Tag: Christian Zionism

Learn to See Through Israeli & Christian Zionist Propaganda #christianzionism #memri #gaza

I looked in on the CBN website today just out of curiosity.  There I found an article on the many Palestinian people killed by Israeli soldiers in Gaza under this headline:   ‘Hamas Sacrificing Children’: Why Gaza Clashes Aren’t Peaceful Protests but a Hamas-Inspired Death Cycle (dated 5/17/18).

Knowing that CBN is a major provider of “Christian news” in the US, and that an article like this will (mis)inform many, many more people than will ever read even-handed reports on what has happened in Gaza, I decided to use this article as an exercise in how to deconstruct propaganda.

This article is  pure propaganda for a Christian Zionist readership, intended (a) to tell people what they want to hear and thereby (b) reinforce what they already believe.  There is nothing informative about it.

  1. First, notice the headline.  The Hamas organization is mentioned 3 times.  In Zionist parlance, Hamas is nothing more than a deranged terrorist organization intent on destroying Israel by any means possible.  Thus, the headline immediately paints the past 7 weeks of protests as an exclusively Hamas-controlled, “terrorist” event designed somehow to destroy Israel.

Note the phrases “cult of death” and “sacrificing children,” both implicit references to the repeated Israeli refrain that all Palestinians — especially Hamas — raise their children to hate Jews; that they have no appreciation for life but only yearn to die as suicide bombers attacking Israelis.

So, the stage is set. This is a story about the irrational hatred of people whose only goal is to “drive Israel into the sea,” as Zionists love to repeat.

2. Second, notice that all the embedded videos, ostensibly providing evidence for the many inflammatory claims made throughout the article, come from MEMRI TV.

So, let’s check out MEMRI.  What is this organization? Where does it come from?  Who is behind it? A little investigation (take some time to read this investigative article from The Guardian newspaper by Brian Whitaker) will quickly reveal that MEMRI is a “non-profit institute” located in Washington, D.C. (subsidized by US tax dollars) established by former members of the Israeli intelligence services, i.e. it is a strongly Zionist outfit that exists in order to promote political Zionism in the English-speaking world.

It seems that MEMRI’s “research” method is to watch and read Arabic and Farsi (otherwise known as Persian; the language of Iran) TV, magazines and newspapers.  They find the most outlandish public statements possible — without providing any context, so the reader/viewer has no way of judging how representative the statements may be — and then disseminate those statements as if they represent the widespread views of the average Palestinian, Arab or Iranian.

THAT is a dishonest, misrepresentation of the facts, and it makes me angry to know that my tax dollars (and yours) are subsidizing this stuff!  It is not hard to find a convenient wacko saying something stupid wherever you look. (I am tempted to say, “Just turn on Christian TV.”) But using those kinds of words to depict an entire group of people as equally wacko is not only dishonest; it is also slanderous and racist, things that every Christian ought to stand against, call out and reject whenever possible.

3. Once we get into the body of the article, its first major point is that:

“…one Hamas official admitted that 50 of the 62 people killed were Hamas members, a group labeled a terrorist organization by the US State Department.”

Let’s ask a few questions about this statement:

(a) 62 people were killed on Monday, May 14 alone.  The total number of dead over the entire period of the protests was 112 – 120, while the wounded were 12,000 – 20,000.  The article deliberately fudges the death toll and fails to mention the injured in order to downplay the vast numbers of people shot by Israeli soldiers.

(b) Is the so-called “Hamas official” a genuine Hamas spokesman? I don’t know. That needs investigation.

(c) If he is, does he know what he is talking about? Is he telling the truth? Or is this another example of an organization taking credit for something it didn’t really do? That happens often. This also needs investigation.

(d) Reminding us that Hamas is “labeled a terrorist organization by the US State Department” is intended to give the claim special authority, legitimizing it.  However, our State Department works in lockstep with the Israeli government and its own views on its “enemies.” So, this assertion is nothing more than a tautology, i.e. the US government is repeating Israeli assertions. It has no independent value.

