I am confused. Perhaps someone in the real world
could enlighten me, as I seem to be living in a fantasy
world. In my fantasy world, the United States of America
is a free and just nation. It is the most free and just
nation on the face of the earth. Its citizens decry brutality,
denounce tyranny, fight shoulder to shoulder to protect
democracy and seek equality for all. My fantasy world is
proud and unswerving, kind but stern.
The real world, however, seems to be just
the opposite. I watched a news clip with gut wrenching horror
as a 12 year old Palestinian boy, cowering in terror behind
his father, was shot dead by Israeli soldiers. My horror
turned to a blazing maternal anger, tempered only by the
righteous knowledge that Americans don't stand idly by when
soldiers murder children. I knew that my fellow Americans
would be as enraged as I was, that our President and government
leaders would publicly denounce this criminal act of violence
and demand that the soldiers be court-martialed or tried
for war crimes. I knew that the race, creed and color of
this child were of no importance - he was an unarmed child.
I thought that his death, as grotesque and vile as it was,
was an isolated case - a rare exception.
I was wrong on all counts.
There was no general outcry from the media,
our government officials or our nation as a whole. Other
than the initial broadcasts of the murder, I haven't heard
this little boy's death mentioned by anyone in a position
to punish the murderers. While watching the second round
of presidential debates I waited anxiously to hear what
George W. Bush would say about the current crisis in the
Middle East. (I already knew that Clinton and Gore weren't
going to bother with one 12-year-old child or they would
have already done so.) What Bush said left me bereft of
emotion. I felt empty. He said that Israel is our friend.
He did not mention the little boy.
In my fantasy world, we hold our friends
to the same moral values to which we hold ourselves. Which
leads me to a question I have never heard asked, but which
I would hope all Americans will finally ponder. Why is Israel
our friend?
In the weeks since this child's murder I
have pursued the answer to my question. It didn't take long
for me to learn that to not be friends with Israel is to
be a racist anti-Semite. Never mind that killing a dark
skinned, Semitic child should also be considered a racist,
anti-Semitic act. That seems to be beside the point for
everyone. The logic behind the need to be friends with Israel
is based on the victim status of Israel. The Israelis want
everyone to know, acknowledge and believe that they are
in constant danger from those who wish to exterminate them-to
wipe them off the face of the earth. This fear is grounded
in the history of World War II. While such fear does not
answer my question, it does provide the basis for the founding
of Israel. Therefore, as Israel's friend, the US apparently
has to let the murder of children pass as a necessary evil
for Israel's survival.
To try to whip myself back into line so
that I, too, could let this child's murder pass as a distasteful
necessity I visited the Simon Wiesenthal Center's online
photo albums of various death camps. I went first to the
Dachau camp, as I had visited there in 1977. At the time
of my visit I was stupefied and outraged to learn that the
Nazis had duped Jewish internees into thinking that they
were going to take showers, only to murder them. The system,
I was told, involved a large shower room. All of the victims
were ordered to disrobe, were given bars of soap and told
to shower. Once inside, however, water did not come out
of the showerheads-lethal gas came out. These victims were
part of the overall 6,000,000. Imagine my angst and suspicions
then, when I read the following description of Dachau on
the SWC's website (November 3, 2000):
" DACHAU: One of the first Nazi concentration camps,
set up 1933 and liberated in 1945. Its first inmates
were political prisoners but the number of Jews rose
steadily to about 1/3 of the total. Although no mass
murder program existed there, tens of thousands died
through starvation, disease, torture or in cruel medical
experiments."
No mention of gassings? No mass murder program?
Then why was I told otherwise, along with tens of thousands
of other tourists, in the 1970's?
I went back to the current photos, which
by now had been delivered to me as a slide show, and again
watched the little Palestinian boy's murder. I sat here
numbed as I watched his father try to shield him behind
a concrete buttress, peaking around to see when it would
be safe to move. Then I saw the father look back over his
right shoulder, suddenly spot the soldiers, wave frantically
for the soldiers not to shoot, struggle to shield his son
and then scream at them with a look of guttural anguish.
Fourteen bullets later the little boy is dead and his father
critically injured. The ambulance driver who tried to help
them was also shot dead by the soldiers.
I knew that my US taxes had helped to pay
for those bullets, so I once again set out to reinforce
my moral obligation to "support Israel, no matter what".
I went back to the Dachau site and found a photograph with
the caption: "US soldier near the gas chambers."
http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/gallery/pg20/pg7/pg20738.html
There in front of me was a photograph of a gas chamber.
It wasn't the "shower" gas chamber, it was entirely different
and I will admit to finding it odd that this particular
gas chamber had a warning sign on the door with a skull
and crossbones. I can't imagine anyone believing that they
were going to take a shower in a room with a skull and crossbones
on the door. I also saw numerous photos of piles of emaciated
bodies, which I've seen hundreds of times before. I didn't
notice any gunshot wounds, and since no one was gassed at
Dachau, my guess would be that these unfortunate souls died
of disease and starvation.
In the meantime, another friend sent another
slideshow of numerous other Palestinian children who had
been shot since the end of September, many of them mortally
wounded. The "shoot to kill" order is obvious as all of
the wounds are to the heads and upper bodies. One of the
victims was an 18-month-old baby named Sarah.
By now I feared for my own mortal soul,
having been pro-Israeli all my adult life, so I went straight
to the "Holiest of Holies", Auschwitz. I already knew that
the current gas chamber at Auschwitz is a Soviet postwar
reproduction of the original, but surely with so many photographs
of the camp there would be at least one photo of the original
gas chamber, which would calm my moral trepidation. I scrolled
through photo after photo. I found the discredited photo
where smoke rises into the sky behind Hungarian Jews, indicating
bodies being cremated.
http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/albums/palbum/p00/a0007p2.html
I clicked on it to see the larger version and voila, no
smoke-just a bunch of people standing around looking at
the camera.
http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/gallery/pg22/pg0/pg22035.html
I read caption after caption telling me that the people
standing around or sitting around or standing in line were
all waiting to be gassed. I couldn't find a single photo
of the original gas chamber nor any evidence that the people
in the photos were actually gassed to death.
And then yet another friend sent me yet
another gruesome photo. This one was of a young Palestinian
man with half of his head blown off. He wasn't standing
around or sitting around or waiting in line to be killed.
He was dead. Nor could he possibly have died from disease
or starvation. Half of his face and skull were missing.
He was the victim of an Israeli high velocity bullet. The
photo was accompanied by a plea from a Palestinian women's
organization, begging for the outside world to help stop
the murders.
Just as I finish writing this our country,
the United States of America, is in a Constitutional crisis
because a handful of Jewish voters in Florida couldn't understand
their ballots. This lack of understanding is being hailed
as the greatest injustice in US history. Come again? The
greatest injustice in US history, over and above slavery?!!!
Over and above financing the murder of children in Palestine?
The greatest injustice in the history of the United States
of America is that 3,400 of 100,000,000 voters couldn't
figure out their ballots or think to ask for help?
Stop the world! I want to get off!!!
Before I retreat back into my fantasy world,
I will once again ask the question: Why is Israel our friend?
Bradley R. Smith, Publisher 