Four rabbis, three of them American citizens, plus a police officer were killed by two Palestinian “terrorists” on Tuesday, November 18.
The two Palestinian “terrorists” were cousins who decided to enter a Jerusalem synagogue during prayers and commit the act of violence against the members of the synagogue.
It is interesting to note the response of the mainstream media to this act of violence perpetrated against Israeli Jews. The New York Daily News showed a photo which included a bloodied meat cleaver, half of a blood splattered body of a victim, and a text which read, “Three Americans are among five murdered by Palestinian savages armed with guns, axes, and cleavers.” At the bottom of the page, in bold letters, the word “BUTCHERED.” Would anyone interpret the Daily News coverage as inciteful (not insightful) and pushing further the anti-Muslim environment we have created in this country?
The incident was carried by every major print news outlet as it should be. But, how many of you have knowledge of the Palestinian bus driver who was found hanging by his neck in the bus he drove. The Israeli Defense Police (I have named the police the defense police because every act of Israel is an act of defense and never an act of aggression) labeled this a suicide despite the fact that the victim’s body had bruises all over it. Speaking on the condition of anonymity, a medical expert also dismissed Israel’s claims that al-Ramouni committed suicide. The expert informed Ma’an that “al-Ramouni’s death did not appear to be a suicide.
I, also, missed the U.S. media coverage in the multiple stabbings of a 22 year old Palestinian man by 4 Israeli settlers on Tuesday (11/18)evening. He was stabbed three times in the legs and once in the back. Is that considered being “butchered”?
Or, the reported attack by Israeli settlers on a Palestinian school in the village of Urif where six Palestinians were injured.
Or, how much have you heard about the young Palestinian boy who was burned alive?
Are acts of terror against Palestinians inconsequential? This past summer, over 2,100 Palestinian citizens, most of them women and children were slaughtered by the Israeli Defense Force (there’s that word, defense, again). Yet, our government decided to send a special shipment of arms and money to Israel because they were running low on weapons with which to kill the Palestinians.
Acts of violence against Palestinians are, as our president has said many times, acts of defense, while acts of violence against Israelis are acts committed by “terrorist savages.”
Palestinians live in a constant state of fear. They never know when the IDF will break into their homes, arrest their family members, or bulldoze their homes, leaving them homeless. If you were forced to live under these conditions, would you not lash out, seeking revenge, against members of the group that is oppressing you?
Palestinians have been left with little to hope for as Israel’s strategy is clear, they will not give up the occupation in the West Bank and Gaza. Netanyahu made this clear this past summer when he stated that “Israel will keep permanent, perpetual security control of these territories,” which translated means they will meet and negotiate but there will be no end to the occupation.
Eran Efrati, a former Israeli combat soldier turned anti-occupation activist and investigative researcher stated, during an appearance on Democracy Now, “The angle is to make Palestinians leave Jerusalem . . . when I was in the army—in the police in Jerusalem, the goal is to make people’s life miserable . . . we need to make their life miserable, so they will be afraid all the time, and they will not have time to plan terror attacks. It’s, of course, ridiculous. The end goal in the end to make them want to leave also made them want to do crazy things, like attacks on Jews and on Israelis.
“In the last 10 years, for Israelis, since the end of the Second Intifada, it was quiet years. For us, it was peaceful years, because we weren’t living in fear. But Palestinians never had those quiet years. They always lived in fear. They didn’t stop being attacked by the police, by the army—and now, since the summer, by civilians, by mobs on the streets going there and looking to lynch people. And they do, like Mohammed Abu Khdeir, like two days ago when they found in East Jerusalem a bus driver, a Palestinian bus driver, a father to two girls, hanged in the middle of his bus after a violent attack on him, lynching him and hanging him up in the middle of the bus. But it doesn’t seem like nobody is talking about it.
I’m hearing Barack Obama coming out and condemning this story. I think it’s important to understand that he’s—it’s important to condemn violence against civilians, but where was he when violence against Palestinian civilians are happening every day?”
Rashid Khalidi, the Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University and the author of a number of books, including his latest, Brokers of Deceit: How the U.S. Has Undermined Peace in the Middle East and the Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University and also a guest on Democracy Now, stated, “The president can vent and have his acolytes and his flacks and his hacks say nasty things about the Israeli prime minister. As long as American money is going to support the repression of Palestinians, as long as 501(c)(3) supposedly “charitable” organizations in this country are not stopped by the Justice Department, are not stopped by the Treasury, from funneling tens and hundreds of millions of dollars to settlement activities and to the repression of Palestinians, what the president says is meaningless. This is an American-Israeli enterprise, in fact. The money is largely from the United States. The weapons are from the United States. We are implicated.”
Professor Khalidi’s assessment brings new light to the issue. Not many of us pay attention to the millions of dollars our so-called charitable organizations make towards allowing Israel to pursue its ethnic cleansing agenda.
Imagine our government’s response if we were to contribute to an organization that funds Palestinian or Hamas’ activities. It is against the law to support any organization or state that is committing acts of terror, a law that would include serious charges and potential long term incarceration.
Yet, we send billions of dollars to Israel every year and, as President Obama states over and over, “we stand shoulder to shoulder with Israel.”
As a Jew, i refuse to stand shoulder to shoulder with a country that commits atrocities against others, and that includes Israel and the United States.
Dave Alpert has masters degrees in social work, educational administration, and psychology. He spent his career working with troubled inner city adolescents.
