Pulitzer-winning author Alice Walker sees a reflection of the injustice done to African-Americans in today’s treatment of the Palestinians, leading her to object when the artwork of Palestinian children is barred from U.S. museums and to join a flotilla that challenged Israel’s blockade of Gaza, as Dennis Bernstein reports.
By Dennis Bernstein
Alice Walker is Pulitzer Prize winning poet, author and activist. She participated recently in the U.S. Boat to Gaza, which was a part of the Freedom Flotilla, to break the Israeli embargo on the Gaza Strip.
Last year, a flotilla was attacked by Israeli commandos and a number of people were killed and wounded. Walker’s boat was stopped by Greek authorities before it could traverse the eastern Mediterranean to Gaza.
Author Alice Walker
DB: I want to start with the recent attempt by the Children’s Museum of Oakland to prevent Palestinian kids from showing their art. You wrote a very moving piece on your web site. It was very personal. Could you just briefly outline what you wrote and your response to this censorship?
AW: Well, I was basically saying that the children need to have exposure of their art because it will be a wonderful way to help them heal from the trauma of being bombed and watching their friends, and sometimes parents, die.
And it’s unconscionable that any adults, especially in this part of the world, and lo and behold in Oakland would want to deprive these children of a venue in which they could expose some of their grief and some of their pain, and of course, some of their art.
And so I just very strongly urge all of us to go to see this art. I’m not sure where it will be shown.
DB: There was an opening I should tell you around the corner, at a beautiful gallery, there were about five hundred people, there was a marching band, there was beautiful food out front, and a lot of people marveled at the extraordinary art that was shown around the corner from the Children’s Museum.
I think they had a better shot there. And now they are getting requests for it to be a traveling exhibition around the world. It is incredible. Can I ask you to share the personal part of what you wrote?
Because I have seen as a teacher the impact of, very troubled kids, oppressed kids, kids who have faced difficult times being able to get through it, through self-expression.
And this, the part of this that bothered me the most is that the exhibit was advertised, the invitations were sent out, the workshops were set up, the kids were excited and they were told “No, it wasn’t going to happen.” Could you share the personal side of what you wrote?
AW: There are a couple of things. One is, I was injured myself, as a child. I was playing cowboy and Indians with my brothers and one of them accidentally shot me in the eye. And that led to a lot of suffering, and a lot of grief and a lot of pain.
And I started writing poetry at that time when I was eight or nine years old. And my relatives encouraged me to share it, to show it to people. And that was a part of my healing. And so I could easily see that that could help these children.
That having the venue denied to them is a way of making them remain locked in their own private suffering. And this is something that adults with money, in this case, could do to these little kids.
And they are doing it but it is at great risk to their own souls to do this to children; to force them to remain unexpressed or to try to force them to remain unexpressed in their suffering.
The other part that was so, that came to mind as I was writing this essay was how in 1939 Marian Anderson had been denied.
DB: The great singer
AW: The great contralto. She had been denied a venue at the Constitution Hall, at Constitution Hall in D.C. by the Daughters of the American Revolution, who were just upset that the place was going to be integrated.
And, so Anderson’s friends, including the President, [Franklin] Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt came to her defense and she was allowed to sing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
And she actually attracted seventy-five thousand people of all colors and kinds, and everything. And it was one of the biggest turn outs ever, up to that time, at the Lincoln Memorial.
And so I was just reminding us, that these battings and attempts to censor people, they often backfire. And that is something that we should remember.
It strengthens us as well, because we begin to see the forces that are against us. They are fleshed out, they come out of the walls and woodwork, wherever they’ve been hiding and pretending to be upstanding, kind, and generous people.
They suddenly stand revealed as the really very narrow hearted people that they are, and so we don’t have to be fooled. And it’s a great thing not to be fooled by people.
To have that little bit of consciousness about who is likely to try to trip you up as you start climbing towards your freedom. Yes.
DB: And just to take off on what you said, it is either you have a very frightening, and difficult, and terrifying, tragic experience happens to you and either you have a chance to express it to people who care and want to hear it or it gets forced down inside of you and manifests as an illness, in various ways. So it can make all the difference in the world.
AW: It makes all the difference in the world. And in fact, one of the things that you learn from having some fairly dreadful things happen to you, is that you can survive and you can still be happy.
And I like to tell, very briefly, a little story of a leper that I came across in Hawaii, on the island of Molokai. A man whose face had just about been dissolved by his illness, and his expression of just absolute joy was shining through what was left of his face.
