07.03.09 - 10:16 PM
Let These People Go
From Gaza, two heartrending videos tell the stories of two young Palestinians blocked from scholarships, and the world.
"Hear the anguish in these children's voices, and you will understand why it is absolutely essential for American Jews to recall their cultural memory of the Warsaw Ghetto, and why it is essential for Americans to say, Let these people go."
Twitter
StumbleUpon
Facebook
Delicious
Digg
Newsvine
Google
Yahoo
Technorati
26 Comments so far
Show AllMy gosh, Cynthia McKinney was jailed for her involvement in Free Gaza! I would follow this woman to the ends of the earth! I truly hope she finds a successful party affiliation and runs for president again. We need her vision and her bravery.
chet380 and George Markley:
the quote from President Truman is pretty anti-semitic. I don't see how you can call yourself a progressive and still believe that "all" Jews are gung-ho for Israel and don't care about any other people on the planet. FAR from the truth. I'm a Jew, and come from a long line of activists that have fought for the rights and interests of not only ourselves, but for all people. THAT is what it means to be a Jew.
And I am, indeed, an angry Jew. I'm angry at Israel for claiming to act on my behalf. I'm angry at the US and Obama for continuing to fund and arm the Israeli military. And I'm angry at the so-called liberals/progressives on this website who enjoy bashing Jews so much you'd think they were fascists. And I'm angry at Jews who play the victim role and believe Israel can do no wrong.
Seriously, people. When you conflate "Jews" with "Israel" and treat both as one and the same, you are doing exactly what the Zionists want. Zionists want Jews like me to "come home" to Israel, to believe that I must be loyal to Israel first. And it's ridiculous.
Please distinguish between the government of Israel--a self-proclaimed Jewish state, despite the fact that most Israelis are secular and plenty of Christians, Muslims, and Arabs live there--and the Jewish people, a group who are no less diverse than Africans, or Muslims, or Christians, and whose political and religious beliefs vary as widely as any other. Israel does not speak for me, thankfully. Please do peace-loving, anti-Zionist Jews like me a favor and distinguish between Israel and Jews. They are not one and the same. And in fact, by making the distinction, you will help to undermine the Zionist agenda and to lend moral support to the minority of Jews who speak up FOR Palestine, AGAINST Israel. We can use all the help we can get.
Zapatista writes "I don't see how you can call yourself a progressive and still believe that "all" Jews are gung-ho for Israel". You should move to NY. I don't call myself a progressive, but you should have seen Major (sic) Bloomberg and Gov. Patterson dancing in the streets as the Israelis bombed Gaza. There were celebrations in NY. And Patterson isn't even a Jew. Plus, it's a fact that every Israeli government has expanded the settlements with the enthusiastic support of AIPAC. I did recently come across the web site of Israel Shamir, who is a Jew that supports a one state solution, i.e., is not a Zionist, but non-Zionist Jews seem few and far between to me.
If you support Israel's 'right to exist' as a Jewish state on Palestinian land, you are a Zionist, I think, by definition. Do you agree?
One of isreal's hostages is a PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE, and this is not on page one?? or even Faux?
Dont these monkeys know a great story??
The Israeli government & military have learned well from the Nazis. They are doing to the Palestinian people and especially to these young people what was done to their progenitors in Gerrmany. It is time to end the imprisonment of the people of Gaza and of our humanitarian workers and Cynthia McKinney NOW!
I think we need to come down hard on our own country more than on any other, because ours is the one that makes the sinister actions of Israel, Colombia and other countries that we call "allies" (!) possible. We vilify Chavez and praise Uribe. We criticize Iran, but say little about a military coup that displaces a democracy in Honduras.
The U.S. sure knows how to pick allies with "values".
also...
it's interesting how so much time has been devoted in american films and on TV documenting the suffering of the jewish people in europe during the nazi regime. the jewish suffering develops character - iconic imagery (yellow star of david stitched on the sleeve, an image seared into the collective mind by hollywood).
why don't american's have iconic images and names for the millions of other victims of the nazi regime, especially names and images of the Roma - who have been (continue to be) persecuted in europe by europeans to this day ? do we remember the meaning of the pink triangles or the black triangles ? where is the extended feature film about the lives of gay men or lesbians or union organizers in nazi germany ?
selective memories of nazi germany diminish the insane barbaric behavior of the nazi regime (which resembles USA more year by year). the rewriting of history is as dangerous as nationalist patriotic slogans (in america or israel) that evoke a greater justification for human rights violations (god let us to do it or we do what we have to do to uphold ambiguous international ideals capitalism/democracy).
either way - jingoism or selective memory. the public is numbed to the point where the truth is irrelevant...
