City of...

Yesterday, we heard the news that, for the second time in a few weeks, an
East Jerusalem resident--Palestinian with a blue Israeli or Jerusalem resident
ID card--had driven his bulldozer into buses and cars in East Jerusalem. Twenty-four
people were wounded. The driver of the bulldozer was killed--first shot by a
man who lives in the settlement of Susya in the West Bank (illegal, as with all
the settlements, under international law, and the source of one of the most
recent cases of settler youth physically terrorizing the Palestinians in nearby
villages, in this case caught on camera due to Israeli human rights organization
Bt'selem's strategy of passing out cameras to residents of the West Bank),
then shot multiple times by a border patrol officer. After the bulldozer was stopped.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1004690.html

I'm not much for watching this kind of thing, but I watched the Ha'aretz video, and
felt anger curling into a tight ball in my gut. Anger that the pain of families of those
who were hurt is manipulated in a macho show. Anger at the language that was
used: "neutralize the terrorist." Anger that the editors chose to use a shot of
a Palestinian child playing with a toy gun, when seconds before the video shows
the outcome of a gun happy Israeli society, three or four men pointing their guns
into the cab of the bulldozer, then shooting the driver until he's deader than dead,
as the bulldozer sits there, still. Look at those Palestinians, glorifying violence. Ignore
the Israeli media, glorifying violence.

But anger, most of all, at the seeming disbelief on behalf of those interviewed, that
those dastardly Arabs are so devious as to use construction equipment for a weapon.

And I am sorry for being angry.

But 18,000.

That is how many Palestinian homes have been destroyed by bulldozers since 1967
(this doesn't include all of the villages that were demolished in 1948).

18,000. Many of them holding 6 or 7 families.

18,000.

And so a government and a society that is perfectly willing to use bulldozers as a weapon,
to destroy orange and olive groves, homes, entrances and exits to villages, livelihoods,
neighborhoods, all in the name of 'security,' reacts with shock and outrage when a bulldozer
is used as a weapon against them.

18,000.

I wonder what the reaction would be if the Palestinians in the home I saw demolished in
the village of At-tur had responded to the bulldozers bearing down on their home in
the same way as this macho settler, so happy to be the one who had 'neutralized the
terrorist,' did. If they had simply shot the bulldozer drivers instead of standing, stunned,
helpless.

If they had 'neutralized the terrorists.'

And that is exactly what a home demolition is. It is terrorism. It is a means of violent,
public intimidation for a specific demographic and political goal. It is meant to rid
"contested areas"--East Jerusalem, parts of the West Bank near settlements or near
checkpoints or near borders, places where Palestinians should be able to live and
work and raise their children and play and dance and sing--of Palestinians. It is one part
of an ongoing, slow, patient strategy of ethnic cleansing.

Immediately after this and the previous bulldozer attack, Israeli government officials
fell over themselves to use the right language paradigms and to justify revenge.
"Neutralize the terrorist." "Raze his house." "Take away the ID cards and citizenship
of his family."

DEPORT HIS FAMILY? DESTROY THE HOUSE OF THE FAMILY OF A CRIMINAL???

THIS is the response of the "only democracy in the Middle East"? Of the "most moral
army in the world?"

Terrorism. Ethnic cleansing.


And nobody sees it. Nobody sees the connection between 18,000 homes destroyed by
bulldozers--most of them, like the one I witnessed, not as retribution for anything other
than being Arab and Palestinian and in the wrong place--and the bulldozer used as a
weapon. And in fact, the government is eager to perpetuate the cycle by sending
bulldozers to destroy the home of the drivers' families, in a practice that was previously
banned in the West Bank because of the retributive violence it inspired. Nobody sees
the connection.

So by all means, gun-toting defenders of liberty, freedom, and Western ethnocratic
values. Neutralize the terrorists. In fact, specifically neutralize the bulldozer driving
terrorists. But start with yourselves first. Neutralize the terrorists who crash, again
and again, year after year, into the houses of Palestinians whose crime is being
Palestinian. Neutralize the terrorists who rip up olive trees that have been here
for centuries, much longer than the current rulers of this place. Neutralize the
terrorists who shoot protesters, who strafe and shell neighborhoods, who
suggest deportation and destruction aimed at the families of criminals as long as
those criminals speak Arabic and have brown skin. Neutralize the terrorism of
racism and ethnocracy.

"It's just one more reminder why we have to work diligently, urgently and in a
unified way to defeat terrorism," Barak Obama said after landing at Ben Gurion airport
(named for one of the premier ethnic cleansers--read Ilan Pappe's book for more information
on Ben Gurion's role in the destruction of Palestinian homes, the creation of refugees,
the terrorism and ethnic cleansing of hundres and thousands of Arabs). "There are no excuses."

Yes, Obama. By all means. Let's fight terrorism.

But it is your choice. Do we fight the terrorism of an individual, backed by no political party
or organization, a disturbed individual on a stupid, ineffective, tragic rampage?

Or the terrorism of a policy of destruction and intimidation perpetrated by a government
that we support, the government who Obama said ought to be able to claim Jerusalem
as its eternal undivided capital, which involves exactly the sort of cleansing of the
indigenous Arab population that house demolitions are such an important part of?

I know which one you will choose, you coward.


You will lend your cheap condemnation to the chorus of condemning voices, while not
lifting ONE FINGER to stop the destruction of more Palestinian homes, the confiscation
of more Palestinian land, the intimidation and humiliation of more Palestinian children,
the growth of more illegal settlements, the siege of more Palestinian towns and cities.
In the face of that, you will offer your excuses.

And what will your condemnation win? Will it reassure the families of those who have
been wounded or killed? Will it lead to less violence? Will it encourage justice or
peace or reconciliation?

No. Of course not. It will win you votes.


But let other news this week serve as a warning to all the state terrorists out there,
smug in your euphemistic lingustic dance, in your neutralizing and your razing.

"Radovan Karadzic, leader of the Bosnian Serbs during the 1992-95 war and
genocide in Bosnia, was arrested in Serbia on two charges of genocide, crimes
against humanity and war crimes for the 43-month siege of Sarajevo and for
orchestrating the 1995 massacre  of thousands at Srebrenica."

Hide all you want. Hide behind the lingustic framework that allows you to do whatever
you want in the name of security and fighting terrorism. Pretend you are a healer,
just as Karadzic did (he disguised himself as a practicioner of herbal medicine). Grow
a long beard to cover your face.

But whether in the next ten years or the next era, justice will be done. And the families
whose homes you demolished, whose fathers and sons and daughters you killed and
terrorized, whose livelihoods you destroyed--you will see their faces.

And I pray for you, that the voice you hear then will be a quiet voice, coming from a love
deeper than we can possibly imagine, saying to you: "Father, forgive them. They know
not what they do."

You know what you are doing. You know it very well. But you don't know it deeply,
in the same way the Roman centurions didn't know it deeply. They thought they
knew what they were doing. But they didn't know that with each death-dealing
decision by the state, we are trying to kill Love.



Love will not be killed.



Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, savior, have mercy on me, a sinner.