October 04, 2000, 04:03 PM,br> SEATTLE (AROL) - "Listen ..listen.. can you hear that?" My friend cried out with a trembling voice as I waited on the line, trying to make sense of the rush of sounds coming from the other end. "That's an Israeli helicopter firing missiles at Khan Yunis refugee camp," he screamed, "there's another one... I have to go, I must wait with the people outside."

Cries From a Battle Zone

He hurried outside to gather in the camp's graveyard, south of Gaza City. It seems that gathering in the graveyard has become a ritual for them, a graveyard that is now riddled with scars left by random shooting. They also gather there to bury their dead.

Another friend, a nurse at Makased Hospital in Jerusalem's Intensive Care Unit appeared more content as his experiences seem to have become a devastating routine. "I worked in the intensive care Friday," he began. "Six injured young men were brought in the morning. None survived." he lamented.

A third, "it's a war zone, it's a war zone, the only difference between what's taking place here and a real war is that it's a war from one side, Israel's side" adding "Israel is shelling us with missiles, can you believe it? They are shooting rockets at the refugee camps in Gaza. They bombarded Gaza's community college. No space is left for the injured, they had to operate on people in small clinics. They barely have aspirin in these clinics. Our children are filling the streets like slaughtered sheep. Are you writing this down? Like slaughtered sheep.."

Who's to Blame for the Violence?

Most of us find it comforting to hold one reason or one person responsible for such tragedies. Others prefer the "both are responsible" approach, a diplomatic way to escape the burden of accountability that comes with confronting the truth.

Unlike what many have concluded, the continuous violence is not simply an outcome of Israeli hard liner Ariel Sharon's "visit" to Al Haram Al Sharif (the Noble Sanctuary), one of Islam's holiest sites. Yes, Sharon is a well known war criminal, that's uncontested. It's also true that a trail of blood seems to be accompanying the champion of the Jewish settlers. But it's utterly unfair to give the man all the credit for the deaths of nearly 70 Palestinians and well over two thousand injuries. Many others share the crime, and they too must be recognized.

Would Sharon have succeeded in assembling 1,000 Israeli soldiers and police to accompany him on his disgraceful visit to the Muslim sites in Jerusalem if it wasn't for the Israeli government's approval? Supposing that Sharon succeeded in ordering 1,000 heavily armed Israeli soldiers and police to join him on his controversial trip, and then ordering them to kill 5 worshipers and injure hundreds more, how can one explain the violent events developing in the West Bank and Gaza?

Sharon, a Criminal Face Among Many

It wasn't Sharon who ordered the killing of scores of Palestinian protesters, many of whom were children. It isn't Sharon who is shelling Palestinian refugee camps with Apache helicopters, nor is he the one who killed 12-year-old Mohammed al Durah, while he clung to his father's knee and wept. What about the shoot-to-kill policy carried out by the Israeli army throughout the West Bank, Gaza and Arab towns in Israel? Though such a policy might be denied verbally, medical statistics in the Palestinian territories prove its validity. 80 percent of injured Palestinians received bullets in the upper parts of their bodies according to the Palestinian Minister of Health, Riyadh Zanoun, in an interview with Voice of Palestine radio.

Israeli Lieutenant-General Shaul Mofaz, the Israeli Chief of Staff who oversaw the Israeli army's retreat from Lebanon, appeared to be determined in recent months to deploy heavy armories into Palestinian territories, anticipating a unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood. Israeli settlements were flooded with supplies, even sand bags were brought to Gaza's Jewish settlements.

Israel's muscle flexing was aimed at instituting fear in the hearts of Palestinians, as the option of armed struggle reemerged following Israel's defeat in South Lebanon. Israel wanted to reinforce its tainted image of the undefeatable army at any cost, and as quickly as possible. Recent Palestinian protests in May were dealt with swiftly by the Israeli army. Six Palestinians were killed and nearly 900 hundred were injured. With the suppression of protests by the PA police, the violence would have carried on, and Israeli soldiers were fully equipped and ready "to teach a lesson".

A Political Message is also Being Sent

But the Israeli message was also political. PA Charmin's Yasser Arafat's position at the intensive negotiations at Camp David last July appeared to Israel as too stubborn. Arafat was immovable when the talks narrowed down to Jerusalem, perhaps because of his knowledge that Jerusalem is too complex, too emotional and far too sacred to simply return to Gaza without it.

