(A response to the article Eurovision vote fuels Israeli siege mentality, by Peter Hirschberg, Ha'aretz Correspondent )
The view that many persons, and governments in Europe, and many people here inside the United States is not skewed one bit.
Did not Israel's Likud party pass a resolution in essence saying that there would be no Palestinian state west of the Jordan?
Was not Sharon the responsible commander when the massacres occurred in Shabra and Shatila?
Did not Sharon start a second Intifada by his act at the Temple Mount? Although this was not the only act of despising the Palestinians, it was the last straw.
Are not settlers backed by the IDF (IOF) brazenly taking lands and homes of Palestinians without any compensation or any kind of JUST regard.
Are not the Palestinians being attacked, beaten up, and even killed by by Israeli settlers without criminal charges, and convictions being brought against them, or even turned over to the Palestinians for prosecution?
Are not the Palestinians being corralled into barbed wired concentration camps? As Jews you should know how humiliating this is - but do you?
Are not the IDF terrorizing the Palestinians day and night? Rolling in with their tanks and loud speakers, not going in after any specific target, but going in to keep the nerves of the people rattled? - YES!!
Are not the IDF troops killing women and children almost on a daily basis, and then the deaths are excused away as some mistake? There seems to be a lot of these mistakes.
Are not the number of males being killed out pacing any other portion of the Palestinian population? Young boys being murdered or dragged off into your terror detention centers.
Are not you Israeli's withholding water from the Palestinians?
Are not you Israeli's withholding electricity from the Palestinians?
Are not you Israeli's destroying social structures, crippling Palestinian societies?
Are not you Israeli's constructing barbed wired concentration camps, complete with numerous checkpoints, and bypass roads, severely restricting, if not stopping Palestinian movement altogether?
Isn't it you Israeli's who have now taken away from the Palestinians any livelihood they had working in Israel?
Isn't it you Israeli's who continue to treat Israeli-Palestinians as second, if not third class citizens?
Isn't it you Israeli's who continue to trample upon Justice, and still make claim that the Palestinians have a revolving prison door when you Israeli's can't even arrest, prosecute, and imprison your own extremists in terms of years?
Isn't it you Israeli's when criticized, you scream anti-Semitism, and then throw up the Holocaust in our faces as if we should be apologetic for criticizing you Jews (Israeli's) for your dehumanizing WAYS against the Palestinians, your total disregard and disrespect for the United Nations, and the concerns of the European nations?
Isn't it you Israeli's who run and hide behind the skirts of the American government, instead of owing up to your atrocious behavior and treatment of Palestinians on a daily basis?
Isn't it you Israeli's who are now importing Asian labor because of your refusal to deal with the human aspect of Palestinian and Israeli relations?
Isn't it you Israeli's who in all your outward actions are demonstrating that you are a segregationist society, with a ethnic class system?
This list can go on for at least another two pages, but you should get the point. Your government and judicial system are trampling upon the rights and liberties of the Palestinian people, and most of you can't even show an ounce of care.
Yes, there are extremist amongst the Palestinians, however there are extremist amongst you Israeli's, both religious and secular, and the death toll you people have brought upon the Palestinians far exceed any that have been done to you.
One Palestinian women who was interviewed and shown on American TV said; "you kill our children, we kill your children, one for one."
Most Palestinians would would love to live as neighbors, but it is you Israeli's that don't want it. It is you Israeli's who continue to say and demonstrate particularly with your unjust laws, the settlements, the Jew only roads, that you are the ones who refuse to have peace with the Palestinians.
So, are the views of the European nations skewed against Israel? No! Your own actions demonstrate your unwillingness to have a JUST and EQUITABLE peace with the Palestinians.
Bennie Walton
Denver CO USA
