Posted on 10/14/2004 6:16:53 AM PDT by Calpernia
This was originally written and posted on 9/16/01. But it went out in this past 10/4/04 newsletter.
Don't know if that means anything.
America, We Feel your Pain, Do you Feel Ours?
By Ramzy Baroud Posted: 28 Jamad-u-Thani 1422, 16 September 2001
A six year old Palestinian girl kneeled and nervously, yet gently laid a flower to join hundreds of other flowers, banners and candles in a small vigil held in Jerusalem to commemorate the death of thousands of Americans in New York, Pennsylvania and Washington.
The little girl rushed back, bashful, and held on her mother's hand and both stood quietly gazing at a burning candle.
At the scene, only a few reporters gathered, none of them represented foreign agencies; they were all Arabs and Palestinians.
But Americans who witnessed the world weeping for their victims, never learned of the deep sympathy that was felt by many Palestinians across Palestine and around the world.
However, they did see, with horror and dismay, a few Palestinian children dancing on an old car, two men shooting in the air and an old woman with thick spectacles waving her arms, in celebration of the attacks, we were told.
Every major American news network prides itself with having its own exclusive footage and reporting. When it came to the scene of the dozen dancing Palestinians, they were willing to share the report, which was syndicated all over the world, and aired endlessly.
A quick conclusion was drawn: Palestinians dance on the pain of Americans.
Even if the short report was accurate, a few kids and an old woman hardly represent the Palestinian population, which consists of millions of people, tens of thousands of them are also American citizens.
If your grief and pain allow you to roll the tape of memory a few years back, try to remember New York City following the Gulf War in 1991.
The American army had just returned from a mission in the Middle East. Former President George Bush described the nature of the mission once on TV, so bluntly and in simple terms, to "bomb Iraq back to the stone age."
Mission accomplished. The American army led the allied forces in the region bombed Iraq for months and killed with no remorse as the whole world watched, and as all Americans watched, the same way they watched the World Trade Center being leveled to the ground.
Those killed in Iraq were mostly civilians, innocent men and women, not any more or less innocent than the New Yorkers who fell to their deaths while sipping their coffee on a seemingly beautiful morning.
American soldiers returned home with hands covered in the blood of civilians, after they bombarded every city, town and village in Iraq, south and north. They used every weapon, they experimented with the highest killing technology against a largely defenseless nation, they bombed, killed, and some times ridiculed their victims.
They were seen on TV loading warplanes with missiles that read "say goodbye Ahmed," "happy Ramadan" and "say hi to Allah."
But when they came, they were not booed; nor were rotten eggs thrown at them; they were celebrated. As far as America was concerned, "our boys and girls" were heroes.
And right in New York, where now half of the city stands in dust and rubble, hundreds of thousands took to the streets, lined up with happy faces and sang the Sparkled Stars for the returning chaps; they cheered and chanted, "USA, USA."
Elsewhere in the United States millions of people celebrated the victory; unlike Palestinians, where only a dozen kids rushed to the streets to celebrate the killing of Americans, nearly every American newspaper, TV station, millions of people, their representatives, young and old danced for the death of Iraqis.
Then, like now, Americans were told that it was a battle between good and evil; the good has won.
Iraqis might have not been able to watch the celebrations in the United States; by that time; their houses were rubble, their dearest possessions were sold in the black market to buy some bread and milk, and their electricity was cut off, for it was too, like their water supplies, hospitals, schools, and every thing else "bombed back to the stone age."
The attacks on the United States was horrid, humanity was in shambles when some people thought they had the right to take the lives of others as an expression of political views, likely, social, or perhaps religious ones.
But the attack lasted for several hours. The Congress three days later assigned $40 billion for emergency funds to rebuild the country, to aid the victims and to secure the country against future attacks.
But the Palestinian tragedy have lasted much more than a few hours; it has lasted for generations.
For 53 years now, Palestinians have been subjected to some of the most notorious military police ever used; for 53 years they were forced to live in concentration camps, to drink polluted water, to have their loved ones killed, their homes razed, their futures shattered, deprived of all God given rights, and even UN given rights. Their were forced to flee for their lives from one place to another, their were imprisoned, tortured, and assassinated.
Not one day in the calendar passes without Palestinians siting a massacre or two. They go to the streets to protest the killing of a child, they return home carrying another after being shot while protesting.
You might think: I am already overwhelmed by my own grief, why should I worry about yours?
The answer is simple. Every bullet that killed a Palestinian was "Made in the USA", every shell, missile, and tank was "Made in the USA." Every massacre was financed by America.
When three thousand Palestinians were killed in the refugee camps of Beirut in 1982, the killers left the camps with piles of skinned bodies, butchered and raped women, and thousands of empty bullet shells, also Made in America.
Even the bulldozers that tried to hide the crimes in mass graves as the killers departed, were supplied by the United States.
Since the creation of the state of Israel in occupied Arab land in 1948, the United States has paid more than $125 billion, to finance the Israeli army, to construct its illegal settlements and to aid a racist state that sustains itself at the expense of a subdued population.
Just two days before the attacks on New York and Washington DC, President George Bush decreed that the fact that Israel is using US supplied arms to assassinate Palestinians doesn't violate the US policy on Arms exports.
