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CounterPunch
January
8, 2003
A Letter to
Colin Powell
An Appeal for Bethlehem
By MICHAEL S. LADAH
Dear Mr. Secretary,
Bethlehem University issued the enclosed
press release on January 5, 2003. As you will see, Brother Vincent
Malham, President-Vice Chancellor, describes conditions around
the University where Bethlehem's residents have been subjected
to continuous curfews imposed by Israeli occupation forces.
Similar press releases have been issued over the past several
months by other Palestinian universities and human rights organizations.
The situation in the West Bank, and particularly
in Bethlehem, has become intolerable. The abhorrent tactics
employed by the Israeli military--the use of collective punishment
against unarmed, innocent Palestinians, has forced residents
of the Bethlehem area, and Nablus, Jenin and Ramallah before
them, to live under conditions not fit for humans.
While we condemn the Israeli military
oppression of innocent Palestinians, we also acknowledge the
suffering of and condemn all acts of violence against innocent
Israeli civilians.
The State Department, under your leadership
and guidance, must take an active role in ending the suffering
of innocent civilians under a foreign occupation in the West
Bank and Gaza. We call upon you to design and implement a solution
that will protect them from mistreatment. It is our moral obligation
to intervene. As an ally of the state of Israel, we have given
financial and military aid to Israel has enabled the Israeli
military to engage in acts of brutality against innocent civilian
populations. As a nation that promotes human rights and democratic
principles, we have an obligation to ensure that US military
equipment is used by other countries for defensive purposes only,
and not to oppress an entire nation that refuses to allow its
will to be broken. As a government that has taken an active
role in promoting and brokering peace in the region, US credibility
and effectiveness is significantly compromised by our blind support
for the Israeli government.
Israel is obligated, under many UN Security
Council Resolutions, including UNSCR 237, "to ensure the
safety, welfare and security of the inhabitants. and respect
the humanitarian principles contained in the Geneva Conventions
of 12 August 1949." How can we justify enforcing UN Security
Council resolutions pertaining to Iraq while we ignore those
more basic and more serious resolutions that pertain to the mistreatment,
by Israeli occupation forces, of the Palestinian civilian population?
Mr. Secretary, please remember: The Israeli
oppression of Palestinian civilians is done with the help of
our U.S. tax dollars and our gifts of military equipment to the
State of Israel; it is facilitated by ongoing moral and political
support. We, the American people and government, are therefore
guilty of encouraging Israel's brutal occupation of lands that
it occupies in contravention of international law. As a nation,
we can not legitimately claim that we have no part in the oppression
of the Palestinian people. I call upon you, as a proponent of
freedom, liberty and human rights, to work to alleviate the suffering
of the Palestinian people. At the very least, we must end United
States' complicity in this horrible injustice.
I leave you with the words of Martin
Luther King: "Every person must decide, at some point,
whether they will walk in the light of creative altruism or in
the darkness of destructive selfishness. This is the judgment.
Life's most persistent and urgent question is, What are you doing
for others?"
Respectfully,
Michael S. Ladah
Las Vegas, Nevada
Michael S. Ladah
is an Arab American who lived and worked in various parts of
the Middle East. He is the author of "Quicksand, Oil and
Dreams: The Story of One of Five Million Dispossessed Palestinians."
He can be reached at: mikeladah@hotmail.com
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