Manuel Valenzuela: A Malignant Tumor On The World

Anti-occupation, anti-apartheid and anti-dehumanization is not anti-Semitism nor anti-Israel. Pro-peace, pro-human rights and pro-freedom is not pro-Palestinian. The power of freedom is pointing out when it is being denied. The search for justice and equality comes not from hiding from fear of criticism but rather from taking the road less traveled up the mountain of truth.

--- Manuel Valenzuela

What were Sharon and the Israeli government thinking when they decided to decapitate Hamas through the assassination of its founder, Sheik Ahmed Yassin? If the state sponsored murder of Yassin was not so recklessly self-defeating one might be inclined to think that Sharon is on a mission to implode the state of Israel. The evaporation of a wheelchair-laden Yassin through American Apache helicopter missiles underscores the vicious cycle the state of Israel has thrust upon itself for years on end. Its ceaseless terror-inducing actions on an occupied and resisting people continue to haunt it and its own citizens; its continued oppression, violence and dehumanization on the indigenous people of Palestine inevitably always boomerangs back, yet Israel does not relent, nor understands, nor seems to care about the consequences of its actions.

As if addicted to perpetual death, fear and violence, the state of Israel continues to escalate a war it cannot win, an occupation it cannot escape and a state of siege it does not fully care to understand. Israel has through the years only increased its oppression of a population it cannot erase, no matter how hard it tries to cleanse the Holy Land of its native inhabitants. It continues to masochistically seek the principle of kill and be killed, of cause and effect and action and reaction, making one wonder if suffering and hardship are necessary ingredients for life in the Middle East. For decades Israel has tried everything to no avail, collective punishment, virtual imprisonment, economic genocide, killing, maiming, oppressing, occupying, cleansing and dehumanizing. Does it not see that her continued actions are leading not to the “promised land” but rather straight to hell on Earth and that life is only getting harder and much less safe?

The trouble in the Middle East stems from the fact that a European people with no continuity with the land arrived and colonized a native population that did. Today, this colonization has morphed into outright apartheid and dehumanization. The state of Israel, it must be understood, was born in sin. It was created in large part thanks to the ethnic cleansing and dispossession of a native people who today are trapped in large concentration camps of suffering and utter decay, living encaged in the last vestiges of their original land. Israel’s birth coincided with the spawning of serious crimes against humanity that have through time only been exacerbated, continuing to this day with ever more barbaric levels of suppression, persecution and subjugation.

Israel was a dream of European Zionists who colonized the native Palestinian people (thanks to the British) who had contiguously occupied the land for millennia. These Zionists arrived and proceeded to open the floodgates of European Jewish immigration onto Palestine. Hundreds of thousands arrived while hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forced out, oftentimes with a barrel of a gun pointed their way. Immigrants took possession of those lands and buildings left behind by the indigenous population.

Arab-Israeli wars that followed drove still more natives out of their lands and lives, pushing them further away from their historical homes. Large sections and populations of Jordan, Syria, the West Bank and Gaza are today but vast refugee camps for those who were ethnically cleansed from their livelihoods in order to appease the Zionist dream of a Jewish state in the so-called “promised land.”

Those who would deny this reality should be categorized along with Holocaust non-believers and those revisionists of history who would have the world believe otherwise. The reality of the formation of Israel has been tried to be made to disappear into the dustbins of forgotten history for the truth of how the “promised land” was acquired would no doubt send waves of disgust into those who today believe in the perceived nobility and blessings of the creation of Israel and the humanity and enlightenment of modern man. Indeed, to study the history of the formation of Israel is to undertake a study into colonization, occupation, oppression, apartheid and the worst in the human condition.

The latest act in the violent and horrendous tragedy that is the cycle of revenge and death in the Middle East will only assure that the Arab world, as well as the globe at large, continues its exponentially-increasing animosity and resentment toward Israel and the Zionists who seem not to care about the growing tremors of negative energy seemingly emanating from all corners of the globe.

From Europe to Africa and Latin America to Asia, millions of human beings not privy to American corporate media whitewashing and manipulation are fully aware of the crimes against humanity emanating from the government of Ariel Sharon. What Americans are made ignorant to thanks to a Zionist-friendly corporate media the rest of the world sees as an outright travesty, akin to the worst devastation of a people committed by an oppressor state. That the vast majority of American citizens have been made completely ignorant to such a monstrosity taking place in modern times speaks volumes of the level of control and power the corporate media maintains over the population. Fortunately, the rest of the world does not have a fog-filled smoking mirror from which to gaze at reality.

