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TechnoratiIsrael's Man of Conscience
My name is Ezra Nawi. I am a Jewish citizen of Israel.
Of course the policemen who accused me of assaulting them are lying. Indeed, lying has become common within the Israeli police force, military and among the Jewish settlers.
After close to 140,000 letters were sent to Israeli officials in support of my activities in the occupied West Bank, the Ministry of Justice responded that I "provoke local residents."
This response reflects the culture of deceit that has taken over all official discourse relating to the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
After all, was I the one who poisoned and destroyed Palestinian water wells?
Was I the one who beat young Palestinian children?
Did I hit the elderly?
Did I poison the Palestinian residents' sheep?
Did I demolish homes and destroy tractors?
Did I block roads and restrict movement?
Was I the one who prevented people from connecting their homes to running water and electricity?
Did I forbid Palestinians from building homes?
Over the past eight years, I have seen with my own two eyes hundreds of abuses such as these and exposed them to the public--therefore I am considered a provocateur. I can only say that I am proud to be a provoker.
Because I am a provoker, the police together with their allies have threatened me, beaten me and arrested me on numerous occasions. And when I continued to "provoke" them, they did not hesitate to out me as a gay man; indeed, they spread rumors among the Palestinians with whom I work that I have AIDS.
One of the reasons I have been singled out has to do with who I am. It is difficult to explain, but as a Mizrahi Jew (descended from Jewish communities in the Arab and Muslim world), a gay man and a plumber, I do not belong to the elite of Israeli society and do not fit the stereotype of the Israeli peacenik--namely, an intellectual Jew of Ashkenazi decent. Actually, the police officers who constantly arrest me and I are part of the same social strata. I was programmed like them, have a similar accent, know their jargon and our historical background is comparable. And yet, in their eyes I am on and for the other side, the Palestinian side.
This simple fact seems to disturb them so much that they have to vilify me; that is the only way their worldview will continue making sense. I threaten them precisely because I undermine the categories and stereotypes through which they understand the world.
But the policemen are only actors on this stage. The military, civil administration and the judicial system are all working with the police, and all of them together follow the commands of their masters, the Jewish settlers.
This unholy alliance is extremely dangerous, because for them the end--gaining full control of the Land of Israel--justifies the means. In order to advance this end they dehumanize the Palestinians; and because the Palestinians in their eyes are not human, everything is permitted. They can steal their land, demolish their homes, steal their water, imprison them for no reason and at times even kill them. In Hebrew we say damam mutar, taking their blood is permissible.
It is important to keep in mind, however, that the evil I confront every day in the West Bank could not have been carried out without the Israeli court system. Judge Eilata Ziskind not only mistakenly found me guilty but she instructed the court to invite a translator for the sentencing, as if I do not speak Hebrew; in her mind I, a Mizrahi Jew, am a Palestinian Arab--and Arabs are, almost by definition, guilty. My case is merely part of a pattern. All the crimes committed by the state and its proxies in the territories over the past four decades were made kosher by the Israeli courts. Therefore, the courts are just as much to blame for the ongoing cruelty.
Because I am a provoker the state subjects me to continuing harassment, and yet I have remained persistent. What strengthens me and gives me energy is the widespread and constant support I have always received from political allies. When I was beaten by settlers, when my car was stolen, when I was arrested, I never felt alone. I know that thousands of people, both in Israel and abroad, support what we in Ta'ayush (Jewish-Arab Partnership) are doing against the occupation.
"Ezra" in Hebrew means help, and I know that in times of trouble I can rely on my friends for help.
14 Comments so far
Show AllEzra Nawi you are the best.
Your courage is real shining Star.
If there is a human race on Earth in 500 years it will consist of people with the character and courage of Ezra Nawi.
We need a critical mass of such people of Conscience to insure that our species can survive into the next century (let alone the 26th).
By whatever name you call Him (Yaweh, Allah, Christ etc) Ezra Nawi is a manifestation of the Holy Spirit, may all blessings be upon him and may we all strive to be able to follow his example.
Israel loses the moral high ground when it treats heros like Ezra as if they were terrorists. This good man should be released from prison and should be listened to instead of persecuted.
The untold story: "Driven from the homeland .... by Zionists"
The parents of Ezra (which means "Help" in Hebrew ....!) came from the city of Basra in southern Iraq. The influence of the Arab culture and language that he was exposed to at home, led Ezra to befriend several Palestinian families in the village of Beit Safafa near Jerusalem.
