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CounterPunch
November
5, 2002
Bloody Sunday.
Bloody Palestine.
by WILLIAM HUGHES
On the day that Israel announced the appointment
of "hard-liner" Shaul Mofaz as its new Defense Minister,
I went to the movies to see the new flick, "Bloody Sunday."
It recreated an episode in Irish history, where the British took
a "hard-line" against Irish Catholics with deadly consequences.
For some reason, Tel Aviv thought it was a good idea to brag
about Mofaz, a former Army chief of staff, as being a "hard-liner."
What does "hard-liner" mean
within the context of Israeli politics? Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon, I'm sure, is a "hard-liner." He has plenty
of Arab victims to prove it, too, going back to his massacre
of villagers at Qibya, in 1953. Is Mofaz to his political Right?
Now, that is a scary thought! Is Mofaz to the Right of Genghis
Khan? How do we measure this? Tel Aviv owes us an explanation.
I know it is out of character for anyone in this country to question
the colonial politics of the "hard-liners" in Israel.
That was true before 9/11, but today that it is no longer true.
No alien based entity, like Israel, has a right, because of its
relationship with us, to place our Republic in harm's way. If
it does, then it does so at the risk of that relationship coming
to an end, along with the cash cow that has provided $10 billion
per year to Israel since fiscal 1997, according to Tom Maltaner
(Source, <Wrema.com>). The American people have their limits.
As for the "hard-liner" Sharon,
he bombed Beirut, in 1982, for 70 straight days, killing 19,000
Arabs. He also has the Saber and Shatilla carnage on his resume.
Unfortunately, none of this stopped the Israelis from electing
him as their prime minister, or Israel's "Amen Chorus"
in this country from giving him their rabid support.
Question: Are the Israelis suggesting
that Mofaz is a bigger "hard-liner" than Sharon?
If so, pity the Palestinians in the occupied
territories. They can expect more state-sponsored terrorism,
more deportations, more torture, and more extra judicial assassinations.
And, America, too, had better wake up!
We have enough enemies now in the Arab
World, thanks to our unconditional support of Israel and our
insulting anti-Islamic foreign policy. Mofaz, if he repeats the
strong arm tactics that he demonstrated over the last two years
against the Palestinians, can only set up the U.S. for another
9/11-like assault.
For the historical record, I object to
these land grabbing Likudnik fundamentalists, and their "hard-liner"
military protectors, putting my country at risk. In fact, Scott
McConnell, in "The American Conservative," Nov. 4,
2002 issue, underscored my point about the Israelis making us
more enemies.
He said "Sharon is not America's
friend in the Middle East, but one of our country's most severe
diplomatic liabilities. As the beneficiary of Washington's lavish
military and financial support, Sharon has become a prime purveyor
of anti-American sentiment in the Mideast and the wider world,
a fat advertisement for all that is short-sighted and fundamentally
unbalanced about America's policy."
Now, Tel Aviv wants to add Mofaz to the
lethal colonial mix! Which brings me back to the film about the
Irish.
"Bloody Sunday" is done in
a captivating documentary style. It showed what happened in British-occupied
Derry, in the north of Ireland, on January 30, 1972. The Irish
had decided to protest the internment without trial policies
of the London regime and to also demand an end to the Protestant
dominated state. They patterned their "Civil Rights Movement,"
after the drive for justice led by Martin Luther King Jr., in
this country in the 60s.
Well, the arrogant Brits, like the imperialist
Israelis, have never been much for paying attention to a colony's
evolving sense of justice. The unarmed Irish marchers, fourteen
of them, were gunned down by British paratroopers. The Coroner,
Hubert O'Neill, labeled it, "Sheer unadulterated murder."
The Irish Civil Rights Movement also
went down for the count on that fateful day. Queen Elizabeth
II saw fit, however, to put her black mark on the slaughter.
She bestowed an "OBE" award on the military official,
a "hard-liner," responsible for the troops that caused
the mayhem!
I had to wait until the Queen came to
Baltimore on May 15, 1991, to to let her know about my feelings
about "Bloody Sunday." She attended a baseball game
at the old Memorial Stadium on 33rd Street. When she was introduced
to the crowd and the band struck up "God Save the Queen,"
I stood up out in the right field bleachers, along with hundreds
of other activists from the Peace and Justice Movement, and we
turned our backs on the British monarch! It was the least we
could do to remember the victims of Derry's "Bloody Sunday."
As an American appalled by Israel's continuing
oppression of the Palestinians, I don't think I'm ever going
to get an opportunity to tell Sharon personally what I think
of him and his "hard-liner" policies. I can't imagine
him going to a baseball game. He's more of a blood and guts kind
of guy. His guts and the Palestinians' blood!
And, I suspect by the time Sharon and
his hatchet man, Mofaz, get done bludgeoning the Palestinians
into submission and/or mass dispersal, (Tel Aviv's final solution?),
that America again will become a bloody victim of terrorism.
And the right to dissent, long one of our ancient liberties,
will also be fading fast from our society, egged on by the ideologues
of the John Ashcroft Brigade.
All of this, no doubt, will be directly
connected to the policies of our "hard-liner" friends
in Tel Aviv! The so-called, "Only Democracy in the Mideast."
Sure!
William Hughes
is the author of Baltimore
Iconoclast. He can be reached at liamhughes@mindspring.com.
(C) William Hughes 2002
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