Stupid White Men-- and Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation! - Michael Moore [75]
Well, here’s one complicating factor in the case of the Palestinians: the unfortunate thing about us humans is that once abused, some of us seek to abuse others. It’s no surprise that abused kids grow up to abuse their own kids. After the Americans bombed the peaceful, neutral Cambodians over and over and over, slaughtering hundreds of thousands of them during the Vietnam War, it shouldn’t have been a shock when the Killing Fields followed and Cambodians turned the slaughter on each other. After the Soviet Union lost over twenty million citizens in
World War II, it’s no surprise that they sought insurance against future invasion by seizing and dominating nearly every country that bordered them.
Sometimes people just go crazy from too much abuse and violence and take drastic, irrational measures to protect themselves.
I don’t want to involve myself in the various arguments about why Israel was created, or what the historical or biblical claims are to the land. Rather, I want to deal with the situation at handwhich is the ongoing killing on both sides of the question: the continued hatred toward the Jews by the Palestinians, and the appalling oppression of the Palestinians by the Israelis.
It’s true that there’s also much oppression of Palestinians in Arab countries, where Palestinians aren’t allowed to vote or own property and are treated as second-class citizens and pawns in the fight against Israel. But I’m not going to spend my time on this, since there isn’t a whole lot I can do about it. You and I don’t give $3 billion a year to Syria, as we do to Israel. And since that’s our money, we must consider ourselves responsible for the oppression, killing, and apartheid conditions that have been created in Israel’s Occupied Territories.
The fighting in the Middle East has got to stop—and now. Israel has nuclear weapons, some Arab countries soon will, and we’d better stop this madness quickly before we ALL pay a huge price for it.
I, for one, don’t want apartheid being funded in my name anywhere. I believe (stop me if you’ve heard this before) that all human beings deserve the right to self-determination, the right to the ballot, the right to have life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Arabs who live in the West Bank and Gaza have none of this. They are not free to travel. They are under constant curfew. They are taxed with no representation. They are arrested and jailed without trial. Their homes are bulldozed without warning. Their land is stolen and given to “settlers.” Their children are murdered for throwing stones—or for just walking down the street.
Of course they throw stones! Of course they kill Israeli settlers! That’s what abused people do—they fight back, and abuse others. Who should know this better than the Israelis? The world butchers them to near-extinction in the last century, and they’ll be damned if they’re going to be annihilated in this millennium.
At times like this, those of us who have been fortunate enough to avoid this kind of suffering in our own lives must step in and stop the killing. That is what I want my country to do. And here’s how: Quit sending over a blank check, and start getting in there with both parties to stop the barbarism. My plan:
1. Congress should inform Israel that it has thirty days to end the bloodshed perpetrated in its/our name—or we cut off the entire $3 billion. Individual terrorism is bad enough, but state sponsored terrorism is truly evil. I understand that the world will always have the occasional lone crazy with grievances he feels compelled to avenge with violence. But for the Israelis, a group of otherwise good and intelligent people, to collectively enforce a system of terror against