kerkko.fi

YOU

Take my water.
Burn my olive trees.
Destroy my house.
Take my job.
Steal my land.
Imprison my father.
Kill my mother.
Bomb my country.
Starve us all.
Humiliate us all.

BUT

I am to blame:
I shot a rocket back.

Boycotts of Israeli products and services by governments gives a boost to boycotts by non-government bodies around the world. Human-rights organizations in Europe are running campaigns to boycott Israeli products. They note that boycott is an especially effective weapon against Israel because Israel is a small country, dependent on exports and imports. They also point to the success of the economic boycott against the apartheid regime in South Africa.

The world watched Israel pound Gaza with bombs on live television in Operation Cast Lead. No public-relations machine in the world could explain the deaths of hundreds of children, the destruction of neighborhoods and the grinding poverty afflicting a people under curfew for years. They were not even allowed to bring in screws to build school desks. Then came the flotilla, complete with prominent peace activists, which ended in nine deaths, adding fuel to the fire.

Underlying the anger against Israel lies disappointment. Since the establishment of the state, and before, we demanded special terms of the world. We played on their feelings of guilt, for standing idle while six million Jews were murdered. But then came the occupation, which turned us into the evil Goliath, the cruel oppressor, a darkness on the nations. And now we are paying the price of presenting ourselves as righteous and causing disappointment: boycott.

http://t.co/5CNx5vi

Several months ago, a state-funded school in an illegal Israeli settlement in the West Bank was fined for segregating white Jewish students from non-white Jewish students. Now, the Israeli education ministry has agreed with the white parents' request to allow the school to continue its racial discrimination under private funding. Israeli law does not ban racial discrimination by private organizations, even schools. A court interpreted these laws to also apply to illegal settlements, which are located in areas supposedly under Palestinian control. The Palestinian Authority does not allow racial discrimination, but due to the Israeli military occupation, it has no authority over the area.

There is reason for Israelis, and for Jews generally, to think long and hard about the dark Hitler era at this particular time. The significance of the Gaza Flotilla incident lies in the larger questions raised about our common human condition by Israel’s occupation policies and its devastation of Gaza's civilian population.

If a people who so recently experienced on its own flesh such unspeakable inhumanities cannot muster the moral imagination to understand the injustice and suffering that its territorial ambitions -- and even its legitimate security concerns -- are inflicting on another people, what hope is there for the rest of us?

http://www.haaretz.com/misc/article-print-page/israel-s-greatest-loss-its-moral-imagination-1.295600

The psychosocial well-being of Palestinian children is under significant strain, mainly due to the omnipresence of violence in their surroundings and the resulting pervasive feeling of danger in their lives. The majority of sampled children (93%) reported not feeling safe and exposed to attack. They fear not only for themselves but also for their family and friends. Almost half of the children (48%) have personally experienced violence owing to the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict or have witnessed an incident of such violence befalling an immediate family member. Children in Gaza were generally more affected than children in the West Bank.

The stress suffered by Palestinian children is accentuated by the widespread feeling that parents can no longer fully meet their needs for care and protection. This feeling was shared by more than half of the children (52%), especially the somewhat older children in the sample (59%). Besides the financial and material limitations, and the lack of control over external events, the care Palestinian children receive from parents and teachers is further compromised by the fact that the caregivers themselves are stressed and frustrated, having therefore less emotional and mental energy to provide the necessary psychosocial support to their children.

A Psychological Assessment of Palestinian Children (July 2003)

One of the myths among whites in South Africa was that “blacks want to throw us into the sea.” Many of apartheid’s practices were formally based on security, mostly those involving restrictions on movement. Thus, for example, black citizens needed permits to move around the country. During the final years of apartheid, its practices became more severe.

In Israel, institutional discrimination is meant to preserve the supremacy of a group of Jewish settlers over Palestinian Arabs. As far as discriminatory practices are concerned, it is hard to find differences between white rule in South Africa and Israeli rule in the territories; for example, separate areas and separate laws for Jews and Palestinians.

http://enduringamerica.com/2010/01/06/wednesday-debate-are-israel-and-apartheid-south-africa-really-different/