Opinion Editorials, October 2003, www.aljazeerah.info
Human Price of the Israeli Occupation of Palestine
Israeli daily aggression on the Palestinian people
Mission and meaning of Al-Jazeerah
Cities, localities, and tourist attractions
What are you doing to change American foreign policy?
Curtis F.J. Doebbler
Al-Jazeerah, 10/28/03
One of the most quoted comments in the United States is the phrase in former American President John F. Kennedy's inaugural address in which he pleads to the American people to ask not what America can do for them, but to ask what each American can do for his country. This phrase captures the imagination of Americans in the same way that America's terror wrenching actions around the world capture the imagination of the more than half of the world's population living in abject poverty or fear of their lives because of them.
Indeed, many have exclaimed that to deny a person adequate food, housing, education, and health care--all things which America denies are basic human rights--is to deny an individual his or her basic human dignity. Perhaps no other action strikes the cord of resistance and anger so resolutely as the murder of innocent people by American soldiers which has been premeditated with continuing lies and fashioned in the shape of clearly illegal wars.
These acts have caused so much dissatisfaction among America usually TV addicted and instructed audiences that this week tens of thousands angry Americans will take to the streets to protest the gross moral deformities of the current American government. They deserve some credit for standing up to their own government, but so do the billions who are fighting the United States in every corner of the world.
These brave warriors for freedom include the valiant Afghans and Iraqis who even when occupied and threatened by extermination have not passively succumbed to the world's most aggressive killing machine. They also included those who risk their lives to support these warriors, to harbor them, to provide for them while they fight for their freedom. They also include the Palestinians who daily toil, men, women, and children to drive out the oppressive Israeli occupiers who kill their women and children and soldiers without distinction but with American support. They include the thousands of activists who travel the world trying to draw attention to the gross lie of development that is draped over the filthy smelling exploitation that reeks from Americas borders and rich transnational companies profiting from others despair. And they include the members of Australia's parliament who jeered American President Bush when he attempted to justify his illegal war in an address to them and throngs of Spanish journalists who laid down their work in protest of their colleagues who were murdered in cold blood by American soldiers occupying Iraq.
These people are the heroes who are trying to stop the greatest threat to international peace, security, and human rights that the world have ever known. These are the people who cannot march in The Mall in Washington DC because America's immigration laws discriminate against the poor who reach her shores removing them or silencing their dissent if they stay. These are the people who are struggling as a matter of life and death against America's exploitation and oppression.
Former American President John F Kennedy's speech continues by also demanding Americans do more for others around the world because hardship around the world is the problem of every American. The American press rarely publishes this part of the speech presumably because it does not fit their propagandists designs. But perhaps a statement by former American President Kennedy that America is proving true by its lawlessness, isolationism, and arrogance is more respectful of the real sacrifice being made by the true heroes of a just world and stark reminded to Americans: "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
Dr. Curtis F.J. Doebbler is an International Human Rights Lawyer
Washington, D.C. USA
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| Earth, a planet hungry for peace |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
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