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| Al-Awda New York, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition | |
There has been an on-going mini-media battle this past month in the letter to the editor section of the main Westchester newspaper, the Journal News. This letter was Fida Adely's response to a letter by Avrom Levy who blames the Palestinians and their use of children as "sacrificial lambs" for the current conflict. To the Editor: In a letter dated 12/9/00 Avrom Levy blames the Palestinians and their use of children as "sacrificial lambs" for the current conflict. This is an absurd accusation that has been repeated by supporters of Israel throughout this conflict and it must be answered. Oppressors throughout history have used this argument. It was used by the South African apartheid regime. A Nazi propagandist blamed the Jews for forcing the Nazis to kill them. During the civil rights movement the Birmingham police turned police attack dogs and fire hoses on protesting black children. To deflect criticism, Birmingham's white leaders tried to lay blame on the black community for using children as "tools." Martin Luther King's reply is instructive. He said, ". . .this tender solicitude for Negro children has never produced much concern over their consignment to miserable schools or other injuries of segregation." Similarly, there is no concern for the millions of Palestinian refugee children who represent a third generation of the dispossessed and the deplorable conditions in which they live. There is no concern for how the oppressive policies of the Israeli occupation affect these children. The sheer fact that the Israelis are using such arguments is revealing in and of itself. It reveals a moral bankruptcy and an exhaustion of justifications for their crimes. Israel's supporters should be concerned about what Israel is doing to its own youth. Palestinians are so demonized that Israeli soldiers can rationalize killing children in the name of some patriotic duty. Fida
Adely The
Journal News web site is: http://www.nyjournalnews.com/ |
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