By Soraya Ulrich
Special to PalestineChronicle.com
What monsters could possibly be responsible for summary killings and deportations of peoples merely for their identity?
The horrendous memory of what man is capable of in his darkest hour is a reminder of the fragile thread of humanity easily broken if not protected from greed. Once torn, we assume the aspects of hell; our culpability in Gaza for our awareness makes us accomplices. Our guilt is undeniable. Palestinians look for ways to escape from the camps; we cannot escape our conscience, if indeed, we have one.
A fleeting woman is hosed down, her dignity washed away with the scarce water that she should be offered to quench her thirst with, as she attempts to escape into neighboring Egypt; she is escaping hunger, disease and death brought on by Hitler’s victims, victims who are re-reliving their past by creating a concentration camp they can peer into – a window into their tragic history. Perhaps they need to punish Palestinians for their Arab identity as a reminder to themselves that they themselves were humiliated for being Jewish. Exorcising their hatred, and with the backing of all the powers in the world, not only are they abusing helpless people who seem to be abandoned even by God, but Israel’s actions are offending humanity. Is Israel truly compensating for its past pain; is this reminder of its humiliation helping this nation stay strong?
Our leaders in America tell us that we support Israel because of our shared values. Does the United States support concentration camps, deportation, and genocide? Are we all children of Adolf Hitler, his genes an inescapable legacy?
The unfolding events in camp Gaza are the results of decisions made long before some of us were born.
In a letter dated April 5, 1945, President Roosevelt sent a letter to Ibn Saud in which he pledged that he would never do anything which may prove to be hostile to the Arabs.
A week later he died. Truman saw no need to follow in his predecessor’s footsteps. Falling for Ben Gurion’s bait which had failed to catch Roosevelt, Truman won the hearts of the American Zionist by endorsing The Biltmore Programme, the objective of which was domination of the whole Palestine- eventually.
He bluntly explained to his American diplomats from Arab countries: “I do not have hundreds of thousands of Arabs among my constituents”.
And he did all this in the name of the most cherished values of his civilization; chasing out Arabs from their homes to send Jews to Palestine so that they would not have to come to America en masse.
Today, Mr. Bush continues those ‘cherished values’ – he arms Israel to continue the deportation of Palestinians so that Israelis can have the rest of their land – to complete the Biltmore Programme.
He gets the Jewish vote, and the Evangelical, and the special lobby – but who votes for the dying Palestinian, who will stand up for humanity and cry out: “where is your decency?
