One of us is Muslim, the other Jewish.
But we share one thing in common: We are both pro-Israel in view.
You ask, “How can you then be critical of the Israeli government’s policies?”
Our desire for Israel’s long-term prosperity is rooted in the adage, “Dissent is the best form of patriotism.” Blind support for Israel — like we see among certain UF students — has never been productive, neither for the supporters nor for the government.
Let’s get real. A critical analysis of Israel’s policies toward the Occupied Palestinian Territories, based on human rights’ groups reports and other unbiased third parties, is absent from the political discourse in this country.
This comes as no surprise.
Israel has been the largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid — not Haiti or the starving African countries — since World War II, much of it being in military weaponry.
To expect the media in the U.S. to provide a fair coverage of Israeli policies is a little better than expecting the Soviet newspapers in the 1960s to provide a fair coverage of Castro’s Cuba.
To be fair, many students are genuinely confused.
They’re skeptical of American-biased coverage, but they wonder, “Doesn’t Israel have a right to self-defense being under constant rocket attacks from the Palestinians?”
The rockets fired from the Palestinian territories have to be contextualized. Palestinians are not subhumans who have an irrational lust for death and destruction in Israel. Their terrorism is born from having lived under Israeli military occupation for the last 45 years, the longest-lasting military occupation in modern times. The UN Human Rights Council’s 2008 report merits citation:
“[Palestinian terrorism] must be condemned and have been condemned. Common sense, however, dictates that a distinction must be drawn between acts of mindless terror, such as acts committed by Al Qaeda, and acts committed in the course of a war of national liberation against colonialism, apartheid or military occupation. While such acts cannot be justified, they must be understood as being a painful but inevitable consequence of colonialism, apartheid or occupation … In the present international climate it is easy for a state to justify its repressive measures as a response to terrorism — and to expect a sympathetic hearing. Israel exploits the present international fear of terrorism to the full. But this will not solve the Palestinian problem. Israel must address the occupation and the violation of human rights and international humanitarian law it engenders, and not invoke the justification of terrorism as a distraction, as a pretext for failure to confront the root cause of Palestinian violence — the occupation.”
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict will come to a swift end when Israel ends its brutal military occupation of the Palestinians. This isn’t our opinion but that of the UN Human Rights Council.
How do we put pressure on Israel to stop its oppression of the Palestinians?
Easy. If the rest of us — who still have a moral conscience — tell Congress and the Obama administration to suspend all military aid to Israel until it ends its human rights violations, let’s see how long Israel can maintain its subjugation.
Zulkar Khan is a UF microbiology junior and Michela Martinazzi is a UF art history junior.