RSS
It’s not what Obama says, but what he does
Posted on November 21, 2014 by Dave Alpert
Four rabbis, three of them American citizens, plus a police officer were killed by two Palestinian “terrorists” on Tuesday, November 18.
The two Palestinian “terrorists” were cousins who decided to enter a Jerusalem synagogue during prayers and commit the act of violence against the members of the synagogue.
It is interesting to note the response of the mainstream media to this act of violence perpetrated against Israeli Jews. The New York Daily News showed a photo which included a bloodied meat cleaver, half of a blood splattered body of a victim, and a text which read, “Three Americans are among five murdered by Palestinian savages armed with guns, axes, and cleavers.” At the bottom of the page, in bold letters, the word “BUTCHERED.” Would anyone interpret the Daily News coverage as inciteful (not insightful) and pushing further the anti-Muslim environment we have created in this country?
The incident was carried by every major print news outlet as it should be. But, how many of you have knowledge of the Palestinian bus driver who was found hanging by his neck in the bus he drove. The Israeli Defense Police (I have named the police the defense police because every act of Israel is an act of defense and never an act of aggression) labeled this a suicide despite the fact that the victim’s body had bruises all over it. Speaking on the condition of anonymity, a medical expert also dismissed Israel’s claims that al-Ramouni committed suicide. The expert informed Ma’an that “al-Ramouni’s death did not appear to be a suicide.
I, also, missed the U.S. media coverage in the multiple stabbings of a 22 year old Palestinian man by 4 Israeli settlers on Tuesday (11/18)evening. He was stabbed three times in the legs and once in the back. Is that considered being “butchered”?
Or, the reported attack by Israeli settlers on a Palestinian school in the village of Urif where six Palestinians were injured.
Or, how much have you heard about the young Palestinian boy who was burned alive?
Are acts of terror against Palestinians inconsequential? This past summer, over 2,100 Palestinian citizens, most of them women and children were slaughtered by the Israeli Defense Force (there’s that word, defense, again). Yet, our government decided to send a special shipment of arms and money to Israel because they were running low on weapons with which to kill the Palestinians.
Acts of violence against Palestinians are, as our president has said many times, acts of defense, while acts of violence against Israelis are acts committed by “terrorist savages.”
Palestinians live in a constant state of fear. They never know when the IDF will break into their homes, arrest their family members, or bulldoze their homes, leaving them homeless. If you were forced to live under these conditions, would you not lash out, seeking revenge, against members of the group that is oppressing you?
Palestinians have been left with little to hope for as Israel’s strategy is clear, they will not give up the occupation in the West Bank and Gaza. Netanyahu made this clear this past summer when he stated that “Israel will keep permanent, perpetual security control of these territories,” which translated means they will meet and negotiate but there will be no end to the occupation.
Eran Efrati, a former Israeli combat soldier turned anti-occupation activist and investigative researcher stated, during an appearance on Democracy Now, “The angle is to make Palestinians leave Jerusalem . . . when I was in the army—in the police in Jerusalem, the goal is to make people’s life miserable . . . we need to make their life miserable, so they will be afraid all the time, and they will not have time to plan terror attacks. It’s, of course, ridiculous. The end goal in the end to make them want to leave also made them want to do crazy things, like attacks on Jews and on Israelis.
“In the last 10 years, for Israelis, since the end of the Second Intifada, it was quiet years. For us, it was peaceful years, because we weren’t living in fear. But Palestinians never had those quiet years. They always lived in fear. They didn’t stop being attacked by the police, by the army—and now, since the summer, by civilians, by mobs on the streets going there and looking to lynch people. And they do, like Mohammed Abu Khdeir, like two days ago when they found in East Jerusalem a bus driver, a Palestinian bus driver, a father to two girls, hanged in the middle of his bus after a violent attack on him, lynching him and hanging him up in the middle of the bus. But it doesn’t seem like nobody is talking about it.
I’m hearing Barack Obama coming out and condemning this story. I think it’s important to understand that he’s—it’s important to condemn violence against civilians, but where was he when violence against Palestinian civilians are happening every day?”
Rashid Khalidi, the Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University and the author of a number of books, including his latest, Brokers of Deceit: How the U.S. Has Undermined Peace in the Middle East and the Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University and also a guest on Democracy Now, stated, “The president can vent and have his acolytes and his flacks and his hacks say nasty things about the Israeli prime minister. As long as American money is going to support the repression of Palestinians, as long as 501(c)(3) supposedly “charitable” organizations in this country are not stopped by the Justice Department, are not stopped by the Treasury, from funneling tens and hundreds of millions of dollars to settlement activities and to the repression of Palestinians, what the president says is meaningless. This is an American-Israeli enterprise, in fact. The money is largely from the United States. The weapons are from the United States. We are implicated.”
Professor Khalidi’s assessment brings new light to the issue. Not many of us pay attention to the millions of dollars our so-called charitable organizations make towards allowing Israel to pursue its ethnic cleansing agenda.
Imagine our government’s response if we were to contribute to an organization that funds Palestinian or Hamas’ activities. It is against the law to support any organization or state that is committing acts of terror, a law that would include serious charges and potential long term incarceration.
Yet, we send billions of dollars to Israel every year and, as President Obama states over and over, “we stand shoulder to shoulder with Israel.”
As a Jew, i refuse to stand shoulder to shoulder with a country that commits atrocities against others, and that includes Israel and the United States.
Dave Alpert has masters degrees in social work, educational administration, and psychology. He spent his career working with troubled inner city adolescents.