Image by socialistalternative via Flickr
USCPR on Nov 29, 2017
Many people are held back from taking a stand on the issue of Palestine/Israel by the common misconception that it is “complicated.” Here, we explain the steady continuation of the more than 100 year old settler colonial project that is Zionism.
Palestine 101: Not That Complicated can help folks both familiar and unfamiliar with the issue understand the ongoing process of Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestine, and the legacy of Palestinian resistance to the colonization of their homeland.
Learn more at uscpr.org.
from the archives:
Demystifying US and Israeli Power by Susan Cain and Mark Mason (must-read)
Palestine Is Still The Issue by John Pilger
Abby Martin and Eran Efrati on Institutionalized Israeli War Crimes and Oppression of Palestinians
Abby Martin: How Palestine Became Colonized
Chris Hedges and Amira Hass: Inside the Occupied Territories
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Of course, no-one in their right mind can deny these facts; but the counter-argument is really important to understand, however much we may disagree with it…for it is fundamentally about the pre-Islamic indigenous right of a people to their unique ‘sacred heritage.’ That is to say to a hereditary privilege to assert entitlement to the present-day real estate, that embodies the ancient sanctity and holiness of the first and second Temples, of Jerusalem.
This is the root of the frankly irrational but passionate devotion to an immense metaphysical problem, that in theory should not be a problem at all, if all parties were genuinely religious.
For as it can be justly argued, that the Jerusalem Temple is indeed the integral symbolic focus of the sacred heritage of a peoples that must be acknowledged, revered and accepted as legitimate in the context of a long historical continuum; it must follow, that in equal measure, reciprocal respect should be accorded universally and unequivocally, to the de facto existence of the post-Roman Qur’anic dispensation of Islam ~ moreover, ironically enough, to a body of mystical teachings that all authentic Moslems accept (as an article of faith,) as an authentic development of the (unbroken) continuity of Abrahamic religious tradition.
So, whatever our views of Patriarchal dogmatics, why is this not a completely established fact? What went so wrong, that a peoples who had enjoyed absolute tolerance and indeed often thrived within various Moslem societies, suddenly chose to scapegoat the innocent occupants of Palestine after WW2 and demonize other areas of what the right-wing militant strategist, Edward Luttwak, prefers to call, the Eastern Mediterranean?
Why? It does not make any sense.
So now we are faced with such a long experience of victimization and brutal atrocity, settlement and savage destruction of a beautiful culture, that it is impossible to reconcile what ought to be a coherent acceptance of what should be reasonable, fair and spiritually justifiable. Instead, we witness the cruel precedent of rule by uncompromising violence; an apartheid tyranny that is answerable to nobody & no thing but it’s own egregious prejudice.
Because of this, the contemptible objects of their hatred are dehumanized to justify their own dreadful crimes. The world should not tolerate this blind and bigoted, reactionary contempt for living & breathing human beings. It is truly despicable and sick.
There must be a change of heart among the present day occupants of this unholy land. The rest of the world should hold up a gigantic mirror to them, so that they can witness their own reflection in the collective mind of humankind, and experience fully the tragic impoverishment of their historically traumatized but now severely depraved, ‘native-soul.’
Then and only then, can they speak with any integrity or conviction about religious morality; or truth ~ and however we may finally, rationally understand it, “Justice.”
I ought to amend my own comment “a gigantic mirror to them, so that they can witness their own reflection in the collective mind of humankind,” & say “the collective mind and living heart of humanity…” Because we are complicit if we do nothing.
100 years after Balfour, “enough” has proven to be far too much. It is no longer possible to disguise this horror, and pretend there is nothing that can be done; it haunts all of us who are privileged not to be directly under fire; despite the hard fought UN resolutions that have achieved nothing.
This diabolical shadow, must be banished; & here is a documentary that summarizes the situation actually quite well ~ in fact, very well… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tynqlGmziy4
http://www.palestinedocs.net/how-we-can-solve-the-palestinian-israeli-problem.html
Thanks, David.