Dave Kersting: Hatred of Arabs is possible because of US progressives' silence on Israel

Now we see the new freedom Israel's unprotested precedents have
created, for all sorts of invaders.

This deadly social regression took root in the past two-and-a-half
years, since September 28, 2000, when Ariel Sharon and a thousand Israeli
troops went to the Haram al Sharif, to kick off the surge of state-terrorism
and ethnic-cleansing that has been inflicted on Palestine (and the Arab and
Muslim worlds), without significant US protest, ever since.

As was widely reported at the time, Zionist Israel and its supporters
murdered 84 Palestinian children, between September 2000 and January 2001 -
before the first Israeli child was killed and before the first Palestinian
suicide-bombing. As we all so vividly recall, the "progressives," here in
San Francisco and Marin County, and throughout the US, had no audible
objection.

When Israel won its special license to use live ammunition against
stone-throwing children, in 2000 and 2001 - expanding the atrocious freedoms
it established in the First Intifada, which set the stage for the first
"Gulf War" - it set the precedents the US military enjoys today. Actually,
US progressives set those precedents, with their silent support.

"Some people," we were told, "can't let go of the idea of a Jewish
state."

We were not supposed to "divide the movement" by objecting to the
racist violence that "idea" requires.

Many young people don't know that using live ammunition against
demonstrators who throw stones used to be unacceptable, especially when the
stone-throwers are children. In thousands of adult stone-throwing incidents
during Vietnam War protests, only one live-fire response occurred - and that
was a failure of discipline and control, not a systematic policy, like
Israel's. Still, the shootings dominated the news-media for a full week. A
memorial service is held every year, to commemorate the four tragic deaths
that resulted.

The far greater tragedy is that the whole value-system, which used to
discourage such gross brutality, was abandoned by US progressives, as Israel
was given special permission, and plenty of cash, to do whatever is
necessary to maintain its official "Jewish" supremacy in Palestine.

Not long ago, it was understood that, if hideous atrocities occur, the
policies which cause them must be changed.

It was also understood that racist policies are wrong, in themselves,
largely because they always require horrific atrocities.

But that all changed when Israel was granted the privilege of
maintaining official "Jewish" supremacy in Palestine - when every atrocity
required to maintain that supremacy was declared "regrettably" justified by
it.

Another progressive axiom, that racist violence can do no good even
for those who impose it, was also discreetly forgotten, in timid deference
to Zionist demands - and bitter Zionist attacks on dissenters.

Efforts by equal-rights activists, to remind progressives of these
principles, were largely ignored.

Efforts to discuss this problem with progressive leaders were quashed
by obscenities, threats, slander, and violence - without a word of rational
counter-argument. Many of these leaders have since proven to be active
Zionists. Others are just affluent and petulant.

When the upsurge of violence inevitably expanded to Afghanistan and
Iraq, the Zionists in our selective "anti-war movement" still managed to
deflect attention from Israel. "The war," they said (first "the war" on
Afghanistan, later "the war" on Iraq) had nothing to do with Palestine or
Zionism. It was all about capitalist interest in "oil."

Some of us pointed out that Israel's racist conquest in Palestine is
the primary node of Middle East provocation.

We noted that Zionism, with its open demand for "Jewish" supremacy, is
the only interest that absolutely requires the subjugation of Middle East
populations, with the consequent racism we see against the entire Arab and
Muslim worlds.

We pointed out that the international corporations could make more
profit by doing straight-up business with thriving societies, than by
looting decimated wastelands full of bitter enemies.

We explained that oil interests cannot stand up against Zionism, if
even the "anti-war movement" refuses to protest its worst atrocities.

Most important, we said that we simply must protest our own
tax-support for such natural expressions of racism as live ammunition
against civilian demonstrators, without letting complex excuses and
speculation divert us from that primary moral obligation.

We repeatedly pointed out that, in the absence of protest, Israel was
rapidly expanding the historic envelope of permissible horrors. We often
said that, whatever we might have to fear from the troops of corporate
imperialism, those dangers are radically increased by the new
freedom-of-atrocity we are allowing Israel to infuse into the modern
status-quo.

A few people listened, and joined us, but mainly, these pleas were
scorned and censored. The front of bitter opposition to equal-rights/peace
activism was smack in the middle of the "peace movement."

The mass demonstrations against war on Iraq were always doomed to
failure, because the one argument that addresses Israel's main cable of
provocation was discomfiting to Zionists "in the movement," and was thus
deleted. The most effective argument against Middle East hostilities - the
primary need to end Israel's openly racist provocation and destabilization -
the one argument that honors progressive and Constitutional principles
alike - was squelched by Zionist-friendly "anti-war" leadership, including
ANSWER and United for Peace, as well as the Social Justice Center of Marin,
and the MPJC.

Now we see our troops in Iraq, following Israel's lead: decimating
civil institutions, shooting those who take too many photos or throw a
stone - showing the training our military received from Israel, in Jenin and
other parts of Palestine.

As equal-rights activists have been saying every day, since September
2000 (and earlier), the Middle East disaster will continue to worsen, as it
has for fifty-five years, as long as US progressives keep erasing Palestine
from the "anti-war" picture - or as long as US taxpayers continue to finance
Israel's openly declared racist conquest.

On the bright side, the "solution" could not be simpler, just as the
wrong could not be more obvious.

We have to face the reality of Zionist ethnic-supremacy. Ethnic
equality is not radical or revolutionary.

It begins with requiring Israel to reform its racist immigration
policy - Jewish yes, non-Jewish no - the valve of ethnic supremacy on one
side, and continued ethnic crime on the other. It is anti-Constitutional and
anti-progressive to finance policies that violently prevent the Palestinians
from returning to what is left of their homes - with full property,
residence, and citizenship rights.

Peace cannot be won by evading that basic justice - and peace has not
been tried until we demand ethnic justice.

When the horrors become bad enough to induce realism, we will find
that there has never been anything elusive about Middle East peace, except
realism itself.

The sooner we induce ourselves to wake up and get serious about this,
the less horror will be required to make us wake up and get serious.


Dave Kersting


"I really can't believe that something like this can happen in the
world without a bigger outcry about it."
Rachel Corrie, February 27, 2003