Dear Editor,
Sir Winston Churchill, the most famous of British Prime Ministers, once said that you can always depend on the Americans to do the right thing after they tried everything else.
That statement has quite a lot of truth in it. In our own case, it is now clear that their actions here in the 1960s contributed greatly to us being saddled with the PNC dictatorship and the resulting destruction of our economic and social infrastructure. However, their firm stance in 2020 contributed greatly to preventing another round of dictatorial regimes in our land.
I was reminded of Sir Winston’s witty remarks when I looked at the Television news on May 12 and heard President Biden commenting on the situation relating to the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. His remarks were Israel has a right to defend itself and that both sides should show restraint. Surely, he has to be better informed.
The reality is that the Israeli Government is guilty of provoking the conflict. The Apartheid regime has sent and is sending its police to evict people from their homes. What do you expect? Should those who are being forced out of their homes go quietly? How can you tell those people to show restraint? Whole families are thrown on the road to make way for foreign Jews.
When the people retaliate with the primitive weapons at their disposal, you rain bombs down on them, destroying their homes, their children, and lives.
This is taking place at this time when the Israeli Prime Minister is on the verge of being pushed out of power. This provocation of the Palestinians is criminal and designed as a distraction for the racist Apartheid regime in Israel.
President Biden’s position on this issue goes against everything he said before, during and after the Presidential elections in the US.
He condemned the actions of the police in the US as it relates to Blacks and other non-white peoples in the United States. He came out strongly against racism at home and expressed his abhorrence to the racists.
Yet the US administration’s position in relation to Israel and Palestine is profoundly racist. The Israeli state is an Apartheid state. Laws are made to discriminate against Palestinians. Palestinians living in Israel cannot even repair their own homes, cannot buy property and many other atrocities. They are not free to move around in their own country.
Successive American administrations have used “sanctions” against countries, often not for any good reasons. Cuba for instance is facing great sanctions and its economy made to scream.
Israel commits the worst terrorists actions in the world, killing civilians. After all, the Palestinians do not have an army. The people are defenseless.
When the sympathizers of Israel find it hard to defend their actions, they resort to two arguments. One is what we mentioned already, that Israel has a right to defend itself. The second one is that the two sides should sit down and talk.
Both of these arguments ignore the reality on the ground. I have mentioned already that the Palestinians are being deliberately provoked, pushed out of their homes, prevented from going to worship in their holiest of months, and then slaughtered. Yet they are being called upon “to show restraint.” They are being portrayed as being equally guilty for the violence.
Secondly “both sides should sit down and talk.” This sounds reasonable on the surface, but it is not.
They are not equal forces. The Palestinians have nothing to threaten Israel. They are weak economically and militarily. The only thing they have is a strong spirit of resistance.
Moreover, they have not been the ones responsible for the division of Palestinian land. This was imposed on them by the international community in 1948 when their lands were taken away.
Therefore, the international community has a moral obligation to the Palestinians. It must be part of the negotiations to ensure that the Palestinian rights are respected and upheld.
The United States in particular has the power to stop the massacre. It supplies the Apartheid regime with the most modern weapons. It gives their racist state protection at the United Nations and elsewhere. Its economic assistance is enormous. Israel gets more economic aid from the US than the total aid given to the rest of the developing world.
President Biden is in the position now to correct many of the wrongs done to the poor people of Palestine.
I’m recalling Sir Winston Churchill’s comment, I believe that everything else was already tried and it is time now for America to do the ‘right thing’ by the people of Palestine.
Respectfully,
Donald Ramotar
Former President
