In
this most conservative of Muslim countries which always enjoyed a
cordial relationship with the United States, voices are beginning to
be heard against America's new imperialist drive. In her letter to
the US ambassador Afnan Fatani, a Saudi professor of English
language and style from Jeddah, gives expression to what many people
in Saudi Arabia feel:
Just
because we don't demonstrate by the thousands in the streets of
Jeddah.
Just
because we don't march to the US Consulate on the corner of
Palestine Road.
Just
because there are no overt signs of mass fury and public outrage on
the Comiche or at malls in Jeddah.
Just
because we don't riot in front of McDonalds and T.G.I. Fridays and
pelt their doors with stones and rocks.
Just
because we don't burn US and Israeli flags and burn effigies of
Sharon and Bush, chanting "Death to America" - "Death
to Israel."
Just
because we don't wear FREE PALESTINE tee shirts and checkered
Palestinian scarves.
Just
because we don't boycott American and Israeli products, Helena
Rubenstein (HR) and Marks & Spencer, lurking sinisterly in every
corner of our shopping malls.
Just
because we don't travel on solidarity missions to Bethlehem and
Ramallah along with other writers, intellectuals and peace
activists.
Just
because we abhor violent protests and the sight of police re
taliation with clubs, water cannons and tear gas grenades.
Just
because we don't use the rhetoric of a simple housewife riding the
Cairo metro - "Anyone who eats at Burger King and drinks Pepsi
is drinking the blood of the Palestinian people."
Just
because our students do not organize anti‑American rallies and
gather for peaceful protests inside university campus.
Just
because we are unable to personally deliver this message right at
your embassy door.
Just
because we don't and we don't and we don't ... that doesn't mean we
are not outraged at US biased support for the slaughter of
Palestinians and US unwillingness to force Israel to comply with UN
resolutions ordering it to withdraw from the West Bank cities.
That
doesn't mean we are not appalled by the ominous role of the US in
Palestine and its cold-blooded willingness to condone the
assassination of those who dare to fight for their basic human
rights.
That
doesn't mean we are not shocked by your president's vindictive and
personal hatred for the elected leader of Palestine. That doesn't
mean that we do not hold President Bush personally responsible for
all the carnage and wanton destruction in Palestine and for any and
all future massacres of Palestinian refugees.
That
doesn't mean we do not accuse President Bush of sponsoring and
funding the terrorist state of Israel.
Just
because American tanks are not rumbling through Palestinian towns
and American soldiers are not roaming the streets of Ramallah and
Bethlehem, that does not make your current government any less
responsible for the current plight of the Palestinians.
Here
is our list of 10 condemnations:
1
- We condemn President Bush's speech on Thursday. Leaders of great
and powerful nations like America should be magnanimous and
generous, not cruel and vindictive. Blaming an isolated Arafat and
a desperate 18-year old Palestinian girl for the violence and
Israeli atrocities in the West Bank is not just simplistic, it is
evil. It is an incitement and a license to kill anyone who dares
to speak out against the Israeli tyrants that America sponsors and
funds. We will, therefore, hold President Bush personally
responsible for the inevitable murder of Arafat and for the point-blank
executions of innocent Palestinian teenagers now trapped in the
closed military zones of Ramallah and Bethlehem.
2
- We condemn President Bush's speech because it is written with
the intent to sow discord and distrust among Palestinians and
Arabs. According to his logic, if we the Arabs want a
"peaceful" Palestinian state then we must kill Arafat,
kill our resistance movements, kill our peace activists, kill our
anti-occupation activists, kill anyone who dares to oppose Israel
and America, kill anyone who says NO, and especially kill the
warriors of Hamas and Jihad. Only then, Bush tells us, will he and
his Israeli aggressors allow the original inhabitants of Palestine
to regain what is rightfully theirs.
3
- We condemn the fact that a notorious war criminal like Sharon is
welcomed with open arms and accorded red-carpet treatment at the
White House, while Yasser Arafat, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, is
shunned and abhorred. When the Jews first came to Palestine from
the ghettos of the world, these bands of armed settlers formed
terrorist organizations like the Haganah that maimed, killed and
bombed the original inhabitants into fleeing their land. Sharon,
Barak and other leading figures in Israel were and still are,
members ofthis coalition of terror. Why is America rewarding them
for their evil? Why are they not branded as enemies of the state?
Why are their names and photos not listed on the FBI's most wanted
list? Or is this infamous list meant only for Arabs?
4
- We condemn President Bush's belated verbal call on Israel to
withdraw from the West Bank cities of Palestine. His half-hearted
appeal rings hollow as long as he continues to supply Sharon with
the weapons now being used on the streets of the West Bank, and
billions of dollars in aid and continued moral support.
5
- We condemn President Bush's racist call to Arafat "to do
more to curb terrorism," while all the time praising the
barbaric actions of Sharon, a remorseless sponsor of the Sabra and
Shatila massacres.
6
- We condemn President Bush's personal support for Sharon's
genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians and his
terrorizing of inhabitants into fleeing.
7
- We condemn President Bush's support of the illegal Israeli
occupation and its colonial policy of settlements, mass murder,
expulsion and transfer.
8
- We condemn President Bush's
denouncement of our state organizations, religious
schools,charities and educational institutions as inciting
terror and hatred of the West. What about your Klu Klux Klan, your
Timothy McVeighs, your Waco militants? What about your biased Zionist
controlled media and your anti-Arab journalists like George Will
and Rosenthal? What about Hollywood and its hostile stereo
typing of Arabs as terrorists and bandits? Aren't those
incitements that Bush could do more to curb? What about your own
federal institutions? Your congress, your radical senators, your
pro-Israeli Capitol Hill, and your strong Zionist lobbies who
back Sharon, cheer him on and applaud his barbaric actions. What
about your anti-Palestinian lawmakers gearing up to further
condemn and impose new sanctions on Arafat and the Palestinians
while happily ignoring Israel's brutal take over of Arab homeland?
