It is almost impossible as a Muslim blogger not to write about the situation in Palestine. Particularly given the paucity and bias of the reporting that generally takes place in the western media. It is also a colossal failure on the part of all the so-called ‘leaders’ of the world. That we can allow a situation where millions of people are forceably removed from their homes, then barricaded behind a concrete wall and left without any food or supplies allowed into the ghetto from outside, would be bad enough, but to then stand idly by while their jailers systematically attack and kill them is just beyond the pale.
Sometimes however, the truth can’t but be spoken and in this case it can’t be better said than by someone other than me. I came across this article by Deb Reich, an American Jewish lady living in Israel. It is well worth reading the whole article – below is just an excerpt:
Alas, Jews in Israel and abroad often behave as if Palestinian Arabs are present in Palestine/Israel purely as some kind of devilish provocation – to deny us the fulfillment of our dream of a return to Zion. As if the hundred-year-old olive trees of those long-suffering villagers on the West Bank are standing there only to create make-work for IDF bulldozers and keep our dedicated Army Corps of Engineer boys from getting home in time for dinner. It’s always about us, and we never fail to judge ourselves by our best intentions while busy judging them by their Baruch Goldsteins.
J’accuse…. whom? Either we are all guilty, or none of us is guilty. Governments and partisans and ordinary citizens and religious leaders and followers on all sides of the conflict, back to Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar, have certainly made mistakes and made themselves part of the problem. But most Israelis and Palestinians alive today were born after the state of Israel came into being, so they aren’t responsible; and none of us was alive when the Zionist movement was born in the late 1800s in Europe, so that’s not our fault either. Most were not around when Haj Amin al Husseini sided with Hitler in WWII, so they can’t be blamed for his choice. Most of today’s Israelis were not around when Prime Minister Golda Meir made her notorious pronouncement – “There are no Palestinians!” – and so cannot be blamed for that, either.
The full article can be found here:
http://asiapacific.mediamonitors.net/Headlines/J-accuse-won-t-work-anymore