By Guest Post • Mar 31st, 2009 at 19:00 • Category: Analysis, Middle East Issues, Newswire, Palestine, Religion, War, Zionism
Nobody, even the hawks and tyrants themselves, would deny the fact that the majority of the world's decisions are made by a group of certain leaders who lead certain countries of some certain regions! Our world's population approaches 7 billion as of 2008, with people living in 203 sovereign states and countries, and there are just something around 30 people who decide the destiny and prospect of this "flock" of 7 billion, and this is exactly what we expect of the 21st century's democracy; a revolutionized form of a then-sublime concept that the conscious human would enthusiastically long for.
Perhaps the extraordinary and outlandish ethnic cleansing and systematic massacre of civilians, committed habitually by the state of Israel, is something instinctive to the very existence of the 60-year old "country", and as said by Gilad Atzmon in an interview which I had once conducted with him, you can not expect benevolent, human and lawful treatment of downtrodden people by the Jewish state.
However, what makes me astonishingly baffled and bemused is the approach of European and North American states to the long-standing punishment of Palestinian people by Israel. Once you dare appear and criticize Israel for its illegal actions, a bunch of mainstream personalities set off to mobilize and accuse you of the famous 'anti-Semitism', 'anti-Judaism' and such libels.
Interestingly, those who expound these accusations are either really uneducated and unaware about the historical facts or pretend to be ignorant and uninformed. Etymologically, Semitism refers to the adherence of Semitic languages or ancient Semitic religions. In the former case, Semitic languages are a group of intertwined languages which comprise Arabic, Aramaic, Tigrinya and Hebrew. Arabic is the most widely spoken among the Semitic languages. So anti-Semitism, in its etymological foundation, should more than likely signify the notion of being opposed to Arabic and Aramaic languages, and this is basically unwarranted and meaningless.
If one considers the latter case, Semitic religions are Christianity, Islam and Judaism; Christianity and Islam rank first in the world by number of adherents, namely 2.1 billion and 1.5 billion respectively. The total number of world Jews, however, does not surpass 14 million, which is comparatively insignificant in comparison with the two other faiths. So anti-Semitism, again does not represent the school of being opposed to Judaism, as a monotheistic religion.
Those who consciously employ this term to demoralize the critics of Israel know well that they can potentially embroil Arabs, Muslims (as all of the Arabs are not necessarily Muslims), African speakers of Semitic languages, Christians and Jews in an erosive conflict with one another.
They want to portray Israel as the symbol of Judaism and intimidate the dissidents of Israel thereby, so that they retract and pull back from criticizing the genocidal policies of Tel Aviv and its allies.
Issues are really complicated in this field; because you cannot argue with and convince the ordinary people to believe that a "country" cannot be the representative of a religion, as Saudi Arabia can not be the representative of Islam. Religion is the intuitive incorporation of moral, ethical, human and decent values in the hearts and minds of people, and no governmental system can claim that it symbolizes the absolute, supreme incarnation of the official religion which it clings to. Maybe, for example, Iran's name is officially mingled with the name of Islam, and the governmental system is theocratic, even so, that would be irrational to judge on Islam and its reality based on the situation of Iran. Perhaps Iran might be impoverished someday due to the financial meltdown, so would it be then practicable to conclude that Islam is the religion of poverty and shortage?
In the same way, you cannot evaluate religion by considering the majority. The majority of American people (around 75% of the population as of 2002) are Christians, while the governmental system is secular; nonetheless, you cannot assess the authenticity and veracity of Christianity on the grounds of American people's lifestyle, behavior, contemplation and manner. Even the practicing Christians of the U.S. are quite far away from the fundamental pillars of their religion.
Similarly, Israel is not the manifestation of Judaism. Judaism denounces terrorism, killing of the innocent, occupation and trespassing. Israel introduces itself as a Jewish State, while it's not really what it maintains; it does not practice what it preaches, and unfortunately is wrongly blending the expansionist, interventionist and reactionary notion of Zionism with Judaism as a religion.
However, these lexical, etymological and methodological differences aside, what is worth the most is that resistance against bulling and oppression is a cultural heritage that Palestinians have used to nurture during times. I believe that the bastion of resistance against aggression which the Palestinian people have long formed, examines the moral and ethical genuineness of our personalities, thinkers, rhetoricians and theoreticians.
I don't want to give an ultimate declaration; yet I believe that the unconditional support of Israel which is extensively prevalent among the hawkish conservatives and warmonger hardliners with the pretext of defending "Israel's right to exist" or recognizing its right to "self-defense" merely indicates an advertent blind eye to one of the most striking realities of our era.
Thousands of people are ousted from their lands, being slaughtered usually as an entertaining activity for its perpetrators and live under the harshest threats one can undergo.
We don't request anything. We just want the 'international community', if that's not a linguistic equivalent for the U.S. and its European friends, to act, and fulfill the content of 22 UNSC resolutions which have been issued so far, to condemn the unusual actions of Israel. Israel is called the "occupying power" by the UNSC, and we want somebody to end this occupation.
I want, as a citizen of the world, to breathe in clean, pure and unsullied air. I want to wake up one morning and hear from the radio that occupation of Palestinians' lands, massacre of Palestinian people and violation of Palestinians' rights is eventually ended. May I experience that day?
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