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15 August 2016 By Khalid Amayreh in
Jerusalem As some of us remember,
the apartheid South African regime had argued that black South Africans ought
to be grateful to the White regime for giving them employment and enabling
them to have a semblance of decent life. The White
regime's PR machine would shamelessly argue that ''Our black citizens have a
higher standard of living than other fellow black people anywhere in the
continent.'' When I was studying in the states in the
1980s, I remember a visiting high ranking official from the apartheid regime
boasting about the high living conditions enjoyed by blacks in South Africa in
comparison to the rest of the continent. ''Ask
them (South African black majority): would they prefer to live in South Africa
or in Zimbabwe,'' the official said. What is wrong with this argument is that
it doesn't really distinguish between humans and animals. In the final
analysis, humans, unlike animals, don't live by bread alone.
They are also entitled to freedom and dignity. This is the crux
of the matter which fascist and racist regimes love to ignore. Today,
apartheid Israel is making virtually the same arguments to justify and defend
its manifestly criminal treatment of the Palestinians.
Thus, whenever Israel's sinister occupation is criticized, we
see that big-mouthed Israeli officials and professional hasbara liars try to
make black look white and the white look black by claiming that Palestinians
are better off than most other Arabs. Now, as the BDS
movement is gaining momentum to the chagrin of the Israeli establishment,
Israeli officials and other hasbara mouthpieces are becoming more brazen in
their defensive but mendacious discourse. And, yes, as usual, lying is their
modus operandi. They are saying the Palestinians
ought to be thankful to Israel for not treating them like Bashar Assad or
Abdul Fattah Sissi are treating their own peoples.
One Zionist pundit wrote recently that were Israel to follow Arab rules, all
Palestinians would have been expelled from ''the Land of Israel a long time
ago.'' Needless to say, this is a classic example of
''going beyond Chutzpah'' After all, since when the Hitler of Damascus, who
murdered half a million of his own people, and the virulent tyrant of Cairo,
who usurped power from the only truly democratically elected regime in Egypt's
history, were role models for the world to be followed or emulated?
So, Israel, ''the purported light upon humanity'' wants the
Palestinians to thank Israel for murdering their children on the spot in the
West Bank, and not burning them alive by way of dropping barrel bombs on their
homes and schools as Assad is doing in Syria. Yes,
Israel would like to see the Palestinians ''thank'' her for conducting
slow-motion genocide whereas ''human-rights unfriendly states'' would pursue
fast-motion genocide'' and get rid of the problem once and for all.
But it is only sick and depraved minds that are capable of
making such nefarious arguments. Otherwise, we should
thank the Iberians Catholics for not playing by the rules of Old Testament and
exterminating every Jewish man, woman and child during the inquisition!!
Israelis are embarrassed when explaining the Tsfarad
Geroush (the Spanish inquisition) because it reminds them of something they
don't like to remember, namely the golden age Jews had undergone in Islamic
Spain!!! According to the morbid logic we hear
from some Israeli officials, we should also thank the Nazis for building the
concentration camps relatively later in the course of the Second World War,
because had these death camps been established earlier, a greater number of
Jews would have perished. Yes, sickening arguments
are only the product of sick minds. Today, in its
rabid reaction to the non-violent BDS movement, Israel and its hasbara
shipyard dogs, from Sydney to California, are arguing that it is the BDS
campaign, not the malignant occupation, that is hurting the Palestinians. That
it is the BDS movement that is impeding the establishment of a viable
Palestinian state, not the ubiquitous proliferation of settlements, inhabited
by fanatic cutthroats who believe spilling more innocent blood would expedite
and accelerate redemption and salvation!! I don't
know what sort of Torah are those people reading and following: The Torah of
Moses or the Torah of Satan? Well, in the Torah of Moses, Jeremiah 7:6, the
God of Israel equated oppressing strangers living amongst Israelites with the
greatest sin ever in Judaism, namely the unforgivable sin associating gods
with God. And in Exodus 22:21: The Almighty commands
the Israelites, telling them in straightforward manner "Do not mistreat or
oppress a stranger, for you were foreigners in Egypt.''
Don't tell me I am being selective or quoting things out of
context. For even the Talmud, who Orthodox Jews consider the verbal Torah,
states that true Jews are not supposed to oppress non-Jews living in their
midst. Let us consider the following Talmudic story which sums up the point I
am trying to make: A heathen came to Shammai with the
request to be accepted as a convert to Judaism on condition that he would be
taught the whole of the Torah while he stood on one foot. The Rabbi drove him
away with a yard-stick he was holding. The heathen
then went to Hillel with the same request. Hillel
said to the man what is hateful to yourself, don't do to your fellow man. That
is the whole of the Torah and the remainder is but commentary. ''Go, learn
it.'' |
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