This helps explain the growing wave of anti-Semitism throughout the planet which seems to only be on the rise. It is actions such as the killing of Sheik Yassin and the horrific treatment of millions of Palestinians that is giving birth to a resurgent anger against the Israeli and by consequence Jewish people who, justifiably or not, rightfully or wrongly, are imputed to the actions of the Israeli government by a world increasingly resentful at the barbaric treatment of an occupied and oppressed people. With every continued massacre, American missile killing and maiming, bullet penetrating the backs of children, demolition of houses and crops and further act of collective punishment anti-Semitism will only increase worldwide.

Soon, the day will come when the hatred is so strong, when the animosity and resentfulness is so powerful that Israel will become more than the pariah it is steadily becoming. The wrath of the world will envelope Israel and the ramifications will be disastrous to both Israelis and Jews alike. It might become the ultimate rogue state, banished from the fraternity of nations.

Whether we like it or not, the reality is that in this world Israel’s actions are imputed onto the over 13 million Jews who inhabit this world, and it will be them who suffer as a result of the decisions of Sharon and the Israeli government. The consequences of continued occupation and decimation will devastate the millions of good, peace-loving and innocent Jews around the world. The cauldron of hatred being spawned as a direct result of what Israel is doing in Palestine will reverberate vociferously, growing to levels not seen in sixty years, condemning another generation of Jews whose innocence is being despoiled by Sharon and the zealous Zionists who care not what ramifications their actions spring forth.

Sheik Yassin’s death at the hands of Sharon has opened a new Pandora’s Box for the region and the world. A troubled region has been made even more volatile and unstable, becoming an explosive cocktail of death, hatred, revenge and fervor that might spread worldwide. Seething anger has transformed itself into malevolent calls for revenge and bloodshed, and soon a sea of red will litter the streets of the Holy Land. Fear of what will surely come has once more permeated Israeli and Palestinian energies. Both societies are bracing for the actions and reactions, for the eye for an eye that will surely follow and the unrelenting malevolence that the Holy Land has become.

Terror in backpacks will continue to be the only damaging weapon the oppressed people can use. It is the ultimate smart bomb, powerful explosives strapped onto the bodies of young people who are in such dire straits of hopelessness and hatred that they are ready to explode themselves next to Israelis. When rocks, anger and seething hatred do not work the desperate resort to desperation and the suicide bomber is born. Combined with misery and hopelessness, it traverses into Israeli cities and sends screams and inhuman emotions rocketing through Israeli society once more. The suicide bomber, the poor man’s guided missile, will once more be sent to blast and kill Israelis who by their submissive acquiescence of Sharon’s terror campaign allow for the carnage to continue.

Terror in the skies will continue to rain down on Palestinian cities and towns, thanks to American Apache helicopters pummeling the West Bank and Gaza with their hellish missiles of death and destruction. On the ground, Abrams tanks will encircle towns and cities, destroying everything in their path. IDF forces will shoot indiscriminately, killing women, children and babies with the same zeal they possess for the death of a Hamas member. Enveloped in razor-sharp wire or fences, Palestinians will be under curfew, a simple term meaning imprisonment. Collective punishment will continue, lands will be confiscated and the sloth-like ethnic cleansing of an entire race of people will live on.

The right-wing Likud government has systematically provoked the wrath of Palestinians through its harsh collective punishment, its continued dehumanization and the incessant unleashing of terror through American Apache helicopters and Abrams tanks. Likud has survived by fostering the current cycle of violence that has attached itself to the fears of Israeli citizens. In essence, it has maintained power through the continued shedding of blood, both Jewish and Muslim. It is therefore in its best interest to maintain the status quo, using Israelis and their fears to hold its grip on power. Israel’s citizens are being used, becoming pawns in the game of power, in essence easily disposable bodies possessing the blood and flesh necessary for the cameras to record and disseminate the carnage and the fear necessary to control the population. Through fear Likud thrives and survives; through the maiming of body parts and splashing of blood Sharon maintains his hegemony over the Israeli people.

The world is tired that the greatest threat to world peace and stability comes from a minute part of the world involving a few million people (out of a world population of over 6 billion). We are tired that so much of our security is determined by those entities fighting for a land promised by ancient myths and fables, by primitive peoples with archaic outlooks seeking antiquated solutions in bygone times. The world is tired of the continued shedding of human blood for cynical purposes that is sending the entire globe perilously close to world war. It is hard to believe that one area, no bigger than a small American state, is the cause so much trouble and anxiety and that in a simmering second can help engulf the world in flames.

The greatest threat to world peace is the continued occupation of Palestinian land and the criminal oppression of the Palestinian people. The world is tired of the inequality, the unfairness, the injustice, the dehumanization, the apartheid and the crimes against humanity being committed in the Middle East. It is tired of an oppressor categorically treating like caged animals a race of humanity whose only crime was continuously living in land deemed Holy by Zionists.

