BATTLE FOR TERRITORY

It is nasty a nasty fight; God and Allah both claim the same territory.

The Washington Post story, For American Israelis, rift between Obama and Netanyahu is family affair (Apr. 2015) written by Ruth Eglash and William Booth, should be required reading for all those who comment on Facebook about the Israeli-American Relations. However, a huge omission in this story is the Palestinian side of it. The authors allude to but fail to mention the counter story, which would be the feelings of American Palestinians who live in Gaza and their relationship to the United States. It would be an easy story to write because no one does this. To explain why this is so, is ugly. It would be equivalent to asking why Germany Jews living in the United States did not move to Nazi Germany in 1941. The world shielded themselves in self-imposed ignorance by claiming they not to know of the unspeakable horrors taking place, but they did—we did. The mistreatment of Palestinians by Israeli is nowhere near the ghastliness of the way the common German people treated Jews in Nazi Germany; we know what is happening in Palestine, and it is not pretty. This article alludes to that segment of the Israeli population; more pointedly, to the Jewish American Citizen living in both countries.

Few books are more meaningful than, I Will Bear Witness 1933-1941: A Diary of the Nazi Years, (1999), Victor Klemperer. It is a difficult book to read from both an emotional point of view and because of the slow pace of it diary format. While the format made it difficult to read, it gave it a personal impression; much like a story told to family across a kitchen table. I am not aware of a similar book by a Palestinian author. However, I am sure if there were, it would be equally shocking in the sense of making us realize something inhuman is really happening.

Some of my Jewish friends are upset with my position of defending Palestinians and especially Hamas, which is a political group molded out of what had been a terrorist organization. They and the media find it easy to pick out all the horrible and eye catching things Hamas has done and said, while ignoring their objective, which is to counter the Israeli façade of righteous indignation while they attempt to gather to gather political and military forces to brutal suppress the Palestinian people. Gathering forces is the objective of their wide-scale and remarkably successful propaganda program to promote hate for Muslims no matter where you find them. All forms of media, including Facebook,  are satiated with examples, ban burkas in the United States, Canadian Judge will not hear case if the accused wears a head scarf, North Carolina legislature passes law to band Sharia Law, say no to building a mosque in New York near trade center. There are so many etceteras that the list seems endless. To make matters worse, some people intentionally create a storm by re-posting stories from one media format to multimedia formats.

Hamas was radical and still is but is now maturing, as most terrorist organizations do. However, unlike the one-sided, or half-truth coming out of Israel, to decipher what is happening politically in Palestine and the Arab world leads to a nightmare of confusion. Stripped of all the confusion, what is happening is simple. Once you get beyond the religious veneer; the tired old trope; “God” is on the side of the winner or was it “Allah” is on the side of the winner you find that the Middle East turmoil is perpetuated by the strong against the weak, in a fight for more territory—just as two neighborhood dogs mark territory; the problem is they are getting everyone's foot wet.  

 

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