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| BDS founder, Omar Barghouti (Wikipedia) |
BDS has one purpose. It is to destroy Israel. That should be obvious by what BDS demands. Which might sound fair on paper until one realizes that honoring those requests would in fact mean the end of Israel as a Jewish state and essentially turn it into a Palestinian state.
The newspaper’s editors have bought the argument made by the left that Israel is guilty of Apartheid. And bought into Amnesty International’s charge that Israel is guilty of war crimes against Palestinian people.
The naiveté of those editors cannot be overstated. This was made clear by over 100 Harvard faculty and alumni – including Alan Derhsowitz and former Secretary of the Treasury (under Clinton) and former president of Harvard, Larry Summers. They denounced that endorsement.
That being said I thought it might be instructive to see this issue through Palestinian eyes. What you are about to read is what I believe is in the hearts of most Palestinians. What follows is how they or their supporters might present their case:
Israel is an illegitimate country. It has no right to exist. And no right to change the original name of the country from Palestine, to Israel. The current state of Israel was created by a group of European colonialists calling themselves Zionists for the purpose of exploiting its indigenous Arab population. Exploiting them as cheap labor to build their illegal entity.
Who gave the UN the right to give it away? It doesn’t matter that the Zionist entity became a haven for refugees of the Holocaust. The Holocaust is not the fault of the Palestinian people, the rightful heirs to that land. Why should they allow Zionists whose racist ideology moved them to colonize a land and rule over the indigenous Palestinian people? They were there long before those Zionist Jews from Europe marched into their land and took over. Who gave them that right? What if those early Zionists had chosen to occupy Paris or London and declare that their new Jewish state? Would the world have been OK with that?!
What about the Zionist claim of their historical rights to the land? What does ancient Jewish history to do with today’s reality?
What about their claim of biblical rights to the land? Well the Koran rejects that claim and believes that it was their ancestor, Ishmael, to whom God’s covenant with Abraham was passed. Not Isaac. Why should the Jewish bible have more validity than the Koran?
No sir. And what have the Zionist done with their occupation? They have forced Palestinians into refugee camps and treated them like inferior human beings. That is a tragedy of major proportion. – and a travesty! Palestinians are forced by the Zionist occupiers into inferior living conditions on the West Bank of the Jordan River. And treated with same cruelty with which blacks were treated under the policies of Apartheid that was once the South African government.
For some reason much of the civilized world nevertheless believes that Israel has a right to exist and rule the land. And has given them the financial and military means to assure that it stays that way. Making it hard for Palestinians to resist the occupation.
The injustices are real. So resist they must with whatever means they have left. Since Israel’s military might is so powerful, that leaves only terrorism. And a call to the world to honor BDS.
What about all the contributions Israel has made to the world in its 75 year existence? Who is to say that Palestinians wouldn’t have done the same or more, had they the freedom and means to do so? Once Palestinians get their land back, they will prove it.
What about the support of so many US politicians and other prominent good and decent people around the world? They are misguided - blinded by the rhetoric of pro Israel propagandists like AIPAC. They do not see the injustice of it all.
Palestine – all of it - belongs to Palestinian people. Once the Zionists are defeated and Palestine is back in their hands it will restore the dignity they have been denied for decades which they so richly deserve.
May it be the will of Allah that this happens soon and in our day.