4. Yes, indeed, Hamas has committed past acts of violence against Israelis, though nothing of significance since Gaza was cordoned off in 2011. (We don’t have time or space here to address the claims of “rockets fired” from Gaza into Israel or the horrific genocide committed by the Israeli military against civilians in Gaza.  I urge you to watch the new documentary, “Killing Gaza”, by the journalists Max Blumenthal and Dan Cohen).

But, within Gaza, Hamas functions largely as a political organization which many people join because they need connections to get a job, or they are involved in Hamas-sponsored community/youth activities. Also, not every member of Hamas is involved in their military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades.  In fact, the majority of Hamas members are not part of its military wing. They are two different things.

5. But even if all of the people shot and killed by Israeli snipers in Gaza were members of Hamas, since when does membership in an organization frowned upon by the government give the military permission to kill unarmed people — unarmed men, women and children often standing hundreds of yards away?  Is it permissible to shoot anyone simply because they are/may be members of Hamas?

6. The article continues to misrepresent what actually happened in Gaza, as all major US media outlets have also done.  So we read that these deaths resulted from“confrontations with Israeli troops as they [the Palestinians] tried to breach the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel.”

Yes, even this man was shot and killed by an Israeli sniper while sitting in his wheelchair.

(a) Go scan the net. Watch the many videos now available about the Gazan Land Day Marches.  I have.  I have not seen a single one that merits the label “confrontation.” That word implies close contact between two groups, which would require Palestinians to be on the opposite side of their fence, able to make physical contact with Israeli soldiers.  I have not seen or heard of any place where this happened.  In fact, even Israel admits that not one single soldier along the fence was injured in any way. There was no “breach” of the “border” anywhere.  Period.  There were no “confrontations.”  There were only unarmed people being shot dead by army snipers positioned many, many, many yards away.

Neither have I see anyone throw a bomb or Molotov cocktail or shoot a missile.  Though these charges are often repeated, I have yet to see a scrap of evidence to substantiate them.  Have you?

Norman Finkelstein is an historian with a special focus on the history of Israel-Palestine. He is the son of Holocaust survivors.

(b) As Norman Finkelstein has ably explained (here, here, and here ) the huge fence surrounding Gaza is not a border. The fence is not delineating two countries.  It is a prison boundary, unilaterally and arbitrarily constructed by Israel to confine the Palestinians living there.  It is ghetto fence; something that should haunt every Jew who aims a rifle into it. Palestinians hate this fence because it keeps them confined like animals in a cage.

Followers of Jesus Christ are supposed to be supremely devoted to telling the truth and eschewing lies.  That includes a refusal to spread misinformation.  Furthermore, everyone, but especially those who claim to be God’s people, need to exercise the common sense of reading responsibly, evaluating our sources of information, and testing the veracity of claims made by so-called “authorities.”

Shame on CBN for spreading lies and misinformation about the suffering of the Palestinian people.

Shame on all Christian Zionists for holding their Zionist ideology as more sacred than Jesus’ own convictions about truth, honesty and justice.

Scot McKnight’s Post About Israel, Christians and Palestinians #Gaza #Christianzionism #courtevangelicals

Scot McKnight has a good blog post today criticizing Israel’s brutality in Gaza this past month.  He also takes the opportunity to respond to his “hate mail” (why don’t I ever receive hate mail?) from fellow Christians (why is anyone claiming to be a Christian sending hate mail?) condemning him for failing to support Israel as he should.

Scot’s response is spot on.  Here is an excerpt, but I do recommend reading it all at his blog, Jesus Creed:

“It was a shameful thing for evangelical pastors to be celebrating the opening of the embassy in Jerusalem while just a few miles away the Israeli army was killing dozens of Palestinian protesters against Israeli policies. (The death toll stood at 60 as of Tuesday, Palestinian officials said, and more than 1,700 people had been hospitalized.) It’s shameful, not only because they use their theology to make the moving of the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem a matter of “eternal” significance, but also because they refuse to hold the Netanyahu government accountable for Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, some of whom are themselves evangelical Christians.

