Genocide Of Palestinians is Ideologically Possible
by Brian Wood in Palestine
(Brian is a member of CCMEP; click here to read his other articles)
9/13/01
As a Colorado native, temporarily living in Bethlehem, Palestine, I am fearful for what I see happening here. At midnight the 11th of September, the Israeli Defense Forces surrounded the Palestinian town of Jenin with some 20 tanks and knocked out power to the city. By daylight they entered the city, driving 5 km deep into the city. The operation is two days old now and has
killed at least 13 Palestinians and
injured 100. CNN reported Israeli sources saying Jenin is a "hornet's nest" and
"a nest of terrorists."
Further, the Israelis justify their
invasion of Jenin by claiming that the suicide bomber of this past Sunday,
Mohammed Habashi, an Israeli citizen, had contacts with Hamas activists in Jenin.
How a state can invade a city on the grounds that someone that committed a crime
in their country had friends in the city being invaded is superfluous and points
to the collective punishment and racism on which Israeli society operate in
regards to every Palestinian.
Two weeks ago the IDF justified their invasion of Beit Jala by saying it is "a
nest of terrorists" that needed to be cleaned out. The implication is that Beit
Jali people are both terrorists and some kind of insect.
Besides these two particular instances, references and direct equations of
Palestinians to various types of insects and diseases by governmental,
spiritual, and military officials in Israel ought to send shockwaves throughout
the world. This equation of human life with unwanted pests or diseases was
clearly construed by Nazis to create an ideological base for the mass genocide
that took place of Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, and handicapped persons. In a
similar manner, this ideological base is being created again, laying the
groundwork for the continued and perhaps expanded destruction of Palestinian
society in general and Palestinian people in particular. If a group of people
can successfully be labeled as insectual or pertaining to deadly diseases, there
is only one way to deal with such people: extermination.
The lack of shockwaves this labeling
of the Palestinian people causes and its obvious conclusion shows the inadequacy
of the assumption that we, as humans, have learned from the numerous genocides
of the past 100 years. That it is Jewish people in support of Israel who are
creating a framework in which genocide can occur should cause serious and
considerable doubt regarding the State of Israel and their supporters motives in
continually referring to the loss of 5.1 million of their people in WWII as
justification for contemporary, state-ordered actions.
The silence of the world leaders or
grassroots movements towards Israel labeling Palestinians as insects or diseases
highlights the success Israel has achieved in this campaign of dehumanization
and subordination. Through worldwide lobbying and propaganda, various modes of
media, governments, and private organizations have jumped on the bandwagon,
laying aside concern for consequences of succumbing to whatever pressures
(usually economic) are applied by the Zionist organizations.
The latest example comes from the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). The State of Israel has assassinated around 60 Palestinian activists in the last year, some very important leaders. The BBC properly referred to these state-ordered actions as assassinations for some time. Even Ha'aretz, an Israeli daily, named them as such for some time. However, the Israeli
government decided that calling them
"targeted killings" would smooth over these mafia-like acts and pressured the
BBC to use the same language. BBC gave in and told all their correspondents to
follow suit.
The success of the Israeli campaign to portray Palestinians as sub-human terrorists will only increase the horrors of human history in our day and fill the pages of tomorrow's history books with blood. As a member of the International Solidarity Campaign, we call on medial personnel at all levels, governmental employees and politicians, private organizations, and citizens
of the world to wade through the waves of dehumanization of the Palestinian people and actively stand against this evil, ideological campaign that has created enormous human suffering in Palestine and is closely related to events in history we say we don't wish to occur again. Never again!