AIDING A CRIMINAL ENTERPRISE

Richard Cohen calls the massacre going on
in Gaza "a conflict Hamas caused." Writing
in the 1/6/09 WaPo, he says it takes "real
stupidity" to blame it on Israel. In fact, it
takes even more stupidity to deny there's
plenty of blame to go around.

For starters, who/what caused Hamas?
Clearly, without Israel's illegal 40+ year
occupation of all remaining Palestinian
land, with heavy, unrelenting oppression of
the people, there would be no Hamas resis-
ting that occupation. Secondly, Israeli in-
telligence helped Hamas form in 1978 as an
Islamist foil against Arafat's secular PLO.
Israel gave funding to Hamas in its early days,
also intelligence. Have any of the many Is-
raeli apologists mentioned that? (Google
"Israel's support for Hamas" if you want the
details.)

Mr. Cohen seeks to minimize Israel's role in
the long struggle for Palestine by stating in-
correctly: "The war between Arabs and Jews
predates the founding of Israel in 1948." In
fact, during the 1,000 year reign of the Otto-
mans, Christians, Muslims and Jews lived to-
gether harmoniously for the most part, in the
Holy Land. The Ottomans let them govern
themselves, as long as there was no quarreling.
And there was very little. (If you are curious
about this, see Peace Be Upon You, The Story
of Muslim, Christian, and Jewish Coexistence,
by Zachary Karabell. This is a fascinating and
scholarly work of great value. It is lucid and
comprehensive, starting in ancient times and
coming to the present. Karabell is a recent
Ph. D. from Harvard.)

Speaking of religion, all three of the above
named have similar "Just War" teachings.
They all forbid attacking non-combatant civi-
lians, and the taking of innocent life. Also, the
"eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" taught
in the Mosaic Law (and reaffirmed in Islam,
but not in Christianity) set strict limits to re-
taliation. It's purpose was to prevent the esca-
lation of violence. In other words, it requires
proportionality. Last time I looked, there were
12 Israeli dead in the current fracas, and 600+
Palestinians. Is that proportional? Who are
the Barbarians?

A spokesperson for Hamas has written in the
Guardian (1/6/09): " For 18 months my people
in Gaza have been under siege, incarcerated in-
side the world's biggest prison, sealed off from
land, air and sea, caged and starved, denied
even medication for our sick. After the slow
death policy came the bombardment. In this
most densely populated of places, nothing has
been spared Israel's warplanes, from govern-
ment buildings to homes, mosques, hospitals,
schools and markets. More than 540 have
been killed and thousands permanently maimed.
A third are women and children. Whole families
have been massacred, some while they slept."

See what our tax dollars are accomplishing?
The same writer continues: "The logic of those
who demand that we stop our resistance is ab-
surd. They absolve the aggressor and occupier --
armed with the deadliest weapons of death and
destruction -- of responsibility, while blaming
the victim, prisoner and occupied. Our modest,
home-made rockets are our cry of protest to the
world. Israel and its American and European
sponsors want us to be killed in silence. But die
in silence we will not."

He goes on to write: " Gaza enters 2009 just as
it did 2008: under Israeli fire. Between January
and February of last year 140 Gazans died in air
strikes. And just before it embarked on its failed
military assault on Lebanon in July 2006, Israel
rained thousands of shells on Gaza, killing 240.
(I encourage you to read his entire article in to-
days Guardian.) His name is Khalid Mish'ad.

More food for thought: (This from Salon, dtd.
1/4/09, by Glenn Greenwald) "If you see Pales-
tinians as something less than civilized human
beings: as "barbarians" -- just as if you see
Americans as infidels warring with God or Jews
as sub-human rats -- then naturally it follows
that civilian deaths are irrelevant, perhaps even
something to cheer.

And again, from Greenwald: "All nationalists
have the power of not seeing resemblances
between similar sets of facts. A British Tory will
defend self-determination in Europe and oppose it
in India with no feeling of inconsistency. Actions
are held to be good or bad, not on their own
merits, but according to who does them, and
there is almost no kind of outrage --- torture, the
use of hostages, forced labour, mass deportations,
imprisonment without trial, forgery, assassination,
the bombing of civilians --- which does not change
its moral colour when it is committed by 'our
side' . . . The nationalist not only does not disap-
prove of atrocities committed by his own side, but
he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing
about them."

And a practical point (or two): Hamas serves as a
barrier against al Qaeda going to work in Gaza. If
Hamas is eliminated, what replaces it? And what,
exactly, does Israel hope to expect from this? Peace?
How likely is that? There are six and half million
Jews in Israel (and one and half million Arabs). There
are 1.4 billion Muslims, seeing all this on TV. The
Muslim world is getting increasingly angry about
the 40 year treatment of Palestinians by Israel, with
our help. We've given Israel over $100 billion in
the past 50 years. We are aiding and abetting a
long running criminal enterprise there, and have
repeatedly used our veto at the U. N. to defeat ef-
forts to stop the killing. As Noam Chomsky has long
maintained, we don't want peace in the Middle East.
Never have. We want exactly what we are getting.
We are paying for it. Do you like what your money
is buying? Do you think we will stop paying anytime
soon? I wouldn't count on it!

Let me know what you think!

jgoodwin004@centurytel.net