“Do I fear being cursed by God for saying that it was a shameful thing for these two pastors to join in the celebration at the opening of the Jerusalem embassy? No, because those who so easily invoke that ancient promise fail to think about what it covers. I do want God to “bless” Israel, as did the ancient prophets who regularly delivered divine messages to their compatriots.

“But those prophets never called for an uncritical acceptance of whatever happened to be the current policies and practices of Israel’s leaders. Here, for example, is a typical one of those ancient messages from the Lord: “So I will come to put you on trial. I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against those who defraud laborers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive the foreigners among you of justice” (Malachi 3:5)…”

Gideon Levy, 60 Dead in Gaza and the End of Israeli Conscience #Zionism #Gaza

Gideon Levy of HAARETZ continues to speak as the prophetic conscience for an inhumane, Zionist Israel.  Today, one day after the Gaza Land Day protests, he writes a lament, a funeral dirge, for the final burial of his nation’s conscience.

I have excerpted his Opinion piece below, but please be sure to read the whole thing.  It merits pondering and prayers for our humanity.

He predicts, correctly I believe, only dark days ahead, unfolding predictably from the dark decades past.

The verdict of “heartless persecutor, shameless executioner,” has been passed on the American establishment as well as Israel.  America funds Israel’s military, provides their weaponry and then bites its tongue whenever Israel goes on another blood-curdling rampage, leaving shredded, dismembered Palestinian bodies in its wake.

None of us should have any time to waste on the self-righteous debates about “even-handedness,” on the importance of seeing both sides of this “complicated story.”  It is meaningless platitude advanced by shallow thinkers that only obscures the truth of history.

I have no more time for David Gregory’s condescending smirks on CNN as he so graciously allows Diana Buttu a few moments (though he can’t stop from interrupting) to “share her perspective” on the Gazan slaughter.

Thank you CNN. A statement of facts is only a “perspective.”

I have no more time for the arrogance of Thomas Friedman and his ilk (in the White House and beyond) who continue to blame the victims as if they were mindless robots programmed by Hamas master-minds, with no personal agency and too  bloody impatient to wait for the Utopia that could be Gaza if only the people would stop shitting in their own nest. (Has Friedman never cracked open a book not written by a propagandist for political Zionism?)

The moral insouciance of these self-important talking heads is infuriating.

Remember when Friedman urged the Palestinians to mimic Gandhi and adopt his methods of non-violence? (If you don’t remember, I have written about Friedman’s piece with links to his article here.)  From his over-stuffed office chair, Friedman urged Palestinians, young and old, to sacrifice their lives for freedom, promising a compassionate Israeli response.

We have all now seen how Israeli compassion deals with massive non-violent marches.

But even worse is the evangelical/fundamentalist obsession with an embassy in Jerusalem while, on the very same day, more than 60 unarmed people are assassinated, and thousands more maimed for life, by the most immoral army in the world.

The silence of American evangelicalism screams an eternal accusation, “Here we are, a godless people; bloated by comfort; hardened by selfishness; ignorant by choice; disinterested by design…and guilty as hell.”

“When will the moment come in which the mass killing of Palestinians matters anything to the right? When will the moment come in which the massacre of civilians shocks at least the left-center? If 60 people slain don’t do it, perhaps 600? Will 6,000 jolt them?

“When will the moment come in which a pinch of human feeling arises, if only for a moment, toward the Palestinians? Sympathy? At what moment will someone call a halt, and suggest compassion, without being branded an eccentric or an Israel hater?

“When will there be a moment in which someone admits that the slaughterer has, after all, some responsibility for the slaughter, not only the slaughtered, who are of course responsible for their own slaughter?

