Artwork by WORKBYKNIGHT
BY WILLIAM C. HENRY On November 18th, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the complete destruction of the home of the Palestinian man who on October 22nd had driven a car into an Israeli crowd resulting in two people dead and several injured. None of the man’s surviving family members who occupied the house were in any way suspected of involvement in the attack. Who knows, maybe Elohim privately beseeched the “Minister” to add a bit of crushed brick and mortar now and then to offset all the calf and lamb fat. Too profane for your palate? Somehow I doubt the surviving family members would object.
Benji’s retaliation revival was apparently precipitated by the recent “slaughter” (in the Middle East and especially in Israel and Gaza the context of this term tends to fluctuate depending upon under what circumstances how many of whose oxen are being gored) of four men and a policeman at a synagogue complex in West Jerusalem. As he had previously, the PM has again determined that the homes of these alleged killers too will be completely demolished in spite of the fact that there is no evidence whatsoever of the surviving family members having had any involvement.
Of course, what you won’t ever hear from Netanyahu or any of his ilk regarding this retribution redux — or any other Israeli “requital” for that matter — is the REALITY and TOTALITY of the inordinately lopsided number of “oxen” that have been gored on the respective sides of this wholly one-sided massacre saga since its inception. Nor do you have to be a public opinion researcher to recognize that our own government and press and Americans in general seem to value Israeli lives over those of Palestinians.
In light of the grotesquely unbalanced casualty figures, all of the above’s half-hearted or total lack of condemnation of Israel’s butchery amounts to nothing less than bigotry on a genocidal level. Since 2000 alone, Palestinians have suffered over 9,100 dead to Israel’s less than 1,200. The number of Palestinian injured stands at nearly nearly 72,000; Israel’s at less than 11,000. It’s also sobering to note that while Israel has lost some 130 children over that period, the Palestinians have suffered the loss of more than 2,060.
And, in case you’re wondering, I purposely limited the above casualty figures to the past 15 years for good reason. To have included the preceding 50 would lay bare a festering scale of murder, maiming and displacement of a people no Israeli reprisal could ever absolve. Exposing the casualties differential from the forties through 2000 would be akin to retelling the horror story of the millions of “slaughtered” and uprooted native Americans along with their forced removal to some of the most desolate, uninhabitable hell holes on the North American continent. Surely you get the picture.
Want further evidence of the Israeli leader’s barely closeted penchant for racial cleansing? Netanyahu has just called for early elections because, “I will no longer tolerate opposition from within the government.” Bullshit, what he’s really saying is, “I will no longer brook opposition to my Israel purification and separatist policies!” He is, in fact, proposing the acceptance and passage of a “Jewish nationhood” law with constitutional-like standing which would establish unequivocally the wholly “Jewish” nature of Israel’s very existence including recognition of Judaism’s superiority and exclusivity above all other ethnicities or religions. It is intended to represent nothing less than a brazen and final screw-you-we’re-here-and-we-
In closing, I doubt that anyone could have described this “ungodly” state of affairs more movingly than Susan Abulhawa did in her novel Mornings in Jenin: “Do you know, Mother, that Haj Salem was buried alive in his home? Does he tell you stories in heaven now? I wish I had had a chance to meet him. To see his toothless grin and touch his leathery skin. To beg him, as you did in your youth, for a story from our Palestine. He was over one hundred years old, Mother. To have lived so long, only to be crushed to death by a bulldozer. Is this what it means to be Palestinian?” But then, what’s the big deal about two more homes and two more homeless surviving families among the more than 28,000 that Israel has bulldozed along the way, right?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Fed up early stage septuagenarian who has actually been most of there and done most of that. Born and raised in the picturesque Pocono Mountains. Quite well educated. Very lucky to have been born into a well-schooled and somewhat prosperous family. Long divorced. One beautiful, brilliant daughter. Two far above average grandsons. Semi-retired (how does anyone manage to do it completely these days?) and fully-tired of bullshit. Uncle of the Editor-In-Chief.