Occupied Territories Archives

In response to Quiet Mike’s column this past Thursday on Forget The Box, I’m posting two pieces I wrote earlier this year on the same general subject but was waiting to publish.

Aparthied Week

Disclaimer: The opinions and views expressed in this column are mine alone and not necessarily shared by other members of Forget The Box or its affiliates. (P.S. I shouldn’t have to put a disclaimer, but thenâ€¦)

I wasn’t going to post this, but I was recently invited to a protest rally in favour of terrorists and against Israelis. I am part Israeli and I am a victim of a suicide bombing, so, I don’t know, perhaps I’m biased on this matter. I expect it might generate hate mail and I risk my own safety by posting this, but if I don’t, the terrorists might win.

Now, I’m not really allowed to rant about “Aparthied Week.” First of all, the name is a misnomer and a lie. But what do I know. I’ve only lost a few relatives and an ex-girlfriend to these terrorists.

Please forgive me if I take the extreme view on the opposite front. I think giving back the Sinai was a mistake and I’ve known several Lebanese who fled Lebanon as soon as the “occupation” ended. In fact, Lebanon is still occupied by Syria.

As for the gay and lesbian contingent against Israel, at least homosexuals are treated as citizens in Israel, but for someone even accused of it in the rest of the Arab world, it means, well, death. But hey, since Israel is the only European democracy in the middle east, it has many, many detractors. It’s truly amazing what lies these terrorists will cook up these days.

Let me start with a history lesson. In ancient Roman times, Israel was conquered by the Roman empire. Many people were taken as slaves and the Roman soldiers named the land “Palestina” after the philistines who were defeated by the ancient Hebrews according to Scripture. They named the land “Palestina” as an insult.

Fast forward about a thousand years or so and we come to the crusades. Roman Catholic warriors coming to the Holy Land bent on destroying and murdering anything that wasn’t Catholic. At this time in history, Jews who had been exiled from Israel a thousand years earlier, along with followers of the then relatively new religion Islam, treated each other with the respect that brother tribes should, but under the duress of a common enemy bent on rooting them out.

Fast forward another eight hundred years or so and we come to time where Pogroms began and became a regular event, culminating around a hundred and fifty years later in the Holocaust. Yes. The Holocaust was very real and anyone who denies this is a liar, a cheat, or someone who has truly been mislead by liars and cheats.

We must never forget that. Hitler counted on people forgetting about the Ottoman Turkish genocide attempt against Armenia. More recently, the Hutu and the Tutsi tribes of Rwanda. What about the “Ethnic Cleansing” in the Balkans? And we should never forget all those tribes Native to North America that were decimated by white settlers and sociopaths. Did I forget to mention the Aboriginees of Australia, especially the island of Tazmania? No. I understand that nobody is innocent.

But to call it apartheid is a slap in the face of every black man, woman and child in South Africa and for that matter, North America. This seems another terrorist plot from various nations who despise personal freedoms and the right to live free of discrimination.

Of course, Aparthied week is an annual event on college campuses. Reminds me of another organization which started on college campuses in the deep south about a hundred and fifty years ago, they wore white robes and bedsheets to hide their identities. I strongly believe that Aparthied week is at least supported by the KKK and other hate groups.

Mostly, it’s an excuse for anti-semetics and blinded Jewish people alike to start bashing their homeland and usually someone gets badly hurt. Last year it was me who got badly hurt. So please, forgive me for my opinion on the subject. I know, you likely won’t. I will more than likely suffer further at the hands of my readers, if I have any left.

Why I will never boycott a country

I understand the point of boycotting and attacking a company you don’t like. If a company treats its employees in an unethical manner, then maybe I support your endeavour. But boycotting a country is making a statement that you do not like that country or anything associated with it. You want people in that country to starve, suffer, become impoverished and become violent. You want crime to rise out of desperation.

Perhaps you don’t like a country’s politics. That’s fine, but causing people to become unemployed only leads to further suffering and does absolutely nothing to change those politics. Rally all you want in another country, it more than likely will make no difference.

But if you feel that you must boycott a country; follow these simple rules:

Don’t annoy people from said country or who associate themselves with said country with protests, boycotts and threats unless you want to cause undue agitation. If so, be prepared to fight. Of course, you will come across as bigoted, but then, isn’t bigotry the sole true reason for boycotting said country?

Don’t lie about a country you don’t like. Don’t spread lies and rumors. This only makes other people bigoted. It also serves to irritate the people from said country into defending themselves against your onslaught.

Do not commit acts of vandalism or looting against products and the stores that carry those products imported from the country you so despise. This will result in backlashes against you and is a criminal offense against some of your own countrymen.