“Sixty people killed didn’t matter to anyone – perhaps 600 would? How about 6,000? Will Israel find all the excuses and justifications then also? Will the blame be laid on the slain people and their “dispatchers” even then, and not a word of criticism, mea culpa, sorrow, pity or guilt will be heard?…

 “The truth is that Israel is well prepared to massacre hundreds and thousands, and to expel tens of thousands. Nothing will stop it. This is the end of conscience, the show of morality is over. The last few days’ events have proved it decisively. The tracks have been laid, the infrastructure for the horror has been cast. Dozens of years of brainwashing, demonization and dehumanization have borne fruit. The alliance between the politicians and the media to suppress reality and deny it has succeeded. Israel is set to commit horrors. Nobody will stand in its way any longer. Not from within or from without….
“We’re already there. That moment is here. Rwanda is coming to Gaza and Israel is celebrating. Two million human beings we’ve imprisoned already, and their fate matters to no one. The pictures that occasionally flicker of children without electricity and parents without water, of crippled people being shot to death and of leg amputees, all children of refugees from the 1948 disaster we landed on their heads.
“What has that to do with us? It’s Hamas’ fault. Sixty individuals killed in one day, and not a shred of sorrow has been sighted in Israel. From now on, it never will be.”

Moshe Dayan Boasted About Israel Being a Settler-Colonial Enterprise

Joe Lauria has an excellent article today at Consortiumnews.com entitled “U.S. Media Whitewashes Gaza Massacre.”  The entire article is well worth reading.  It includes a well known statement by Moshe Dayan, Israeli military leader and politician, who was never ashamed about telling the truth concerning the creation of the state of Israel:  it was a a settler-colonial enterprise accomplished by military conquest.

Calling Israel “a settler-colonial” enterprise is not anti-Semitic, nor is it an ahistorical mischaracterization as pro-Zionist propaganda would have you believe.  It is the truth.

You can read the excerpt containing Dayan’s statement below”

“Deflecting blame from Israel is one thing. But projecting it onto the victim is quite another. Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon on Monday called for the U.N. Security Council to, “Condemn Hamas for their war crimes,” because “every casualty on the border is a direct victim of Hamas.” 

“He said in a statement released by Israel’s U.N. mission:

“Condemn Hamas for the war crimes they commit. Not only does Hamas incite tens of thousands of Palestinians to breach the border and hurt Israeli civilians, but Hamas also deliberately endangers Palestinian civilians. The murder of Israeli civilians or deaths of the people of Gaza – each one of them is a desirable outcome for Hamas. Every casualty on the border is a victim of Hamas’ war crimes, every death is a result of Hamas’ terror activity, and these casualties are solely Hamas’ responsibility.”

“That’s one way to wash the Israeli government’s (blood-soaked) hands of the matter. Especially if you fear Israel will be accused of war crimes itself for its actions on Monday. Danon mentioned “breaching the border.” But it is virtually impossible to get in or out of Gaza without Israeli permission. Burning kites lofted over the barrier that pens in nearly two million Gazans subject to an internationally unrecognized economic blockade, supposedly constitutes “breaching,” in Danon’s mind.

“He would do well to consider the words of Moshe Dayan, one of the Israel’s Founding Fathers, who said in 1956:

“What cause have we to complain about their fierce hatred to us? For eight years now, they sit in their refugee camps in Gaza, and before their eyes we turn into our homestead the land and villages in which they and their forefathers have lived.” He went on: “We are a generation of settlers, and without the steel helmet and gun barrel, we shall not be able to plant a tree or build a house. . . . Let us not be afraid to see the hatred that accompanies and consumes the lives of hundreds of thousands of Arabs who sit all around us and wait for the moment when their hands will be able to reach our blood.”

Words of Sanity About Gaza from Today’s HAARETZ

To read the entire Haaretz opinion piece, go here.

“Protesters in Gaza lobbing rocks and Molotov cocktails or cutting through the fence are far from the textbook definition of “peaceful protesters” engaging in civil disobedience.

“But neither do they present a lethal threat to 13 battalions of Israel army forces.

“Indeed, to call every teenage protester a terrorist recruited by Hamas bent on murdering Israelis flies in the face of truth. For Jared Kushner to say, in the day’s sole mention of the day’s accumulating death toll, that Gazan protestors were “part of the problem, and not part of the solution” is to fail to recognize that Gazans themselves – yes, flesh and blood humans living just over hour southwest of Tel Aviv – must be part of the solution. 

