Thursday, May 25, 2006
Beautiful Words Betray Beautiful Hypocrites
Beautiful Words Betray Beautiful Hypocrites: Reconstructing Elie Wiesel
Hamdi Amin buried his mother, Hanan; his wife, Naimeh, and his son, Mohannad, 5, Tuesday.
Shrapnel from an Israeli missile attack which killed her mother, brother, and grandmother severed three year old Mariyeh's spinal cord. She will never breathe again on her own, nor will she move her hands and legs. The personnel at the run down Shifa Hospital, where Mariyeh stays, have not been paid in two months.
Hamdi Amin will not be feted in Congress as were Elie Wiesel, and Margrie and Ronald Cantor, the grandparents of Daniel Wultz, a suicide bombing victim. They were on hand to hear Ehud Olmert, referring to Iran, say "There is a dark and gathering storm casting its shadow over the world."
Perhaps that line came from Elie Wiesel, who helped Olmert write his speech. Elie Wiesel, a man who no one denies has a distinct knack for words has written: "Indifference is not a beginning, it is an end. And, therefore, indifference is always the friend of the enemy, for it benefits the aggressor--never his victim, whose pain is magnified when he or she feels forgotten. The political prisoner in his cell, the hungry children, the homeless refugees--not to respond to their plight, not to relieve their solitude by offering them a spark of hope is to exile them from human memory. And in denying their humanity we betray our own."
Elie Wiesel is a beautiful hypocrite. His beloved Jews preferred state holds 9200 Palestinian political prisoners, yet he has never spoken on behalf of the Palestinian "political prisoner in his cell." He has no desire to see five million "homeless" Palestinian refugees reunited with their personal property, ninety-two percent which was stolen by his favored status state, yet he waxes about "homeless refugees"; and one wonders if he wrote this fantastical line at which even Zionists scoff into Olmert's speech: "It was the energetic spirit of our pioneers that [led them] to build cities where swamps once existed and to make the desert bloom." Was all that growth in the desert going on before or after Olmert's pioneer buddies depopulated 530 Palestinian villages and demolished 438 of them? Was that before or after they changed the Arabic names of the villages and towns to Hebrew names in an attempt to "exile [Palestinians] from human memory."
While Wiesel and Olmert were putting the finishing touches on their speech Tuesday night, Shehda Muheissin, 51, was en route to Al Makassed Hospital when he was stoped at Al Sheikh Saad military checkpoint by Israeli soldiers. Eyewitnesses, according to IMEMC, "reported that the soldiers refused to let Muheissen pass, despite documentation of his medical appointment and his poor state of health.
"According to the witnesses, after a long delay at the military checkpoint Muheissin attempted to pass through the checkpoint, but the occupation soldiers punched and kicked him violently, resulting in his death."
Congress, seemingly oblivious to these horrors, interrupted Olmert's Wednesday night speech with applause eighteen times. No doubt Elie Wiesel had a lot to do with it. And as Olmert dazzled Congress with more beautiful words when he said "We need a partner that affirms in action, not just in words, the rejection, prevention, and elimination of terror," four young Palestinian men in Ramallah were shot dead through the chest, stomach, and head. Fifty more were wounded, throwing rocks, resisting Olmert's undercover death squad in the town center. While Olmert impressed upon Congress his need for a peaceful partner, his occupation forces raided a bakery in Al-Yamoun district and raided eight other villages and refugee camps. Olmert speaks of peace, and a bought off Congress laps it up. Are they unaware that twelve Palestinians, three journalists, and two internationals peacefully protesting the construction of the wall in Bil'in were shot with rubber coated metal bullets on Friday?
But what does one expect of the US House of Representatives, 361 of whom voted yea for the "Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act" on Tuesday, the same day that Hamdi Amin buried three generations of his family? They know the consequences of their craven act. According to Mohammed Samhouri, Gaza economist, "Failure to pay salaries would leave close to 160,000 PA workers, and over a million other Palestinians supported by them--or about 25 per cent of the population--with no means to subsist."
There is indeed "a dark and gathering storm casting its shadow over the world." It is Wiesel's heralded "indifference" which the media shouts through its silence. The only western news outlet which carried Mariyeh's story is the BBC and even its account is "balanced" by including details of the activities of the Islamic Jihad, although accounts of suicide bombings are not similarly "balanced."
One can't but agree with Elie Wiesel's beautiful words. In "denying the humanity" of the Palestinians, which Congress and the western media routinely do, "we betray our own," so lets update Wiesel's words, as Anne Selden Annab did, to reflect reality.
"Indifference to Palestinian suffering is not a beginning, it is an end. And, therefore, indifference to Palestinian suffering is always the friend of the enemy, for it benefits the Israeli aggressor--never his Palestinian victim, whose pain is magnified when he or she feels forgotten. The Palestinian political prisoner in his Israeli built cell, the hungry Palestinian children, the homeless Palestinian refugees--not to respond to the Palestinians' plight, not to relieve the Palestinians' solitude by offering them a spark of hope is to exile the Palestinians from human memory. And in denying the Palestinians humanity we betray our own."
