"You will have no protection." - Medgar Evers to Civil Rights Activists in Mississippi, shortly before he was assassinated on June 12, 1963.
My heart is breaking; but I do not mind.
For one thing, as soon as I wrote those words I was able to weep, which I had not been able to do since learning of the attack by armed Israeli commandos on defenseless peace activists carrying aid to Gaza who tried to fend them off using chairs and sticks. I am thankful to know what it means to be good; I know that the people of the Freedom Flotilla are/were, in some cases, some of the best people on earth. They have not stood silently by and watched the destruction of others, brutally, sustained, without offering themselves, weaponless except for their bodies, to the situation. I am thankful to have a long history of knowing people like this from my earliest years, beginning in my student days of marches and demonstrations: for peace, for non-separation among peoples, for justice for Women, for People of Color, for Cubans, for Animals, for Indians, and for Her, the planet.
I am weeping for the truth of Medgar's statement; so brave and so true. I weep for him gunned down in his carport, not far from where I would eventually live in Mississippi, with a box of t-shirts in his arms that said: 'Jim Crow Must Go.' Though trained in the United States Military under racist treatment one cringes to imagine, he remained a peaceful soldier in the army of liberation to the end. I weep and will always weep, even through the widest smiles, for the beautiful young wife, Myrlie Evers, he left behind, herself still strong and focused on the truth of struggle; and for their children, who lost their father to a fate they could not possibly, at the time, understand. I don't think any of us could imagine during that particular phase of the struggle for justice, that we risked losing not just our lives, which we were prepared to give, but also our children, who we were not.
Nothing protected Medgar, nor will anything protect any of us; nothing but our love for ourselves and for others whom we recognize unfailingly as also ourselves. Nothing can protect us but our lives. How we have lived them; what battles, with love and compassion our only shield, we have engaged. And yet, the moment of realizing we are truly alone, that in the ultimate crisis of our existence our government is not there for us, is one of shock. Especially if we have had the illusion of a system behind us to which we truly belong. Thankfully I have never had opportunity to have this illusion. And so, every peaceful witnessing, every non-violent confrontation has been a pure offering. I do not regret this at all.
When I was in Cairo last December to support CODEPINK'S efforts to carry aid into Gaza I was unfortunately ill with the flu and could not offer very much. I lay in bed in the hotel room and listened to other activists report on what was happening around the city as Egypt refused entry to Gaza to the 1400 people who had come for the accompanying Freedom march. I heard many distressing things, but only one made me feel, not exactly envy, but something close; it was that the French activists had shown up, en masse, in front of their embassy and that their ambassador had come out to talk to them and to try to make them comfortable as they set up camp outside the building. This small gesture of compassion for his country's activists in a strange land touched me profoundly, as I was touched decades ago when someone in John Kennedy's white house (maybe the cook) sent out cups of hot coffee to our line of freezing student and teacher demonstrators as we tried, with our signs and slogans and songs, to protect a vulnerable neighbor, Cuba.
Where have the Israelis put our friends? I thought about this all night. Those whom they assassinated on the ship and those they injured? Is "my" government capable of insisting on respect for their dead bodies? Can it demand that those who are injured but alive be treated with care? Not only with care, but the tenderness and honor they deserve? If it cannot do this, such a simple, decent thing, of what use is it to the protection and healing of the planet? I heard a spokesman for the United States opine at the United Nations (not an exact quote) that the Freedom Flotilla activists should have gone through other, more proper, channels, not been confrontational with their attempt to bring aid to the distressed. This is almost exactly what college administrators advised half a century ago when students were trying to bring down Apartheid in the South and getting bullets, nooses, bombings and burnings for our efforts. I felt embarrassed (to the degree one can permit embarrassment by another) to be even vaguely represented by this man: a useless voice from the far past. One had hoped.
The Israeli spin on the massacre: that the commandos were under attack by the peace activists and that the whole thing was like "a lynching" of the armed attackers, reminds me of a Redd Foxx joke. I loved Redd Foxx, for all his vulgarity. A wife caught her husband in bed with another woman, flagrant, in the act, skin to skin. The husband said, probably through pants of aroused sexual exertion: All right, go ahead and believe your lying eyes! It would be fun, were it not tragic, to compare the various ways the Israeli government and our media will attempt to blame the victims of this unconscionable attack for their own imprisonment, wounds and deaths.
So what to do? Rosa Parks sat down in the front of the bus. Martin Luther King followed her act of courage with many of his own, and using his ringing, compassionate voice he aroused the people of Montgomery, Alabama to commit to a sustained boycott of the bus company; a company that refused to allow people of color to sit in the front of the bus, even if it was empty. It is time for us, en masse, to show up in front of our conscience, and sit down in the front of the only bus we have: our very lives.
What would that look like, be like, today, in this situation between Palestine and Israel? This "impasse" that has dragged on for decades. This "conflict" that would have ended in a week if humanity as a whole had acted in defense of justice everywhere on the globe. Which maybe we are learning! It would look like the granddaughter of Rosa Parks, the grandson of Martin Luther King. It would look like spending our money only where we can spend our lives in peace and happiness; freely sharing whatever we have with our friends.
It would be to support Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel to End the Occupation of Gaza and the West Bank and by this effort begin to soothe the pain and attend the sorrows of a people wrongly treated for generations. This action would also remind Israel that we have seen it lose its way and have called to it, often with love, and we have not been heard. In fact, we have reached out to it only to encounter slander, insult and, too frequently, bodily harm.