(A short excursion into history for some context)
Iraqi Jews were the oldest continous Jewish community in the world (going back to the 6 th century BC)and it was "Mesopotamia" that was Judaism's lifeline after the fall of the second temple. (I believe the Talmud was written there..)
Of all the Jewish communities in the Middle East, the Mesopotamian Jews were the most integrated and the most prosperous. Not only had they freely practised their faith under Ottoman rule, they had also become a successful business community. When Britain announced it's support for the creation of a "Jewish homeland" in Palestine (1917), leaving Mesopotamia for the kibbutz was therefore the furthest thing from the minds of Baghdad’s Jews.
The Zionists put an end to this happy story after Israel's violent birth in 1948: Three bombs, planted by Israeli agents to foment fears of a pogrom (in 1951) "encouraged" the Jews in Iraq to leave (they badly needed more "human material" to tackle the demographic problem).
As Ezra points out, the "Jewish" state had to dehumanize the Palestinians in order to excuse itself from any responsbility, let alone guilt, for its brutal crimes against them ( exactly what the Nazis did )The "inferior" people must be sacrificed to make room for the superior race or (cloaked in religion) the "chosen people" and this insanity had to be reconciled with the claim that Jews are "morally superior":
Golda Meir "I will never forgive the Arabs for forcing us to kill them..." (see Joel Kovel)
The ultimate hypocrisy: Escape from a racist state to found another racist state?
Even among Jews racism is apparent: Ashkenazi (white masters, of European descent)- Mizrahi (brown underling / laborer, of African / Asian descent)as Ezra has pointed out. Ben Gurion coldly calculated that one had to put up with the "low-value" Oriental Jews (he called them "human dust")since they were needed as cheap laborers (to replace Palestinian workers)...
That these "lower" people (like Ezra) have the audacity to show that their humanity, empathy and fight for justice proves their real worth as human beings, not status, religion or ethnicity, is unbearable to the Zionist mindset because it forces them to see themselves as they really are: the emperor is not only naked, he is drenched in blood....
Naomi Klein has called for (a long overdue)international boycott... How is that possible as long as the US has an "unbreakable bond" with Israel????
"...the Americans are responsible for the creation of a gangster state headed by "an utterly unscrupulous set of leaders".
(Sir John Troutbeck, writing to the British foreign secretary shortly after the creation of Israel;quoted by Avi Shlaim)
...of course the Brits betrayed the Arabs many times before the US took over in the Middle East...
(Even documentaries like these bring no change...)
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13749.htm
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3499.htm
tocqueville22: “Of all the Jewish communities in the Middle East, the Mesopotamian Jews were the most integrated and the most prosperous... ... The Zionists put an end to this happy story after Israel's violent birth in 1948: Three bombs, planted by Israeli agents to foment fears of a pogrom (in 1951) "encouraged" the Jews in Iraq to leave.”
Well, this was tocqueville22’s version. And now for the truth:
In 1948, there were approximately 150,000 Jews in Iraq.
However by 2003, there were only approximately 100 left of this previously thriving community. (Which existed for more than 2500 years)
In 1941, following Rashid Ali’s pro-Axis coup, riots known as the Farhud broke out in Baghdad in which approximately As a result of Farhud, about 180 Jews were killed and about 240 were wounded, 586 Jewish-owned businesses were looted and 99 Jewish houses were destroyed.
In March 1950, Iraq passed a law of one year duration allowing Jews to emigrate on condition of relinquishing their Iraqi citizenship. The initial rate of registration accelerated after a bomb injured three Jews at a café. Two months before the expiry of the law, by which time about 85,000 Jews had registered, a bomb at the Masuda Shemtov Synagogue killed 3 or 5 Jews and injured many.
In 1951 the Iraqi Government passed legislation that made affiliation with Zionism a felony and ordered, “the expulsion of Jews who refused to sign a statement of anti-Zionism. During the next few months, all but a few thousand of the remaining Jews registered for emigration, spurred on by a sequence of bombings that caused few casualties but had great psychological impact. In total, about 120,000 Jews left Iraq
some Iraqi activists in Israel still regularly charge that Israel used violence to engineer the exodus, while Israeli officials of the time vehemently deny it. According to historian Moshe Gatt, few historians believe that Israel was actually behind the bombing campaign — based on factors such as records indicating that Israel did not want such a rapid registration rate and that bomb throwing at Jewish targets was common before 1950, making the Istiqlal Party a more likely culprit than the Zionist underground.
tocqueville22 – I searched links you’ve published for evidence that support your claim that Zionist bombs drove the Jews out of Iraq and not the Iraqi Istiqlal party. I couldn’t find any. Not even with the links that you provided.
