Our Complicity in Israel’s War Crimes Is Monstrous
I have just read the following words written by Kathleen Christison in Counterpunch, titled “‘The Insane Brutality of the State of Israel’ – Atrocities in the Promised Land:”
“Words fail; ordinary terms are inadequate to describe the horrors Israel daily perpetrates, and has perpetrated for years, against the Palestinians. The tragedy of Gaza has been described a hundred times over, as have the tragedies of 1948, of Qibya, of Sabra and Shatila, of Jenin -- 60 years of atrocity perpetrated in the name of Judaism. But the horror generally falls on deaf ears in most of Israel, in the U.S. political arena, in the mainstream U.S. media. Those who are horrified -- and there are many -- cannot penetrate the shield of impassivity that protects the political and media elite in Israel, even more so in the
U.S., and increasingly now in Canada and Europe, from seeing, from caring.”
“But it needs to be said now, loudly: those who devise and carry out Israeli policies have made Israel into a monster, and it has come time for all of us -- all Israelis, all Jews who allow Israel to speak for them, all Americans who do nothing to end U.S. support for Israel and its murderous policies -- to recognize that we stain ourselves morally by continuing to sit by while Israel carries out its atrocities against the Palestinians.”
Christison is, of course, Jewish, a former CIA analyst and author on the Middle East. She is principally appealing to American Jews. I am not Jewish, and not American, but when I listen to the Prime Minister, watch CBC TV news or read Globe and Mail or Record editorials and op-eds, I have no doubt that her analysis applies here. Israel has become a monster, and our government, elite media and public intellectuals, with few exceptions, have become monstrous in turn for our complicity and wilful refusal to tell the truth about the “Holy Land.” The intellectual dishonesty and moral
I have already sent a personal letter to both Prime Minister Harper and Foreign Minister MacKay but since he has decided not to back down on this comments I believe further pressure is necessary from as many sources as possible.
With horror and shame,I say "enough" of this cowardly stance that you assume for Canada. This is so contradictory to the belief that we are an inclusive, objective, peaceful society. This is a shameless and cowardly act of aggression by a country armed with hi-tech instruments of terror used in the name of a hypocritical strategy to assert arrogant power through murder and mayhem. Canada is not a war mongering nation. To be different, to take a stance of peace is courage and citizenship that is human, sadly, unique. I used to believe that Canada was unique, inclusive objective with politics that gave peace a priority. Civillians, the ordinary folks in all these countries are the ones suffering. Why is Canada taking this stance that is blatantly an amoral and immoral one.
Mr. Harper your comments ("Isrel is defending itself against the Palestinians" and "Isrel is using a measured response") were inappropriate considering the killings of innocent civilians and total destruction of infrastructure.
I am a Jew. In addition to Zionism/Israel attempting to destroy the possibility of a Palestinian state and Palestinians as well as Lebanon and its people, it has taken on the major characteristics of Nazism and virtually destroyed Judaism.
