Dear Roger,
Our readers know how much violence
is erupting in Palestine now; and they have seen the bias with which
that violence is being described in the west. When Israel killed ten
Palestinians in Jenin on January 26 in what is being called a
“massacre,” those deaths were not a major story in the American press.
But a day later, when a Palestinian gunman killed six Israeli settlers
and one Ukrainian national in the illegal settlement of Neve Yaakov in
occupied East Jerusalem, that was big news in the west– with outlets
saying a terrorist had targeted a synagogue as if this is a religious
conflict, and not militant apartheid. Liberal Zionists echoed that bias.
And no surprise, the Secretary of State, who is about to visit Israel
and Palestine, expressed no sympathies about the Israeli army killings
in Jenin– while grieving over the killings in occupied Jerusalem. “Our thoughts are with the Israeli people following the terrorist attack in Jerusalem.”
Notice that Antony Blinken couldn’t bring himself to say a settlement
or a colony– or occupied East Jerusalem, where Palestinians were
supposed to have their capital, remember that great promise? The Biden
administration this week doubled down on Trump policy by refusing to describe the West Bank as occupied territories. Because Biden and the Democratic Party leadership are
determined to demonstrate the “unbreakable bond” between the U.S. and
Israel, regardless of how militantly racist the Israeli government is.
Once again, it is progressive activists on the web and social media,
along with a few courageous congresspeople, who are pushing the issue of
Palestinian human rights in the American discourse. Because we will
never give up on the principle of equality. And we do not regard this
conflict as a “cycle of violence.” It is the inevitable uprising of a
people being ethnically cleansed before our eyes by one of the strongest
armies in the world. So this week we ask:
What does the U.S. power structure expect when it signs off on the
theft of more and more Palestinian land in the name of Zionism? “We’re
losing our last place of sovereignty in Jerusalem,” Jalal Abu-Khater explained to Mariam Barghouti this week of the encirclement of the city.
What do liberal Zionists have to offer to the principle of Palestinian liberty besides conflict management, docility, and apartheid-with-4G?
What does the U.S. government mean when it says that both sides must
“deescalate” — and yet the “status quo is unsustainable”? Does it expect
yet another generation of Palestinians to sit still as their hopes for
basic freedoms are strangled? They will not do so; and their spirit of
sumud, or steadfastness, now has a global audience.
Thanks for reading, |