Few can be as blunt regarding the legacy of the United States toward
the native people of this land as the 26th President of the United States,
Theodore Roosevelt. In his narrative, "The Winning of the West,"
Roosevelt spoke about the "spread of the English-speaking peoples
over the world's wasted spaces." He wrote: "The European settlers
moved into an uninhabited waste...the land is really owned by no one....
The settler ousts no one from the land. The truth is, the Indians never
had any real title to the soil."
In an interview with the British Sunday Times, on June 15, 1969, former
Israeli Prime Minister, Golda Meir made similar claims, stating, "There
was no such thing as Palestinians. It was not as though there was a Palestinian
people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people and we came
and threw them out and took their country from them. They did not exist."
While Native Americans and Palestinians were the ancient indigenous
peoples of their lands, this was of little or no relevance to the foreign
settlers. What really mattered was "Manifest Destiny", what really
mattered was "Zionism".
Roosevelt goes on: "The world would probably not have gone forward
at all, had it not been for the displacement or submersion of savage and
barbaric peoples as a consequence of the armed settlement in strange lands
of the races who hold in their hands the fate of the years."
In the mid forties, David Ben-Gurion declared that Israel is adopting
a system of "aggressive defense. With every Arab attack we must respond
with a decisive blow: the destruction of the place or the expulsion of
the residents along with the seizure of the place."
My grandparents, mother and father, along with nearly one million people
were expelled from their land after the brutal destruction of 418 villages
and towns, and the murder of thousands of Palestinians. They spread in
all directions, mostly on foot to clear space for the Chosen People. They
settled in refugee camps, concentration camps, which are still in existence
until today. My grandparents along with my mother and my older brother
are buried in one of those camps. My farther and my brothers are still
living there.
Ben Gurion retired in 1963, four years before Israel invaded the rest
of Palestine, the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem. It created another
tragedy, another dispossession, all with the hope that the state of Israel
can become purely Jewish. Israel defied international law that called for
the right of return for Palestinians refugees. Instead, it instituted its
own law, shortly after its establishment in 1948, issuing the right of
return for Jews only. Any one of Jewish race, anywhere in the world was
and is still allowed to come to Palestine, granted citizenship, to live
free of charge on a land that is not his, in a place where he does not
belong.
Amid this savagery, land grabbing and dehumanization of the victims,
both the United States and Israel have managed to convince themselves that
the way they treated their victims was in fact humane and civilized. "No
other conquering or colonizing nation has ever treated savage owners of
the soil with such generosity as has the United States," Roosevelt
said.
But General Didi, from the Israeli army begs to differ. He oversaw the
historic invasion of Jenin last year.
On April 02, 2002, Israel attacked the camp for two weeks amid complete
silence of the international community. For two weeks, hundreds of Israeli
tanks, US-apache helicopters, F15 and F16 warplanes and thousands of soldiers
brutalized and terrorized the 13,000 inhabitants of the camp living on
just one square kilometer or land. The people of the camp fought as much
as homemade explosives, kitchen knives and a few bullets could take them.
They fought and refused to give up since they new that this defeat would
be their last. By the end of the invasion, scores of Palestinian bodies
were left to decompose in the streets of Jenin as the Israelis refused
to allow access to the Red Cross to evacuate the dead. The entire population
of the camp was forced to evacuate, and nearly 2,000 homes were destroyed
and severely damaged by Israeli army tanks, bulldozers and air bombardment.
.
This is what an Israeli army bulldozer driver, who is known as "Kurdi
Bear" said in his testimony, of what took place in the camp as he
narrated to the Israeli newspaper Yidiot Ahronot:
"Many people were inside the houses we started to demolish. They
would come out of the houses while we where working on them. I found joy
with every house that came down, because I knew they didn't mind dying,
but they cared for their homes. If you knocked down a house, you bury 40
or 50 people for generations. If I am sorry for anything, it is for not
tearing the whole camp down. This is the way I thought in Jenin. I didn't
give a damn. If I had been given three weeks, I would have had more fun.
That is, if they would let me tear the whole camp down. I have no mercy."
Let me refresh your memory with what Roosevelt had said about the conduct
of his armies. "No other conquering or colonizing nation has ever
treated savage owners of the soil with such generosity as has the United
States."
Roosevelt's words echoed, just a few months ago, by the Israeli army
Jenin commander, General Didi.
The Israeli army has behaved as "as the most moral army in the
world and the most careful army in the world."
Please allow me to shift the course of my thoughts to finish with these
great words from the 1927 Grand Council of American Indians:
"We want freedom from the white man rather than to be integrated.
We don't want any part of the establishment, we want to be free to raise
our children in our religion, in our ways, to be able to hunt and fish
and live in peace. We want to be ourselves. We want to have our heritage,
because we are the owners of this land and because we belong here.
"The white man says, there is freedom and justice for all. We have
had their "freedom and justice," and that is why we have been
almost exterminated. We shall not forget this."
Similar are the sentiments of Abdelrazik Abu al-Hayjah, the Palestinian
Administrator of the Jenin refugee camp, who concluded his testimony for
the book "Searching Jenin":
"If they will destroy the camp many times, the people of Jenin
will rebuild
it, because with every time the peoples' courage and determination intensify.
The more Israel brutalizes Palestinians, the stronger their resistance
shall
be. Israel cannot resolve its problems by force. They have to understand
that Palestinians' quest for freedom cannot be stopped. Its only human
nature for people to resist, to regain their freedom.
"The people of Jenin do not hate Israelis because their names are
different, or because their language is different. Nor do they hate them
because they have anything against the Jewish religion, but because they
are occupiers, and as long as they are occupiers, the resistance will go
on. The Palestinian resistance shall live as long as the occupation lives."
*Ramzy Baroud is the editor-in-chief of PalestineChronicle.com and the
editor of the anthology "Searching Jenin: Eyewitness Accounts of the
Israeli Invasion 2002."