Hamdi Amin buried his mother, Hanan; his wife, Naimeh, and his son, Mohannad, 5, Tuesday.
Shrapnel from an Israeli missile attack which killed her mother, brother, and grandmother severed three year old Mariyeh's spinal cord. She will never breathe again on her own, nor will she move her hands and legs. The personnel at the run down Shifa Hospital, where Mariyeh stays, have not been paid in two months.
Hamdi Amin will not be feted in Congress as were Elie Wiesel, and Margrie and Ronald Cantor, the grandparents of Daniel Wultz, a suicide bombing victim. They were on hand to hear Ehud Olmert, referring to Iran, say "There is a dark and gathering storm casting its shadow over the world."
Perhaps that line came from Elie Wiesel, who helped Olmert write his speech. Elie Wiesel, a man who no one denies has a distinct knack for words has written: "Indifference is not a beginning, it is an end. And, therefore, indifference is always the friend of the enemy, for it benefits the aggressor--never his victim, whose pain is magnified when he or she feels forgotten. The political prisoner in his cell, the hungry children, the homeless refugees--not to respond to their plight, not to relieve their solitude by offering them a spark of hope is to exile them from human memory. And in denying their humanity we betray our own."
Elie Wiesel is a beautiful hypocrite. His beloved Jews preferred state holds 9200 Palestinian political prisoners, yet he has never spoken on behalf of the Palestinian "political prisoner in his cell." He has no desire to see five million "homeless" Palestinian refugees reunited with their personal property, ninety-two percent which was stolen by his favored status state, yet he waxes about "homeless refugees"; and one wonders if he wrote this fantastical line at which even Zionists scoff into Olmert's speech: "It was the energetic spirit of our pioneers that [led them] to build cities where swamps once existed and to make the desert bloom." Was all that growth in the desert going on before or after Olmert's pioneer buddies depopulated 530 Palestinian villages and demolished 438 of them? Was that before or after they changed the Arabic names of the villages and towns to Hebrew names in an attempt to "exile [Palestinians] from human memory."
While Wiesel and Olmert were putting the finishing touches on their speech Tuesday night, Shehda Muheissin, 51, was en route to Al Makassed Hospital when he was stoped at Al Sheikh Saad military checkpoint by Israeli soldiers. Eyewitnesses, according to IMEMC, "reported that the soldiers refused to let Muheissen pass, despite documentation of his medical appointment and his poor state of health.
"According to the witnesses, after a long delay at the military checkpoint Muheissin attempted to pass through the checkpoint, but the occupation soldiers punched and kicked him violently, resulting in his death."
Congress, seemingly oblivious to these horrors, interrupted Olmert's Wednesday night speech with applause eighteen times. No doubt Elie Wiesel had a lot to do with it. And as Olmert dazzled Congress with more beautiful words when he said "We need a partner that affirms in action, not just in words, the rejection, prevention, and elimination of terror," four young Palestinian men in Ramallah were shot dead through the chest, stomach, and head. Fifty more were wounded, throwing rocks, resisting Olmert's undercover death squad in the town center. While Olmert impressed upon Congress his need for a peaceful partner, his occupation forces raided a bakery in Al-Yamoun district and raided eight other villages and refugee camps. Olmert speaks of peace, and a bought off Congress laps it up. Are they unaware that twelve Palestinians, three journalists, and two internationals peacefully protesting the construction of the wall in Bil'in were shot with rubber coated metal bullets on Friday?
But what does one expect of the US House of Representatives, 361 of whom voted yea for the "Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act" on Tuesday, the same day that Hamdi Amin buried three generations of his family? They know the consequences of their craven act. According to Mohammed Samhouri, Gaza economist, "Failure to pay salaries would leave close to 160,000 PA workers, and over a million other Palestinians supported by them--or about 25 per cent of the population--with no means to subsist."
There is indeed "a dark and gathering storm casting its shadow over the world." It is Wiesel's heralded "indifference" which the media shouts through its silence. The only western news outlet which carried Mariyeh's story is the BBC and even its account is "balanced" by including details of the activities of the Islamic Jihad, although accounts of suicide bombings are not similarly "balanced."
One can't but agree with Elie Wiesel's beautiful words. In "denying the humanity" of the Palestinians, which Congress and the western media routinely do, "we betray our own," so lets update Wiesel's words, as Anne Selden Annab did, to reflect reality.
"Indifference to Palestinian suffering is not a beginning, it is an end. And, therefore, indifference to Palestinian suffering is always the friend of the enemy, for it benefits the Israeli aggressor--never his Palestinian victim, whose pain is magnified when he or she feels forgotten. The Palestinian political prisoner in his Israeli built cell, the hungry Palestinian children, the homeless Palestinian refugees--not to respond to the Palestinians' plight, not to relieve the Palestinians' solitude by offering them a spark of hope is to exile the Palestinians from human memory. And in denying the Palestinians humanity we betray our own."
