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There is no innocence in distance

Taufiq Rahim
WHO among us is silent today? Silence is unadulterated culpability. Yet, rejecting the Israeli terrorisation of 1.5 million residents of Gaza should not have to mean supporting Hamas. Censure of the destruction wrought by the IDF does not indicate that there is no problem of Islamic extremism, or that democracy is flourishing in Arab societies. Why are people not allowed to reject terrorism and dictatorship, while also disapproving of the wholesale neglect of human rights by the Israeli government?
The many friends of mine, who are friends of Israel, want to hear the pithy castigation of Hamas. Is it necessary? Do they not already know that the very essence behind many people's rejection of the Israeli war machine precisely underpins their disassociation with the ideology of Hamas? We are told that the rockets fired into southern Israel must stop.
Indeed, the rockets that killed eight Israelis in 2008 do need to stop. There is no question that the rockets of Hamas are indiscriminate. They are rudimentary and target brutally civilian areas.
Does anyone believe that the cure to rocket-fire is the mass destruction of the most densely populated prison on Earth? The solution is somehow the displace-
ment of the oldest refugees in modern history? The answer is the killing of hundreds, and the wounding of thousands? Who can stand up and honestly say that this is a logical equation for peace? So when the F-16 lines up next to the rocket launcher, rest assured nobody will win, and everybody will lose.
Israeli spokespersons trip over one other to declare in perfect seriousness: "We don't understand — Ariel Sharon nobly pulled out of Gaza in 2005, so everything after that has nothing to do with occupation."
Perhaps it has something to do with the total closure of Gaza. Or the failure to provide any economic viability after the withdrawal, and the failure by Israel to open borders. Or the siege and sanctions imposed in response to the election of Hamas.
The last three years have spiralled into tit-for-tat attacks by all sides. The Israelis, however, are not the ones who do not have passports. It is the Gazans still without a state, still without dignity, now without food, today without electricity, tomorrow without hope.
I am tired. Tired of asking the West to look through the lens of the East. The rich to live the life of the poor. When US President-elect Obama visited Sderot he sympathised with the families there. He said, if missiles were falling where his two daughters slept, he would do everything
in order to stop that.
The sentiment is not misplaced, but I wonder, how he would have reacted growing up under occupation. What would he do when helicopter gunships destroyed his home? How would he defend his daughters when they were killed in a UN school serving as a shelter? Would he have made it to Harvard without having any nationality or passport?
So let's get real. Let's not dance around the obvious. Let's not give in to self-righteous indignation while ignoring the difficult truths. Forget who started what and when. Ignore the desire to be the moral victor. Be fair and not neutral and apathetic. Reject the death of women and children as necessary evils. Cast out those who tell you peace is not possible, and tell them the following:
Peace is possible, and will happen between the Palestinians and Israelis. Who are the Palestinians and Israelis but brothers and sisters of the Holy Land? Who are Christians, Muslims, and Jews but believers in Abraham and the prophets before and after him?
But peace will only be based on justice, mutual respect, and security. There will be no peace through violence, and no justice through subjugation and submission.
Fundamentally, no solution will be found while the people of Gaza and the West Bank are secondary citizens in the process, subject to the whims of their neighbours who literally and figuratively enter their homes, leaving destruction and despair in their wake.
Everyone should call for an end to the occupation and to the violence. Nothing can justify the continued dispossession and occupation of the Palestinians. Nothing. The use of force to enforce this reality only welcomes the use of terrorism to upset the formula. And the use of terrorism to upset the formula will only entrench this reality further and stain the moral character of those who perpetrate the dastardly acts.
We only need to open our eyes, and not be blinded by false promises of violence. Stop the fighting. Stop the occupation. Not tomorrow, but today. It is a call beyond urgency. It should be heard by the media.
It should be sent to the Arab states. It should be relayed to the militant organisations. It should resonate in the State of Israel and on the Palestinian strays. It • should travel across the cities of the US? and into the chambers of Congress, and the Oval Office of the White House.
Yet, without my voice, your voice, and everyone's voices, there will be nothing but silence. So stand up, and proclaim to all who will listen the vital message of peace and justice.
Taufiq Rahman is a freelance contributor to The Daily Star.
***Everyone should call for an end to the occupation and to the violence. Nothing can justify the continued dispossession and occupation of the Palestinians. Nothing. The use of force to enforce this reality only welcomes the use of terrorism to upset the formula.****