Letter to FT: Mr Wishah, 30 dec 2008

The Financial Times One Southwark Bridge London, UK
30 December 2008
Re: Mr Wishah in Gaza

Thanks to the FT for providing a Palestinian-eye perspective on the ongoing horror, as told by Mr Wishah. It was at the home of Wishahi in an earlier time in another place, Jenin refugee camp in the wake of the 2002 Israeli Big Invasion, that I experienced a certain degree of what Mr Wishah describes of Israeli armed attacks on civilian areas. On my first night as a guest, I was one of eighteen in the home which was harboring a brother’s family whose home had been damaged in the invasion. One day as I sat reading in the sunshine of the courtyard, an American F16 with an Israeli pilot approached - quickly, as they do - and when it was right overhead, I ran faster than I ever have in my life, bouncing off a wall of the house to get inside. My Mr Wishahi laughed to see this! They had experienced much worse, of course. But Mr Wishah in the FT’s Gaza eyewitness, has no cover. May the sparks of conscience throughout the world run to cover this population and to counter this genocide. Thank goodness you have a real on-the-ground perspective to counter the partisan, easy-chair rhetoric of your Middle East editor, who judges: “Stupidly, Hamas ignored Israel’s warnings to halt the attacks.” Stupidly, your editor ignores the reality that the ineffective rocket attacks did not kill a single Israeli before the truce ended. And why should any polity buckle to the warnings of a terrorizer? We praise resistance movements who ignored dictator’s warnings in other wars: why worship these violent threats in this context? Why is Abu Mazen heeding these warnings, because he is intelligent, rather than stupid? A grain of intelligence shows that he is taking his stand because he is threatened that the same attacks will happen to him and the West Bank if he does not appease the aggressor. E Cantarow points out: “While the world watches, a people is being destroyed,” quoting Sara Roy’s “depressing conclusion” that “if Gaza falls, the West Bank will follow.” [counterpunch 26-28 December 2008 http://counterpunch.org/cantarow12262008.html]. It is worth at least considering an alternate to this FT analysis, i.e., that the democratically elected government in Gaza - as you noted - is trying to save both Gaza and the West Bank from collapse. As for protests, these are not instigated by Nasrallah, even if he did call for them. People have the capability to see and to respond, at least when their electricity is not cut. It was not Nasrallah who inspired a demonstration in Chicago on Sunday 28 December the day after the first wave of Israeli attacks. It was the consciences of people, including those without even one-tenth of a drop of Arab blood in their veins, people who speak up against inhuman massacres. It was people who don’t even know how to pronounce the word “Islam”, including members of the Society of Friends, or Quakers, a newish and particularly American branch of Christianity. Intelligently then, let us take into account the human element in Gaza, and lift a finger to save a population from “warnings” and their subsequent violence.