The Never-Ending Six-Day War
Of all the posts marking the 40-year anniversary of the six-day Arab-Israeli war, you won't see many as direct and disturbing as this one. I'll post a small part of it here, even at the risk of again being called a racist and a nazi:
What can be said after 40 years of illegal occupation, after over 250,000 Israeli Jewish colonial settlers in the West Bank, after over 18,000 of our homes demolished, after causing massive economic dislocation (unemployment is at twice what it was for Americans during the Great depression), after over 11,000 Palestinian political prisoners now in Israeli jails, after over 10,000 fellow Palestinian civilians killed? What can be said after the remaining Palestinians are squeezed into shrinking ghettos after much of their best lands was confiscated?
Should we focus on the price the occupiers also paid (especially since the introduction of the phenomenon of suicide bombings 10 years ago). Should we focus on the price the world has paid including the unfolding tragedy in Iraq...
The connection between the Israelis' treatment of Palestinians and terrorism is the 800-pound gorrilla in the newsroom. Or maybe they just hate us for our freedoms.
Today also marks the 40th anniversary of the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty, which killed 34 US sailors. Twice during the attack, US warplanes took off in response to the Liberty's SOS, and both times the planes were recalled to their carrier by Washington.
This spectacularly bizarre incident has long been ignored by the US media. In fact, if it weren't for blogs, many Americans, including myself, would never have known the attack happened.
You can find links on both sides of the Liberty controversy here.
Comments
Wikipedia has lots of information about this incident too, including a section about the details in dispute.
Maybe I've become jaded over the years, but I tend to believe there was a cover-up. The Israeli military is superlative and their personnel are highly trained. The excuse that our ship was not clearly marked just isn't good enough. As the Wiki link indicates, our ship was clearly linked with English rather than Arabic numbers and letters.
Regarding your comment about being labeled racist, I think you're views on this are shared by many others. People are starting to question why Israel has been allowed to inflict such hardship (terror) on the Palestinians all these years - not too mention how much damage we're doing to our image in the Arab countries by tolerating Israel's actions.
BTW, sorry for the late post of your comment. I'm having problems getting my anti-spam software to behave.
Posted by: Kathy | June 8, 2007 11:44 AM
Thanks for the link, Kathy.
I agree - it's hard to believe the Liberty attack was an accident. But the good news is, if people are starting to see the Israeli/Palestininan situation objectively, as you suggest, I think we have blogs to thank for it. So keep blogging... ;-)
As for the accusations against me, I was actually called a racist and a nazi by a commenter on this site for Thinking the Wrong Thoughts about Israel and Palestine.
Posted by: abi | June 10, 2007 11:35 AM