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Commentary Last Updated: Jan 12th, 2009 - 01:49:57


The Nakba, Gaza and American responsibility
By Frank Scott
Online Journal Contributing Writer


Jan 12, 2009, 00:29

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The continuing Nakba in Palestine has taken a more bloody and savage turn with the devastating attacks on Gaza.

Corporate capital and religious tribalism maintain control of popular consciousness here, with many still believing that Hamas is assaulting holocaust survivors huddled in bunkers and praying for help.

A recent headline cited Israel�s �dilemma� in the Gaza strip, which is like saying Germany had a �dilemma� in the Warsaw ghetto. Of course, Germany and Israel had the same problem: how to control, exile or wipe out a population they considered subhuman and in the way of their psychotic superiority cult. But only one of these historic episodes looms large as the victimization of innocents by a murderous antagonist. The other is somehow the reverse, contrary to facts on the ground, in the air, but not in the thoughts of people so tightly controlled they might believe a rapist had a �dilemma� with his victim, if that�s what they were told by their mind managers.

So the Gaza Palestinians continue being savaged because they had the audacity to elect a government their apartheid rulers did not like.

Hamas is described by much of the West as an Islamic fundamentalist source of terrorism, when it is really a provider for and representative of its people, in a world that denies their humanity and turns a deaf ear to their suffering. But the Zionist fanatics who believe God gave them Palestine several thousand years ago are portrayed as logical, civilized, democratic innocents, simply trying to live in peace in a hostile world of evil Arabs. But whether they profess godly or atheistic reasons, they are willing to wipe out anyone who might already be living on their divine property, even if their prime mortgage deal with the deity is history�s biggest and most deadly subprime scandal.

However the outcome is played here, Hamas will win diplomatically, if not militarily as Hezbollah did in Lebanon. The disgraced official Palestinian leadership and puppet Arab rulers beholden to Western power will incur increasing wrath from those they allegedly represent. And the diplomatic farce called �the international community� will once again reveal itself as no more than US-Israeli employees. But the threat to ordinary people will increase, as the slaughter that has racial supremacists cheering may bring more harm to the citizens of both countries.

The USA is in a major economic crisis and its imperial power is declining, while the Zionist state is under more stress than it can ultimately survive. But both have monstrous military forces at hand, with the power to kill, maim and destroy much more before they are finally transformed into human and democratic entities. Unless their people, especially in the USA, can bring about radical change, the immediate future will be much worse for them, as well as for those under their fast diminishing control.

Calls for boycott, divestment and sanctions of Israel are welcome, but it will take far more than commercial pressure to end an atrocity that has endured for more than 60 years. Political pressure must be greater than ever before or the fire ignited by this murderous siege will become a global inferno. Passionate hatreds unleashed by this latest slaughter may drive those most hopelessly alienated at the futility of all past measures to acts of increased desperation. The dreadful immorality of a Jewish state established on colonial land and with total disregard for a native population that had nothing to do with creating any such need -- if there ever really was one -- can no longer be tolerated by a world that needs to wake up to its responsibility, or face terrible consequences.

More than 60 years after World War II we still hear about the suffering of European Jews and their attempted destruction at the hands of the Nazis, but this never was nor should it be a rationalization for the suffering and attempted destruction of another people, however sanitized that horror has been by Western mind management. Whether a result of irony or design, several films dealing with the evils of Hitler, Nazis and the terrible plight of European Jews opened around the time of the newest assault on Gaza. This, while the Jewish state was butchering Palestinians, in alleged retaliation against what it calls terrorism but is really defense of a homeland from its invaders and occupiers by people using a pitifully weak arsenal to wreak puny havoc, compared to what it suffers from one of the world�s foremost military powers.

In the long term, imperial corporate capitalism and Zionist Jewish tribalism are dead, but in the short term they are capable of more murder and mayhem than the world has already seen. These decadent forms of social organization are enemies of humanity and a menace to planetary survival, but just as a cornered rat is most dangerous, a crumbling empire can be more vicious than when at its peak of power. The fanaticism, greed and bigotry at the root of a force that threatens to engulf the earth in a colossal tragedy beyond religious or political fears must be stopped.

There is no better place to reverse the downward trend of history than in Palestine, where mythology and politics have used doctrines of racial superiority to create the single most dangerous injustice on earth. Those whose dream is for a better future need to wake up to the need for a democratic Palestine, which they can help bring about by creating a democratic USA. That means an end to political obedience to the needs of a foreign power that threatens national security here, and contradicts any notion of justice there, biblical or secular. The power of the Israeli caucus, often referred to as the American government, must end, once and for all. There is no other way to stop the horror in Palestine or create democracy and justice everywhere it is suppressed and prevented now.

Copyright � 2009 Frank Scott. All rights reserved.

Frank Scott writes political commentary which appears in the Coastal Post, a monthly publication from Marin County, California, and on numerous web sites, and on his shared blog at legalienate.blogspot.com. Contact him at frankscott@comcast.net.

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