Ken,
We had between 600,000 and 800,000 (official police report) demonstrators
marching in unison on May 1 here in Paris against fascism and racism and for
a multicultural society. Almost rivals the day I met the woman who would
become my wife in its inspiration. Palestinians/Palestinian support groups
marched side by side with the French Jewish Peace Union, chanting:
Fascisme ici, fascisme la bas (back there)
Le Pen, Sharon,
Meme combat!
Here’s an article that 260 million Americans should read.
Mark
Suj : Speech by Israeli solider who is conscientious objector
Date : 5/1/02 4:49:21PM
From: sbahour@palnet.com (Sam Bahour)
Reply-to: sbahour@palnet.com
To: sbahour@palnet.com (readers)
Idan Landau’s speech at the 27th of April rally in Tel Aviv
These are dark days, the darkest that we have seen since the Lebanon War.
Twenty years have passed since that cursed war and we learned nothing and
already forgot everything. We did not learn that blood and slaughter breed
more blood and more slaughter. We did not learn that there is no force in
the world that can break the spirit of destitute refugees – not a massacre,
nor a semi-massacre, not tanks and not snipers. And we already forgot –
forgot how callous and dark our leaders can be. We forgot how little value
they attach to human life, how easily they send us to kill and be killed for
the cause of “Our Sacred Land” and “National Honor”. Now, as then, twenty
years ago, we begin to relearn, begin to remember, but it is so much more
painful: a thick black and depressing line connects Zidon of 1982 to Jenin
of 2002 and erases all that occurred between them.
These are days shrouded in lies and deceit. An entire nation is involved in
self-deception, entangled in its own lies, and the world watches in
wonderment. The deception industry first moved into high gear at Camp
David. A tight junta of politicians from the left and the right, generals and
commentators, lied to us unabashedly and incessantly. They lied when they
told us that Barak went to Camp David in good faith, they lied when they
continued to briskly set up settlements while speaking in vain praise of
peace, they lied in their announcement that they only want to destroy the
infrastructure of terror when all their actions were intended to destroy
completely the fabric of Palestinian life, education, health and welfare
institutions. And above these lies is the biggest lie of all – the name
“Defensive Shield”. We know this language. Neither “defense” nor “shield”;
the “Peace of Gallillee” war – neither “peace” nor “Gallillee”; “targeted
preventive procedures” – not “preventive” and certainly not “targeted”;
“painful concessions” – neither ”painful” nor “concessions”. A heap of foul lies!
Nor shall we believe the television correspondents, those obsequious
panderers of stern-faced generals, who aim their cameras only at soldiers
zealous with the spirit of battle, who never encountered a Palestinian, never
a live Palestinian trembling with fear in his home which is devoid of food,
never a dead one rotting among the ruins of his house. Tens of thousands of
Palestinians are out there, crazed with despair and fear, and each and every
one of them – it must be the Devil’s work – is invisible to our
correspondents’
eyes.
Bibi was right: the correspondents are scared – they are S-C-A-R-E-D.
They are scared to reveal the truth, scared that we might know the truth,
know the extent of the horror that is taking place in our name, here, not in
Sabra and Shatila, but here! What would we do with such awful knowledge –
how would we live and sleep and how would we know a minute of tranquility
when we think of the hundreds of Palestinian civilians who were killed just
like that, with a casual release of the trigger, in the collapse of the walls
of their houses from a tank shell, in the over-extended delays at the road posts
where the soldiers operated according to instructions – always according to
instructions. They have the terror of suicides; we have the terror of
instructions.
These are forbidden words, forbidden thoughts, “it is inconceivable”, in the
staged words of television. So the time has come for the truth to be
conceived, to be raised and pronounced in a loud voice. There is a wonderful
button in the remote control – it is called MUTE. We should start to use it
mercilessly. You see Ron Ben Ishai on the screen? – MUTE. You see Ehud
Yaari? – MUTE. Roni Daniel? – MUTE. This too is a form of Refusal. The
MUTE Refusal. Instead, we should listen to the foreign networks, search the
internet, contact friends, use the telephone – and let the Deception-Media
talk to itself, report to itself, fabricate its own virtual reality – without
us.
These are dangerous days. Transfer-mongers are seated in the government.
The IDF is led by a group of Major Generals who cannot distinguish between
terrorist attacks and existential threats, between civilians and terrorists.
The entire country is caught up in a dismal wave of racism and fascism. What
more are they preparing for us, the deadly trio Sharon, Fuad and Mofaz? An
invasion into Gaza? Is that what is being devised in the innermost
chambers? A war of annihilation between the IDF and the million Palestinian
refugees in the Gaza Strip?
Jenin was child’s play compared to what might happen in the crowded
camps of Jebbaliya and Shati. And how would it start? Will Sharon soberly
announce that the attacks on Netzarim and Kfar Darom, the “rock of our
existence”, cannot be tolerated any longer? Fuad will sigh and shrug his
shoulders, Peres will mumble something about a political horizon, Meretz
will stammer as always, the government legal advisor will pave the way for a
Supreme Court approval, and we will charge ahead.
These are dangerous days because the Israeli authorities have lost all
restraint and it is impossible to know when and where the deterioration will
stop. When the Supreme Court refrains from putting a halt to war crimes in
the territories, when the legal advisor attacks the Organization for Human
Rights – these are ominous signs. Maybe the beginning of the end of Israeli
democracy. I don’t want to propagate false prophecies, don’t want to spread
fear, but it is important that all of you in this big crowd who came here
today understand this. The Israeli establishment has shrugged off its legal and
moral obligation to protect human dignity and if we don’t protect it, no one
else will.
So maybe, maybe these are also days of a new beginning, of early signs of
awakening. I say this cautiously, with the experience of past
disappointments, and yet one cannot help sensing the strength of the protest
rising from the left in the streets. My fellow conscientious objectors are
growing in number – currently 45 are in prison, may they multiply. And there
are demonstrations and petitions and food convoys. And there is a member
of Knesset named Roman Bronfman, and even Yaffa Yarkoni is on our side.
So maybe there is still hope. Let’s just continue doing all this, even more
forcefully, until the machine of death and destruction is stopped. Let us
refuse to serve in the territories, in greater numbers, let us fill prison 4
and prison 6, they will have to open prisons 8, 10 and 12 for us. Maybe they
will even send us to Kziot for administrative detention. Why not? As far as they
are concerned, half the country here deserves to live in closures or prisons
– Palestinians, leftists, Bedouins, migrant workers, and anyone who insults
the IDF. And let us continue to deluge the road posts with trucks of food
and medicines, a tidal wave of solidarity, let us spread the truth and fight the
deceit, and let us all be objectors to this apparatus of evil and stupidity,
let us say NO and again NO until the day comes for us to say yes.