|
|
The
right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken
seriously.
Palestine
- Bloody Sunday, Monday, Tuesday...
The intensification of the Bush mimic Ariel Sharon on the'war on terror' against the Palestinian people is beginning in some media circles to drop its veil of legitimacy. As one observer recently told me 'in Ireland you had Bloody Sunday yet for the people of Palestine we have Bloody Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday etc', with the portraying of this as a 'legitimate war against the Palestinian terrorists'. Yet this denies the hundreds of civilians that have been slaughtered and the fundamental reality of a war of an oppressor, armed, funded and urged on by a US administration against an oppressed people whose crime is to seek inclusiveness, justice and democracy. It has been well documented the numerous UN resolutions broken by Israel as has the slaughter of innocents. Now with the political willingness of the Israeli's to use more repression to 'crush' the Palestinian people, have the powers that be still not learned that intensification of repression on an oppressed people will intensify their will to stand firm against that said repression? Yet maybe Ariel Sharon knows this and it is the actual politic of that repression that he believes serves his cause within the wider interest on 'the war on terror' as defined by the US and now increasingly by himself. The US position on its objectives which gives succuor to Ariel Sharon is clear as one US state dept official stated, they will go to war on Iraq even if the inspectors were let in. In effect 'we will not take yes for an answer'. So with this politic and the mindset of participation at the slaughter of the palestinians it is of no surprise then of the shooting at international human rights activists, trade unionists and personalities recently or the shooting at and of journalists, the video executions in cold blood, the murder of those that speak out, the slaughter of civilians, the disappeared. It all rings of the familiarity of a era in Chile's history. But what is more sinister still was the recent statement in an Israeli based newspaper of an Israeli officer to his troops on how to deal with the Palestinians: 'we should learn the lesson of how the Nazi's dealt with the Jews in the ghettos'. All this should then ring alarm bells, but apparently not though in the corridors of the Blair-Bush project. Fortunately peoples, groups and organizations are coming together to build support for the people of Palestine with demo building and support groups at home and internationally, with motions also being increasingly supported in unions and a united consensus of a diversity of peoples also lending support. As continued eye witness reports of food/medicine running low and water and electricity being turned off in the camps it is vital everyone should lend their support for upcoming events. All who want to see a just and democratic world should oppose the ever widening 'war on terror' which will target the poorest nations on earth and which have and will repress further our rights. So all of those who are growing in concern on these issues should state both in participation and in voice 'no to war, end the illegal Israeli occupation and solidarity, justice and freedom for the people of Palestine.
Index: Current Articles + Latest News and Views + Book Reviews + Letters + Archives
|
|
The Blanket
|
|
|
Letters
• • • • • • The Blanket Magazine Winter 2002 • •
|
