As we watch the American media celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel, we are seeing, by and large, Israelis and their supporters complaining that in 50 years since its birth, Israel has never seen peace. Interestingly, all this is being said in the context of the creation of a country that, according to the press, was created in innocence, being unreasonably harassed militarily by its Arab neighbors, and by Palestinian terrorists. I sit in wonder and amazement at the self-delusion of the American media who report and broadcast such statements without even once questioning them. It seems that the Israelis are so accustomed to never being questioned about the origins of Israel that they have managed to convince themselves that it was all innocently done, and that Arabs have really no reason to be angry.
We are asking the Palestinians to enter into reconciliation, despite the daily fact that they are being imprisoned without charge, tortured, their homes are demolished. They are denied the right to build new homes or to be connected to water systems... They are being harassed daily by Israeli army patrols. They are pushed around. Israeli right-wingers cruise through Arab neighborhoods destroying Arab homes, much the same as the White Citizen Councils in the American South before and during the 1960s, and much the same way as American Indians are being treated in certain parts of the United States today.
Reconciliation presumes forgiveness for past wrongs on both sides, a willingness to forgo revenge for what has been done to you and your predecessors. But we are not talking about past wrongs here. Those could be handled. What we are really faced with is the ongoing outrage being committed daily by the Israelis. Reconciliation can come only when those become past outrages, not those being perpetrated each new day.
But in spite of what is happening, the Palestinians, as I see it, are still willing to reconcile...provided the depredations are stopped. The evidence of that willingness has been all around us for years now. It was a sign that both America and Israel ignored when, during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, the PLO protected the Jewish quarter of Beirut to prevent angry Lebanese and Palestinians from venting their anger on Lebanon's Jews.
The Israelis have found, much as did the U.S. Army back during the Indian wars, that it is much easier for them to deal with radical revolutionaries than it is to deal with moderates and pacifists. It is difficult to demagogue against pacifists. Much easier against those pacifists. Much easier than those who commit violence.
I know what the Israelis say, that nothing the United States can do will change their minds about making peace. But don't believe it. Israel lives on America. Our government only need announce Israel seriously makes peace, we will not only cut off their money supply...but that we will stop giving Israel the weapons and political support in the UN that we have been providing for many years now.
I don't really expect that the United States government to tell this to the Israelis. I'm merely telling you what needs to be done in order to bring about reconciliation.
[Abourezk then quotes the words of Chief Seattle, head of the Dwamish tribe, to the governor of Washington territory in 1854:]
"But why should I mourn at the untimely fate of my people? Tribe follows tribe, and nation follows nation, like the waves of the sea. It is the order of nature, and regret is useless. Your time of decay may be distant, but it will surely come.
"And when the last Red Man shall have perished, and the memory of my tribe shall have become a myth among the White Men, these shores with the invisible dead of my tribe, and when your children's children think themselves alone in the field, the store, the shop, the highway, or in the silence of the pathless woods, they will not be alone. At night when the streets of your cities and villages are silent, and you think them deserted, they will throng with the returning hosts that once filled and still love this beautiful land. The White Men will never be alone.
"Let him be just and deal kindly with my people, for the dead are not powerless. Dead, did I say? There is no death, only a change of worlds."
(Appeared in Alexander Cockburn's "Wild Justice" column in the NY Press)
Louis Proyect
(http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)