“The feeling of being forgotten and caged in is part of the reason they are protesting, most of them with full knowledge that reaching the homes of their grandparents, rusty old keys in hand, is a symbolic show rather than a realistic goal. 

“Do we really imagine this so-called “March of Return” to be an existential threat to the strongest army in the Middle East? Demonstrators might be wild with rage and even psyched up by Hamas slogans, but they’re not armed and equipped to take on Israel. 

“Are we to the point where the IDF is more worried about the optics of setting a precedent – a Gazan reaching Israeli soil – than the loss of life?

“Hamas may as well be sending young demonstrators into a firing squad. But does that mean Israel has no choice but to keep pulling the trigger?”

Ilene Prusher is a journalist, columnist and author. She teaches journalism at Florida Atlantic University. Twitter: @ileneprusher

Today’s Slaughter in Gaza May Be Followed by Even Worse Tomorrow, Please Pray That Doesn’t Happen

There appear to be no limits to either Israel’s lust for Palestinian blood or American indifference to an ally’s crimes against humanity.

A young boy overcome by tear gas.

Of course, the ongoing crime scene is Gaza.

Today alone, Israeli soldiers have killed 58 people, bringing the total death toll thus far to 107.  2,700 people, men, women and children, were seriously wounded today, bringing the total number of crippled and maimed to 12,000.

One of Monday’s victims.
Israeli civilians watch the protests and the shootings as sightseers.

Not one single Israeli soldier has been injured or killed by these unarmed protesters.  In fact, so sleight is the “threat” that for some Israeli civilians, watching Palestinians get shot inside the Gaza fence has become a leisure time activity.  Pack up a picnic box and relax for a few hours while cheering for the bravery of “the world’s most moral army.”

Please, let those figures sink in.

107 people dead. 2,700 additional human beings wounded.  Why?

Gazan town after Israeli bombing

Because they want to be treated like human beings.  They want freedom of movement; to decide for themselves where they will live; to gain an education and seek employment as they please; to carry themselves with dignity without the constant fear of being shot by an irritated Israeli sniper.

Palestinian refugees 1948

Tomorrow the massacre may become even worse.  Tuesday is Nakba Remembrance Day. May 15, 2018 will mark the 70th anniversary of the mass expulsion of Palestinians from their homes by Israeli military forces in 1948.

I have heard that there may be a plan for the protesters to throw themselves en masse against the prison fence confining them to Gaza.

I have no idea if this is true.  Norman Finkelstein reported that he was told by leaders in Gaza that it may be a possibility.

Please pray that this will not happen. Pray that the leaders of these protests will decide against that action, if they haven’t already (if it was ever a real possibility). — (And NO, the Gaza marches have NOT been organized by Hamas, nor is Hamas using them for “terrorism.” This is pure propaganda. The council of organizers for these marches has one Hamas representative, where he is outnumbered by numerous other community representatives.)

Remember that this famous fence that Israel guards so fervently is not a border crossing. It is not an internationally recognized territorial, state or national boundary.  It is a prison fence.

The people of Gaza are not a population of illegal aliens hoping to immigrate into Israel.  They are 1.8 million prisoners, confined against their will to 141 square miles of territory.  Barred from a place they once called home.

Gaza is one of the most densely populated pieces of real estate on the planet.  Israel makes life insufferable there.

Gaza is a prison.  Israel is the jailer.  The precious “fence” keeps Gazans in a cage like animals.  Who wouldn’t want out?

If you have absolutely no control over your manner of living, and you have no hope of planning for a better future because everything about your world is controlled by the indiscriminate violence of a heartless occupying power, then maybe dying as a martyr in the cause of winning freedom for the next generation is the best way, the only way, to give your life meaning.

I can understand that.

I bet you could too if you found yourself imprisoned in a place like Gaza.

Remember this when you next hear Israeli and American propagandists demonize the people of Gaza for their “failure to value life.”

Palestinians Suffer Every Single Day Under Israeli Occupation

  • As often as we can afford it, Terry and I travel to Israel/Palestine in order to live with friends in the Aida refugee camp, located on the outskirts of Bethlehem.  Our main focus involves volunteer work in a local, Palestinian community center.  I have also done educational research when I was teaching at Calvin College.  We always try to document and participate in some of the local protests against the Israeli military occupation of Palestinian communities.

In the summer of 2014, our stay coincided with the tragic kidnapping and murder of three Israel, Jewish teenagers.  We witnessed some of the effects of Operation Brother’s Keeper, the Israeli military response to the kidnappings, an exercise in massive, indiscriminate collective punishment throughout the West Bank.

I gave this talk, complete with illustrative Power Point slides and video, at Calvin College in February, 2015.  The MC introduces me at the 5:48 minute mark. I begin to speak at 9:15.

I hope that, if you haven’t already, you will take the time to listen and then, perhaps, pray for the plight of the Palestinian people.

Israeli Sniper Films Target Practice on Young Palestinian

The short video speaks for itself.

Military training typically indoctrinates soldiers into dehumanizing the “enemy.”  Yet, even if that could be justified (which a Christian conscience forbids), what is happening now in Gaza is not a military conflict.

The target is an unarmed young man posing no threat whatsoever to the soldiers.  He carries no weapon, not even a raised fist.  This is not a battle; it is an execution.

The victim’s only crime was being Palestinian.  For that infraction, he had been tried, convicted and sentenced long ago.

His only provocation was objecting to an insufferable occupation that has denied him of every human right.  Yet, his presence at the Gazan protests demonstrates that he had not surrendered himself to Israel’s dehumanizing demands.

So Israel terminated  him for insubordination.  Holding one’s head up is an act of terrorism in Israel, if you are a Palestinian.

Israel’s Zionist policies had worked at dehumanizing this young man all of his life.  He was defined as Israel’s enemy the day he was born, not by his parents, mind you, but by Israel itself.

The sniper’s outburst of joy and laughter demonstrates who has truly been dehumanized by a lifetime of Zionist indoctrination.

What further proof is necessary to show that the American, evangelical love affair with modern Israel is a twisted relationship that must end?  If pious Bible-believers do not see this execution and recoil with shame, then how hard have out hearts become?

Persistently saying, No, to the Holy Spirit leads us into an ever-darker place where conscience eventually dies, “as if it were seared with a hot iron” (1 Timothy 4:2).

Gaza Is the Latest Evidence of Christian Zionism’s Inhumanity #christianzionism

The killing of unarmed Palestinians in Gaza continues unabated.

As of today, the death toll has risen to 31, including at least 1 journalist wearing a vest emblazoned with the word “PRESS.”  6 journalists in all have been shot. The numbers of people wounded by live ammunition is now in the thousands.

Children are counted among the dead.

Reporting on the journalist’s death, today’s AP says:

 “Witnesses said Murtaja was over 100 meters (yards) from the border, wearing a flak jacket marked “press” and holding his camera when he was shot in an exposed area just below the armpit.

 “The Israeli military has said it fired only at ‘instigators’ involved in attacks on soldiers and was investigating Murtaja’s death amid a very hectic environment.”

A reporter armed only with a video camera “instigating attacks” on soldiers safely sequestered behind barriers and a fence 100 yards away?

The journalist Glenn Greenwald puts it best (watch the interview here):

“I think it’s just time to acknowledge and accept the reality of what Israel is…And even people who once believed that [Israel was a democracy] are now starting to come and see that Israel is an apartheid, rogue, terrorist state.”

Israel long ago slipped down the rabbit hole with Alice and the Mad Hatter.  Now Israel wants the rest of the watching world to follow suit.  Eat Israel’s magic mushroom, listen only to the official press releases and repeat Israeli propaganda.

All Palestinians are, by definition, terrorists.  As Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said:

“There are no innocent people in the Gaza strip.”

“From the standpoint of the Israeli soldiers, they did what had to be done. I think that all of our troops deserve a commendation…”

American politicians and the mainstream media all remain silent, or nonchalantly mimic Israeli press releases.  Bernie Sanders is still the only member of Congress to speak out and condemn the mass slaughter now occurring (here, here and elsewhere).

