Posts Tagged ‘Jimmy Carter’

I have been keeping at least slightly abreast of the news in Israel and Gaza of late.  It is fairly depressing and angering.  The long and short of it is, though Hamas has legally elected representatives, Israel refuses to work or talk to them.  Part of the reason was Hamas did not recognize the state of Israel as a legal entity.

So, Jimmy Carter, (and tho’ I am neither Christian or Catholic anymore, the man should be a saint) went to Israel to try being a peacemaker again.  Israel snubbed him badly, refusing a former US President so much as a security team.  In spite of this, he went to Gaza, over the Israeli protestations, and got Hamas to agree to recognize the state of Israel.  Not, apparently what Israel really wanted—they still won’t negotiate with Hamas.

And further, they continue to cut food shipments; Gaza is already getting far less than will sustain the population—only 2/3 of food needs are being met.  So, they are starving the residents of Gaza, as once the Germans starved the residents of the Warsaw Ghetto?  Israel, to the Palestinians they dispossessed to create the state of Israel, is behaving as badly as Germany did—-only the short step to out and out genocide remains.  And they “warned” the Gazans, even using the word “shoah”….warned them OF a “holocaust”—why didn’t the word freeze in the throat of the man saying it?
Which brings me to us, us as in U.S.  We use a similarly dangerous rhetoric to describe our enemies in this continuing  “war on terror”….dehumanizing those we battle and pursue.  They ARE people, people with grievances that we do not wish to acknowledge or address.  Much like the inhabitants of Gaza, whose issues Israel is not willing to acknowledge or address?

And yes, both the residents of Gaza and some of those we are engaging use methods that don’t appear in rule books.  But then, some of OUR methods, and Israel’s methods don’t appear in those vaunted books either.  Here is the simple thing: If you reduce people to desperation and do not treat them as humans, they will act desperately inhuman.  We create our enemies and shape them by our own choices and actions.

Seventy years or so ago, Nazi Germany began the eradication of the Jews with the shock that was “Crystal Night”…..and ever since, the cry of the Israelis and their sympathizers (including me!) has been “Never Again!”  But I was wrong in that cry, because it IS in progress again.

Those starving, dying, fighting, exploding are simply not Jews this time.  The Israelis are being shaped into duplicates of their own murdering oppressors.  As America continues to prosecute a war based on lies, what are WE being shaped into, don’t you ever wonder?