Here are my sources (in case you were wondering):
Levin, Itamar (2001). Locked Doors: The Seizure of Jewish Property in Arab Countries. (Praeger/Greenwood) ISBN 0-275-97134-1, p. 6.
Pappe, 2004, p177
B. Morris and I. Black, Israel's Secret Wars (Grove Press, 1992), p93.
It's amazing how Letto get creamed time and time on the facts and keeps coming back with more.
He has no credibility.
As Ezra points out, the "Jewish" state had to dehumanize the Palestinians in order to excuse itself from any responsbility, let alone guilt, for its brutal crimes against them ( exactly what the Nazis did )The "inferior" people must be sacrificed to make room for the superior race or (cloaked in religion) the "chosen people" and this insanity had to be reconciled with the claim that Jews are "morally superior":
============
DEHUMANIZING another people to justify destroying them in order to take their land and/or live without the inconvenience of their existence -- is very NAZI-like isn't it?
teddy: "the "Jewish" state had to dehumanize the Palestinians in order to excuse itself from any responsbility, let alone guilt, for its brutal crimes against them ( exactly what the Nazis did )The "inferior" people must be sacrificed to make room for the superior race or (cloaked in religion) the "chosen people" and this insanity had to be reconciled with the claim that Jews are "morally superior"
Isn't what you do, teddy, also dehumanize people?
Come to think of it, isn't it a holocaust denial? (Claiming that the Nazis didn't build extermination camps, crematoriums, etc. And that the outcome of the holocaust was exactly the same as the Israeli Palestinian conflict, a few thousands casualties instead of 6 million, is a holocaust denial)
The more broadly and frequently you apply terms such as "antisemite", "holocaust denier", the less value they have. Save the big guns for the real cases. You just read a whole bunch of crap into teddy's post. Stop it already. sheesh.
On a separate issue, it should be obvious to anyone that freedom of speech includes the right to acknowledge or deny anything at all. The person doing so may be wrong, or an idiot, but free speech is free speech, no matter how wrong or idiotic.
No exceptions.
"Anti-Semite" has pretty much lost all meaning. If it has any meaning left, it means "someone who respects the rights and human dignity of ALL people".
By appropriating the language of morality for evil purposes, Zionism makes it more difficult to continue moral dialogue.
Ray Berthiaume
I am so grateful to CD for letters like this. They teach me things I could not otherwise learn. I tell my friends of the CD site. ...In my mind this Ezra is a needed spiritual leader. May he be protected.
It's time to again post Pres. Truman's observations of Jews in his 1947 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."
What was true sixty-two years ago, remains true today.
Mr. Nawi - kudos to you for the courage you have shown.
E Z R A,
Our profound blessings and support for your heroic stand against the Zionist institutions and propaganda machine.
Your example places a much needed perspective and solid perception of real Jewish people that oppose these atrocities against Palestine and against Israel itself.
The Zionist cause too easily hides behind its faux "Jewishness" and the witheredly frayed cloak of "anti-Semitism", while abrogating all true religious principle and common decency -- for purely political and illegal avaricious hateful gains.
The Zionist court system also too easily hides its blindness of real truth, by feeding the machinery of death and suffering. The precept of IDF honor and truthfulness is easily countered by soverign opinions of the relatively unbiased Ta'ayush (Jewish-Arab Partnership) observers -- whose unbounded perception of truth -- is castigated as unworthy, compared to that of Zionist thugs with proven amoral enterprises and pursuits.
For the Zionists to treat a Jew in this manner,
exposes their REAL basis for their assumption of power and control : cultural genocide of those whose land was stolen and those that so foolishly continue to stay alive and take a strong stand against the perfidy and inequity.
For a thorough article about this subject, see :
_____ Alongside Palestinians, Mizrahi (Sephardi) Jews are Zionism's "other" victims
_____ http://www.sott.net/articles/show/187294-Alongside-Palestinians-Mizrahi-Sephardi-Jews-are-Zionism-s-ot...
N.
Good luck and best wishes, Ezra.
· Yr Obd't Servant
This may be the scariest post about the situation in Israel that has appeared on CD.
I await the appearance of the zionist trolls to explain to us - again - how the Israelis are the "good guys."
It is because there are Jews such as this author that I refuse to use the terms "Jew" or "Jewish" when discussing zionist atrocities. The motivations of these monsters are political and not religious, regardless of what the militant rabbis may claim.
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