Opinion Editorials, September 2011

Al-Jazeerah, CCUN, September 26, 2011

What is the opposite of war?

Well, in the Middle East it is not peace.

The Palestinians and Israel had declared an end to their war 20 years ago and the start of the peace process.

The peace never materialized but we've not gone back to war. Well maybe not yet.

The Palestinians are morally and ethically obliged to liberate themselves from Israel's occupation.

This ugly occupation has brought them destruction, lack of education, lack of free speech, lack of democracy and lack of human rights.

It will be taught in history books a few hundred years from now how this brutal occupation was supported by the free world while they enjoyed their rights to the fullest, they allowed their little creation to savagely live on the blood and flesh of the people who lived on it for centuries.
Balfour had no right giving away Palestine to European Jews. Britain was an occupying power who had no legal basis promising anything to anyone.

The deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinians along the way and the erasure of entire villages and neighborhoods from the maps made it possible.

Massacre after another, no super-power came to their rescue. Quite the opposite, they aligned themselves with Israel and exported millions of their own Jewish populations to the new promised lands.

Jewish people from around the globe ran away from the poverty, discrimination and death to establish an empire promised by their God. Was this promise also with the carte-blanche of killing other people and displacing them? Did the Jewish god allow the suffering, pain and death of all others?

Why were the natural inhabitants who are descendants of the tribes forever living their deenied the right to remain?

Was it gods directives to wipe out the entire native population so swiftly, so savagely, and so quickly?

Did the divine promise include legalizing thievery of private property and en-masse social detruction?

I myself visited my great-grandfather's mansion and farmlands near Bir Sheba where it is now the private property of an immigrant family from Poland.The current owner never paid anything, didn't build it and somehow found himself awarded the house by the Jewish agency.

I had a hard time understanding how he could actually look us in the eye and say it out loud explicitly that god had promised him our house in the promised land. The title deeds proving our ownership were not honored in Israeli courts who said our lving abroad allowed them to give away our property. This law never applies to Jews who live away for years but never lose a needle.

This systematic cleansing created fragile situations in the entire area there are millions of Palestinians living in other Arab countries. Many other wars and conflicts arose out of this injustice. I suffered discrimination and indignity and false accusations many times over, as they knew i was incapable of defending myself or leaving their countries.

Many host people resented the Palestinians as a burden on their communities and mistreated and abused them in their refugee camps.

Now the world tells us that it's OK to suffer, but not OK to fight back. I say yeas, but for how long can i see my motherland being raped and keep quite?

Isn't 20 years of peace negotiations more than enough evidence of how much we have been open minded?

No, I'm not saying that we should go to war. I've already concluded at the start of this article that war is not the opposite of peace. I'm saying it is time for the US, Britain, Russia and the UN to rectify what injustice they have done.

The US is obliged legally and ethically to end the occupation. They must change course and direction and shift away from blind support that generates hate and mistrust to a more balanced policy that still would not effect their commitment to Israel's security.

I'm calling on the British to understand that it is normal for those natives to resent being occupied by incoming foreigners who deny them their basic human rights.

The world has to come together once and for all not to support Palestinians but to support peace. Unless, of course, they believe that peace is not in their best interest.

 Ahmed Sha'ath is a Palestinian journalist and writer and advocate of universal human rights. Worked as facilitator, live/instant translator and media guide to many journalists and media outlets. Authored an article-compilation book titled "Fight like a man, make peace like an Angel" published in 1999.

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