Path: utzoo!ncc!alberta!auvax!louis
From: louis@auvax.UUCP (Louis Schmittroth)
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Re: Joe Clark's speech to the CIC
Summary: Clark was right, Dave Sherman is wrong
Message-ID: <568@auvax.UUCP>
Date: 17 Mar 88 04:20:18 GMT
References: <560@auvax.UUCP> <1988Mar15.024839.27444@lsuc.uucp>
Organization: Athabasca U., Alberta, Canada
Lines: 117

In article <1988Mar15.024839.27444@lsuc.uucp>, dave@lsuc.uucp (David Sherman) writes:
> In article <560@auvax.UUCP>, louis@auvax.UUCP (Louis Schmittroth) writes:
> > I wish to commend Joe Clark on showing the courage of his convictions
> > in his speech to the Canada-Israel Committee.  It is refreshing to see
> > a politician who will say the same thing to both South Africa and
> > Israel (Canadian branch) when he sees (and we all see) violations
> > of human rights.
> 
> No-one is suggesting the Palestinians aren't human.  Israel's
> policy has been one of restraint.  Why do you think only 40
> Palestinians have been killed so far?  In almost any other
> country (and certainly any country in the Middle East), rioters
> throwing rocks and threatening the lives of soldiers would suffer
> far greater casualties.
 
I like your statistical morality.  During the great slaughter of
Armenians by the Turks during World War I, about 1.5 millions died.
During World War II, 6 millions Jews died, and maybe 20 million Chinese
died at the hands of the Japanese Imperial Army.  Hence we can arrange
our criminals on a nice scale.  Japanese, Germans, Turks.  A very minor
correction, though, it is 100 Palestinians by Israeli count.  Makes the
Jews of Israel seem downright benevolent doesn't it?

> What happened in India, with Sikh riots in the Punjab?
> Hundreds of dead in a matter of a few days? Thousands?
> Israel's mistake, if anything, is that by acting with restraint
> they've allowed the riots and relatively minor causalties to
> continue for weeks, which lets the problems "build up" through
> the Western media.
I saw the CBS videos of Israelis torturing young Palestinians, and
that was not put one for the media.  In fact the Israelis didn't
know the cameramen were there.
> 
> Where were Joe Clark and Louis Schmittroth when Syria wiped
> out the entire population of Hama (20,000 people) a few years
> ago?  
Where was Dave Sherman when the peasants of the Ukraine were
starved into submission, or when Tamberlane overran ..., or ...

I know where Louis Schmittroth was during World War II --
serving in US Army.

> What about the Iran-Iraq war, with its millions of
> casualties?  What about human rights abuses in 30 countries
> in Africa, or throughout Eastern Europe?  Central America?  Kampuchea?
> Afghanistan?  Panama?  Fiji?  Can you say "double standard"?
> 
Joe Clark and Louis Schmittroth condemn all violations of human
rights, in all these places, and we even now are able to
condemn the violations in Israel.

> Yes, there have been some excesses in the actions of Israeli
> soldiers.  Yes, the violence is regrettable.  I don't enjoy
> hearing or reading about Palestinian Arab deaths.  But I have
> little sympathy for the Arab cause, the victim of its own actions.
> The Arabs have consistently refused to accept the existence of
> one tiny Jewish state in their midst.  The Palestinians could
> have had their state in 1947.
I have a great deal of sympathy for anybody anywhere who gets the
short end of the stick, and my sympathy extends to the Palestinians
who are being oppressed now, and those who were forced from their
homes to make way for the state of Israel.

I have been reading an almost heart-rending account of the oppresion
of Palestinians by Israel, written a young Israeli journalist, David
Grossman.  The title of the book is the Yellow Wind, and will be
published in New York by Farrar, Straus.  He is 32, born in Israel,
and speaks Arabic.  This is an absolutely shocking book.

Israel was born in violence and terroism, and it looks like it will
continue in violence and terrorism.  People whose ancestors had lived
in Palestine for hundreds of years all of a sudden were told that since
God had promised Palestine to the tribes of Israel, they would have to
leave.  The creation of the Jewish state was one of the biggest mistake
of the postwar era.  HOWEVER, that is done, and cannot be undone!  Now
is the time to consider some way out the hate and violence.  The first
step is for Canadian Jews to realize that Israel is not always right,
and that the repression and brutality of the occupation of the
remaining Palestinian lands cannot go on forever.

> And I cannot agree with those who, sitting in safety in Canada,
> can purport to tell Israel how to handle riots.  Remember that
> in 1970, it took only two kidnappings and a murder to trigger
> the War Measures Act and the arrest of hundreds.  And Canada
> is hardly in danger of being pushed into the sea.
> 
> Toronto Star, March 14, 1988, page A4, reporting on a demonstration
> in Toronto on Sunday:
> 	"We must have truth, justice and war, war, war
> 	until Palestine is liberated from Zionism and U.S.
> 	imperialism," Imam Bilal Muhammad told the cheering
> 	group. "We don't want part of the pie, we want the
> 	whole thing."
> 

That is one Palestinian's view.  To be fair you should quote the
many who want peace, who are willing to work for peace.  And you
should quote both the moderate and extreme Israelis.  I hope that
moderate forces come to power in Israel, and that citizens of 
Canada who are Jews will support the Palestinian cause.

> Given that that's the Arab point of view, there's nothing
> to negotiate about. Israel's only choice is force.  We Jews
> have learned the hard way that we have to take care of ourselves.
 
My ancestors came from Germany in the mid-19th century, and when I was
younger I felt ashamed for my racial origins when I saw what the state
of Germany did during the Nazi time.  But I notice that many American
Jews are now ashamed of the actions of Israel.  It is really sad to see
Israel turned into a country that knows no other way but force and
brutality.

-- 

Louis Schmittroth		           My employer has no opinions.
Computer Science
Athabasca University   ...{ubc-vision, ihnp4}!alberta!auvax!louis