Please take the time to become aware of the injustices towards Palestinians left out of North American mainstream media, and share.
The first Palestinian rally I attended was in Washington D.C. I believe it was in April of 2001, a year after my visit to Israel and reading "From Beirut to Jerusalem" by Thomas L. Friedman detailing how a Lebanese site that archived proof of many Palestinians' land rights was targeted and bombed by Israel, as well as Ariel Sharon's war crime participation at the Sabra and Shatila massacre in Lebanon. You see, they were even trying to exterminate Palestinian refugees who had left Israel-Palestine under the pretext of defending themselves, when in fact, the villages were inhabited by poor unarmed civilians. The evidence after the massacre included bodies of women, children, elderly and pets. Many of the Palestinian refugees had moved on prior the massacre leaving the villages to very poor Lebanese citizens.
Sharon was quoted as saying when referring to Palestinians:
"We are as different from the inferior races as they are from insects."
Holocaust victims must be rolling over in their grave and appalled at such a statement! His own government recognized his guilt in the Sabra and Shatila war crime, but as for his "punishment", "demoted him" to Military Attaché to Washington, and he would later become Prime Minister of Israel.
While I visited a park in Israel near the Sea of Galilee, I was upset by the comments I heard towards Palestinians who were enjoying the sunny day with their families. Comments went as far as a zoo employee referring to an Arab child of approximately 4 or 5 years old as "aren't they all animals?" for his innocent excitement to cut in front of me to see a snake through the glass. I gladly let the child pass and told the zoo employee that I liked meeting people from all over. It then led to a confrontation with my host, Avi, who to my surprise agreed with the zoo employee!
When we first met in Flordia and he told me he was an Israeli soldier, I told him that I felt for the Palestinian people, that although I didn't understand much of the situation at the time, logic made me instinctively argue "if you kick inhabitants off their land, where were they expected to go?" He assured me he was not prejudiced, that he did not discriminate against them, otherwise, I would never have dated him. Yet upon this visit to Isreal, he revealed that in fact, he did discriminate against them, and his attempt to justify his discrimination was ridiculous! He told me that I didn't understand, so I asked him to explain. His only argument was that he believed if this young child were to fall in the dirt, his mother wouldn't clean him. I was astonished how a man who proved to be kind and generous in so many ways could be so brainwashed to hate. I initially bit my tongue out of respect but what crossed my mind was "How dare you to insinuate this child dirty when weeks earlier you did not bathe for a week while mourning your father's death (according to Orthodox Jewish customs)?!" I replied to him, that no matter what politicians do to address the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, as long as he and his peers continued to treat their neighbours like animals, he would never have peace. I told him "How dare you try to control the lives of people who have lived here for thousands of years while you are the first of your brothers and sisters born in Israel!"
Before my visit to Israel, we decided not to marry because I was not willing to deny my belief in Jesus and adopt the Jewish faith which did not resonate true with me. When I suggested each keeping our faith and if we had children, give them the option to explore faiths and choose. He told me he didn't practice religiously and didn't care if I went to church or not but that unless I were Jewish, any chikdren we might have would not have decent rights in terms of healthcare and other social advantages such as pensions if we lived in Israel, and that any other more liberal form of Judaism was not considered Jewish by the state. I later learned from an Israeli immigrant that even preferable interest rates were given to citizens of Jewish Orthodox faith. I was shocked of such a discriminative public policy based on religion while the world is led to believee Israel is a democracy. This is far from the fundamental understandings of a democracy. Let's just say, it was a learning experience and we went our separate ways.
The turn out at the rally in D.C. was huge (estimates were as high as 70,000), so large that other rallies joined yet it got almost no media coverage (all I found at the time was one internet article with some photos at a time when fewer people were using the internet.) It was a privilege to meet and talk with Palestinian women, one woman exiled for many decades was never able to return to see her family again, to meet Noam Chompski, and it was moving to witness Orthodox Jewish rabbis have their message read (on the Sabbath) stating they believed the Palestinian people had the right to their land after which they walked arm in arm with Palestinian men.
Through the years, I am disappointed by the overwhelming number of people and governments willing to look the other way as Isreal breaks international laws repeatedly, and go as far as funding much of Israel's military. When Avi told me all his and his colleagues of the Israeli Airforce's expenses to travel to the U.S., his housing in the upscale neighbourhood of the PGA, car rental, salary while taking a course to learn mechanics on a new war aircraft was all paid by the U.S. Government, not a penny paid by Israel, I was shocked and asked "so what is the U.S. paying in support of the Palestinians?" As I learned more of the injustices towards Palestinians, I felt a guilt of naively dating someone who participated in atrocities, perhaps akin to anyone who dated a Holocaust soldier. Does this mean I condone Muslim extremists attacks, never! Nore do I condone the imposing of any faith. Imposing one's religion reveals a lack of veritable faith in my opinion because with genuine faith, one believes in the power of God, Conscience, Energy, Quantum physics or whichever your belief to move each of us to believe or not according to our individual spiritual evolution.
What the history of the Holocaust taught me as a child is to never ignore attempts to eliminate a population, to not succumb to peer pressure to accept such immorality. Unfortunately, too many are willing to condone such atrocities as long as their loved ones are not directly affected. The illegal settlements and bulldozing of Palestinian homes where inhabitants were forced to leave in order to make "Canada Park" is a disgrace to our country! http://northshorewoman.blogspot.ca/…/canada-park-built-on-b…
"Canada Park in Occupied Territories, built on the site of the destroyed villages of Imwas, Yahu, and Bayt Nuba, from which 1000s of Palestinians were expelled. Israeli writer and former Knesset member, Uri Avnery, states that "by putting this park there and calling it Canada Park [it's] a Canadian cover-up of war crimes."
After years learning of the Palestine-Israeli conflict, my instinctive reaction is confirmed, that is, if people are expelled from their homes, it can only lead to chaos. The situation is akin to deciding to allow immigration and public rights on the basis of language and to encourage residents from around the world to immigrate to a land in an attempt to dilute the native population and deny native equal rights based on language, religion or race. I remember hearing the story of a peaceful Palestinian man whose home was invaded by Israeli soldiers who occupied the top floor of his house, shoved his wife as the entered his home, bulldozed down his citrus trees (his source of income), yet he remained non-violent. To condone such behavior for the numerous past decades is unacceptable!