---------------
Roma and the Holocaust - Submitted by ivana on Tue, 05/09/2006 - 14:06.
http://www.dosta.org/en/node/33
{A researcher into the Roma Holocaust suggests that Gobbles’ discourse, with the small change made above replacing the word “Jews” with “Gypsies,” would be as popular today as it was 60 years ago, in a Europe characterized by strong, but still largely ignored, anti-Gypsyism.
An estimated 600.000 to 1,5 million Roma were exterminated during the Holocaust. As a percentage, that makes Roma the ethnic group most affected by the Nazi killings. Over 90 percent of the Roma population of Austria, Germany and Estonia was exterminated by the fascist regimes.
The Nazi Holocaust against Jews was not forgotten and rightly so. Continuously excluded before and after the second war world, the Roma have remained in often-abysmal poverty at the very margins of European societies, and have been unable to replicate the well-deserved attention given to the Jewish Holocaust.
The Roma Holocaust is nowhere to be found in European educational materials. The genocide against Roma is carefully kept at the very margins of academic research, as well as the horrendous colonial abuses against people sometimes considered to be worth less than cattle.
The 8 to 12 million Roma in Europe remain Europe’s most vulnerable group, according to various studies and reports of European institutions. Roma continue to face strong rejection from the ethnic majorities. The Roma Holocaust is either denied by national governments, or unknown to the majority population. According to polls in Malta and Luxembourg, even in these countries with no Roma, strong negative prejudices make “Gypsies” the most despised ethnic group.}
see, to be special (in this context) means that your groups unique suffering is the greatest. a ploy that effectively plays off of jesus propaganda, suffering on the cross. propaganda that is very effective in terms of eliciting support among the conservative christian population in america (not the sharpest knives in the drawer to begin with). support that translates into billions of dollars in aid. the greatest suffering of all time is documented w/ undisputed numbers (or you go to jail for hate speech). but.....
the countless millions who also suffered the same fate (in the ovens and gas chambers) at the hands of the villainous nazis must be forgotten or under represented (one holocaust site i referenced put gypsy deaths at 200,000 to 500,000 - http://www.holocaust-trc.org/sinti.htm - the numbers at gypsy sites start at 600,000 topping out at 1.5 million.}
---------
it may seem like a trivial point, but it exposes the exaggerated rationale for much of this zionist militarism we've witnessed in the past 42 years. 'they're out to get us - we must defend ourselves from everyone' (a perpetual projection of fear).
it's very sad and tragic.
...peace...
these folks haven't inflicted harm upon others, their only ambition is to live and follow their dreams. who can deny that these are young adults w/ dreams like any young adults around the world. seeing their faces and listening to their stories is critical, these aren't terrorists, jew haters or islamo fascists.
these are people, like the people in the house/apt/room next to you. people who deserve the right to safety, health, education, political representation, the right to live a meaningful existence - the basics (UN universal declaration of human rights).
http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/
i want to thank philip weiss for posting this, CD for sharing it w/ us and the internationalists and human rights organizations that are giving us access to palestinian voices that MSM and 'liberal' inet sites are intentionally refusing to share w/ us.
are these stories of young palestinans, who dream of a better life, so threatening to the american public ?
who (what people ?) would enjoy the act of denying a free education offered to a person like summer abu zayed or hazem m. abukaresh ? any person denying people fundamental rights is using very demented reasoning/emotion, like an army (US or israeli) casually lying about murdering civilians (non combatants, children, the elderly) using the guise, 'they were hamas combatants' (sympathizers). US support of israel is an abomination (or obamanation at this point).
"And god said to Moshe, 'go to Pharoah, and say to him, "thus says god 'LET MY PEOPLE GO...'"'" [Exodus 7:26]
boycott all israeli products until they are willing to live in peace w/ the palestinans who were living on the land prior to 1948. governments that persecute specific ethnic groups for the explicit purpose of acquiring land and power are a disgrace to everyone living on this planet.
...peace...
Speaking of Gaza and "Let these people go", if it weren't for progressive websites and the www.freegaza.org website, I wouldn't even be aware that Israel hijacked and abducted aid workers from a boat from outside Israels territorial waters and is still holding Cynthia McKinney and others in prison.
Our government and mainstream media has been silent to this. Yet when other countries hold our citizens (N. Korea and Iran), our government and media have no problem speaking out.
Progressive 101
Good points. One wonders if the newly elected "progressive" senator, Al Franken, will objectively speak out against the Israelis hijacking that boat. There is about as much chance of that occurring as there is of a genuine and honest and open investigation in regard to the mysterious events that transpired on Sept. 11, 2001.
