umkahlil

Budrus, before and after its olive trees were uprooted to clear a path for Israel's apartheid wall.

Elsa Marston, the children's writer wrote a wonderful short story, "The Olive Grove." Its hero is twelve year old Mujahhid of Bethlehem. His brother and his best friend are killed by Israeli Occupation Forces. Not wanting to lose another son, Mujahhid's parents send him to a little village. Mujahhid is not happy that instead of resisting the Israeli occupation forces by throwing rocks, he is expected to work in the olive grove with his cousin, grandmother, and aunt. Mujahhid comes to find out that there are other methods of Jihad when the Israeli Army forcibly removes the villagers from the olive grove in order to clear a path for an apartheid road. He and the villagers stand their ground; however, they are unsuccesful in their attempts to thwart the land theft.

Zionists have consistently targeted Palestinian symbols of Palestinian identity. Just as the killers and ethnic cleansers of North America decimated buffalo, an intregal part of Native American life, our contemporary ethnic cleansers have uprooted well over one hundred thousand olive trees. "Olive trees are incorporated into almost every aspect of Palestinian life - nurturing their bodies through oil and fruit, their skin through soap and healing and their spirit as the trees have existed in their families for countless years." In addition to uprooting olive trees, Israel is dumping toxic wastes from Tel Aviv in the occupied territories.

It is heartbreaking to look at pictures of Israel's decimation of villages in the occupied territories. Nothing has changed from the brutal onslaught of Zionism which left 700,000 systematically ethnically cleansed human beings in its wake and upwards of six hundred and thirty decimated villages. Sharon has fulfilled The mandate of his colonial predecessors. ThePalestinians are reduced to helplessness and those who remain must be content to be subject to their Jewish masters.

Sharon, like Ben-Gurion before him who said, ''Were I to know that all German Jewish children could be rescued by transferring them to England and only half by transfer to Palestine, I would opt for The latter, because our concern is not only The personal interest of these children, but The historic interest of The Jewish people," is willing to sacrifice Jewish lives in order to secure The Zionist realm, which includes all of The West Bank. Sharon presided over thirteen murders of Palestinians since September 29, including The extrajudicial assasinations of two leaders. According to Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi, secretary of the Palestinian Democratic Initiative, "all Palestinian factions gave a chance for the calm, but Israel did not give it a chance and kept provoking the Palestinians. Israeli army killed 120 and arrested 2500 Palestinians since the Palestinians declared calm, 13 of them since the beginning of October."

Knowing full well that there would be retaliation, Sharon proceeded with the assasinations, when it would have been just as easy to make arrests. Now he has free rein to "defend" Israel, with a reprieve from the annoying chiding of Wolfensohn and the US.

And, of course, the Palestinians, to the uninformed, which is about eighty-five percent of the US taxpayers, come off as the bad guys, with today's suicide bombing the icing on the cake for Israel. We've already had the noxious hypocritical statements from Foreign Ministry spokesman, Mark Regev, who said in Ha'aretz that Wednesday's attack represented "violent language transformed into violent action." No one is the wiser of Israel's culpability.

In lock step is the US with Scott McClellan terming the suicide bombing precipitated by Israel's actions as "a heinous attack on innocent civilians." He added, "the Palestinian Authority needs to do more to end the violence and prevent terrorist attacks from being carried out."

And the US is there to assist. "'We're working with the Palestinian Authority to help them get more of what they need,' said McCormack. 'But make no mistake, they do have capabilities and they do have assets. So let's not pretend that they don't.'"

And there you go. The US, in all its constructive chaos glory, once again entreats Mohammed Abbas to preside over the killing of his own people.