Israel, let Sharon go!
THANK your lucky stars you were not born a Palestinian in Palestine within the last half century.
By John Nagenda
--An angry view of the chilling things the Israeli government is doing in Gaza
THANK your lucky stars you were not born a Palestinian in Palestine within the last half century. The first blow would have been to have much of your land grabbed by outsiders from Europe and elsewhere, to form the modern Israel. To keep possession of this land, Israel has resorted to increasingly desperate and illegal measures, including murder and other mayhem such as indiscriminate destruction of Palestinian property and the never ending colonisation of further Palestinian land for unlawful Israeli settlements. If you look at a map of the region these latter look menacingly like a virulent attack of red smallpox spread all over Palestine. In reality they are ticking time bombs, intentionally, Israel’s own suicide bombs! Nobody on earth, be it Israelis themselves, or Americans or Chinese or Ugandans, or in this case Palestinians, will ever brook such contemptuous treatment of themselves. So they have attacked the settlements. It is exactly what the Sharon regime, surely the worst in Israel’s history, anticipates, and it is delighted to fall on the Palestinians in consequent slaughter. It has happened this week in the town of Rafah in southern Gaza. Sharon’s earlier show of force in Zeitoun, and now Rafah, was met by the bombing of two Israeli tanks in both towns, with the death of a minimum 11 soldiers. Sharon, given his eagerly awaited chance to up the tempo again, started dismantling luckless Rafah and its inhabitants. The BBC reported, Wednesday, “The Israeli army has opened fire on a crowd of Palestinian demonstrators (my italics)...At least 10 people were killed and 60 injured, though some reports put the number higher.†Israeli forces had entered the refugee camp on Tuesday. “It has been one of the largest and bloodiest operations in Gaza since Israel occupied it in 1967 (my italics), leaving at least 34 dead and 100 wounded. [That’s on Tuesday and Wednesday.] There have been no Israeli casualtiesâ€, meaning they were under no attack. What a clean kill! A BBC correspondent reported at the hospital where the Palestinian wounded were rushed — many of them children — “the floors were drenched in blood as doctors treated incoming patients in corridors and on staircasesâ€. Almost more sickening than this was the reaction of US spokesman McClellan, “We are very concerned about reports from Gaza and the number of Palestinians who are said to be injured and killed.†(Oh yeah? Why doesn’t America ever do something about it, in balanced fashion between Palestine and Israel, except to litter the language with meaningless expressions like “roadmapâ€?) Ends McClellan, “We urge all parties to exercise maximum restraint.†Put in plain-speak, on this occasion: the Israelis in the way they kill, the Palestinians in how they walk (demonstrate). Where is God!
* * *
But it would be wrong not to refer to the huge figure of around 200,000 Israelis who marched in Israel against Sharon’s regime. If each one of them represented 10 other Israelis who for various reasons felt unable to be there, the total figure of two million would be a third of Israel’s population, of whom around two million are Arabic in any case. In the quagmire into which Israel is being led by Sharon’s antics of the total alienation of Palestinians and other Arabs (who completely surround, and far outnumber, Israel) it is people like these marchers who can guarantee a future for Israel, which most of us wish for. When will mainline Israel wake up to this stark reality, by letting go of Sharon? Time is running out, as shown by the furious condemnation worldwide of his latest adventurism in Rafah. The Security Council voted against Israel, and even the US forewent its usual veto there, and “merely†abstained. The leading Israeli publications weighed in with undisguised dismay and disgust. Ha’aretz: “It does not matter who pulled the trigger and his dozens of innocent Palestinian demonstrators...The blame will fall on Israel...†And again, “The sights of Rafah are too difficult to bear...Is there some “original sin†that lies at the foundation of the Zionist enterprise? “...the Rafah operation, and those who are executing it, should know that their actions will inevitably lead to questions being raised about this heresy.†Yediot Aharanot: “The longer the IDF remain in this area, the greater the number of mistakes and mishaps will be...until international pressure forces the IDF to get out.†And again, “When senior officers declare seriously that the demolition of houses in Rafah is ‘in the interest of local residents’...we must ask ourselves as Jews and Zionists: Have we lost the basic ability to distinguish between good and bad, between morality and cruelty...Have we been eyeless in Gaza? And what are we doing there anyway?†The Jerusalem Post: “...No spokesman can compete with a picture of a child killed by fire from an IDF tank. The PR game is over for Israel.†What more is there to say?
* * *
To end on a fallen nationalist. It was a thunderbolt to hear of the death of ex-Speaker of the House, and latterly Attorney General, Francis Ayume, who perished on Sunday after chairing a golf tournament in Hoima. He became the second ex-Speaker to die within barely two months, following on the late Wapakhabulo. Those who met him, however briefly, knew him for the consummate gentleman he was. It makes it worse to think he died in a car not his own, his having been lent on State duty. Above all,
I shall recall his calmness and quiet friendliness; if anyone told me he had heard Ayume shouting
in public I would know him for a liar. Pity his family, his region and Uganda as a whole for this terrible loss.