And he said “You know one of the things I have learned from this hard life here, is that you can have these terrible things that happen to you and you can still be happy.”
Now this is good news for anybody but especially for a child who feels just completely squashed by an imperial power that bombs its communities and its schools for twenty-two days, non-stop, a child that just has lost parts of its body.
To know that somewhere there is this teaching, and that there are these people and that someone is waiting for them on the other side of the trauma to share with them what they have gained.
You know, you don’t just lose, you sometimes gain a lot from suffering. And they can stand with you and that’s why I love the Middle East Children’s Alliance (Meca).
I love the Middle East Children’s Alliance, because their commitment to these children and to making it clear, not only to the children but to the adults in the world, what it is that we need to be doing together, which is bringing them along, helping them stand, and helping them to see that there is still a possibility of being joyful little kids.
DB: Why did you decide to join that Flotilla?
AW: Well, I did it because I really believe that it is our responsibility. When the world is out of whack as it is almost everywhere you look. What do you do? And where do you place yourself?
And how much do we believe what we say we believe about wanting to fight the good fight for the freedom of the people of the world, and the happiness of the people of the world.
And I had been in Gaza, and I had been in the West Bank and I had met my tribe of poets, and singers, and musicians and philosophers and historians and children and we’re just people.
And you know, people everywhere deserve to be free of fear. They deserve to be free of people taking their land, and bombing their schools, and taking their water.
And so it felt like, given my own background in the South with the segregation, and I’m sitting here right now, looking at pictures of both my parents. That I have an obligation given how much I deeply understand this kind of pain, to try to be present even if we don’t get to where we were trying to get to.
We didn’t get to Gaza. But we did get ten miles off the coast of Greece.
DB: And you were turned back.
AW: We were turned back by armed commandos from the Greek coast guard. And we never got to be in confrontation directly with the Israelis. But they were working against us the whole time. They had been sabotaging the other ships, and making it really hard for us to move.
And yet there again, I can’t be discouraged, I feel so much that if you just get off your couch, if you just leave your house, if you just head out to stand with your neighbor, even if they are ten thousand miles away.
If you head out, there is a way in which you are already there. Your intention is so important, and the movement forward is so important.
DB: You know, Alice, I’m usually very afraid about everything whatever I do, I tend to do it, but I’m frightened. Now you got on a boat knowing that the last round of the Freedom Flotilla faced extreme violence by Israeli commandos, a number of people died were wounded, how do you deal with your fear. Were you afraid?
AW: Of course I was afraid, we’re all afraid. But there is this realization that an earthquake could just right this minute just cover us all up with rubble, we could be sucked out of our car by a hurricane, we could be drowned in these floods that are happening.
In other words, there’s a way in which you have to start to see now, that danger is really everywhere and it’s in every moment so it is better to, I think, to then approach those areas that are dangerous and difficult in that spirit, that well I could lose my life here too at home.
And also now the thing that I find really remarkable and I felt this way in Mississippi forty years ago, when you reach the other people who are as determined and as dedicated as you are, with the love that you have, it’s a kind of heaven.
And it’s not to be missed if you can possibly manage to get to this kind of circle of people who have evolved. I felt on the boat, in the presence of such goodness, such amazing, spirit and heart. That it made it worth whatever the sacrifice might have been, I mean if I would go, I would go with these people, and how blissful, really.
DB: Finally, and I guess this is the hardest thing for me to understand. We are seeing several recent reports surfacing out of Israel, really put together by the Israelis describing a program, an expanding program of midnight kidnappings, and torture of children as young as twelve years old, by Israeli soldiers.
Sometimes they are taken to the basements of the settlements, illegal settlements, and questioned and masked, but they are taken by hooded soldiers and my question for you and I don’t know if there is a real answer but what drives a people to go to these lengths to silence children and to repress freedom.
AW: Well, I think that one of the things that probably should not have happened for so long is that the constant reiteration of the Holocaust.
I think if we had a slavery industry so that so often you would hear horrible tales about the enslavement of black people, like every time you turn around, we would have some incredibly crazed black people who would be doing some much more violent things because the anger.
I think that whatever happens you are never permitted to evolve beyond your rage. So everything becomes an obstacle to your liberation from your own rage. So you turn into quite dangerous entities in society.