What about your congressmen's constant conferring with Howard Kohr,
the executive director of the American-Israeli Public Relations
Committee (AIPAC), before every bill they pass just to make sure
they "get all the details right" (as journalist Barbara
Ferguson reports). What about the smug, racist views of your
Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle and Sen. Henry Hyde's smug
smiles and obnoxious statements: "Sharon is doing what we in
Texas describe as "A man's got to do what a man's got to
do." How sinister! How evil! How degenerate!
9
- We condemn President Bush's support of religious extremists in
Israel and his self-proclaimed bond of loyalty to radical ultra-orthodox
Jews. Where is Bush's indignation at the incitement, hatred and
racial superiority preached by these racist groups? As Israel
Shamir explains, "the Talmud preaches compassion to animals.
But there is a profound lack of compassion toward non-Jews. They
are frequently compared to animals. In the Talmud, marriage to a
Gentile equals bestiality... In an interview, a Shabak official,
Ehud Yatom, boasted he smashed a Palestinian prisoner's head with
a stone. He is supported by many MPs and by the Israeli
public."
10
- We condemn the racist and tasteless statements of the American
ambassador in Bahrain who called on Arab students at a university
gathering to observe a moment of silence for Israeli victims of
the conflict with Palestinians. Do you in America observe a moment
of silence for the native American victims your forefathers
slaughtered. Do your schools and universities bow their head in
silence for the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, for the victims
of Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. You and your Israeli friends
have no right to occupy our land, confiscate our territories,
brutalize our civilians and then ask us to show sympathy and to
honor your dead. Where is your sympathy, not ours? This is our
sacred homeland and no radical, racist settler from America or
Europe is going to drive us out.
Here
is a list of 10 Israeli atrocities President Bush and his
administration are quick to defend:
1
- The "bored, overfed, sadistic Israeli soldiers are daily
humiliating, beating and often murdering the local people."
Men are stripped to their underwear to walk through checkpoints.
Tanks are placed at hospital gates. Women are forced to deliver
their babies in the streets. (Courtesy of Israeli journalist in
Jaffa - Israel Shamir)
2
- Rogue Israeli soldiers are killing unarmed civilians.
"Their preferred victims are children. They abuse children of
the refugee camps and shoot and maim them on a daily
basis"(Courtesy of the above Israeli journalist).
3
- Israeli tanks are firing at ambulances trying to rescue the
wounded.
4
- US jets with Israeli pilots have bombed the school for the blind
in Gaza.
5
- Palestinian civilians continue to suffer from lack of
electricity, water and food supplies.
6
- Israeli tanks fired on the buildings of the Medical Relief
Organization where a number of Italian peace activists are
barricaded in a show of solidarity with Palestinians.
7
- So far around 1,500 young Palestinians have been arrested in
racist and senseless mass arrests in Ramallah and other West Bank
cities.
8
- Bodies are still piling up at the Ramallah hospital morgue and
denied proper burial.
9
- There is widespread vandalism as Israeli soldiers loot civilians
and banks in their door-to-door search for illusive so-called
terrorists.
10
- As I write, Israeli soldiers are storming the Church of Nativity
where unarmed Palestinians have been given refuge by
peace‑loving bishops and priests. A repeat of the 1982 Sabra
and Shatila massacre is pending.
Here
is a list of 10 things we will NEVER do:
1
- We will never applaud Israeli and American destruction of
Palestine.
2
- We will never label our resistance movements as
"terrorists" and Israeli terror as
"retaliation."
3
- We will never relinquish our right to Jerusalem.
4
- We will never stop aiding all our people in Palestine, including
those who choose to die as martyrs.
5
- We will never applaud US jets levelling any of our cities.
6
- We will never stop protesting your biased war on terror and your
blind support of Israeli brutality. You call this incitement; we
call it courage, faith and resilience.
7
- We will never stop calling for the end ofthe illegal Israeli
occupation of our homeland.
8
- We will never stop honoring our martyrs and observing a moment
of silence for our fallen warriors.
9
- We will never forget the Palestinian Holocaust of 1948. We will
never watch idly as Israel and America orchestrate a new one in
2002.
10
- We will never side with the Bushes and Sharons of this world. We
will never side with genocide, mass murder, transfer and
expulsion. I guess this means, according to Bush's simplistic
either or logic, that we are on the side of the terrorists. So be
it. We believe we are on the side of the martyrs, on the side of
decency, humanity, civility, fortitude and freedom; concepts which
your brave American warriors of the past once strove so valiantly
to uphold. But Alas, no more.
In
short, Mr. Ambassador, we do not care if we incur the wrath of your
President Bush. We do not US visa or freeze their assets in American
banks. We do not care if our children never attend your schools and
your universities or our tourists never enjoy the wonders of
Disneyland or Universal Studios. What we care most for is our faith,
our dignity and our sacred homeland.
He
who granted victory to David against Goliath, to Moses against
Pharaoh, to Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) against Abu Lahab, will grant
victory to the warriors of Palestine against Sharon and Bush and
those who sponsor them. Beware Mr. Ambassador that the curse
promised by the Lord to the misbehaving children of Israel (Deut.
28) does not fall upon your own heads.
Here
is my signature. Here is my name. Let it be the first name listed in
this letter of protest and indignation. See! I am not afraid. I dare
to speak. Along with Israel Shamir, I call "for citizens to
take arms against the bloody dictator Sharon." If and when this
petition ever reaches your embassy doorstep, I am confident the list
of names will have grown and grown and grown.
Author: Afnan
Fatani
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Date Published: June
2002 |
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