Disengage, avoid, and withhold support from whatever abuses, degrades and humiliates humanity.
This we can do. We the people; who ultimately hold all the power. We the people, who must never forget to believe we can win.
We the people.
It has always been about us; as we watch governments come and go. It always will be.
n 1968, Martin Luther King addressed his listeners with the following words:
"You declare that you do not hate Jews, you are merely anti-Zionist.
And I say, let the truth ring forth from high on the mountaintops... When people criticize Zionism, they mean Jews...
What is anti-Zionism? It is the denial of the Jewish people of a fundamental right that we justly claim for the people of Africa and freely accord all other nations of the globe.''
That's what tends to happen, they should have tried treating people as people when they had that option now they have to get back to that place, not behaving as some entitled Middle Eastern master race might be a start.
Does Ms. Walker think that the Israeli soldiers (after the flotilla was warned repeatedly to turn back) are some of the best people on Earth, for doing their jobs under dangerous circumstances, in order to ensure arms not be trafficked to Hamas, who would then use them to attack Israeli civilians?
Does Ms. Walker think the children who have been killed by Hamas are some of the best people on Earth?
Perhaps Ms. Walker considers Hamas to be "some of the best people on Earth." Sad for her if that's the case. I'd love to read her column condemning Hamas for how they treat the people in Gaza. I bet that column would win a Pulitzer.
Israel by law specifically discriminates against specific groups on no basis other than race by law and practices institutional racism on a wide variety of other occasions.
The fact that the P.A. and Hamas both have a fairly lamentable record on this as well in no way excuses the racist Israeli State record. It's like saying French colonization was ok because the Belgians were worse.
You think computers won't run if the state of Israel were to give up development? And I thought the U.S. had an overinflated sense of their own importance.
Well done!
"......attack by armed Israeli commandos on defenseless peace activists carrying aid to Gaza....."
And this is about where you lose a grip on factual representation of reality.
So where's the fiction? Were the armed Israeli commandos not armed. Were the activists not defenseless? Its hard to say so when 9 were killed and ALL kidnapped and imprisoned in Israel.
So where's the fiction? Is the humanitarian crisis in Gaza not a crisis? Surely the fact that 80% of the people are forced to live on less than $2 a day is not a crisis in and of itself. Coupled with a strict blockade of all things necessary, the inability to rebuild schools, hospitals and sewage treatment facilities, Gaza's degradation is beyond fiction, it's history repeating itself.
The similarities between the now and the then (Nazi Germany) is astounding. The Jewish Ghettos of Warsaw and the Ghetto of Gaza are but a consequence of a nationalist ideology. It was apparent then, but now, the cover of willful silence and complicity cast a shadow over the non-fictional elements of this story.
Pippen, take a trip to Gaza if u really want to see suffering or want to see what ur Israel is capable of. It's disgusting beyond belief for any human to support, let alone those that are so familiar with this suffering.
The commandos were armed with non lethal weapons for defense and coercion with the exception of a side hand gun normally a 45 automatic for spec forces and revolvers for IDF sailors. They had to request the authority to use the handguns during the boarding from IDF heirarchy and were given that authority in the defense of their lives.
The humanitarian ship #5 was crewed and carrying numerous IHH activists posing as aid workers but who have previously given aid to Al Queda and Hamas and other jihadist groups against UN suggestion as well as Arab League Authorities. They assaulted the sailors and commandos with the intent to harm. They were not fighting for their lives as the other previous ships were boarded and inspected without a major incident and EACH ships captain KNEW of boarding prior to the event transpiring.
".....The Jewish Ghettos of Warsaw and the Ghetto of Gaza are but a consequence of a nationalist ideology......"
I find this statement offensive to historical reference. Gaza is a victim of it's own violence. The Jews of Warsaw were not violent they were passive and they complied. Hamas and the Arab Palestinian support they get is whats restricting normal life in Gaza.
Toss out your computer (probably has Israeli parts)
Watch what medical devices, tests and medications you take or need
Don't buy your undies at Victoria's Secret
Toss out your cell phone (see computer)
I could go on and on but with all the money you will save - Please donate to Hamas for the Israeli destuction ideals!
You are truly confused of mind as is this writer if you think this was a peace group.
During the 60's I was in plenty of peace marches - this was not!
Many on this flotilla group remind me of the radical Weathermen who believed violence is a way to peace
Please try to understand.
You make or design a thing.
You SELL that thing or idea.
Once you have SOLD it, it belongs to whoever BOUGHT it.
You go away and you make or design something else.
You offer it for SALE.
The person you SOLD to previously does not want to BUY.
You say to him, "If you do not BUY this thing from me, you must stop using that thing I SOLD you last week".
Please stand by for loud, prolonged, hysterical, laughter.
http://www.inminds.co.uk/boycott-brands.html
Why aren't we getting airplay for a homeland while some thug in Jenin is a media-darling?"
David Yeagley, a professor, University of Oklahoma descendant of the Commanche war-chief Bad Eagle.
"For Israeli companies, the relevant international agreements guaranteeing access to the U.S.
procurement market are the Israel - U.S. Free Trade Agreement (FTA), and the World Trade
Organization’s Government Procurement Agreement (GPA), which Israel and the United
States have joined. Because of these international agreements, Israeli companies are to be
treated like U.S. companies when competing on certain federal and state government
procurement contracts."
http://www.moital.gov.il/NR/rdonlyres/2359830F-B7B2-49FF-90E5-9122F88050CC/0/AdvisoryonBuyAmericanandtheUSRecoveryAct61009.pdf