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[This page requires further refinement. But the basic ideas are there.]
My Open Letter to the World (1)
The Rape of Palestine
Palestine belongs to the Palestinian people who deserve all basic rights and dignity ("All human beings, Palestinians and Israeli alike, are created equal"). Regardless of her international legal and political status, Palestine is actually in a state of siege. A whole generation of Palestinian people have been living under occupation for three and a half decades since the 1967 Six-Days War. The Palestinian people has been OPPRESSED politically, economically and militarily by Israel since. They have been reduced into living in extreme poverty without hope for any improvement. Commerce and Education have been next to impossible since roads, schools and universities are often closed or blocked by Israeli check points, sometime for months. Regretfully, the majority of the people of Israel currently support this approach, at least in the way they express themselves politically (i.e., the non-action against their own government's repression of the Palestinians and the rapid expansion of Jewish settlements in West Bank and Gaza Strip, the recent election of their hard-line extremist Ariel Sharon government, etc.)
Any analysis of the just and proper Israel / Palestine relationship must look beyond the surface and take into account the fact that Israel has by far the most powerful and most effective military in the region (and definitely among the top ten in the world!), while Palestine is one of the poorest nation in the on earth with practically all of its people living in poverty. During every violent conflict between the two nations, the Israeli government has ALL the options available to it (restraint, humane and controlled retaliation, invasion, economics blockade, blockade of any or all roads, sea and air travels, imposing curfew, house to house search, air strike with missiles, F-16's and Apache helicopters, use of tanks, and even assassination, invasion, partial or total isolation of the Palestinian people, and so on), while the Palestinian authority has practically none. The Israeli government retaliations, however, has consistently been disproportionate. Based on GREAT DISPARITY between the two nations, I find it to be impossible to be sympathetic to the the Israeli government's self-defense/national security arguments.
Israel is the United States' biggest recipient of aids. Similarly, Israel's largest and most important economic and military support comes from the United States. Despite the fact that Israel is an independent country with democratically elected government, the U.S. undeniably has tremendous influence over its policy and actions toward Palestine and its people. Therefore, it is impossible for U.S. government to deny its responsibility for Israel's policy and actions toward Palestine. Worse, the U.S. has shown its strong bias toward Israel by repeatedly exercising veto power against proposed United Nations Security Council resolutions condemning Israel's actions against Palestine. It is apparent that Israel has been given total and unconditional support from the United States.
Every recent U.S. Presidents and Secretary of State played important roles and contributed substantially to the situation in the region, many of them very positive toward greater peace and stability. But none of these Presidents were as partial toward Israel as President George W. Bush, Jr. The Israeli government, especially after the election of a reputed extreme hard-liner Ariel Sharon as Prime Minister during late 2001, has freehand to do what it wants to the Palestinian people in the name of "War Against Terrorism". Clearly, the Israeli government is NO LESS A TERRORIST ORGANIZATION than the Palestinian authority and the people who are resisting the occupation. And if the Israeli government is a terrorist, then the U.S. government is undeniably AN ACCOMPLICE to the crime committed by the Israeli government! Unfortunately for the Palestinian people, their worst "nightmare" will not be over as long as these two leaders are still in the offices.
Unfortunately, PM Ariel Sharon's action (with implicit backing from President George Bush) will have produced at least two dreadful consequences when the Israeli military pulls out. Firstly, Palestine (the country, the government, the society, the culture, the people, etc.) will have been so severely weaken that recovery will not be possible for a long long time. We must remind ourselves that Palestine is experiencing total destruction of its infrastructure, public utilities, educational facilities, municipality offices (including all accounts and records necessary to administer a society). Secondly, Palestine may eventually be FORCED into accepting a peace agreement, but the hatred that the Palestinian general population have for Israel will have been deepen by their recent experience that it is much much more difficult for real peace to materialize.
It is worth noting that, TOTAL DESPERATION has driven the GENERAL POPULATION of the Palestinians, not just the militant group like the Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, into extremists. These people are victims of the circumstance, not terrorists per se. They were given no options, and they responded to it, as any one of us who are ordinary human beings would, with violence. Considering the overall context, the Palestinian people are essentially fighting for their livelihood, their freedom, and their survival. Resorting to violence is wrong. But what else can (and should) we expect from the people who have absolutely no hope for themselves and their families? These people are in total despair because they have no future to look for. Those who put the Palestinian people into such hopelessness are just as responsible and as guilty for the wrongful acts of violence committed by the desperate people of Palestine.
Tawat Ananthothai Original draft: 15 December 2001 Edited: 5 Mar. 2002, 3 Apr. 2002 Latest edition: 8 Apr. 2002
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DRAFT
3 options for the Israeli Government:
(a) Ethnic Cleansing / Genocide / Take Absolute and Total Control of the whole population. An extreme, but historically popular, option for eliminating "the problem" once and for all (i.e., kill, enslave, etc.). A weaker form would be to "neutralize" the current generation so that it is completely and totally dormant, then raise the next generation with unthreatening attitude and beliefs. Fortunately, modern world will not tolerate this evil act, at least after it is well publicized by the press.
- The U.S. --> Native Americans (Indians) - Mao Tse Tung and Lenin --> Elimination of old values and create new communist states - Hitler's Nazi --> Jews - Slovodan Milosevic - Muslims - Khmer Rouge --> Attempting to eliminate its own population with "misguided" ideas (The Cambodians even welcomed the invasion of Vietnam after long suffering from the hands of its own countrymen.)
(b) Oppression. Modern history shows that, unless carried to the extreme, oppression does not work. It only makes peaceful coexistence impossible because of the resistance. At best, it can only buy time for the oppressors. Some examples of oppressions which make peaceful coexistence impossible:
- Japan --> The Rape of Nanjing, Korea - USSR --> Eastern Europe, including East Germany - Indonesia --> East Timor - China --> Tibet, Chinese dissidents - Burma --> Burmese dissidents, other minorities
(c) Mutually beneficial coexistence. This is possible without oppression. The starting point is to raise the standard of living of the population through economics supports and higher education so that they find peaceful negotiation a more desirable exercise. The goal is for the parties involved find themselves having more to lose if violence persists. Currently, only Israelis feel this way. Currently, it seems the Palestinian people have little or nothing to gain from peace, nothing much to lose from violence. The U.S. has substantial contribution to such situations worldwide. Some examples:
- The North --> The South after the U.S. Civil War - The U.S. --> West Germany after the 2nd World War - The U.S. --> Japan and the Philippines after the 2nd World War - The U.S. --> The reconstruction of Western Europe after the 2nd World War - Thailand --> The four southern provinces dominated by Muslims
This page was last edited on 17 Apr 2002
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