Such a nice name‑the Holy Land‑for a place with more evil acts per square mile than the VIP room at Satan's annual marshmallow roast.
In January of 1988, just one month after the beginning of the First Palestinian Intifada, a few friends and I traveled to Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza to see for ourselves what all the commotion was about.
Although in my life I had already traveled through Central America, China, Southeast Asia, and other parts of the Middle East, I wasn't ready for what I saw in the refugee camps in the Occupied Territories. I had never encountered such squalor, debasement, and utter misery. To force human beings to live in these conditions‑and do so at the barrel of a gun, for more than forty years‑just made no sense.
I am deeply saddened and angered by the horror and misery the Jewish citizens of this earth have had to endure. No group has consistently seen more death and torture come their way than the Jews, at the hands of a bigotry that has lasted not just centuries but millennia.
What amazes me is not the nature of this hatred‑‑after all, ethnic war seems a fact of life‑‑but the consistency with which it has been passed down, for thousands of years. Hate isn't like a
Grandfather clock or a gold watch; you can't leave it behind for your next of kin. If my great‑great‑great‑grandfather hated Canadians or Presbyterians, I would have absolutely no way of knowing about it. And yet somehow hatred of Jews has been passed down, like a language or a song or an oral tradition, among so many people. Usually we humans are able to shake our bad ideas. Remember "The earth is flat"? We stopped pushing that nonsense six hundred years ago! We've gotten over the one about Creation taking only until Saturday night, and the one about eggs being bad for your cholesterol. So why haven't people wised up and sent their bigotry against Jews to the same dustbin that holds our Seals and Croft records?
Well, here's one complicating factor in the case of the Palestinians: the unfortunate thing about us humans is that once abused, some of us seek to abuse others. It's no surprise that abused kids grow up to abuse their own kids. After the Americans bombed the peaceful, neutral Cambodians over and over and over, slaughtering hundreds of thousands of them during the Vietnam War, it shouldn't have been a shock when the Killing Fields followed and Cambodians turned the slaughter on each other. After the Soviet Union lost over twenty million citizens in
World War II, it's no surprise that they sought insurance against future invasion by seizing and dominating nearly every country that bordered them.
Sometimes people just go crazy from too much abuse and violence and take drastic, irrational measures to protect themselves.
I don't want to involve myself in the various arguments about why Israel was created, or what the historical or biblical claims are to the land. Rather, I want to deal with the situation at handwhich is the ongoing killing on both sides of the question: the continued hatred toward the Jews by the Palestinians, and the appalling oppression of the Palestinians by the Israelis.
It's true that there's also much oppression of Palestinians in Arab countries, where Palestinians aren't allowed to vote or own property and are treated as second‑class citizens and pawns in the fight against Israel. But I'm not going to spend my time on this, since there isn't a whole lot I can do about it. You and I don't give $3 billion a year to Syria, as we do to Israel. And since that's our money, we must consider ourselves responsible for the oppression, killing, and apartheid conditions that have been created in Israel's Occupied Territories.
The fighting in the Middle East has got to stop‑and now. Israel has nuclear weapons, some Arab countries soon will, and we'd better stop this madness quickly before we ALL pay a huge price for it.
I, for one, don't want apartheid being funded in my name anywhere. I believe (stop me if you've heard this before) that all human beings deserve the right to self‑determination, the right to the ballot, the right to have life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Arabs who live in the West Bank and Gaza have none of this. They are not free to travel. They are under constant curfew. They are taxed with no representation. They are arrested and jailed without trial. Their homes are bulldozed without warning. Their land is stolen and given to "settlers." Their children are
murdered for throwing stones‑or for just walking down the street.
Of course they throw stones! Of course they kill Israeli settlers! That's what abused people do‑they fight back, and abuse others. Who should know this better than the Israelis? The world butchers them to near‑extinction in the last century, and they'll be damned if they're going to be annihilated in this millennium.
At times like this, those of us who have been fortunate enough to avoid this kind of suffering in our own lives must step in and stop the killing. That is what I want my country to do. And here's how: Quit sending over a blank check, and start getting in there with both parties to stop the barbarism. My plan:
1. Congress should inform Israel that it has thirty days to end the bloodshed perpetrated in its/our name‑or we cut off the entire $3 billion. Individual terrorism is bad enough, but state sponsored terrorism is truly evil. I understand that the world will always have the occasional lone crazy with grievances he feels compelled to avenge with violence. But for the Israelis, a group of otherwise good and intelligent people, to collectively enforce a system of terror against another group simply because of their race or religion is unconscionable. And you and I and millions of other taxpaying Americans put up the money for Israel's unconscionable actions‑actions that could not exist if each of us wasn't having 4 cents taken from our paychecks today and every day to buy the bullets that go into the Israeli guns that kill the Palestinian children.
2. If it wants to keep receiving our tax dollars, Israel should be given a year to work out a plan with the Palestinians to create a nation called Palestine (formed from the West Bank, Gaza, and some strip of land that connects them). This new nation of Palestine must then present a Constitution that not only pro
hibits any form of aggression against Israel but also guarantees full democratic rights to every Palestinian man, woman, and child.
3. The United States will then give Palestine double what it has given Israel in funding (for a permanent peace, I'd gladly give up my portion of this‑pennies a week). This is not free cash for corrupt public officials like the ones we have in our country. This is Marshall Plan‑style direct aid that builds roads, schools, and industries that provide decent‑paying jobs.
