Speech by Jamal Kanj at September 24 Anti-War Rally in San Diego
After 9-11, there was a question, why do they hate us? And Bush came up with a naïve answer because “they hate our freedom and democracy.” As you know, freedom is not an exclusive right and democracy is not a special privilege. Or how do we explain this:
Wasn’t Hitler brought to us by German democracy?
Wasn’t S. Africa a Democracy? I mean a white democracy.
Isn’t the state of Israel a democracy? I mean, isn’t Israel a Jewish democracy?
Wasn’t George Bush brought to us by our democracy? Sorry, or was it the Supreme Court?
From time immemorial, democracy was never an absolute virtue. Democracy can be used to advance human rights, and justice, or democracy can be tailored to advance-selected group of people at the expense of other human beings. Just as did the German democracy that brought us the Nazi, like the white democracy in S. Africa, like the Jewish democracy in the middle east, and like today’s Halliburton democracy in Iraq.
Do you also remember Bush’s pontificated statement: “if you are not with us, you are against us? ”
Allow me to paraphrase this statement back to you: if you are not with us, you need to have democracy, and you must comply with UN resolutions.
If you are with us, you don’t have to comply with UN resolutions or human rights like Israel does; if you are with us, democracy is not vital to your people such as our friends in Morocco, Tunisia, Jordan, our liberated Kuwait and our new friend Gadafi in Libya.
Did you hear recently that President Bush congratulated Mubarak for the democratic election in Egypt? Mubarak has been president for 24 years, and now was elected for another 6 years, even kings don’t last this long!
But if you are not with us, then you must comply with UN resolutions, and democracy is vital for your people.
Double standards is what people hate, it is the hypocrisy, not democracy. I have a long list of our government hypocrisy, I have time to mention just a few:
After the Nazi holocaust, the Zionist slogan was never again! The Zionist teamed up with the former Nazi collaborators in Europe to help solve “the Jewish problem” in Europe. For the Zionist they wanted to establish an exclusive Jewish homeland at any cost to other people; for the Europeans, it was the advance stage for solving the Jewish “problem” in Europe.
To accomplish the Zionist illusion and European delusion, in 1948 more than 800,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homes. With support from our government, the UN issued resolution 194 that called for the return of refugees to their homes.
And when I talk about the 1948 Palestinian refugees, I am not talking about a third party, I am talking about a real life experience; I am talking about my own Father and Mother who were among the refugees who were forced to leave their homes by Jewish terrorists in 1948.
I am talking about a young man who was forced to leave his own blind and handicap mother on the side of the road to save his life from Jewish terrorists. When he dared to come back days later looking for his mother, he found out that she was eaten by animals. This is just one story out of 800,000 stories.
It’s 57 years later and my mom and dad’s only wish is to go back and die in their land. For 57 years, Israel has refused to comply with this UN resolution. Why you ask? Our government refuses to enforce UN resolutions against Israel.
In 1967 Israel completed the occupation of historical Palestine. Israel justification for the war of 1967, that it was a preemptive attack. It is interesting that Israel men in Washington used the same theory to attack and occupy Iraq, preemptively…
Months after the 1967 Israel “pre emptive” war, our government supported UN resolution 242, which calls for Israel to withdraw from new occupied land. That resolution was reaffirmed again in 1973 with UN resolution 338. It is 38 years later and Israel has yet to comply. Thanks to our Government that would not enforce UN resolutions against Israel.
In 2002, after the Israeli massacre in Jenin’s refugee camp, the UN passed a resolution to send a fact-finding team to investigate the massacre. Israel did not like the team’s makeup, so they refused to allow the team free access to Israeli officers. Our government, refused to allow the Security Council to take any further steps to enforce its resolution.
Recently, the International Court determined that the apartheid wall around the West Bank and Jerusalem to be illegal. Our government would not allow the UN to enforce the finding of the International Court.
UN resolutions are not to be enforced when it is our allies that are the culprits. If you are with us, you don’t have to abide by the rule of law.
But when it comes to Arab or Muslim nations, then our government has a different scale.
In 1990 Iraq was given less than 4 months to comply with the UN resolution and leave Kuwait, or else!
This last year Syria was given less than 6 months to comply with UN resolution and leave Lebanon, or else!
Do you see the double standards that people must hate? People don’t hate democracy; people hate hypocrisy!
Many of you must remember US Senator Cranston; he authored an amendment to the foreign aid bill. The bill states in part that no US tax money shall be provided to any country that doesn’t ratify the nuclear non-proliferation agreement. Israel, the largest foreign recipient of our tax money, refuses till today to ratify the nuclear non-proliferation agreement.
Yet Israel continues to receive more than $5 billion of our tax money per year. Mind you that Israeli per capita exceeds that of Spain. Just imagine if Spain was the largest recipient of our foreign aid.
Do you know that in addition to the more than $5 billion of our tax money per year, Israel just requested a special package of $2.2 billion from our Government to compensate the settlers for up to $400,000 per family for stealing land from Palestinians in Gaza?
How many of our fellow taxpayers who are now refugees as a result of Katrina, have received $400,000? Actually our President is asking our citizens to mortgage their homes if they want to build new homes in New Orleans and Biloxi.
Recently, our media made a big deal about the made for TV evacuation of illegal settlers from Gaza. As Israel moved 8500 settlers from Gaza, Israel added 12,800 new illegal settlers in the West Bank; 50% more settlers that were removed.
Meanwhile Gaza’ airspace and sea lines are still occupied by Israel, the same for any connection with Palestinians in the West Bank.
Israel called the pull out as a unilateral redeployment, and not withdrawal, for Sharon this is a military redeployment that represents an end by itself. On October 6, 2004, Dov Weisglass, an advisor to Prime Minister Sharon was quoted as saying “The significance of the disengagement plan is the freezing of the peace process. And when you freeze that process, you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, and you prevent a discussion of the refugees, the borders, and Jerusalem.”
Let’s talk about the Israeli settler movement. Israeli Settlers in Gaza are a prototype of the overall settler movement in all Palestinian land. Do you know that the 8500 illegal Jewish settlers represented less than 0.6% of the population in Gaza, yet they controlled 25% of all usable land, and 40% of the fresh water. The same privilege is reserved to Jewish settlers in the West Bank.
Did you know that during the apartheid regime in South Africa, even whites did not enjoy the level of privileges reserved to illegal Jewish settlers in Palestine?
I realize it is not easy to talk about Israel racist policies toward the Palestinians, especially since Israel was supposedly created for victims of racism. While the truth about Israel racist policies might be painful, continued ignorance is the mother of all pain.
As the saying goes, if it walks like a duck, and talk like a duck, Israel must be a racist duck!
Peace must come with justice, if there is no justice, there will be no peace.
Israel is building an apartheid wall on Palestinian lands; the wall meant to stop Palestinians from going to their farms, their businesses, their holly places, it meant to further humiliate the Palestinians, this is unjust.
Palestinian refugees must be able to exercise their basic human right and return to their homes.
Israel must stop demolishing homes for Palestinians, while building exclusive homes for Israeli Jews. Israel must remove all illegal exclusive Jewish settlement from the West Bank and Jerusalem.
Gaza must be free from becoming a large prison, air and see occupation must end!
To sum it up:
1. It is the double standards that people hate, it is not democracy, it is hypocrisy people hate.
2. That our law-abiding citizens in Louisiana and Mississippi deserve compensation, not illegal Israeli settlers.
3. And when there is no justice, there will be no peace.