My comment on the oppression of the Palestinians , published in WATCHING AMERICA WEB SITE , November 2015

 

As a citizen of the United States and a democratic Socialist I have a different perspective on the question asked by the oppressed Palestinians and the demonized naturally peaceful Muslims of the Middle East : ” Why do you hate us ? ”
Any competent psychiatrist will observe that people do have a tendency to hate the people they most hurt. There is both a spark of social conscience here and the rational fear of revenge.
The United Nations got it right way back in 1975 when it declared Zionism to be a form of racism. But the ruling ideas in America- as Marx pointed out – are the ideas of its ruling class. A pro-Israel lobby controls the main stream news media here. Now it seems that anti-Zionism is a form of racism.
Democratic socialists have for years supported the Palestinian cause- without descending to the level of vulgar anti-Semitism.
The phony ” war on terrorism ” is just a cover for imperialist interests in the Middle East.
Think of all these old colonialist powers – England, France, Germany, Belgium- not known for their humanitarian subjugation of ” inferior ” races and ethnic groups – eager to combat Islamic terrorism. Willing to bomb Syria day and night- with no regard for faceless collateral damage. No bells will toll in the Notre Dame Cathedral for these slaughtered innocents.
Arrogant imperialism – the ” New Colonialism ” Pope Francis calls it- will keep the world in a hundred years war -unless checked by popular democratic forces.
How false is that old Wilsonian blather about FREEDOM and ” making the world safe for democracy-especially coming from the mouth of billionaire Donald Trump.
And too many once leftist Jewish intellectuals have in the past 50 years have been corrupted by Zionism and besotted by Israel as a sort of exclusive ” Jew Heaven “.
Two outstanding exceptions are the late Professor Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky of MIT. Zinn wrote the popular textbook ” The People’s History of the United States “- scorned by hack scholars and bribed journalists.
Democrat Bernie Sanders would be a lot more worthy of the socialist tradition of Eugene V.Debs if he were more militant in opposing the reckless U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East.
Socialists here shout : ” We are all Palestinians now ! ”
How hypocritical for the muzzled bourgeois press to shout ” Je Suis Charlie Hebdo ! “.
Not much space for the Palestinian point of view in my ” Providence Journal “. Mostly neo-con drivel.
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