POGROM:
CALLING A SPADE A SPADE


I believe the truth behind the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can be brought to light by the above map. If we look at the legend, we see that the green line represents the legal international border set in 1949--Israel to the left, Palestine to the right.

So why all the curvy, winding red separation barriers? Why all the dark blue sections (Jewish Settlements)? That's odd. That isn't legal Israeli territory. Does that look odd to you? Imagine Canada sending settlers into Minnesota and then building walls around their land. Why don't they show this map to the general public? Because they don't want you to know what is happening. I believe the term which best describes the illegal occupation of Palestinian territory is "Pogrom"--with a capital "P". American Heritage defines it as:

po·grom (pə-grŏm', pō'grəm)
n. An organized, often officially encouraged massacre or persecution of a minority group, especially one conducted against Jews.

This term has been historically used to describe the persecution of Jews. We are now seeing a reversal of this method being imposed on a minority Palestinian population by the Israeli Defense Force. Right under the noses of Israelis and Americans who think they are acting in good faith to protect the civilian population.

Jimmy Carter's new book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, is another way of describing it. If you actually take a look at the White South African imposition of apartheid on the black population and compare it to the illegally occupied territories, we find shocking parallels. But, I think a broader term is more appropriate, hence my defining the actions of the IDF as a pogrom.

If Israel was serious about the peace process, they would remove all of the illegal settlements tomorrow, stop bulldozing palestinian homes, build the barrier wall on their territory, cease kidnapping without warrants, and stop extra-judicial executions.

If the map above doesn't open your eyes to the illegal and perposterous land grab by the Zionist regime, perhaps a quote by a well known contemporary leader will be caution for alarm:

"Everybody has to move, run and grab as many (Palestinian) hilltops as they can to enlarge the (Jewish) settlements because everything we take now will stay ours...Everything we don't grab will go to them."
-- Ariel Sharon, Israeli Foreign Minister, addressing a meeting of the Tsomet Party, Agence France Presse, Nov. 15, 1998.

If that didn't do it for you, maybe a quote from a former Prime Minister and current media talking head will delineate the pattern:

"Israel should have exploited the repression of the demonstrations in China, when world attention focused on that country, to carry out mass expulsions among the Arabs of the territories."
-- Benyamin Netanyahu, then Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister, former Prime Minister of Israel, speaking to students at Bar Ilan University, from the Israeli journal Hotam, November 24, 1989.

What the U.S. needs to say to Israel is: "See that red line? Make it line up with the green one. Until you are willing to do that, no more cash-flow and no more weaponry. End of story."