US news outlets are obsessed with Stormy Daniels but have nothing to say about Gaza.

Our government has expelled 60+ Russian diplomats, on the flimsiest of evidence, but refuses to criticize Israel’s crimes against humanity in Gaza.

And where is the Christian church in this mix?  Where is the so-called pro-life movement?  Where is the voice of Christian conscience?

The church is nowhere to be found.  We have eaten too many of Israel’s magic mushrooms.

Evangelicalism remains silent, too busy groveling at the feet of its Republican idols to look up and notice the criminality of America’s tacit complicity in Israel’s crimes.

But the most powerful force behind this evangelical silence is not politics, not even politics veiled beneath religious conviction.  No.  The grotesque force holding its hand over the mouth of most evangelicals is the depraved theology of Christian Zionism.

A theology of Israeli privilege that overshadows and negates all competing ethical concerns.  A theology that baptizes genocide as the approved work of God.  A theology – that is really an IDEOLOGY – as effectively racist towards Palestinians as the political Zionism animating the monstrously perverse Middle Eastern beast once known as Israel.

American evangelicalism will one day be held to account.

Just as the largest part of the American church will be held to account for approving slavery, the slaughter of Native Americans, Jim Crow and its indifference to the poor, so too will our Eternal Judge ask us all, “Why did you not lament, and work to change, the fate of your Palestinian brothers and sisters?”

I encourage everyone to call one of Bernie Sanders’ office numbers.  Thank him for protesting the killings in Gaza.  Ask him to remain vigilant, not to give up, to enlist others to his cause, and to continue to speak up for Palestinian lives.

Where is the Palestinian Gandhi? Dead or in Prison.

Thomas Friedman, among others, once suggested that the long-awaited solution to Israel’s military occupation of the Palestinian people could be found in a Gandhi-esque mass movement of Palestinian non-violent resistance.

In a 2002 New York Times editorial entitled “Waiting for Gandhi on the West Bank,” penned during the First Intifada, Friedman opined:

“…the Palestinians have long had a tactical alternative to suicide: non-violent resistance à la Gandhi. A non-violent Palestinian movement appealing to the conscience of the Israeli silent majority would have delivered a Palestinian state 30 years ago”

In July 2010, the New York Times editorialist Nicholas Kristof offered similar advice:

“…imagine if Palestinians stopped the rock-throwing and put female pacifists in the lead.  What if 1,000 women sat down peacefully on a road to block access to an illegal Jewish settlement built on Palestinian farmland? What if the women allowed themselves to be tear-gassed, beaten and arrested without a single rock being thrown? Those images would be on televisions around the world – particularly if hundreds more women marched in to replace those hauled away.”

I can’t help but notice how easy it is for Kristof to volunteer someone else’s grandmother – in the case of Palestine, thousands of mothers and grandmothers – for a good gassing, beating, arrest and sentencing to a brutal, Israeli military prison.

I find it especially curious that, since both Friedman and Kristof clearly imply that the Palestinians deserve a peaceable resolution to The Occupation, neither of them has the guts to criticize (much less condemn) Israel’s draconian policies towards Palestinians in the Occupied Territories.

A Palestinian stands on his property overlooking the Israeli settlement Har Homa, West Bank, February 18, 2011. U.S. President Barack Obama called Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas…in an attempt to prevent the upcoming vote on an United Nations resolution condemning Israeli settlements. UPI/Debbie Hill

Kristof even acknowledges, whether accidentally or not, that Jewish settlements in the West Bank are illegal under international law.  Yet, he does not propose the obvious solution of dismantling these illegal settlements which steal Palestinian resources on a daily basis.

Mr. Kristof thinks it better to imagine thousands of pacifist, Palestinian grandmothers battered by tear-gas canisters and hauled off to a military prison.  My apologies, I cannot help but wonder if Mr. Kristof’s Freudian slip is showing?  Was he secretly grinning when he wrote that sentence?

Furthermore, both writers seem to agree that continued rock-throwing – yes, that most horrid of all destructive terrorist tactics, rock-throwing…by women and children, no less! – poses an insuperable obstacle to Israel’s acceptance of Palestinian demands for peace in their own territory.