4. The United Nations should then commit to defending Israel against anyone who still wants it destroyed‑and vow to defend a democratic Palestine from its neighboring Arab regimes (who are going to go bonkers if their own oppressed peoples see how good these Palestinian Arabs have it living in freedom and prosperity).
Of course, who's going to listen to me? Apparently it's too much fun continuing this stupid soap opera over a wedge of land you can cross in the time it takes to get from Oakland to San Francisco in rush hour.
Well, maybe there is one person who will listen.
Dear President Arafat:
We've never met. That's not an attempt to cop an invite over for dinner or a game of horseshoes. You're a busy man, I'm a busy man (though I can't get anyone in the office here to call me President, or respond to my directives with, "Ya, Sir!").
Sorry. That's the kind of humor that has kept me relegated to appearing only on basic cable in America (Channel 64, right after the Italian language station in New York City).
I have the key to your success. I know how you can unilaterally end the killing on both sides‑and, as a bonus, wind up with a Palestinian state!
I know, you're thinking, "Hey, who is this guy?" And you're right.
But hear me out. I want to propose something so revolutionary that it will flip out every Israeli right‑winger and send every Israeli peacenik running to your side.
My proposal is not a new idea. It involves no armies, no money, and no UN resolutions. It's dirt cheap. It has been tried many times, in many countries‑AND IT HAS NEVER FAILED. It demands no hatred and requires no weapons. In fact, it is all about no weapons.
It's called mass nonviolent civil disobedience. It worked for Martin Luther King Jr.‑‑his nonviolent movement brought an abrupt end to legal segregation in America. It worked for Gandhi‑he and his fellow Indians brought the British Empire to its knees without firing a shot. It worked for Nelson Mandela‑he and the African National Congress brought about an end to apartheid with no violent revolution.
If it worked for them, trust me, it can work for you.
Sure, you can still win through violence. The Vietnamese proved that they could whip the mightiest country on earth. And look at us‑we spent eight years picking off Redcoats, and got ourselves a big country out of all the shooting!
So killing does work, I guess. The only problem is, after the killing stops you're a little messed in the head, and it takes a while before you learn to put down your guns (225 years later and we still haven't learned).
But if you'd like to try the nonviolent approach, you not only get to see fewer people die‑you get your own country in the end!
Here's how it works:
1. Just sit your ass down. That's it. It's simple. You just lay your bodies down‑often just a few thousand in the middle of the road will do‑and don't move and don't fight back when they try to drag you away. Instead of Israel always shutting down the
borders to Gaza and the West Bank, you shut them down. Just march peacefully up to the checkpoint and then sit down. No Israelis will be able to get to their settlements. No Israelis will be able to transport goods and natural resources from your land into Israel. There is no Israeli vehicle I know of that can drive over mounds of thousands of people (not even a pair of snow tires will do the job!). Of course, they may try, and a number of your people may be injured or killed. Still, don't move. just sit. The world will be watching‑especially if you embrace the wonderful world of public relations, and alert the media to your plans. (Trust me, CNN will take your call.) And you'll end up with far fewer dead Palestinians than you yield under your current plan.
2. Call a general strike. Refuse to work for the Israelis. Their economy is based on the near‑slave labor you provide them. Don't do it anymore. Who will do all their shitwork for them if Palestinians won't? Other Israelis? I don't think so! They need you and your willingness to break your backs for them for substandard wages. Watch how quickly a deal is struck once every single Arab refuses to go to work. Of course, they'll try to break you. They will cut off your water, your roads, your food‑but you must stand firm. Stockpile, then strike nonviolently, and never give in. They will.
A few years back, over a million Israelis attended a Peace Now rally in Tel Aviv. That was an amazing sight. It also means that you, the Palestinians, have a million Jewish alliesa third of the country‑in the nation you know as your enemy. A million of your "enemies" will come to your aid if you protest in a nonviolent way. Try it! Between your people and theirs, you will outnumber those in Israel who want to drive you into the sea.
Unfortunately, I know your inclination is to keep drawing
blood. You think this will bring you liberation. It will not. It will turn you into those who are now killing you. And if you haven't figured out one thing about the Israelis by now, you'd better get a clue‑they ain't goin' anywhere. For God's sake, man‑they had six million of their people massacred by the most advanced civilization on earth. Do you think they're going to let a few stones and car bombs get in the way of their own survival? They live in a world where they're isolated and all alone. They won't quit until you or the rest of the earth annihilates every last one of them. Is that what you want? Every last Jew wiped from the planet? If it is, then you need serious help‑and you're gonna have to get past me before you touch another one of their children.
But if, as I suspect, you would prefer peace and quiet to constant war and displacement, then you must lay down all arms, lay down your bodies in the middle of the road and then... just wait. Yes, the Israelis will beat many of your people. They will drag your women by the hair, they will sic dogs on you, they may even get out the firehoses (and other tricks they've learned from us Americans). YOU MUST NOT FIGHT BACK! Trust me, when the pictures of your suffering at the hands of these brutes go out across the world, there will be such an outcry that the Israeli government will be unable to continue its oppression.
Well, there you go. If you want, I will come and join you in your nonviolent protest. It's the least I can do after helping finance the bullets and bombs that have killed your people.
Yours,
Michael Moore
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