If you convince enough people to become bigoted against said particular country, you may wish to start a war for the purposes of conquering said country, murdering its population and possibly colonizing the land for the purposes of occupation.

Remember, if you take up arms against a country, said country will do what it must in order to defend itself and rightly so.

If your military is superior to their military, congratulations, you’ve just started a war and a military coup. You are now a dictator.

If your military is inferior to their military, you’ve just committed suicide.

You might wish to root out all members with ancestry in said country. Make sure to commit your genocide efficiently, quickly and in a way that the rest of the world will not stop you in doing so.

Perhaps you merely wish to oppress and repress the freedoms of the people in a certain country. Perhaps you believe there isn’t any freedom in said country. Depending on the current politics of said country, you could be right, or you could be wrong.

Chances are you simply wish to support your own local economy. There is nothing wrong with that, as long as you do it in a peaceful, ethical manner.

OTHERWISE

You are no better than the people you are hurting by boycotting that country.

Congratulations. You are no better than all those other “human” creatures. The world would truly be a far better place without them.

Many people in the western world look at the conflicts between Israel and Palestine as a religious war that has been raging for centuries and feel nothing but apathy, after all why should anyone care who slays who when they’ve been killing each other for so long.

374px-Israel_and_occupied_territories_map — Israel and occupied territories

The truth is, it’s not about religion anymore and hasn’t been for quite a while now Since the 1967 six day war, Israel has controlled and occupied to one degree or another the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights and East Jerusalem. Mostly as they say for security purposes.

More than four decades have passed since that war and not much has changed. A couple of peace treaties with two of its neighbors Egypt and Jordan have been positive. On the other hand, forty years of occupation and limited Israeli offensives have given rise to armed resistance groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas who rely on terrorist tactics as they are unable to match the might of the Israeli military. Hezbollah and Hamas have since gained power through politics.

The vast majority of the masses around the world are ignorant to the fact that Israel has never wanted peace. The faÃ§ade has always been there, but the motivation has not. Going as far back as the seventies, Israel has rejected time and time again peace terms with the current borders of the time and before the two intifadas.

Israel has more UN Resolutions against it than any other country; more than forty (see the list here). This count would be twice as high if the United States did not continually use its veto power on the UN Security Council to protect its interests. After going through these lists it’s hard to imagine this country ever wanting peace. It has always been about expansion and keeping the Palestinians in line.

Throughout the past few decades, Israel has carried out countless raids, bombings, assassinations and cross-border kidnappings. There have been over 750 000 Palestinians that have passed through Israeli prisons since 1967, about 1/5 of their total population. Nine thousand remain including about three hundred children. Many have never been charged with a crime.

Israel has also relentlessly been building Jewish settlements over the years in the occupied territories. These settlements deemed illegal by the international community have continued off and on throughout the occupation and most peace negotiations, making it hard for any credible consensus to arrive between the two territories and Israel. Building in East Jerusalem has been particularly constant.

In 2006, Israel started construction of the West Bank barrier, an illegal wall boarding off the entire west bank to prevent “terrorists” from entering into Israeli territory. It remains illegal largely due to the fact that the wall route substantially deviates into the occupied territories thereby annexing more land for Israel.

In that same year, Hamas came to power through democratic elections. Although the elections were monitored and fair many countries, mostly allies of Israel, did not recognize the results and infighting soon started with rival faction Fatah. Hamas soon overthrew Fatah in the Gaza Strip and Hamas members were dismissed from the PNA government in the West Bank in response.

With Hamas gaining de facto control of Gaza, Israel started its blockade of the whole strip in 2007, effectively turning the whole territory into a giant prison and remember it all started with a fair democratic election. In 2008 a coalition of human rights groups stated that the blockade of the territory had caused the humanitarian conditions in Gaza to have reached its worst point since the 1967 Six-Day Warâ€¦ then came another war.

gaza war — The end result of the 2009 Israeli military offensive

With Hamas firing rockets into Israel in retaliation for military excursions and the blockade, Israel launched a military offensive that wound up killing over a thousand people, destroying four thousand buildings and damaging twenty thousand more. When the troops withdrew, the blockade stayed intact with few supplies getting in to rebuild and treat the sick. In fact, most people had to use mud and wood to rebuild their home because concrete is banned as it can be used to make bunkers.

Now, after reading all this (and there is plenty more examples) is there anyone out there that isn’t a Zionist that is surprised that a rogue state like Israel with mandatory military service, a three billion dollar check each year from the United States and a history of censoring reporters and activists had the IDF raided the peace flotilla in international waters killing about ten people and injuring dozens? Israel has always done what it pleases and with the help of the United States no less.

I might be Jewish, but I’ll never be an Israelite.