(DV) Scott: The Wall -- There and Here

The Wall: There and Here
by Frank Scott
www.dissidentvoice.org
July 25, 2004

The tragedy of Palestine would be impossible without history’s greatest job of mind management. Lincoln was wrong; you can fool most of the people, most of the time. The physical apartheid wall in Israel is possible only because of a mental apartheid wall in American consciousness.

The theft of a people’s homeland, their exile, occupation and slaughter is seen as the survival struggle of an oppressed Jewish nation. People otherwise able to differentiate between their heads and their buttocks still believe that a persecuted minority is innocently trying to create a haven for itself, escaping from the savagery of a heartless western world, to live in the savagery of a heartless Arab world. Why there? It seems that god selected this real estate, and promised it to a chosen tribe from which it had been stolen, and to which it would be returned at some unspecified later date.

Depending on degrees of political correctness, it seems permissible to disrespect, and even ridicule many religious beliefs as fairy tales. But this one is honored, often in embarrassed or nervous silence, by materially affluent people who suffer poverty only in their morals and politics.

The racial supremacist Nazi madness that murdered European Jews of the working class has become the rationale for a racial supremacist Israeli state, supported by American Jews of the middle and upper class. Without their financial and political actions, and especially those of their non-Jewish cohorts, this degradation of humanity could not last a minute in its present form. And every minute it is perpetuated, the world becomes a sadder, madder and more dangerous place, and not just for Palestinians.

Americans are socialized to forget things quickly, and concentrate on the next product for consumption. Many have little knowledge of recent history, like the Viet Nam war, let alone what should have been learned from our past history of slavery, and our treatment of this nation’s original inhabitants. Yet, in this short attention span market place, many of us are taught to “remember” that persecution of innocent Jews in the past means that Israel is above reproach when it persecutes innocent Palestinians in the present.

Part of this moral tragedy is the equation of mental with physical pain. Those suffering psycho-religious depression are given credence as being truly threatened in the material world. But however painful mental anguish can be, it is nothing compared to physical suffering. And none suffer physically for being Jews, unless they are in Israel and among the minority who have been victimized by murderous acts of insurrectionary terror, inflicted by an oppressed people driven mad by their pain and lashing out, often blindly, at those seen as invaders and oppressors.

Supporters of Israel in the USA maintain a psychological illness when they give aid and comfort to the racist conquerors of Palestine. Especially under the guise of protecting against some future terror, supposedly awaiting all Jews if no homeland exists to which they can escape. This, without regard to material reality, much less the wishes of a native population.

This case of mass depression would be serious if it were only suffered by a minority, but it is the reality of a religious, secular and even anti-religious majority . They support this immaterial madness with a material horror that becomes more threatening the longer it continues.

The apartheid wall has been censured by an international court, but that decision means nothing to the dominant twin state, USrael. That malformation is the most powerful military force in the world, exemplifying a universal truth even stronger than the golden rule of capital, that he who has the gold rules: He who has the weapons, is the law.

The people most responsible for perpetuating this tragedy, Americans, must do something to stop it. Economic sanctions may be the only way to help Israel become part of the real world, and end its pariah status as a bloody religious theme park, which cuts itself off from most of humanity, and wonders why it is despised for doing so.

Israel’s political climate permits a brave minority of Jews to speak out against their warped state, which they find in contradiction to the more benign teachings of the faith. Ancient experience can offer lessons for the present, but only biblical fanatics accept it as divine truth. It is significant that the most dangerous entity in the world is presided over by fundamentalist Christians and Jews. Though these sects often murder one another, they are spawn of the same dualistic, patriarchal doctrines of racial superiority. Their behavior is in the biblical tradition of those 19th century Zionists who wanted Palestine for their own, and later even colluded with Nazis to get it, long before the bloody murders now called the holocaust.

Though Israeli critics are a minority, they are bolder and more numerous than those in the USA, where open questioning seems more dangerous and is immediately labeled anti-Semitism. The lid on criticism is tightly applied, not only by established powers of the center, but even by critical sources on the periphery. As long as the left remains fearfully silent, this dangerous regime of consciousness control, extending from congress to the white house to major media, may one day produce a truly ugly backlash from the right. Then, of course, Zionists will say, “see, we told you it would happen.”

The Presbyterian action endorsing sanctions against Israel is long overdue. It is time for people of conscience to follow their lead and tear down the wall of disinformation. Americans have already died because of our policy, and more will likely die unless it is changed. A socially just resolution of the ugly reality in Palestine is not merely in service to Palestinians and Jews, but to the whole world. And for Americans, it is not only a matter of conscience, but of survival as well.

Other Articles by Frank Scott

* The Problem is War, Not Warriors

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