A World Without Israel

By Nidal Sakr

(MAF 1/17/2009) Not too many people can say “I witnessed history in the making.” Today, we do
not have to witness history as we all are already
part of it, which does make our time indeed very
unique.

New history in the making manifests itself in

almost everything around us. America is having
its first truly universal president. Our economy is in
the gravest state it has ever been. Our mighty
military machine is coming home with its chief
commander shoe stricken, and the lamest
administration we ever had is leaving office in
humiliation and disgrace as a lesson for leaders to
come.

But the world does not only revolve around us. It never has, and it never will. There are more
profound changes taking place almost everywhere else. In a Bush-like failing political maneuver,
Israel launched one of its most barbaric genocides to date preempting the new US
administration. By waging war on Gaza, Israel aims to create a status quo that would allow to
continue dictating its terms as a hostage taker of the US and the region past inauguration.
Israel’s control over US is evidenced by no less than Israeli prime minister bragging about how he
ordered the US chief in command to abide by Israel’s change of heart. On Olmert’s order, Bush
walked out of his speech to command his state secretary to back down from a resolution to
Security Council she personally drafted earlier according to Israel’s conditions.
Perhaps the most historic of all events in recent times is the signing of Israel and US to an
“understanding” of disarming Palestinian resistance and enforcing an arms embargo against the
embattled resistance.

Such an event represents a declaration of defeat by Israel and its chief ally in their war against an
almost entirely defenseless, indigenous population. It actually amounts in significance to the
historic Balfour Declaration of 1917. With the Balfour Declaration, Britain promised to grant the
Zionist Agency the land of Palestine in return for funding Britain in WWI.

The striking similarity between the two accords can clearly be seen in the following. Britain, when
making the promise, had no jurisdiction over Palestine, which was still under Ottoman control. At
the time, Britain had also promised Sherif Hussein Bin Ali of Hijaz the land of Palestine as part of
Hashemite Kingdom over much of historical Syria in return for revolt against the Ottomans in
WWI. Thus all parties to British promises including Balfour were legally and factually irrelevant. It
is very much like “He Who Has Not, Can Give Not.” There is no more proof to such a fact than
the latest Gaza war.

Gaza is the largest concentration camp the world has ever known. Almost all of the million and a
half people of Gaza belong in fact to the historic Palestine and are NOT from Gaza. When
Palestinians launch their home made symbolic projectiles, they in fact strike back at their very
homeland, at the very occupiers of their homeland. Israel is an occupier of other people’s land,
nothing more and nothing less. As we have seen for almost a century, people will never give up
their land, no matter how many of their babies or mothers you choose to kill. There is a fact that
is stronger than any reality we can imagine to create. We may not like it, or we may convince
ourselves or pretend that such a fact does not exist. Such a fact is that people, one day and
beyond any doubt, will definitely go back home.
As Bush has proven, there is just no power ever existed and will ever exist that can stop people
from going home. Look no further than Somalia, Iraq, Chechnya, Bosnia, Kashmir, Afghanistan,
Philippines, Thailand, Rwanda, Kenya, Lebanon, Congo, Armenia, and everywhere you can look,
people only go back to one place. That place is HOME.

The Question of Israel

In its intellectually-insulting categorization of the world as “with us or with the terrorists,” the
expiring administration labeled all people who seek to liberate their lands and return home as
terrorists. Although UN Charter and Geneva Conventions recognize the rights of people of all
occupied lands to resist by all means, US had no hesitation in declaring UN irrelevant when
international law stood in the way of US aggression. The US went further to bend all international
laws and human norms to launch brutal wars against people the world over and to create a whole
new label to designate all legally-sanctioned resistance as terrorists. In fact, it was the US who
inspired the saying: “Terrorism is in the Eyes of the Beholder.”

The question we all must ask ourselves, since when is going home or even merely wanting to go
home a crime? But first, think of your own home, your own family, and your own life.

In a world where we all come to recognize that “What Goes Around Comes Around,” denying
Palestinians the very right of going back home or merely wanting to go back home amounts to
denying that any of us has any right to any home. That not only Palestinians are homeless, but in
fact we all are. We reside somewhere until somebody else decides that our children’s room, our
own bedroom, and our family dining area is theirs and not ours, and that it is time for us to go.
Well, if you find that outrageous, it is no more than the reality of Palestine and Palestinians today
- a land longing for its people, and a people the world over have no place to call home, except for
that land longing for their return.

By merely existing, Israel is a defiance to all that is legal, legitimate, or a human norm. Not only
is its very existence a contradiction in and by itself, its practices from targeting women, children,
hospitals, schools, mosques, churches, universities, ambulances, UN compounds, and if all that
is not enough CEMETERIES too, Israel is a de facto enemy to all there is, be it alive or even
dead.

Such destructiveness is a threat to itself, first and foremost, and also to the entire human
community. Taking a religion hostage, claiming that any religion would sanction such satanic
practices is utterly rejected by none other than religious Jews themselves, and any people of
conscience for that matter.

In over 60 years of its illegitimate existence, Israel has proven that it can create anything but
peace and stability. At a time when the West is living the pinch of its ill doing, neither the US nor
any other culprit in Israeli crimes can continue their blind support. Palestinian resistance, just like
all resistance, proved once more that human spirit always prevails. Today, the upper hand in the
heart of all disputes is forever Palestinian.

Having so much blood spilled and so much humanity violated, I can only hear calls for revenge.
As I stated earlier, proportional toll on the aggressors is way beyond what anyone can stomach,
although by “A Tooth for a Tooth, and an Eye for an Eye,” it would only be fair. I personally hate
the scene of blood, even if it was my own enemy’s. But no matter how much I hate such a scene,
it is the one thing I would want to see if that was the only way to defend my home and family.
That is where Palestine and Palestinians are today, and that is where we all are on the other side
of this bloody equation.

Today the question of a “World Without Israel,” is a question past due, while the answer still
lingers on.

Do we talk peace and adhere to our peace charter as in “Because We Are Jews,” or do we
choose to battle it out no matter how bloody the scene gets? I do not want another 9/11 nor does
anyone in America or the world. Palestine has had way too many 9/11s, as did other places we
violated.

We must surrender to the fact that human life is equally sacred. We must abide by law and
order. And we must weigh things on the scale of truth and justice.

Israel has violated US Arms Export Control Act, as well as every pertinent law that stipulates that
US arms may not be used in attacks against civilians. Arms embargoes are not meant to deny
people under aggression the right to defend themselves as we did in Bosnia and we are doing in
Palestine. There is no entity in the world that deserves a total blockade and arms embargo more
than Israel does. Failing to abide by law, both US and international, only means we continue to
criminally support an outlaw entity.

If some still argue that Palestinian missiles randomly hit Israeli civilians, then short of a just and
comprehensive resolution, we should supply Palestinians with more sophisticated and better
guided munitions to avoid civilians, instead of enforcing an arms embargo.

I guarantee that Palestinians would love for all their targets to be military, but they can only launch
whatever they can get their hands on to stay alive. Just like human evolution, Palestinian
projectiles evolved in the face of escalating Israeli aggression and occupation. Under siege and
arms embargo, Palestinian arsenal has grown from stones and shoes to Molotov cocktails, bullets
and guns, suicide bombings, Qassams and Grads, tunnels, and on to more sophisticated, better-
guided missiles that occasionally strike military bases.

In Israeli world of madness we’ve got no steak but all bones. We may choose to remedy our long
ill doing by supporting a Palestinian-Jewish resolution that will allow people to live in peace and
co-existence, or we can prolong a losing bet of bloodshed while we continue to sink deeper in our
misery and payback for our failures.

Once everything is said and done, people eventually will go home. We will no longer hold the
keys to their homes, and shoes, shame, and empty pockets are all we will be left with.