Imagine what peace might be had in the Promised Land already if only those Palestinian protesters had shown the bravery needed to surrender their rocks!  One can only wonder.

However, if the current blood-letting in Gaza teaches us anything, it is that the majority of Israeli citizens today have no conscience.  At least, not when it concerns the Palestinians.  There is no moral “silent majority” waiting to “deliver a Palestinian state” if only rabid Palestinian miscreants would get their non-violent house in order.

As the journalist Gideon Levy writes in today’s edition of Haaretz (4/5/18):

“In Gaza, Israeli army snipers shot unarmed demonstrators as if they were on a shooting range, to a chorus of rejoicing by the media and the masses…This is what the nation wants and this is what it will get. Even if soldiers kill hundreds of demonstrators in Gaza, Israel will not bat an eyelid. The reason: evil and hatred of Arabs. Gaza is never perceived as it really is, a place inhabited by people, an enormous and terrible prison, a huge site of human experimentation. Most Israelis, who — just like their prime minister — have never spoken to a single Gazan, only know that the Gaza Strip is a nest of terrorists. That’s why it’s OK to shoot them. Shocking? Yes, but true.”

Will the likes of Friedman and Kristof now recant?

Will they and their pro-Zionist brethren finally admit that, as long as Israel retains the unquestioning support of the world’s only super-power, no Palestinian strategy for gaining their human rights, liberty and civic freedoms will every prove effective? No sort of resistance will ever be tolerated?

Will they recognize that political Zionism finally has drowned the last vestiges of Israeli conscience and humanitarian spirit in the brackish waters of Jewish nationalism, synonymous with systematic, unapologetic racism?

The entire world is now witnessing what happens when massive, non-violent protests confront the military force of an ethnocracy, rooted in a commitment to purity-of-blood, defending its founding ideology of racial privilege.

Historical discussions on the effectiveness of non-violent movements, of course, usually focus on Gandhi’s confrontation of British rule in India. Gandhi has become the icon of pacifistic civil disobedience, especially as he led the people’s Salt March in 1930.

Cynics, however, have typically responded to pro-Gandhi idealists by pointing out the humanitarian bent of the British Empire (grossly exaggerated, by the way).  They then pose an alternative scenario:

What if Gandhi and his followers had confronted Nazi Germany rather than Great Britain?  How effective would Gandhi’s mass-pacifism have been once the Indian people were staring down the barrels of German machine guns enforcing Nazi racial doctrine?

Well, the world no longer needs to wonder about history’s answer to that cynical, hypothetical question.  The answer is no longer hypothetical.  The answer is real and obvious for all to see in the blood-stained no-man’s land surrounding a place called Gaza.

Israeli soldiers are shooting down innocent, unarmed, non-violent – oh yes, I forgot, a very, very few do threaten Israeli peace of mind with their occasional stone-throwing – men and women for no other reason than that they are Palestinians marching for their freedom.

Have you yet seen the video footage of the elderly Palestinian grandmother who decides to enact Kristof’s dream scenario?

Holding a Palestinian flag in her wrinkled hand, she ambles slowly toward the separation fence.  Israeli soldiers, undoubtedly terrorized by this slow-motion charge of an elderly woman, seemingly intent on climbing over the 10-foot fence and beating them to death with her small flag stick, shot her dead while she was still dozens of yards away.

Her knees buckle as a crowd of young people run to help her (watch the first 17 seconds). She falls to the ground and disappears, flag and all, into the green grass.

I wonder what Mr. Kristof has to say now?

Under Israel’s vigilant gaze, every Palestinian commits an unforgivable sin when she will not lay down and play dead.  If you don’t play dead, an Israeli soldier will make you dead.

Palestinians with enough hubris to stand up and insist that they, too, are human beings will quickly be cut down to size.  Including the old women.

The world is now witnessing a demonstration of how those who have been abused assimilate themselves to their abuser.  The victims of the Holocaust have perfected their own brand of genocide rooted in their own doctrine of racial superiority.