Quite often lately, it has been apt to post Pres. Truman's observations about Jews from his diaries:
"The Jews, I find, are very, very selfish. They care not how many Estonians, Latvians, Finns, Poles, Yugoslavs or Greeks get murdered or mistreated as D[isplaced] P[ersons] as long as the Jews get special treatment. Yet when they have power, physical, financial or political neither Hitler nor Stalin has anything on them for cruelty or mistreatment to the under dog."
Sixty-two years later and not much change.
How can this fly-speck of a nation be permitted to continue to cause such misery?
True Jews Support Justice For The Palestinians
"The characteristics of a true Jew?'
"Always siding with the slave, never with the slave-master."
"How is the Palestinian the slave?"
"Having one's land occupied by another people is to be enslaved."
"And what makes the Jewish settlers slave-masters?"
"They're the cccupiers."
"The answer being?"
"That Jewish colonizer and colonized Palestinian sit down together and work things out."
"Based on?"
"One equals one."
"Anything else?"
"Liberty and justice for all."
It is way past time for the world to recognize the true extent of the depravity of Zionism and Israel. Unfortunately, it is impossible to discuss in the media and even on 'left' websites like CD, as if you do, you will be banned. It could be worse, pointed criticism of the machinations of the Zionists will get you arrested and serious jail time in Germany, most of Europe, Canada, and Australia.
OK. Let's accept your assertion that it was 5,250,123 instead of 6 million.
SO FREAKING WHAT? I Repeat, SO FREAKING WHAT?
You want to help the Palestinians? Stop nitpicking about the Holocaust. By nitpicking about the Holocaust, you are playing right into the hands of those who bomb Palestinian civilians, those who refuse to allow rice / pasta into Gaza, those who prevent talented young Palestinians from taking advantage of scholarships. They love it when people like you nitpick about the Holocaust. Focus on what they are doing NOW, in Palestine.
Did you even read the post before spouting off?
It isn't just Germany, it's also most of Europe, some of Eastern Europe, Canada, and Australia. In April Dr. F. Tobin was convicted of 'vilifying the Jewish people' in Australia and has jail time scheduled. The ADL is fighting tooth and nail to get 'hate crime' laws through the US congress, this is the tactic they have used in other countries to silence critics of Israel. Narcissus, an exceptionally well read and insightful poster on this forum, was banned for telling the truth about Israel.
Actually, no. That isn't what "hate crimes" laws are. And I say this as someone who opposes "hate crimes" laws.
It is possible to cricise Israel, without beating, or advocating the beating, of Jews.
And it's way past time that people on the left discard the idiotic "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" worldview.
Fredrick Toben is scum. And the people who support him are foolish dupes. The people who are keeping these talented young Palestinians from getting those scholarships, LOVE people like Toben. They LOVE Holocaust deniers. People like Toben allow them to reframe the debate, and seize the moral high ground.
You are being demagogic.
Angry Jews. Hummmm. Most of the Jews in Israel and America are too young to remember the holocaust. But so many of them are angry. They consider the concept of "Let my people go" to be theirs alone. I think the philosophy of Zionism must have corrupted their minds, just like Mein Kampf corrupted the minds of a generation of Germans. There is a Law higher than their Ten Commandments. It is the Law of Karma, and they will be paying it, just like the Nazis did. We don't need angry Jews, we need wise Jews.
It's a perfect abuse story, The molested go on to molest. The meme and the taboo make it popular and wonderfully habitual.
Morality like language,is a virus.
It remains to be seen whether thinking in symbols is viable.
There is the CODE and then there is the CARRIER WAVE, They are separate and distinct.
The code is for keeping records (history, debt).
The carrier wave is present, and only present (mother communicating to infant)
This is what happens to a 19 year old outsider when she accompanies 7 year old Palestinian children to their homes from school:
http://www.arbetaren.se/articles/utrikes20061120
The Zionist settlers who bashed her face in with impunity a few feet from policemen were chanting, "We killed Jesus, we'll kill you too!".
It seems that Israel just made another human sacrifice of a seventeen year old girl in Gaza to secure our guarantee of their $9 billion debt. That's on top of our $3 billion yearly tribute to the Zionists which has paid for genocidal slaughter and eternal expansion into occupied Palestine.
It is _WAY_ past time for America to STOP sending billions of dollars in military supplies (exclusive of the AID budget) to Israel annually. These are supplies that are NOT authorized in any budget, and ARE IN VIOLATION OF US LAW.
Once the Israeli's military is made to fend for themselves, the pompous idiots who run the country will be forced to meet the Palestinians on an equal basis at the negotiating table. They will no longer be able to DEMAND that the Palestinians be less human than their dogs.
The Israeli military, under the aid of the US is the SECOND biggest terrorist organization in the world ... second to our own military.