ZGram - 4/30/2002 - "U.S. Bias an Obstacle to Peace"

[irimland@zundelsite.org]

ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny

April 30, 2002

Good Morning from the Zundelsite:

 From the website "We Hold These Truths" comes this:

[START]

Retired Brigadier General James J. David has made a factual comparison
between what the Palestinian "suicide bombers" have done and what is being
done to all Palestinians in the name of disarming them.  In so doing he
opens the lid a crack to the question of whether these human bombs are acts
of terrorism, or if they are resistance to illegal occupation as several
international leaders suggested.

This question needs to be examined.  -Editor of WHTT

=====

U.S. Bias an Obstacle to Peace

By Brigadier General (retired) James J. David

Defying a U.S. request, Egypt declined to condemn a suicide bombing that
killed eight Israelis and instead said Palestinian resistance to Israeli
occupation was justified..

I'll bet the Bush Administration nearly fell over backwards when they heard
this reply.  As a matter of fact, I almost did myself, considering Egypt is
the second largest recipient of U.S. aid.  But you know what?  I was
delighted with Egypt's response.  Don't get me wrong.  In no way do I
condone suicide bombings.  I don't condone them anymore than I condone
missile strikes in Palestinian villages and refugee camps that kill innocent
men, women, and children.  I don't condone them anymore than I condone
Israel's demolition of Palestinian homes that leave thousands of innocent
children homeless.  I don't condone them anymore than I condone the hundreds
of human rights violations committed by the Israeli government in their
brutal occupation of the Palestinian people.

When Palestinian suicide bombers strike, it seems that the United States is
the first to condemn these acts and demands all other countries to do the
same.  Yet when the Israeli government commits over 100 political suicides
killing numerous women and children in the process, the United States makes
no response.  When Israeli troops kill 3 teenage boys with a tank shell only
because they "looked suspicious," the United States says nothing.  But just
let one suicide bomber kill innocent Israelis and George Bush, Colin Powell,
and Condoleezza Rice, are in a foot race to be the first one at the
microphone on the White House lawn to condemn these "inexcusable acts."

What about the 3 Palestinian teenage boys killed while walking to a friend's
house only because they looked suspicious?   Or what about the pregnant
mother and her unborn child who never survived the trip to the hospital
because of unending roadblocks and checkpoints?  Do you call these
"excusable" acts?  Just last week in this latest Israeli incursion into
Palestinian villages and refugee camps a group of Palestinian policemen were
captured by Israeli soldiers, disarmed, made to kneel in a hallway, and then
shot to death.  These men were not terrorists; they were Palestinian
policemen who were rounded up by Ariel Sharon's soldiers and murdered in
cold blood.  Why haven't we heard President Bush demand an explanation from
the Israelis?  Why haven't we heard Colin Powell or Condoleezza Rice condemn
these bloody acts.  Do they not consider them "inexcusable?"  Why is it that
only Israelis who are killed by Palestinian suicide bombers get responses
from the White House?

And what about our Congressmen and women?  Seems that they can't wait to
condemn the Palestinian Authority and Yasser Arafat anytime a suicide bomber
strikes but, God forbid, if they would consider condemning Ariel Sharon.
Representative Tom Lantos of California, ranking Democrat on the House
International Relations Committee, was pushing for a vote on a resolution
expressing support for Israel, and Senators Dianne Feinstein, a California
Democrat, and Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, had a bill to
designate the Palestine Liberation Organization a terrorist group. These are
the same senators who have accused the Palestinian Authority and Yasser
Arafat for initiating and encouraging Palestinians in this 19 month old
intifada. Maybe someone should send them a copy of Amnesty International's
1999 Report on Israel and the Occuppied Territories.  This report was
written months before the intifada and months before the suicide attacks..

It wasn't Yasser Arafat or the Palestinian Authority that sparked the
intifada; it was the oppressive humiliation and brutal occupation of the
Israeli government.  According to Amnesty International, "the Israeli
authorities have demolished at least 2,650 Palestinian homes in the West
Bank, including East Jerusalem.  As a result 16,700 Palestinians (including
7,300 children) have lost their homes."   Did we ever hear Tom Lantos or
Dianne Feinstein ever condemn these brutal acts.  Can you imagine what they
would have done if Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority demolished
just one Jewish home, let alone 2650?  Maybe someone should remind these
Israeli parrots that Yasser Arafat is a former recipient of the Nobel Peace
Prize and Ariel Sharon is about to go on trial in the Belgium Courts for
"war crimes.""

Even before this latest military incursion by the Israeli military that has
left more than 500 Palestinians dead, some 400 Israeli army reservists had
begun to question the relentlessness of the military tactics against a
largely impoverished civilian population.  It's time for the United States
to do the same.  History has proven that a continued blind eye to Israeli
violence has led to nothing more than cloaking the continuing oppression and
dispossession of the Palestinian people in new robes.  The ongoing bloodshed
on both sides is more than a far away tragedy.  Our tax dollars have
financed Israel's continued violation of human rights and the violence will
continue until Washington's stranglehold by Jewish interest groups is
finally lifted.

A just solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict can only be achieved if U.S.
policy is based upon American moral principles and a strict adherence to
international law, which run counter to the continued Israeli occupation of
Palestinian land and the denial of basic rights of freedom to Palestinians
under Israeli military rule.

-end

Address comments to General Davis to info@whtt.org , we will forward...

James J. David is a retired Brigadier General and a graduate of the U.S.
Army's Command and General Staff College, and the National Security Course,
National Defense University, Washington DC. He served as a Company Commander
with the 101st Airborne Division in the Republic of Vietnam in 1969 and 1970
and also served nearly 3 years of Army active duty in and around the Middle
East from 1967-1969.

(Source:  http://whtt.org/rpr/020422.htm )