In order to support Israel against the PA's seemingly firm stand which demanded the implementation of UN resolution 242 fully, the US began it's own scare tactics, launching a verbal war against Arafat for not being "courageous enough" as Ehud Barak was during the talks, according to Clinton. The US Congress also participated in the mental war by passing bills vowing to cut aid to Palestinians if they dared to declare a state unilaterally. The latest of these measures was September 27th, when a 385-27 House vote decided withhold diplomatic recognition and aid from any such Palestinian state.

As Israel's "diplomatic options" were exhausted one by one, time was ripe for the military option to conquer what peace has failed to uphold. With every missile fired at Palestinian protesters, with every bullet, tear gas granade, tank being deployed or tank pulling into a Palestinian town, Israel is sending a message: it's my way and no other way.

Sharon's role in what is clearly a well orchestrated Israeli government scheme is to initiate the conflict, and in the end bear whatever responsibility may be put on Israel. So in the end, the responsibility of the violence is equally shared between the Palestinian Authority as a whole, and Sharon, not the Israeli government.

No Room for Innocence

The crying face of Mohammed al Durah, who died in the springtime of his youth, was a tragedy that was seen all over Palestine, as innocent faces were gunned down one by one. Yet amongst the many faces covered with blood and sanctified with the sand of a land that Palestinians will always refer to as their homeland, one could see the real face of Israel, inhumane, unmerciful and relenting as ever. If you look deeper at the images of al Durah as he is fades away at his father's side, you will see much more than a face of one killer named Sharon, you will see a government with a hostile policy, an occupation army, an apathetic international community, billions of US government dollars and dozens of vetoes, and a destiny that's has no place for the innocence of a twelve year old boy.

Arabia on Line © 2000 all rights reserved

********** P L E A S E F O R W A R D T H I S N E W S L E T T E R T O E V E R Y O N E Y O U K N O W "Some call them radicals. Others call them the Opposition. President Clinton referred to them on various occasions as the "enemies of peace". Yet, for many Palestinians, they represent the non- compromising segment of the living conscience of Palestine. So before we rush to judge and to condemn, before we describe them as radicals and enemies of peace, we must listen to their story. The story of suffering through Black September, South Lebanon and the Intifadah. Once we listen, I believe, all that we can do is to stand for them and salute, salute them for a heavy price they have paid, rather than those who took the easy way out." - Ramzy Baroud

Knowledge is Power!
************ This is a Press Release/Statement from the Black Radical Congress

----------------------------------------------------------------- Current Conflict in Israel and the Occupied Territories

Statement by the National Coordinating Committee (CC) of the Black Radical Congress (BRC),p> October 7, 2000

The current situation in Israel and the Occupied Territories is fast breaking, and circumstances change with every passing moment. As we write, on the eighth day since extreme right-wing opposition leader Ariel Sharon's provocative visit to Jerusalem's Temple Mount -- called by the Palestinians, Haram Al-Sharif -- triggered a Palestinian uprising, blood is still flowing in the streets of many cities and towns, overwhelmingly the blood of Palestinian men, women and children.

We comment on the current events in northeastern Africa (usually called the Middle East) as people of African descent. We comment as people living in the United States who have endured several hundred years of unpunished crimes against our humanity, abuse of our rights as human beings and as citizens, and state-sponsored and state-sanctioned violence against our persons and homes. Only a few days prior to the eruptions in Jerusalem, several articles in the Israeli Arab paper Kull Al-Arab documented racist and contemptuous treatment of Arab citizens by the Israeli police. The subject has a familiar ring. Reading and viewing reports of police suppression of demonstrations by Israel's Arab minority, which has mobilized on an unprecedented scale in solidarity with its Palestinian brothers and sisters, we nod in recognition. These pictures, along with the picture of Israeli soldiers' and police officers' disproportionate, murderous response to the Palestinian protests, are pictures we know well from the lived experiences of our own history.

First and foremost, in this moment when children are dying >from rubber-coated bullets and live ammunition in the chest and head, the Black Radical Congress condemns these actions. We join representatives of the Palestinian people, others within the United States and in the international community -- including Al Haq, the European Union and freedom fighters throughout the world -- in an urgent call for the United Nations to stop the bloodshed, and for a United Nations investigation into the Israeli military and police forces' excessive use of deadly force against Palestinian and Israeli Arab demonstrators. We are also angered by reports that journalists and medical personnel in ambulances have been targeted. Further, The Black Radical Congress, reflecting the sentiments of thousands of African Americans, demands that Israel be held to account for the armed actions of its agents under the Geneva Conventions and all other appropriate provisions of international human rights law.

The most stunning of the many ironies marking the history of Israel is that this State, established in the wake of a holocaust of monumental crimes against the Jewish people by the Third Reich and its allies, has itself inflicted upon generations of another great people the pain of conquest, occupation, displacement, statelessness, exile, subjugation, national oppression within its borders and violent death. Aiding and abetting Israel in this oppressive project has been its principal patron and benefactor, the United States, which, in recent years has also been party to a "peace process" that can only be seen as deeply flawed and inadequate through the lens of Palestinian interests and aspirations.

The Oslo agreement of 1993, successor to the Camp David Accords, falls woefully short of actualizing the Palestinian dream of independence and equal sovereignty. Rather, it provides for limited "self-rule" with a negotiated transition to greater autonomy -- not independence -- and it leaves fundamentally intact the conquering Israelis' supremacy over the vanquished Palestinians. It also effectively perpetuates Israel's U.S.- sponsored role as the nuclear-armed northeastern border guard of a resourceful continent. Not only do the conditions of Israeli occupation remain virtually unchanged under Oslo, but the Black Radical Congress is appalled that the march toward a stillbirth of Palestine as a bantustan, surrounded by Israeli settlements and subject to the total political, economic and military control of Israel, continues unabated. In short, nothing but legitimate rage and frustration could be expected to flow from the Palestinians' awareness that Oslo promises not a peace with justice, but a peace of might over right, of supremacy over the principle of equality, a neo-colonialist peace, an apartheid peace, a peace of the grave.

Into this context stepped Ariel Sharon, the former defense minister who presided over the infamous slaughter of innocents by Israeli Defense Forces under his command in Lebanon's Sabra and Shatila refugee camps during the 1982 Israeli invasion, condemned worldwide for that episode and ever since the premier symbol -- for Palestinians and for the world -- of Israeli intransigence and brutality. How else to view Sharon's taking his aggressive show to the Temple Mount, under armed escort of the state, than as a deliberate provocation intended to spark exactly what it sparked: an uprising. Instructing posterity on what happens to "a dream deferred," the great African American poet, Langston Hughes, wrote, "it explodes." What else to conclude than that the government presumed to be custodian of an alleged peace process on the Israeli side is bent on arresting that process, insufficient as it is. Let those who would demand "restraint" from the Palestinian people in the face of outrageous provocation redirect that demand to the occupiers. We view as inescapable the conclusion that the Israeli government bears full responsibility for the present disturbances, and as the world watches we are reminded that rank injustices in any part of the world, left to fester and metastasize, with nuclear weapons lurking in the wings, threaten all of humanity.

Several visions are competing for the resolution of this conflict. Some Palestinians (and some Israelis alike) uphold the ideal of a democratic, secular Palestine in which Moslem, Christian and Jew enjoy equal rights of citizenship, equal religious and cultural expression, equal protection under the laws. The majority favors an independent Palestinian state that enjoys equal sovereignty with the State of Israel. Unfortunately, successive Israeli governments, though never all of the Israeli people, cling to the vision of a fortress Jewish state, its citizenry divided into de facto first, second and third classes, reigning supreme and dominant in the region.

The Black Radical Congress calls upon the United States, which consistently promotes itself globally as the foremost defender of human rights, to end its silence and its hypocrisy in the face of the slaughter of Palestinian children, by demanding that Israel cease and desist immediately its brutal conduct.

The Black Radical Congress further calls upon the progressive sectors of the Israeli populace, those who seek a safe and honorable future for their own children, to demand that their government embark upon the journey toward a true peace with justice and equality, a peace founded on the right of self-determination for the Palestinian people, a peace that respects the national and human rights of all the people of the Middle East.

The Black Radical Congress
National Office
P.O. Box 490365
Atlanta, GA 30349-0365
Phone: (404) 768-2529,br> Fax: (404) 614-8563
----- BRC-PRESS: Black Radical Congress - Official Press,br> Releases/Statements
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