August 15, 2006
by Steve Osborn
I 've been told over the years, "Write anything you want, but don't criticize Israel." I've had articles rejected a number of times because there was an implied criticism of Israeli politics. There comes a time when trying to educate, trying to wake up people means breaking that hitherto apparently sacred commandment.
I recently wrote an article, How Quickly We Forget, which covered, amongst other things, the heroic defense of the young Jews in the Warsaw ghetto. The Nazis had overwhelming firepower and manpower. The Jews had a selection of borrowed and stolen weapons. They held off the Nazi occupation for over a year. When the Germans made a determined effort to clear the ghetto, they held them off for over a month. At the end, of the 56,000 left out of a half million, 7,000 were shot and the remainder went to the death camps.
My point, illustrated by the Warsaw ghetto, the French Resistance, the resistance in other occupied countries, and the stiffened resistance in almost every country that was hit by terror bombing of civilian cities, is that occupation and oppression do not work. All they engender is resistance and the more brutal the occupation, the more extreme the resistance.
Israel's role in international diplomacy regarding Palestine and Lebanon is currently very much akin to Nazi Germany's treatment of Czechoslovakia and Poland. No matter what the country does, no matter what concessions are made, they are not good enough. Any resistance is met with crushing force. The result? Even more resistance.
What gets left out of most of the reports on the Lebanon invasion is that the original act was the capture of some Israeli soldiers to use as bargaining chips for the return of thousands of Palestinians rotting in Israeli prisons, many of them women and children. Not a rocket was fired into Israel until after the smashing attack into Lebanon, primarily at Lebanon's civilians and its infrastructure.
From much of what I have read, Israel's "shock and awe" invasion of Lebanon and Palestine has been fermenting in the IDF high command for about five years. All they needed was an excuse, just like Bush's neocon friends were looking for an excuse to unleash war in the Middle East. The capture of a few Israeli soldiers was the key to launch a total blitzkrieg on Lebanon. In 1939, and earlier in Guernica, Spain, the world was horrified at the civilian slaughter that Hitler's Stukas and other bombers perpetrated. England's resolve to fight to the death was strengthened by the bombing of London and other cities. I could cite pages to bolster my position, but the point is made.
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I would have hoped that Israel would have looked at the Warsaw ghetto and remembered the heroism of the Jew's resistance, but apparently the only lesson they learned is that, no matter how stubborn the resistance, if you can pour in enough firepower, destroy enough real estate, and slaughter enough people, you will win by default when there is no one left.
The United States is flying in emergency supplies by the cargo plane load, of advanced weapons, bunker busters, cluster bombs, "smart" bombs, white phosphorus, and who knows what else, for the Israelis to continue to pound Lebanon and Palestine. When the Israelis put a missile right through the center of the red cross of an ambulance which had its emergency lights on and the red crosses lit up, it indicates about the same level of care and humanity that the Wehrmacht showed in the blitzkrieg of Poland.
The world tries to appease Israel and Bush as it tried to appease Hitler and the Third Reich. History has shown that that doesn't work either. Bush could shut off the flow of arms to Israel and the war would end, almost immediately. Unfortunately, the Israeli Lobby apparently controls arms and support decisions and, Bush wants Syria or Iran to intervene so he will have an excuse to nuke Iran. He has no interest in alleviating the suffering of the Lebanese or Palestinians any more than that of the Iraqis. Megalomania is a tough thing to turn around; almost impossible as a matter of fact. The only weapon we have is impeachment of the entire gang, from Bush on down. The Constitution bars pardons for impeached offenders so they could be tried for their crimes against We the People of the United States, the Constitution of the United States, (which they swore to uphold and defend) and crimes against humanity as established by the Nuremberg trials.
Were this to come to pass, perhaps the United States could again begin to hold up its head amongst the civilized nations of the world.
As it currently stands, we are aiding and abetting war crimes, slaughter of civilian populations, torture, concentration camps, breaking treaties at will, and shredding the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights which were to be the inviolable foundations of our government. Not to mention the huge thefts of the public treasury to give to Bush's cronies and supporters
We the People of the United States are definitely standing at a fork in the road. Which road we take will spell our future, or perhaps lack thereof. Let's make the right choices for a change. Stop supplying and supporting Israel and impeach the Bush Gang!
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Stephen M. Osborn [send him email] is a freelance writer living on Camano Island in the Pacific Northwest. He is an "Atomic Vet." (Operation Redwing, Bikini Atoll 1956, ) who has been very active working and writing for nuclear disarmament and world peace. He is a retired Fire Battalion Chief, lifelong sailor, writer, poet, philosopher, historian and former newspaper columnist.
