Truth conquers all
Special to Saudi Gazette
May 26, 2001
Persecution by any other name is just as evil -- more so when
yesterday's persecuted become today's persecutors. As Israeli Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon's F-16 jetfighters, Apache helicopter gunships,
tanks, destroyers and missiles pound defenseless Palestinian cities,
towns and villages, and as his bulldozers demolish homes, fields,
orchards and olive trees, words like "state-terrorism", "apartheid" and
"Nazism" barely suffice to describe the notorious Butcher of Qibya,
Sabra and Shatila's arrogance of power. Nevertheless, those who have
dared to use such labels have been strongly condemned by the
Zionist-controlled media in
Israel and the West as "anti-Semitic." This is why it takes great men of
courage to speak out and vent their rage at the genocide being
perpetrated against innocent Palestinian civilians in the occupied
territories particularly against the heroic young Palestinian kids who
daily confront Israeli tanks and armor with their stones.
One
such man of courage recently wrote: "Just yesterday, we hardly dared to
call the Israeli policy of official discrimination against Palestinians
by the harsh word "apartheid". Today, as
Sharon's
tanks and missiles pound defenseless cities and villages, the word
barely suffices. It has become an unjustified insult to the white
supremacists of South Africa. They, after all, did not use gunships and
tanks against the natives, they did not lay siege to Soweto. They did
not deny the humanity of their Kaffirs. The Jewish supremacists made it
one better." These words were not uttered by an Arab, but rather by a
courageous and conscientious Jew: Israel Shamir, an Israeli writer and
journalist, who has refused to remain silent in the face of the
atrocities being committed against the Palestinians. Because of his
outspokenness, he has been vilified and branded by the Zionists as an
"anti-Semite" a ridiculous charge against an honest man, whose Judaism
is more pristine than that of many Jews.
In
his writings, Shamir condemns Jews who once were the object of Nazi
persecution, but have now become the persecutors. He also denounces the
awful silence of the long-suffering persecuted Jews vis-ŕ-vis
Sharon's
crimes against humanity in the West
Bank
and the Gaza Strip. He raps Israelis for electing
Sharon
a warmonger with many massacres to his name as their prime minister:
"The Israeli government commits war crimes on a day-to-day basis. It is
run by a certified mass murderer. The unprecedented siege, mass
starvation and summary executions are now routine. Bombing, strafing and
shelling civilians are no longer anything to get worked up about."
Moreover, like Edward Said, he is a leading champion of the "One-Man,
One-Vote, One-State solution to the Palestinian problem," as well as the
return of all Palestinian refugees in the Diaspora: "Palestine
is not a dead object; it is a living country. Palestinians are her
soul…Without the Palestinians, Palestine dies. Her rivers run poisoned
water; the sources dry out; the hills and valleys are disfigured."
Rejecting claims that the events now taking place in Palestine
constitute a "civil war", Shamir asserts that what is going on is a
one-sided genocidal war. As he put it: "If this is civil war, the
slaughter of a lamb is a bullfight. The disparity of forces is just too
great. No, Virginia, it is not 'civil war', it is creeping genocide."
In
short, his message is anti-persecution, anti-racism, anti-oppression,
anti-ethnic-cleansing, anti-crimes-against-humanity,
anti-Jewish-supremacy and anti-Zionism. He speaks out for the
downtrodden and persecuted Palestinians. Like the hero of Eugene
Ionesco's play Rhinoceros, he is struggling against blind conformity
refusing to be counted among Sharon's rhinos.
For
Israel Shamir, truth is liberating: Vincit omnia veritas -- truth
conquers all.
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