The ATFP And Yesterday’s Explosion In Occupied Jerusalem

Posted on March 24, 2011 by Ikhras

That was fast.  The American Task Force on Palestine (ATFP), the Washington public relations firm of the Israeli-sponsored, Western-funded, American-supervised collaborationist Palestinian Authority (PA) in occupied Ramallah made sure to “deplore violence” immediately after the bombing in occupied Jerusalem yesterday.

While the Zionist entity routinely murders Palestinians it is only when an act of violence targets Israel does the ATFP feel obligated to issue a condemnation.  The statement expresses the ATFP’s concern with recent events by saying:

The American Task Force on Palestine (ATFP) has been following the escalating violence between Palestinians and Israel over the recent weeks with growing alarm.

That statement wouldn’t be so absurd if the Palestinians actually had an army capable of escalating violence in the face of Israel’s continuing siege of Gaza and killing of Palestinians.   And if the ATFP has been following the violence of recent weeks, why was a condemnation issued only after Israel was targeting in a bombing?  The ATFP, like the other Washington Arabs, adopts the same bias, prejudice, and sensitivities of American political culture.  They released their statement just as quickly as the American media went into frenzy over the explosion.

The language of the ATFP’s condemnation is even more revealing than the timing of their latest outpouring of humanity and concern for “innocent civilians.”

The recent violence targeting Palestinians and Israelis in the West Bank, the increased firing of missiles against southern Israel, Israeli attacks that have caused civilian casualties in Gaza, and today’s terrorist bombing in Jerusalem are all creating an explosive situation

“Violence targeting Palestinians and Israelis in the West Bank” is a distorted, misleading and deceitful description of the reality in occupied Palestine 67.   If someone had just arrived on earth and read that sentence he/she would not know the only “Israelis” in the West Bank are members of an occupying military force and armed colonial settlers.  There can never be any comparison between the violence of the Israeli colonial occupation and the resistance of the occupied Palestinians neither in scope and intensity nor in its moral assessment.  This is true even as the occupied Palestinian people are expected to exercise their right of resistance within a moral and legal framework, and the values of Arab culture which distinguish the entire region from an artificial Zionist state implanted in its midst and acted without any moral or legal constraints since its inception.

Also notice today’s bombing is described as a “terrorist” act, but Israeli attacks on Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank “caused civilian casualties.”  This phraseology prematurely concludes that today’s bombing was a deliberate act of murder certainly carried out by Palestinians while absolving Israel of any act of terror and murder by negating the deliberate intent of Israel’s state terrorism which routinely targets Palestinian civilians.

Hussein Ibish, the PA’s Washington concierge and the empty-tuxedo Ziad Asali issued their press release as part of their continuous campaign to demonstrate their civility, morality, and humanity to the Washington elite by distancing themselves from the violent, immoral Palestinians and ensuring the presence of one US official at all future ATFP galas.  Rather than demonstrating any consistent and principled moral stance, such statements of selective outrage and condemnation highlight the hypocrisy, moral bankruptcy, and cheap opportunism of the ATFP.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian