By Lillian Rosengarten

I feel a wild thrill to observe this most incredibly momentous political uprising by the people of Egypt from all walks of life, a movement that began with the young  protesting for reform with a clear demand that Mubarak and his henchmen must go. The people can no longer tolerate the censorship and deceit after decades of dictatorship that has kept its grip tightly on the Egyptian people while the ruling class suffocated freedom. This thoroughly egomaniacal, corrupt puppet of the US and Israel’s anti democratic and self serving military agenda, will no longer be tolerated.

What took place in Egypt is a true revolution of the people. No revolution has survived with the exception of Castro who overthrew the corrupt US supported Batista in 1959. The US to this day has placed a harsh embargo on Cuba and has never supported or forgiven this socialist revolution. Tragically, the US has never supported a social revolution but instead has helped to prop up the most corrupt right wing dictators of the world. Human rights abuses are cloaked under the thinly veiled guise of “democracy.” This word has become a joke, has lost all meaning. It is a metaphor for occupation, corruption, imprisonment, rendition, torture and land stealing. It is a metaphor for undermining any form of social change that is not regionally in the interests of the US military and economic agenda.

This will now change for the voices of Egypt, the young and old, rich and poor have spoken as one for a free society. If the will of the people continues to be a guiding force and nurtured to fruition, the walls of hate and fear will crumble. Finally this opening of the society narrows the possibility that elements of extremism will creep in and close the curtain of light and hope. I see the power of the people and one can only rejoice and have hope.

I am reminded of a quote by Thaddeus Russell in a “The Daily Beast” article last year, the opposite of hope. Imagine this:

“There was not a single act of Arab terrorism against Americans before 1968, when the U.S. became the chief supplier of military equipment and economic aid to Israel.”

And then this:

“The history of Israel and its relationship with the U.S. is infinitely complex, but there’s one damning fact that’s ignored as often as The Question: There was not a single act of Arab terrorism against Americans before 1968, when the U.S. became the chief supplier of military equipment and economic aid to Israel. In light of this fact, it’s difficult to credibly sustain the argument that Arab terrorism is spawned by Islam’s alleged promotion of violence and antipathy toward American culture or by a “natural” Arab anti-Semitism. It also suggests that no matter what policies Israel enacts to protect itself—even a withdrawal from the occupied territories or a two-state “solution”—it must be a perpetual wartime state.”

This cannot continue for our survival is at risk

Too many people, politicians, academics, defenders of so called “democracies” justify the  behaviors of these rogue governments, support them in the interests of the “survival of Israel” fear of change, fears of an Islamic overthrow, chaos and other phantoms that feed  a desperate anxiety of what could happens to US and Israeli interests if the circle of hell of  their faux governments were to topple like the statue of Saddam Hussein, the American symbolic heinous Iraqi dictator who had to be killed, along with the complete decimation of a once proud historic jewel and it’s people under a faux guise of “spreading democracy” to the region.

Because the Jewish Boat to Gaza, the “Irene” was abducted by the IDF in September 2010, because it was towed to Israeli immigration detention, our goal to reach Gaza was subverted. I had planned to spend from Feb 21-27 in Gaza as a witness to suffering in solidarity with the Palestinians there. I was intent on spreading awareness and generating support from the outside world through eye-witness documentation of the agony and pain as well as the struggles for freedom among the population of Gaza. Because of the closing of the Rafah border recently and my uncertainty about when it will reopen, I have postponed my trip until a later date this year.

Because of the unwillingness of the US to let go of unilateral support of Israeli crimes and bloody land thefts, demonization of Palestinians, collective fierce punishment of an entire population many of whom have been banned from their own country, their land, many of them dead, homeless, imprisoned, because they continue to lack the courage to support real change for peace, the US can only be seen as a hypocritical supporter of democracy while at the same time imposing their political agenda , their military power and strength  in ways that support human rights abuses. 

The extraordinary people’s revolution in Egypt must succeed for it will directly impact Palestinian rights throughout the Middle East and particularly the liberation of Palestinians in Israel.

Power to the people!!!

– Lillian Rosengarten, a refugee from Nazi Germany is a Buddhist practitioner, poet, writer and a pacifist. She contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com. Contact her at: truthpoem@gmail.com.