The Death of Al Rantisi and American Moral Leadership
Press Action
Sunday, April 18, 2004
http://www.pressaction.com/news/weblog/full_article/hamod04182004/
By Sam Hamod
As an American, and as a human being, I am deeply grieved by the death of Mr. Al Rantisi. His assassination by Sharon’s butchery shows clearly that Sharon is a man who should be tried for international war crimes; the only parallel I can see is that of Hitler with what he did to the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto. Make no mistake about it, the Israelis have put the Palestinians into a ghetto where they are being butchered while the world gets ready to “celebrate” the anniversary of the Holocaust Museum on April 18 -what an irony.
You’d think that the majority of Jews in the world would be aghast to see this genocide happening again. But, the majority are supporting the Zionist butchery, even as thousands of Jews protest such behavior -they cannot stop the Nazi behavior of Sharon, just as the Germans could not stop the butchery of Hitler. What makes all of this worse is that President Bush of the U.S. condones it and supports Sharon in his butchery; thus, the one nation in the world that could stop this new Hitler, America, has spawned a man who imitates Sharon, Hitler, in Bush.
One has but to look at the behavior of the American troops in Iraq and you can see the parallels:
1. Attacking civilian targets to terrorize the people into submission of the American occupation, ala Israeli behavior in Gaza, Ramallah, Rafah and elsewhere in Palestine.
2. Setting up checkpoints, ala Israel and the Palestinians where people are searched and sometime strip searched, so that Iraqis are the new Palestinians -once again in their own country. From the U.S. media in both cases, you’d think that the Israelis have a right to own all of Palestine and that the Americans are the true owners of Iraq and that those who resist are the “terrorists” (I guess George Washington and the troops at Lexington, Concord and the Revolutionary War were Arab and Muslim, Palestinian and Iraqi terrorists.)
3. Infrastructure of water, electric, sanitation are being destroyed and rationed to the occupied people in Palestine and in Iraq. America intends to keep troops in Iraq until at least 2006, and who knows how much longer; Israel is going to give up some of the land to the Palestinians, but keep large chunks of land so that the Palestinian “state” will be nothing more than a bunch of Bantustans, with Israel retaining all water, mineral, air and policing rights -with a right to go in an attack whenever it desires.
4. Destruction and dominance over all cultural, educational and medical facilities; this has been the pattern of Israel over the Palestinians and it is the American pattern in Iraq (even this week American reporters finally admitted that American troops had not allowed people to cross a bridge to go to a hospital in Fallujah!)
5. Arrests and killings at will; Israel has done this again and again, the most recent is the killing of Al Rantisi, the political head of Hamas who had spoken for non-violence in his last three public speeches; the American troops want to kill anyone who opposes them. As Gen. Kimmit said recently, and he was echoed by Gen.Sanchez, “We’ll put these people in their place.” As to Al Sadr, “We’ll either capture him or kill him, he has no other choices.”
Hitler did all of these things, Sharon is doing them and now, Bush has used the Hitler/Sharon model for American military and civil behavior in Iraq and even here in the U.S. with the snatching of people from their homes, from airplanes, from work, or from the street and jailing them without charges, without bail and without trials, all for indefinite stays of time (as the Israelis and Hitler did; the Israelis continue doing it).
The parallels are so starkly clear that as an American I am ashamed, as are many of the American troops who must be under the hand of their officers, the Pentagon, a whorish Arab American (Gen. John Abizaid) and a president and Secretary of Defense who are both out of touch with reality, Bush and Rumsfeld. Perhaps that is why the suicide rate among American troops in Iraq is four times that of normal suicides -perhaps our boys and girls don’t want to use the Israeli model in their behavior.
It is time for more American troops to be like Mejias, and become “refuseniks” like some of the Israeli military pilots and soldiers. But, so many have been brainwashed by the U.S. media and by the U.S. military that they often don’t realize what they are doing is morally and legally wrong in Iraq and goes against all international and UN laws and norms. Tis a sad day for America and for the world -so many had seen America as a moral force, a force for good -but that is all gone, washed down the drain.
Let us hope that Kerry will be a better moral force; but many who know him say he is a lot like Bill Clinton, all talk, bluster and just as easy to be swayed by Israel as was Clinton and Bush. This does not give me much hope for America, Palestine or Iraq; the only alternative is resistance from the rest of the world and legal resistance at home, here in America.
In the meantime, we as American citizens must do all we can to vote this madman Bush out of office and we must all write and call our congresspeople to ask them to stop the brutality and illegal behavior of Sharon and the Israeli military and the American military. If not, then we shall be as much a pariah nation in the world as Israel, the modern day Nazis, with Sharon/Hitler/Bush in leadership.
Prof. Sam Hamod was born and raised in Gary, Indiana; he taught at Princeton, Iowa, Michigan; edited 3rd World News in Washington, D.C., and is embarrassed and saddened at the Hitler-like tactics of Bush in Iraq and the allowing of Sharon to do the same in Palestine.