Children's Demo 4 Gaza!

When Israel expelled Palestinians: Randall Kuhn

In the wake of Israel's invasion of Gaza, Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak made this analogy: "Think about what would happen if for seven years rockets had been fired at San Diego, California from Tijuana, Mexico."

Within hours scores of American pundits and politicians had mimicked Barak's comparisons almost verbatim. In fact, in this very paper on January 9 House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and House Minority Whip Eric Cantor ended an opinion piece by saying "America would never sit still if terrorists were lobbing missiles across our border into Texas or Montana." But let's see if our political and pundit class can parrot this analogy.

Think about what would happen if San Diego expelled most of its Hispanic, African American, Asian American, and Native American population, about 48 percent of the total, and forcibly relocated them to Tijuana? Not just immigrants, but even those who have lived in this country for many generations. Not just the unemployed or the criminals or the America haters, but the school teachers, the small business owners, the soldiers, even the baseball players.

What if we established government and faith-based agencies to help move white people into their former homes? And what if we razed hundreds of their homes in rural areas and, with the aid of charitable donations from people in the United States and abroad, planted forests on their former towns, creating nature preserves for whites to enjoy? Sounds pretty awful, huh? I may be called anti-Semitic for speaking this truth. Well, I'm Jewish and the scenario above is what many prominent Israeli scholars say happened when Israel expelled Palestinians from southern Israel and forced them into Gaza. But this analogy is just getting started.

What if the United Nations kept San Diego's discarded minorities in crowded, festering camps in Tijuana for 19 years? Then, the United States invaded Mexico, occupied Tijuana and began to build large housing developments in Tijuana where only whites could live.

And what if the United States built a network of highways connecting American citizens of Tijuana to the United States? And checkpoints, not just between Mexico and the United States but also around every neighborhood of Tijuana? What if we required every Tijuana resident, refugee or native, to show an ID card to the U.S. military on demand? What if thousands of Tijuana residents lost their homes, their jobs, their businesses, their children, their sense of self worth to this occupation? Would you be surprised to hear of a protest movement in Tijuana that sometimes became violent and hateful? Okay, now for the unbelievable part.

Think about what would happen if, after expelling all of the minorities from San Diego to Tijuana and subjecting them to 40 years of brutal military occupation, we just left Tijuana, removing all the white settlers and the soldiers? Only instead of giving them their freedom, we built a 20-foot tall electrified wall around Tijuana? Not just on the sides bordering San Diego, but on all the Mexico crossings as well. What if we set up 50-foot high watchtowers with machine gun batteries, and told them that if they stood within 100 yards of this wall we would shoot them dead on sight? And four out of every five days we kept every single one of those border crossings closed, not even allowing food, clothing, or medicine to arrive. And we patrolled their air space with our state-of-the-art fighter jets but didn't allow them so much as a crop duster. And we patrolled their waters with destroyers and submarines, but didn't even allow them to fish.

Would you be at all surprised to hear that these resistance groups in Tijuana, even after having been "freed" from their occupation but starved half to death, kept on firing rockets at the United States? Probably not. But you may be surprised to learn that the majority of people in Tijuana never picked up a rocket, or a gun, or a weapon of any kind.

The majority, instead, supported against all hope negotiations toward a peaceful solution that would provide security, freedom and equal rights to both people in two independent states living side by side as neighbors. This is the sound analogy to Israel's military onslaught in Gaza today. Maybe some day soon, common sense will prevail and no corpus of misleading analogies abut Tijuana or the crazy guy across the hall who wants to murder your daughter will be able to obscure the truth. And at that moment, in a country whose people shouted We Shall Overcome, Ich bin ein Berliner, End Apartheid, Free Tibet and Save Darfur, we will all join together and shout "Free Gaza. Free Palestine." And because we are Americans, the world will take notice and they will be free, and perhaps peace will prevail for all the residents of the Holy Land.

Randall Kuhn is an assistant professor and Director of the Global Health Affairs Program at the University of Denver Josef Korbel School of International Studies. He just returned from a trip to Israel and the West Bank.

Reflections

December 2008 and January 2009 will forever be remembered by us as months of Israeli aggression and brutality. In their vain attempt to force the Palestinians to give up their claim for freedom and self determination, the Zionist forces, encouraged by the silence of the world’s leaders, massacred over 1300 Palestinians and severely injured 5000. Many of these injured will never see again. They will never walk or hear again. These injured will stand testament to the Israeli brutality and savagery.


Whereas during the conflict the leaders of the western world reinforced their whole hearted support for the Zionist Israeli State, those of the Arab nations confirmed their treachery. Only two world leaders, whose countries lay thousands of miles away in South America, had the courage to make a moral stance.


In the 1967 War, Israel defeated six Arab armies in 6 days. In 2009 they were unable to defeat the Hamas Government after 22 days. The Zionists attempted to portray a division between ‘Hamas militants’ and ‘ordinary Palestinians.’ By doing this, they could claim to be targeting ‘legitimate’ military targets and thus were able to justify their actions against Gaza. History teaches us that no resistance movement can be successful without the mass support of the people. Palestinians understand that the war is against them and not Hamas, and no amount of Zionist propaganda will ever change this understanding. Even before the emergence of Hamas, the Palestinian people suffered massacre after massacre at the hands of the expansionist policies of Israel. The people of Gaza understand that the eradication of Hamas does not mean an end to their suffering.


Indeed the failure of the world to view Hamas as a legitimate government and a legitimate resistance movement proves baffling and beyond comprehension. During World War Two, when the Communist resistance fought to prevent Nazi invasion and occupation, the western world, choosing to ignore the brutal and bloody nature of Stalin’s regime, applauded the Communist resistance. Indeed they were right to applaud the Communists, for logic and common sense tell us that every nation has a right to defend itself from foreign occupation and invasion. Why then does the world fail to recognise this most basic right of the Palestinians to resists brutal occupation and invasion at the hands of Israel? Today the world applauds Algeria for its strong resistance and ultimate victory over colonial France. Why does the world fail to rally to the aid of a country that for 60 years has faced occupation, oppression, mass killing and war-crimes? While the Russians and Algerians are applauded for resisting occupation and invasion, the Palestinians are punished for it.


The hypocrisy of the world’s powers and the double standards that have emanated from this conflict will resonate for many years to come. While the western world lectures the Middle East and bombards it in the name of ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom,’ it refuses to recognize a government that was elected in the most democratic election to be held in the region. Not only does The West fail to recognize the Hamas government, it obliquely places sanctions upon Gaza and remains silent to an illegal Israeli siege of the strip. While the western world called for a ceasefire during this conflict and concentrated its efforts on articulating the ‘urgent’ need to stop arms reaching Hamas, it continued to supply Israel with some of the most deadly weapons of our time.

Israeli War Criminal to speak in London today!

Dear all,

Please publicise widely and demonstrate against the Colonel Geva Rapp, deputy commander of the Israeli Ground Forces in Operation Cast Lead against Gaza. This person should be charged for War Crimes and should not be travelling freely in the UK.

Day & Date: This Thursday 29th January (today)
Time: 6:00pm (Talk starts at 6:30pm)
Venue: The Jewish London Student Centre in Euston, 163 Euston Road.
Speaker: Colonel Geva Rapp, the head of the ground operations in Gaza (Operation Cast Lead)!

Queen Mary University Occupation!

FOSIS Campaigns congratulates the students at Queen Mary University who due to their sense of moral duty have occupied room 1.13 in the FB building. We hope that this occupation will serve to educate many on campus on the horrors of the Israeli occupation.

Keep up the good work!