Spare a Little Latte for Palestinian Schoolgirls

The recent killings of Palestinian schoolgirls by Israeli occupation forces on the Gaza Strip highlight once again the pressing need for change in our government's one-sided policy of unconditional backing for Israel and its endlessly-quoted "right to defend itself." Given the buying power and political clout of the pro-Israel lobby in Washington, however, such change seems unlikely to come from either side of the congressional aisle, as the pro-Israel activism of Bay Area Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi demonstrates.

On October 5, thirteen-year-old Palestinian refugee Iman al-Hams was walking to school when she was shot in the chest by Israeli soldiers who were firing toward the school allegedly in response to mortar fire from the same direction. After the girl was hit, the Israeli company commander was reported by his own troops to have approached her where she lay motionless on the ground, fired two shots into her head, then emptied his ammunition clip into her body in what is known among the occupation forces as "verifying a kill" (to us in the United States as "Israel exercising its right to defend itself"). Palestinian medics later reported twenty bullet wounds in the dead girl's head and chest - twenty bullets that were paid for with my tax dollars, and yours.

Were this an isolated case, one might dismiss it as the brutal act of a single, unsavory individual, with no negative reflection on either the Israeli state itself or its Sugar Daddy in Washington. It is far from isolated, however, as the early October killings of two other Gaza schoolgirls by Israeli fire attest, one shot through the head at her school desk before the horrified eyes of her teacher and classmates. I recall that while I was in Israel and the West Bank in April of this year, another young Gaza girl was shot in the head and killed as she was sitting down with her family to lunch. These are only a few of the many Palestinian civilians killed by Israeli forces in the occupied territories, the numbers of whom by all accounts vastly exceed those of Israelis killed by Palestinian militants.

Right-wing backers of Israel here in the US make no secret either of their one-sided stance on Israel or of their utter lack of regard for the lives and human rights of Palestinians. The worst among these are far-right "Christian Zionists" like House majority leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas), who seem more than happy to see any number of Palestinians killed or displaced in the name of their own warped vision of biblical prophecy.

Unfortunately, little better can be said of many so-called liberals in the Democratic Party. "Massachusetts liberal" Senator and former presidential candidate John Kerry, for example, has a policy on Israel that is virtually indistinguishable from that of the Bush Administration, and a voting record to prove it. Likewise is the Bay Area's own "latte liberal" Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, who it seems has plenty of latte to spare for everyone except the Palestinians. Both Kerry and Pelosi have benefitted from the contributions and endorsements of the pro-Israel lobby, and both have made gushing public declarations of eternal and unconditional support for Israel and its "right to defend itself"; both invoking a "special relationship" between America and Israel that apparently supercedes considerations of fairness, international law, basic human rights, and world opinion. When former presidential candidate Howard Dean went so far as to suggest a more "even-handed" US approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict earlier this year, and when even President Bush dared question the wisdom of Israel’s murderously haphazard policy of targeted assassinations, immediate congressional attacks on both were led by none other than Pelosi, predictably and tiresomely on the grounds of "Israel’s right to defend itself."

I for one would like very much to know how pumping twenty bullets point-blank into the body of an unarmed schoolgirl can be explained on the basis of any nation’s right to defend itself. Once she's finished washing Iman al-Hams' blood off her hands, perhaps Congresswoman Pelosi would like to enlighten me.