Peace on earth in 2009? U.S., Israel say, ‘No thanks’

Parallels exist between the establishments of the U.S. and Israel. The U.S. was founded by European settlers who stole the land of Indigenous people who had resided on it for thousands of years. Israel was established and carved out of Palestine, a land already occupied by people who had lived there for thousands of years.

The U.S. and Israel have both demonstrated their unwillingness to peacefully coexist with Indigenous peoples. What they can’t obtain by coercion and intimidation they take by military force.

Both Native Americans and Palestinians have been victims of terrorists obsessed with capitalistic greed and imperialist domination. The U.S. and Israel have been beating their chests Tarzan-style in a war against Gaza, militarily and through starvation.

The Native American Holocaust began in 1492 with the arrival of Europeans. (The Black Holocaust of millions of enslaved Africans began shortly afterwards). The Palestinian Catastrophe was ominously foreshadowed by the U.S./British-backed garrison state of Israel in 1948 that led to the systematic, brutal eviction of the Palestinians from their homeland.

Just as “settlers” increasingly encroached upon Native American land, Israel has progressively and steadfastly annexed Palestinian land, Pac-Man style, during the past 60 years. While the newly built, enormous U.S. Embassy in Iraq shows the U.S.’s plan is to stay there, Israel has shown all along no intention of leaving occupied Palestinian territories.

The ideology of white supremacy is a basic premise upon which the occupiers operate. This has led to unspeakable, atrocious and heinous crimes against their victims. This racist doctrine rejects the right of Native Americans and Palestinians to self-determination, the right to return to their lands, and even the right to exist.

Not seeing the victims as human beings allows supremacists to indiscriminately bomb, attack and massacre them. Native Americans were sold into slavery, and their land was forcefully taken to make room for settlers to help lay the basis for the expansion of capitalism into the West and more cotton plantations. Annihilation was seen as a solution to “the Indian problem.”

Relegation of Native Americans to Indian reservations and oppressive control resembles Israel’s confinement of Palestinians to Gaza refugee and concentration camps.

Both Palestinian and U.S. Indigenous people have been economically, socially, psychologically and politically persecuted, under the guise of “protecting settlers,” national security, self-defense, spreading democracy or “national interest” and as a justification for wars. Such is the arrogance of imperialist power.

Israel and its apologists cynically use the horrors of the Nazi holocaust to justify their crimes against the Palestinian people, who had absolutely no responsibility for what happened in Nazi Germany. It’s similar to the U.S. blaming Iraq for the Sept. 11 attack and then bombing that country and occupying it for almost six years.

Israel’s claims of desiring and attempting to broker peace agreements are just as insincere as the false peace treaties made between U.S. government and Native American nations. U.S. philosophy was that treaties were meant to be broken. Myths and lies have characterized propaganda emanating from both Israel and the U.S.

Both governments ignore and invert historical truths. Each refuses to acknowledge or take responsibility for the consequences of their actions on the lives of their victims, commonly employing the strategy of blaming the victim. Each labels people who resist, defend themselves, and struggle for peace, freedom and justice as “terrorists.” And each uses it as justification for carte blanche aggression towards them.

Even if the U.S. and Israel don’t consider the war against the people of Gaza as a crime against humanity, the reality on the ground is stark and speaks for itself. The facts are the facts. So, speaking truth to power must continue, as well as the fight for liberation.