The Sad Story of Disproportionality:
Sixsty years ago this month, my father, and 800,000 other Palestinians (who by the way were no Muslim extremeists), were forced to leave their homes, lands, villages, cities and country by Isrealis who came from all parts of the world. For decades, Europe had been committing atrocities against them. There were very few places to which they could run for their lives. One of these places was Palestine.
These people have been repeating these atrocities in Palestine ever since. The victim has turned a full circle to become the killer. The response by the new occupiers of Palestine has been disproportionate ever since. Mr. Fayyad is being very nice to the Israelis when he puts the matter so mildly.
The fact is that Israelis are occupying Palestine. The Fact is that they have deprived hundreds of thousands, even millions, of Palestinians from their basic human rights. The fact is the Israelis have place at least 1.5 million Gazans under siege in the largest prison on earth. The fact is that Israel was created 60 years ago only after Palestinians paid with their lives, property and ruin.
My father tells me that he had been living with Palestinian Jews all his life in harmony when they were being placed in concentration camps in Germany and Poland. When he refused to leave, Israeli soldiers killed his donkey and threatened to do the same with his family if he did not.
The Israeli response has always been "disproportionate." The problem with Fayyad's terminlogy is two-fold: people like Salam Fayyad do not see the large picture of their people losing everything- he thinks of us as refugees, not a full fledged nation. And the world, especially the United States various administrations, close their eyes to the realities- they do not want to see the truth. It is a world of double standards. For 60 years, we Palestinians have been paying for crimes committed against the Jews in Europe. The sad reality is that the victims of yesterday are now committing the crimes against others, disproportionately to say the least.
Salam Fayyad: ‘This Is a Cycle That Has to Stop’
Email To A Friend
Please fill in the following information and we'll email this link.
What's your impression of him?
He thinks strategically. [He has a] clarity of view as to how things could work out. He definitely has a strong presence within his party, that's for sure—within Fatah.
Is it a problem for you that you're not in Fatah?
I don't think it really is a plus for someone to be in politics without a party.
Do you want to join?
If I did not become a party man when I was younger, I'm not going to do that now. What I want to do is to give our people a sense of hope and possibility. You want your people, who are down but not out, to begin to think, "We can do this." Israel itself was not established in 1948; it was declared in 1948. It had the institutions of state before 1948. And that's what I want to [create].
© 2008
Discuss