After all of this, unlike what you would expect, only a dozen children rushed to the streets to celebrate the death of Americans.
Despite all of this, most Palestinians mourned the death of Americans and were able comprehend the tragedy, for they have been living the tragedy for decades.
Unlike the millions who celebrated the "victory" against Iraq in 1991, Palestinians didn't parade in the streets, they didn't chant "Palestine, Palestine," they did not raise colored balloons and break champagne bottles; but they stood in lines in Ramallah and in Gaza, cities that have been devastated by American made weapons, and donated blood.
The six year old Palestinian girl at the vigil finally went home with her mother. Their trip to Ramallah from Jerusalem, a trip of half an hour, would take hours because of the Israeli military checkpoints. Nonetheless they decided to come and show solidarity with the American victims and their families.
Close to them stood many Israeli soldiers, gazing with suspicion at the mourning family as they tried to find their way home.
The little girl, who is forbidden to carry a Palestinian flag, held a small American flag and appeared enthusiastic for the idea that no soldiers rushed to take her flag away.
Back in the West Bank town of Jenin, thousands of Palestinians desperately tried to defend their community, as the Israeli army bombarded their homes and killed 11 people in a raid that lasted several days.
"The helicopters are back" screamed a Palestinian teenager, as he was armed with a sling shot and a pocket filled with rocks. The people began running in panic to nearby alleyways. Two American-made apache helicopters emerged from behind the hill and showered the fleeing residents with automatic rifle bullets, American-made bullets.
Courtesy PalestineChronicle.com
Thanks for the email NW_AZ. Good Catch!
Ping.
Reissued AQ news editorial. I don't see any reason why it would be reprinted; but, I could me missing something. Or maybe it was just a copy and paste error. Don't know.
What's wrong with this picture?
We know all about how "innocent" these "civilians" are.
We're numb to your "pain" thanks to all the homicide bombers you disperse among innocents.
I'm saddened more "innocent" Palestinians haven't died.
I'm saddened more "innocent" Iraqis haven't died.
* insert any terrorist individual name or group where "innocent" is used.
Two things:
First, the statement above is way off base.
Second...what the heck does the coalition of nations who pushed Sadaam out of Kuwait in Gulf War I have to do with Palestinians?
I hope these questions are all rhetorical to me. I just posted it cause I thought it unusual that it was reissued last week.
I read through it a few times and don't blatantly see any 'dual message'. Maybe it is just propaganda. Or the wrong article was copied and pasted to their newsletter.
The letter is so touching. I almost puked.
If I want the poster to know what I think, they'll know it.
I apologize if this wasn't clear. I usually try to specifically address the author so there is no confusion. I did not this time and I apologize.
The simple fact of the matter is that if we wanted to destroy the population of Iraq, if killing Iraqi ciizens was our goal, it could have been accomplished in a day. A short day.
This post is ridiculous anti-Israeli, anti-American propaganda, and is apparently typical of the "journalism" spewed out by the Islamo-Fascist Culture of Hate.
Not on MY keyboard please! :)
No apology needed! I really just wanted to clarify why I posted an older article. Well, if it was reprinted, is it older?
I thought my post was confusing.
I caught myself in time.
Weep, weep, sigh sigh.
Let's see. What did this article leave out?
Oh, the Palestinian celebrations in the streets after 9=11? Arafat had to go have people arrested to stop them.
Oh, the fact that the various Muslim terrorist groups explicitly declare that there are no civilians, that everyone is a target? When Osama says that (and he did....every US citizen is a target to Osama...), they have nothing to say. When they sneak 13 year old girls across the Israeli border with bombs tied to their chests to blow up women, babies and civilians on buses, zip, zero to say.
Who, by the way, is a civilian in Palestine? When you have them exploiting even 13 year old girls as suicide bombers, who counts as a civilian? How can you tell?
And finally, why should the Israelis play by a different set of rules? The Palestinians kill anyone, anywhere. From Arafat's history of planes, to the current indiscriminate suicide bombings. WHy shouldn't the Israelis just drop a few big bombs in the middle of cities without caring? In fact, they do exercise some care to the extent possible--but collateral damage is inevitable when you can't tell the terrorists from the civilians (because of their own confusion of those concepts) and because the terrorists like to keep themselves close to schools and mosques to hide behind them--just like we saw in Iraq and Afghanistan. They seek to maximize for propaganda value civilian casualties if the US or Israel dares to attack. But they themselves couldn't care less about civilian casualties.
Really --why should I care about what passes for Palestine? The only time they care about civilian lives or the sanctity of life is when an Israeli or American kills a Muslim. Other than that--it's free for all, all the time. The rule of the day is to kill as many innocent civilians as possible. Muslims have few if any Nobel prize winners in Science---but when it comes to finding new ways to kill innocent people, their fundamentalist groups are tops in the world. Why do we not weep for them? The answer should be obvious. Sanctity for life is a two way street.
This article is saccharine and propaganda. It doesn't come close to addressing the issues or reality.
anchor babies
Did he actually say that?
I've not seen that quote directly from Bush.
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