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The Wall: There, and
Here
by Frank Scott
The tragedy of Palestine would be
impossible without history's greatest job of mind
management. Lincoln was wrong; you can fool most of the
people, most of the time. The physical apartheid wall in
Israel is possible only because of a mental apartheid
wall in American consciousness.
The theft of a people's homeland,
their exile, occupation and slaughter , is seen as the
survival struggle of an oppressed jewish nation . People
otherwise able to differentiate between their heads and
their buttocks still believe that a persecuted minority
is innocently trying to create a haven for itself,
escaping from the savagery of a heartless western world,
to live in the savagery of a heartless arab world. Why
there ? It seems that god selected this real estate, and
promised it to a chosen tribe from which it had been
stolen, and to which it would be returned at some
unspecified later date.
Depending on degrees of political
correctness, it seems permissible to disrespect, and even
ridicule many religious beliefs as fairy tales. But this
one is honored, often in embarrassed or nervous silence,
by materially affluent people who suffer poverty only in
their morals and politics.
The racial supremacist nazi madness
that murdered european jews of the working class, has
become the rationale for a racial supremacist israeli
state, supported by american jews of the middle and upper
class. Without their financial and political actions, and
especially those of their non-jewish cohorts, this
degradation of humanity could not last a minute in its
present form. And every minute it is perpetuated, the
world becomes a sadder, madder and more dangerous place,
and not just for Palestinians.
Americans are socialized to forget
things quickly, and concentrate on the next product for
consumption. Many have little knowledge of recent
history, like the Viet Nam war, let alone what should
have been learned from our past history of slavery, and
our treatment of this nation's original inhabitants. Yet,
in this short attention span market place, many of us are
taught to "remember" that persecution of
innocent jews in the past, means that israel is above
reproach when it persecutes innocent Palestinians in the
present.
Part of this moral tragedy is the
equation of mental with physical pain. Those suffering
psycho-religious depression are given credence as being
truly threatened in the material world. But however
painful mental anguish can be, it is nothing compared to
physical suffering. And none suffer
physically for being jews, unless they are in Israel and
among the minority who have been victimized by murderous
acts of insurrectionary terror, inflicted by an oppressed
people driven mad by their pain and lashing out, often
blindly, at those seen as invaders and oppressors.
Supporters of israel in the USA
maintain a psychological illness when they give aid and
comfort to the racist conquerors of Palestine. Especially
under the guise of protecting against some future terror,
supposedly awaiting all jews if no homeland exists to
which they can escape. This, without regard to material
reality, much less the wishes of a native population.
This case of mass depression would be
serious if it were only suffered by a minority , but it
is the reality of a religious, secular and even
anti-religious majority . They support this immaterial
madness with a material horror that becomes more
threatening the longer it continues.
The apartheid wall has been censured
by an international court, but that decision means
nothing to the dominant twin state, USrael. That
malformation is the most powerful military force in the
world, exemplifying a universal truth even stronger than
the golden rule of capital, that he who has the gold
rules: He who has the weapons, is the law.
The people most responsible for
perpetuating this tragedy , Americans, must do something
to stop it. Economic sanctions may be the only way to
help Israel become part of the real world, and end its
pariah status as a bloody religious theme park , which
cuts itself off from most of humanity, and
wonders why it is despised for doing so.
Israel's political climate permits a
brave minority of jews to speak out against their warped
state, which they find in contradiction to the more
benign teachings of the faith. Ancient experience can
offer lessons for the present, but only biblical fanatics
accept it as divine truth. It is significant that the
most dangerous entity in the world is presided over by
fundamentalist christians and jews. Though these sects
often murder one another, they are spawn of the same
dualistic , patriarchal doctrines of racial superiority.
Their behavior is in the biblical tradition of those 19th
century zionists who wanted Palestine for their own, and
later even colluded with nazis to get it, long before the
bloody murders now called the holocaust.
Though israeli critics are a minority,
they are bolder and more numerous than those in the USA,
where open questioning seems more dangerous and is
immediately labeled anti-Semitism. The lid on criticism
is tightly applied, not only by established powers of the
center, but even by critical sources on the periphery. As
long as the left remains fearfully silent, this dangerous
regime of consciousness control, extending from congress
to the white house to major media, may one day
produce a truly ugly backlash from the
right. Then, of course, zionists will say "see, we
told you it would happen".
The Presbyterian action endorsing
sanctions against Israel is long overdue. It is time for
people of conscience to follow their lead and tear down
the wall of disinformation . Americans have already died
because of our policy, and more will likely die unless it
is changed. A socially just resolution of the ugly
reality in Palestine is not merely in service to
Palestinians and Jews, but to the whole world. And for
Americans, it is not only a matter of conscience, but of
survival as well.
Copyright 2004 by Frank Scott©. All
rights reserved.
frank scott
email: frank@marin.cc.ca.us
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