Palestine
Situation is Not a Simple One
To
the Editors:
I
am writing this letter in response to the letter written last week
by Natasha Uspensky titled: Anti-Semitic Feelings Abound at
Progressive College.
What frustrated me most about reading this letter was the fact that
the author saw fit to place a judgement entirely from looking at
the posters advertising an event that I doubt she even attended.
She claims the posters were a clear example of anti-semitism
because of the background photo of Palestinian hands reaching through
the bars of an Israeli prison. I am interested in the authors
opinion of what would be a more constructive image. A Palestinian
teenager shaking hands with an Israeli soldier? The image isnt
positive because the situation is not yet positive. Protest the
circumstances that make this image a reality, not the image itself.
In his speech on Wednesday entitled Palestine-Israel: Is there
a way forward? Josh Rueben spoke as a Jewish-American man
seeking to counter the views that any criticism of Israel is fundamentally
anti-Semitic. He condemned the assumption that to be Jewish and
to criticize Israel makes you a Self-hating Jew. To
emphasize this point he quoted Gandhi: Hate the sin, not the
sinner. Rueben added that attacking Israels existence
was counter-productive to a peaceful resolution between the two
nations. That is what SFPs week of education was about: ending
the occupation of Palestine and achieving a livable and lasting
peace in the area. It was not about attacking Jews.
It saddens me to see the same myths passed around again and again
adding only to the confusion surrounding this crisis. Palestine
wants peace. More specifically they want the possibility for a peaceful
existence accompanied by self-defined sovereignty. But the only
peace that Israel is willing to grant them is one in keeping with
the current and historically oppressive and unequal power structure.
Then to go on and blame Palestinian authorities for not stopping
suicide bombings and preventing peace is absolutely ludicrous. Palestine
has never been a sovereign state, and has never had official power
over more than 17.2 percent of the Israeli occupied West Bank land.
For the past 18 months Israel has attacked all forms of Palestinian
authority. Israel attacks police stations, prisons, intelligence
offices, murders security officials and then blames Palestine for
the ensuing lack of order.
Suicide bombings conducted by Palestinians are reprehensible and
indefensible. They do more to hurt people than help them. Not only
do they kill innocent Israelis but they lead Israel to justify attacking
innocent Palestinians. But in the same vein we cannot allow Israel
to justify its occupation of Palestine and its war crimes by associating
Palestinian suicide bombers with the entire population. In addition,
neither the PLO nor the IDF has the power to stop these suicide
bombings. As long as Palestine remains under the oppressive and
violent occupation of Israel, suicide bombers will not stop or disappear.
Israel needs to focus on ending its occupation and establishing
peace between itself and Palestine instead of persecuting an entire
population for the actions of a few.
Finally, Israels claim that they are fighting a war on terrorism
is about as defensible as the U.S. saying the same. What neither
country will ever confess is that you cannot fight the symptoms
and ignore the disease. As long as you oppress another people, keep
them from being free, from living their lives the way that they
need to live them, you will have retaliation. It is sickening to
hear the U.S. or Israel label resistance as terrorism without bringing
into question their own actions. This past week was not an attack
on Jews here or in Israel, it was an attack against injustice. And
just as Natasha begs the reader to examine the facts of the situation
I beg you, the reader, to research this crisis. Not just by reading
the front page of the New York Times, but by going online and finding
facts that western media ignores again and again. Palestinians are
people just like us, who want to be able to live freely in their
own country. Calling for their freedom is not antisemitic, it is
the only avenue to peace between Palestine and Israel.
Yussef Cole
College first-year
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