks, I would have had
more fun. That is, if they would let me tear the whole camp down.
I have no mercy."
Let me refresh your memory with what
Roosevelt had said about the conduct of his armies. "No
other conquering or colonizing nation has ever treated savage
owners of the soil with such generosity as has the United States."
Roosevelt's words echoed, just a few
months ago, by the Israeli army Jenin commander, General Didi.
The Israeli army has behaved as "as
the most moral army in the world and the most careful army in
the world."
Please allow me to shift the course of
my thoughts to finish with these great words from the 1927 Grand
Council of American Indians:
"We want freedom from the white
man rather than to be integrated. We don't want any part of the
establishment, we want to be free to raise our children in our
religion, in our ways, to be able to hunt and fish and live in
peace. We want to be ourselves. We want to have our heritage,
because we are the owners of this land and because we belong
here.
"The white man says, there is freedom
and justice for all. We have had their "freedom and justice,"
and that is why we have been almost exterminated. We shall not
forget this."
Similar are the sentiments of Abdelrazik
Abu al-Hayjah, the Palestinian Administrator of the Jenin refugee
camp, who concluded his testimony for the book "Searching
Jenin":
"If they will destroy the camp many
times, the people of Jenin will rebuild it, because with every
time the peoples' courage and determination intensify. The more
Israel brutalizes Palestinians, the stronger their resistance
shall be. Israel cannot resolve its problems by force. They have
to understand that Palestinians' quest for freedom cannot be
stopped. Its only human nature for people to resist, to regain
their freedom.
"The people of Jenin do not hate
Israelis because their names are different, or because their
language is different. Nor do they hate them because they have
anything against the Jewish religion, but because they are occupiers,
and as long as they are occupiers, the resistance will go on.
The Palestinian resistance shall live as long as the occupation
lives."
Ramzy Baroud
is the editor-in-chief of PalestineChronicle.com and the editor
of the anthology "Searching Jenin: Eyewitness Accounts of
the Israeli Invasion 2002." He can be reached at: ramzy5@aol.com
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