The world is tired of the one-sided fiction that comes out of Israel that distorts the reality of what is occurring and makes terrorists of an oppressed people resisting occupation. We are sick and tired of government leaders doing nothing but plucking their anal whiskers while millions of people are rotting away their existence in a cesspool of misery and hopelessness, trapped in cages of squalor, deprived of opportunity and at living a life worthy of a human being.

What is happening in Palestine affects us all, whether we like it or not. The ramifications of not heeding the warning signs emanating from the region will endanger all corners of the globe. The assassination of Sheik Yassin will no doubt unleash a wave of violence that will reverberate throughout the globe. Already warnings are being sent that the US will be a target. There is no reason to doubt this claim as America is increasingly responsible for the violence in the region.

Sharon does not sit on the porcelain god contemplating his next murder without the consent of George W. Bush in Washington. Whatever flatulent winds of decrepit uneasiness arise from the Sharon toilet are always smelled in the White House. It is, therefore, highly unlikely the Bush administration did not give its thumbs up to the killing of Sheik Yassin. Hamas knows this, as do many in the growing list of Al-Qaeda inspired groups sprouting throughout the globe thanks to Bush’s false foray into Iraq. With the growth of anti-Americanism reaching troubling proportions worldwide and when the same level of hatred is now espoused for America as for Israel we can be assured America’s role in the Sharon action will not go unpunished. We have all been made less safe as a result.

A new front of hatred has opened up, a new enemy declared. America is now in the crosshairs of yet other militant groups. Bush’s support for Sharon and Israel has placed targets on our backs. The war on terror is turning into the war of error. American support for the barbaric treatment by Israel of the Palestinians has set free mechanisms of animosity and resentment against the US. Its citizens have as a result been imputed with the same zeal of hatred as is found for Israelis and George W. Bush. Today, America and Israel are seen as one and the same, the Great Satan and its Zionist puppeteer. The same adverse feelings are now felt for us as for Israelis and Zionists, and this is very troubling.

Sharon’s assassination of the head of Hamas now leaves open the murder of any leader and/or his minions anywhere in the world. State-sponsored murder is against international law, but, like all else it decides to do concerning the Palestinians, Israel flaunts its arrogance to the world, blatantly and with American support and protection breaking and failing to comply with international law while paying no attention to the cries of an outraged world.

Terrorism, whether Palestinian or Israeli, should not be defined by the crudeness of weapons or the poverty of the oppressed. It should not be allowed through legitimacy of government, acquiescence by America or pressure from lobbying groups. Terrorism is terrorism, be it through suicide bombers or Apache helicopter missiles. The latter is the terror of the rich while the former is that of the poor. To accede to one while condemning the other is to anoint Israel while castigating Palestinians. It is to support the terrorism of the oppressors while condemning the resistance of the oppressed.

War exists between Palestinians and Israelis, just as it has since Zionists first arrived in Palestine. One party receives tens of billions of dollars in financial and military assistance from the US, not to mention political protection for its actions; the other must resort to rocks, Molotov cocktails and suicide bombers. Resistance to occupation will not stop with the death of Sheik Yassin nor with ethnic cleansing of a people. History teaches us that the occupied will fight to the death for their land and dignity, for their livelihood and homes. History, from ancient to modern, seems not to register in the Likud government.

As long as two peoples hate each other, inflicting terrible suffering, death and destruction onto one another and existing in a virtual state of war there will be no peace. One group came and took what did not belong to them; the other is fighting for its existence and survival. Armageddon to the region might yet arrive like a thunderous and powerful storm destroying everything in its path if the same elements continue decimating themselves much longer.

As long as Israel keeps upsetting the karmic forces of the universe the possibility exists that someday soon it will find itself not dealing with a suicide bomber but rather a suicide bomber carrying a nuclear suitcase or backpack. If the state of Israel continues on its self-destructive path this growing reality will become a self-serving inevitability. The futility of “separation barriers” and “security fences” will thus come to light.

Walls of protection and defense are better left to the days of the Old Testament, not in modern times of missiles and chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear proclivity. Resistance to occupation can never be stopped; human nature guarantees it. The days of nuclear proliferation are upon us, as are the means to unleash vapors of hellish heat onto Israeli cities and mushroom clouds rising high into the Holy Land’s sky. Sharon would be well advised thinking long and hard of this looming threat before planning his next murder or act of clandestine ethnic cleansing. The continued and future existence of his nation might very well hang in the balance.

Manuel Valenzuela is social critic and commentator, activist, writer and author of Echoes in the Wind, a novel to be published in Spring of 2004. His articles appear weekly on axisoflogic.com where he is also contributing editor. Mr. Valenzuela welcomes comments and can be reached at manuel@valenzuelas.net - Read Other Articles By Manuel Valenzuela: Manuel Valenzuela Archive

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