--An angry view of the chilling things the Israeli government is doing in Gaza
THANK your lucky stars you were not born a Palestinian in Palestine within the last half century. The first blow would have been to have much of your land grabbed by outsiders from Europe and elsewhere, to form the modern Israel. To keep possession of this land, Israel has resorted to increasingly desperate and illegal measures, including murder and other mayhem such as indiscriminate destruction of Palestinian property and the never ending colonisation of further Palestinian land for unlawful Israeli settlements. If you look at a map of the region these latter look menacingly like a virulent attack of red smallpox spread all over Palestine. In reality they are ticking time bombs, intentionally, Israel’s own suicide bombs! Nobody on earth, be it Israelis themselves, or Americans or Chinese or Ugandans, or in this case Palestinians, will ever brook such contemptuous treatment of themselves. So they have attacked the settlements. It is exactly what the Sharon regime, surely the worst in Israel’s history, anticipates, and it is delighted to fall on the Palestinians in consequent slaughter. It has happened this week in the town of Rafah in southern Gaza. Sharon’s earlier show of force in Zeitoun, and now Rafah, was met by the bombing of two Israeli tanks in both towns, with the death of a minimum 11 soldiers. Sharon, given his eagerly awaited chance to up the tempo again, started dismantling luckless Rafah and its inhabitants. The BBC reported, Wednesday, “The Israeli army has opened fire on a crowd of Palestinian demonstrators (my italics)...At least 10 people were killed and 60 injured, though some reports put the number higher.†Israeli forces had entered the refugee camp on Tuesday. “It has been one of the largest and bloodiest operations in Gaza since Israel occupied it in 1967 (my italics), leaving at least 34 dead and 100 wounded. [That’s on Tuesday and Wednesday.] There have been no Israeli casualtiesâ€, meaning they were under no attack. What a clean kill! A BBC correspondent reported at the hospital where the Palestinian wounded were rushed — many of them children — “the floors were drenched in blood as doctors treated incoming patients in corridors and on staircasesâ€. Almost more sickening than this was the reaction of US spokesman McClellan, “We are very concerned about reports from Gaza and the number of Palestinians who are said to be injured and killed.†(Oh yeah? Why doesn’t America ever do something about it, in balanced fashion between Palestine and Israel, except to litter the language with meaningless expressions like “roadmapâ€?) Ends McClellan, “We urge all parties to exercise maximum restraint.†Put in plain-speak, on this occasion: the Israelis in the way they kill, the Palestinians in how they walk (demonstrate). Where is God!
* * *
But it would be wrong not to refer to the huge figure of around 200,000 Israelis who marched in Israel against Sharon’s regime. If each one of them represented 10 other Israelis who for various reasons felt unable to be there, the total figure of two million would be a third of Israel’s population, of whom around two million are Arabic in any case. In the quagmire into which Israel is being led by Sharon’s antics of the total alienation of Palestinians and other Arabs (who completely surround, and far outnumber, Israel) it is people like these marchers who can guarantee a future for Israel, which most of us wish for. When will mainline Israel wake up to this stark reality, by letting go of Sharon? Time is running out, as shown by the furious condemnation worldwide of his latest adventurism in Rafah. The Security Council voted against Israel, and even the US forewent its usual veto there, and “merely†abstained. The leading Israeli publications weighed in with undisguised dismay and disgust. Ha’aretz: “It does not matter who pulled the trigger and his dozens of innocent Palestinian demonstrators...The blame will fall on Israel...†And again, “The sights of Rafah are too difficult to bear...Is there some “original sin†that lies at the foundation of the Zionist enterprise? “...the Rafah operation, and those who are executing it, should know that their actions will inevitably lead to questions being raised about this heresy.†Yediot Aharanot: “The longer the IDF remain in this area, the greater the number of mistakes and mishaps will be...until international pressure forces the IDF to get out.†And again, “When senior officers declare seriously that the demolition of houses in Rafah is ‘in the interest of local residents’...we must ask ourselves as Jews and Zionists: Have we lost the basic ability to distinguish between good and bad, between morality and cruelty...Have we been eyeless in Gaza? And what are we doing there anyway?†The Jerusalem Post: “...No spokesman can compete with a picture of a child killed by fire from an IDF tank. The PR game is over for Israel.†What more is there to say?
* * *
To end on a fallen nationalist. It was a thunderbolt to hear of the death of ex-Speaker of the House, and latterly Attorney General, Francis Ayume, who perished on Sunday after chairing a golf tournament in Hoima. He became the second ex-Speaker to die within barely two months, following on the late Wapakhabulo. Those who met him, however briefly, knew him for the consummate gentleman he was. It makes it worse to think he died in a car not his own, his having been lent on State duty. Above all,
I shall recall his calmness and quiet friendliness; if anyone told me he had heard Ayume shouting
in public I would know him for a liar. Pity his family, his region and Uganda as a whole for this terrible loss.