As the death toll continues to mount, between Israeli assassinations,
abductions and a fledgling civil war, the mood in the West
Bank and amongst Palestinians continues to degrade. In speaking with the average Palestinian, each
death brings with it the ongoing fear of a wider conflict. And with the Israelis taking the opportunity
to commit their own brand of terror with undercover agents assassinating Palestinians,
everyone on the street has something to fear.
If you are not a target, you could simply be killed as an innocent
bystander.
An article on the Israeli site, Haaretz.com, confirms that today's
assassinations were carried out by Israeli military agents dressed in civilian
clothing. As an American in the West
Bank, I have to question how a Palestinian in Israel that commits such an act,
under the guise of a civilian, demands immediate retaliation in the form of
artillery shells, yet Israeli agents are permitted to kill at a whim and then
brag about it. It is clear, even to an
untrained eye, that the Israeli's are using the Palestinian internal strife to
take the opportunity to carry out acts that every civilized country in the
world should decry.
In my conversations with the local citizens, it is clear that every
death that occurs is a painful reminder that they are slowly losing control of
their own country. As each new report of
a death, as a result of infighting or Israeli aggression, blasts from the
television screen or radio and jumps off the pages of the print media or the
internet, it appears the situation is spiraling out of control. As Israel experiences its most
peaceful period in decades, it continues to justify its own brand of frontier
justice.
And while Prime Minister Ohlmert is advertising to the world that he is
ready to talk peace, his cronies are carrying out acts of horror that would
make Heinrich Himmler blush. In
addition, while talking about returning all the land inside the 1967 green
line, Israeli bulldozers continue to demolish Palestinian homes, orchards and
lives and new Israeli settlements are being built. History has not seen this type of diabolical
lies, deceit and misinformation, since Nazi Germany and World War II.
During my trip into the West Bank, it was obvious to me that the
Palestinians do not have a country, they do not have a state, they can not even
travel 10 miles without having to cross an Israeli checkpoint, the simply have
an outdoor prison. Individuals who were
born in this land can not even visit Jerusalem
or cross the checkpoints, no matter how much identification they carry with
them, simply because they are Palestinian.
As an American, and growing up during the civil rights era, this is
vaguely reminiscent of separate bathrooms, separate schools, separate toilets
and separate drinking fountains. For a
country like America
to support the actions of the Israelis is tantamount to rolling back the clock
and supporting the type of segregation that we declared would happen
"never again."
With the support my government is
providing to the criminal acts committed by Israel, and at a time when the
American congress is passing legislation concerning "Palestinian
Terrorism", it has become clearer and clearer how much control the Israeli
lobby has over American politics. If the
average American knew the truth of what was happening in Palestine, and was not bombarded with the
propaganda spewed forth from the Israeli lobby and purchased American
politicians, there would be an outcry, louder than any ever heard from my
country. While Americans wept over the
holocaust, they are now being blinded by yet another atrocity that history will
prove as one of the most horrible genocides recorded. This media bombardment is comparable to the
"African" Uranium connection, Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction and Al-Qaeda
in Iraq. Even though all of these items were proven
false, the media blitz was so great, that polls show that people still believe
these lies.
As the US and Israel refuse to
talk to Syrian President Basher Assad because they feel he is untrustworthy,
both governments have used lies, misinformation and propaganda to promote their
own personal agendas, while giving the false appearance that they are actually
interested in a Middle East peace solution.
