The Importance Of Being Partisan for the Palestinians

A Personal Opinion: It Is Vital to Be Partisan for the Palestinians

As the Israeli assault on Gaza continues for day 18 NPR radio reported that aproximately 40% of the Palestinians killed were women and children. Israel blames Hamas for this.

In the period leading up to the Israeli bombardment and subsequent brutal aggression against the people of Gaza the Israelis maintained a brutal and deadly blockade of the area, stopping medical supplies, food, and all necessities from entering. Israel blames Hamas for this.

The Israeli air force rains death from the skies on the densely populated Gaza region destroying schools, homes, families, children. Israel blames Hamas for this.

The discourse about the Palestinian struggle needs to clearly reject the ridiculous claims by Israel that they are acting to defend their civilian population from the evil of terrorist Hamas. Evidently from the brutality and breadth of their attack Hamas is everyone in Gaza and everyone in Gaza is a terrorist.

The use of the term terrorist has become a catchall for "bad people", often used as if "Muslim" equated to terrorst. The term is a convenient lie used to condemn whole peoples and their movements for self-determination and dignity.

The discourse on the Palestinian struggle seems to always start from today, with justified outrage for the Israelis civilians killed while dismissing the Palestinian civilians killed.

The US media does not report the Palestinian people's struggles in historical context. There is a tendency to minimize the Palestinian claim to nationality and statehood while cynically inflating the Israeli position for yet another time; for the Israelis Hamas is to blame for everything.

Generations of vicious US backed Israeli brutality against the Palestinians, continuing today, sets the stage for the efforts at winning independence by the Palestinians.

Who can forget the September 1982 massacres at Sabra and Shatila?

The ongoing Israeli settlement activity taking Palestinian lands that makes the drawing of state lines as defined in UN resolutions effectively impossible, the wall the spits its disrespect for the families that live in its shadow, the bodies of dead children carried by fathers and mothers to overcrowded hospitals, a people driven to desperation by despair,

There can be no just peace in the Palestinian struggle against the US supported Israeli occupation and aggression until people are willing to take a partisan stand on behalf of the Palestinians in the face of the heavily partisan US policy on behalf of the Israelis.

There is no question of the ongoing existence of the state of Israel. The question is stopping US backed Israeli slaughter of the Palestinians. That is the predicate for peace, not a halt to Hamas missiles.

In the United States the peace movement cannot get confused on the question of a balanced position. Our role here is to look at the US role in the ongoing struggle. The US funds the Israeli agression. Here is the US the role of the peace movement must be to demand that the US end all economic and military support for Israeli aggression and for the Israeli military.

Its time to address the Israeli-Palestinian struggle on the same basis as the struggle that the US anti-apartheid movement engaged in to win the battle against apartheid in South Africa.

A just peace is possible in the Palestinian struggle for nationhood and for dignity. It requires a partisan outlook on behalf of the Palestinian people, and a focus on our country's role in supporting the injustice and murder that Israel inflicts on the Palestinians.

There is no justification for the killing of civilians by anyone ever. However, the role that the US is playing in the problem is to support Israeli military activity against the Palestinians. That is what we here in the United States have the special responsibility to address, and to end.

For a just peace that brings statehood, dignity, and a time to heal to the Palestinians, and safety to both the Israelis and the Palestinians.