Columnist Jamala Rogers
The U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation is mobilizing a national march and rally on June 10 to mark the 40th anniversary of Israeli’s illegal settling of Palestinian territory. The activity will be appropriately held in Washington, D.C., where various administrations have aided and abetted the occupation for years. The situation in that neck of the world recently became more complicated with the in-fighting between Palestinian groups, Hamas and Infatah. The core problem remains the same: Israel.
In his best-selling and controversial book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, former U.S. president Jimmy Carter cites Israeli obstructionism as the root cause of the failure to achieve a just Palestinian/Israeli settlement. Behind Israel is the military and economic might of this country.
It is estimated that nearly one-third of the U.S. foreign aid budget goes to Israel each year, with 60 percent going to its defense budget. Of that, $3 billion is in direct aid and another $2-4 billion is whateva-whateva money. Most of the former is untraceable and therefore incalculable. I believe that U.S. foreign aid is usually bribe money, either to silence some governments or to provide arms for other bully countries of the world.
Stephen Zunes calls the U.S.-Israel aid relationship “unlike any other in the world.” Zunes, chair of the Peace and Justice Studies Program at the University of San Francisco, further states the aid “is the most generous foreign aid program ever between any two countries.”
By now you’re thinking what others had already said out loud: Israel probably wouldn’t exist without U.S. aid – or at least it couldn’t maintain the continuous aggression against the Palestinian people without the big bucks of the U.S. Of course, these are OUR tax dollars.
Occasionally, I am asked by African Americans where are the Jewish voices against Zionism and Palestinian occupation. My initial response is something like this: Do you think that the same forces which mute our black voices of resistance against the oppressive U.S. government would not muffle or distort Jewish voices speaking against the violence of their home country?
Since day one of the Israeli so-called state, there have been many who opposed such settler actions, as well as subsequent assaults on the Palestinian land, culture and its people. A good deal of these have been Jewish people who encourage others not to be pressured into silence because of threatened labels of anti-Semitic (or anti-Jew) when talking about the Israeli government’s policies and actions. There are many groups and websites who focus on peaceful and just solutions to the Israeli-Palestine conflict.
On the eve of the June 10 mobilization, black voices have been translated into words for an Open Letter to Black America on Palestinian Rights. A diverse group of signatories have acknowledged our people’s enduring support for the right of Palestine to exist as well our indomitable pursuit of peace. The letter calls for intensifying the unified efforts of the Arab and African communities to change U.S. policy towards the Palestinian state.
Those of us of African descent in this country must continue the call for unconditional peace and our struggle against empire-building. The rest of the world expects us to hold our government accountable for its overt and covert actions in the destructive intervention of sovereign nations. As allies of world peace, we must deliver on our commitment.