And, of course, a member of an minority (Arabs) _officially_ persecuted by the US government will be reluctant to report "hate crimes" to the same (perceived) authorities. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Palestinian Mural Boarded Up Vandalism mirrors rise in hate crimes By Kezia Parsons and Camille T. Talara
On June 26 a historic artwork calling for peace in Israel and the occupied territories was boarded up indefinitely. On the side wall of a corner store in the Mission, the work – San Francisco's only outdoor mural dedicated to the Palestinian struggle – had been the victim of a series of attacks that left the store owner, the landlord, and the artists afraid the entire building might be burned to the ground.
The case, some activists say, is just the latest example of a marked rise in hate crimes against Arabs and Arab Americans in the Bay Area since the onset of the second intifada last fall.
Our Roots Are Still Alive was painted by a group of Jewish, Palestinian, and other community artists 10 years ago as part of the Break the Silence Mural and Art Project, a campaign initiated by four Bay Area Jewish women artists during a visit to the occupied territories. The image depicts various Palestinian characters in traditional garb. A woman feeds white doves – symbols of peace – from an upturned soldier's helmet filled with seed. A Jewish Holocaust survivor holds up a sign calling for an end to the occupation. An Israeli soldier in riot gear wields a baton marked "Made in the USA." A rainbow emerges from behind prison bars, and an ancient cactus – an Arab symbol for patience – grows below.
The mural has been vandalized periodically ever since it went up. But past vandalism was limited to paint-filled balloons thrown at the wall. The recent attacks have been much more ominous.
Vandals used sharp objects to dig out the eyes of figures in the mural and to cut slashes across the throats. Racial slurs were spray-painted above the words "Everyone has a right to a homeland." And the facade was saturated with highly flammable, used motor oil – so much so on one occasion that the city blocked off the adjacent sidewalk until the wall could be cleaned up.
"The police can only do so much," store owner Basem Kurd told the Bay Guardian. Kurd has run the corner store since 1984, and he is afraid of losing his business to arson if the attacks continue to escalate. "I just want to take care of my family and put food on the table," he said.
Neighborhood activists say the boarding up of the mural amounts to the silencing of free speech. "The silencing of any form of critique of Israel leads to censorship and political racism," Nadine Naber, a board member of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, noted at a June 26 press conference held by the S.F. chapter of her organization, along with the Break the Silence Mural Project, Global Exchange, the Mission Anti-Displacement Coalition, and the International Action Center.
Naber said that she has witnessed a marked rise in hate crimes against Arabs and Arab Americans in the past few months, and that those crimes have remained largely invisible in the public eye.
Fred Gardner, spokesperson for San Francisco district attorney Terrence Hallinan, reports no rise in hate crimes against Arab Americans, but activists like Naber surmise that is because victims are not reporting such incidents.
About 50 people – including Board of Supervisors president Tom Ammiano and Sup. Chris Daly – attended the press conference at the mural site. The media, however, was conspicuously absent. Apart from the Mission District's local firebrand New Mission News, there hasn't been a peep about the case out of any of the local newspapers or television stations. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This fills me with rage. This mural was shut down by the cowardly actions of Zionist terrorists. That is what they are. American leftists are principally responsible for providing the political conditions that allow this to happen, due to their overwhelming silence on the question of Zionism, Israel and - above all - US sponsorship of both, without which none of this would be happening.
Every American leftist who votes for the Democratic Party, every leftist who does not actively make this issue their #1 priority in international solidarity, every political person who prattles on about "leftwing antiSemitism", and anyone - such as Max Sawhisky (I know it's misspelled!) here on this list, whose apology I still await (ordinarily I'd let it slide, but the reality of Zionism and Israel won't let it drop, unfortunately), who attempt to slander political opponents as antisemitic (I call it reverse-Jew-baiting, since the logical operation is identical to Red- or Jew-baiting) in order to silence discussion of Zionism - are all indirectly complicit in the crime. They are all complicit in this vandalism, complicit in the bulldozing of houses, complicit in the murder of children, and in the administration of collective punishment.
I do not believe in the collective guilt or responsibility of nations or peoples. Indeed, I believe to act on such a belief is itself a crime - a war crime and a crime against humanity - in fact I believe it is defined as such under present international law. The criterion for responsibility must be political. The (typically large, including children, obviously) majority of the people of a nation are not political, and therefore cannot be held responsible as "guilty" for the actions of the (politically conscious and active) minority.
Once one assumes a political position, however, one can legitimately be held individually responsible for crimes, and, further, a political grouping of such like-minded individuals can and should be held collectively responsible. The actual responsibility will only vary be degree.
A German voter who consistently voted for Hitler before 1933 - as opposed to "all" Germans - bears some responsibility for the Nazis' crimes, because voting in an election is a political act, however marginal. They should not be put to death for this act, though. They should be held to some degree of individual and collective responsibility for their actions, however, perhaps through reparations paid by this group only (and not by the "nation").
So should it be, too, for our silent American leftists, who already owe considerable reparations to the Palestinians. This goes for the likes of Christopher Hitchens, who pretends to boldness in pursuit of the war criminal Henry Kissinger, while another such criminal - Ariel Sharon, whose specific misdeeds are so much easier to legally argue - is, unlike the has-been Henry, actually live, "on the job' again right now, in the commission of further misdeeds! To what greater boldness, to what greater political effect would it be for a Hitchens to go after Sharon with a book - right now!
But, no. The silence is deafening.
Those Israelis - approximately 60% of them - who freely voted for Sharon, do bear a responsibility for the result. In fact, they bear an even greater culpability than the German who voted for the Nazi Party prior to 1933. Hitler never got close to 60% of the popular vote in Weimar Germany, and further, can be excused from knowingly voting for a war criminal, since Hitler had not (yet) attained that status. But those Israelis who voted for Sharon did so full in the knowledge that they were voting for a known butcherer! There can be little doubt that this particular attribute of Sharons' was held in some favor by these voters. Finish the Job! was their implicit message. For this, they deserve to be appropriately punished.
-Brad Mayer Oakland, CA