Alice Walker is the author of many books of poems and prose, including The Color Purple, A Poem Traveled Down My Arm, and A Poet Encounters the Horror in Rwanda, Eastern Congo and Palestine/Israel. For a list of Alice Walker’s work go to http://alicewalkersgarden.com/. She spoke with Dennis Bernstein on “Flashpoints,” a news program at Pacifica Radio.
“Well, I think that one of the things that probably should not have happened for so long is the constant reiteration of the Holocaust.
I think if we had a slavery industry so that so often you would hear horrible tales about the enslavement of Black people, like every time you turn around, we would have some incredibly crazed Black people who would be doing some much more violent things because of the anger.”
Alice doesn’t think there is a “slavery industry”? What a joke. Any and all wrongdoings by African Americans are attributed to slavery. Blacks are the only race of people who are allowed to say that they are unable to be responsible for their actions. The worst hate crime against Jews in US history was by blacks. It was written about by a black woman, Anna Deuvere Smith, in Fires in the Mirror. Ms Smith spent the whole time sypathizing with the black predators who spent 3 days committing hate crimes against Jews. She plays the slavery card constantly in the book although her people were the perpetrators.
Walker also seems to think black people don’t do crazy things because of their anger. Uh, Crown Heights? LA riots? Maudi Gras riots? NYC Puerto Rican Day parade riots? LA riots? Paris riots? Blacks are way disproportinately involved in doing violent predator things. Half of all murders and rapes in the US are committed by young black males. Blacks are also disproportinately involved in violent crime in other countries. The worst hate crimes in US history against Jews and Asians were committed by blacks. 20 black males recently gangraped a 11 year old Hispanic girl in Cleveland TX and are currently terrorizing her family. Asian kids in Phillidelphia recently won a civil rights lawsuit because the school district refused to protect them from black hate crimes for years. It is the black race card that prevents people from being angry about these things. She is unaware of this?
Walker is unintentionally funny. You can’t hold black folks responsible for ANYTHING without the slavery or racism card being played
Look into the Babylonian Talmud to understand the roots of it all. If you ever wondered why our reality is so depressing or why so many economic recessions and wars you will find the answers in this anti-social book written by the Pharisees three thousand years ago. The name Pharisee has its roots in the name Pharaoh. The ancient Egyptian priests were pagans or more correctly worshipped Baal or Baphomet.
At the time of Christ these Pharisses were gaining power over the other sects like the Essenes, the Maccabaeus, Samaritans and so on. Later, they centralized their religion just as the Roman Emperor Constantine centralized the many religious groups of the time under one religious order. The Old Testament and the New Testament though with different messages were bound into one single book, called the Bible, yet they were serving the same Pharisaic direction. Ever wondered why at the Passover Jesus says: Eat this bread this is my body? and Drink this wine, this is my blood? It sounds like cannibalism to me. In effect,this is part of the blood ritual of the Pharisees of the Talmud. This was their religion which later in the eighteen hundreds was changed to Judaism. There is nothing spiritual in this religion which in fact is just a collection of twelve thousand laws or controls. Buried in it, it is written that it is alright to have sex with children, animals and dead bodies.
Didn’t Jesus denounce these Pharisees? After Christ’s deaths they changed many of his teachings. The Bible is filled with tamperings.
We live in a reality of lies. Question everything and if it doesn’t resonate with you, don’t follow it. Both Judeans and Christians were deceived and manipulated throught thousands of years. Look into the Kol NIdre and discover how it is alright to lie, cheat, and break vows with gentiles.
P
The major and perhaps only sticking point in negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians is that of the “return of the Palestinian refugees.†It sank the Camp David conference that President Clinton had arranged, even though Mr. Barak had made unprecedented concessions for the sake of peace. The new man, Mahmoud Abbas, who routinely refers to Israel as the “Zionist enemy,†also insists that the “right of return†is not negotiable, and that there can be no peace unless those “refugees†are allowed to “return†to Israel.
What are the facts?
650,000 “refugees†swell to 5 million. You have heard about those “Palestinian refugees,†who claim “right of return†to Israel. Of course, virtually none of them ever lived in Israel — they are the children and mostly grandchildren of those who fled in 1948. The total number of those who fled in 1948 is estimated to have been about 650,000. Now the number who wish to return has swollen to almost five million!
How did this exodus come about? In 1948, on the day of the proclamation of the State of Israel, five Arab armies invaded the new country from all sides. In frightful radio broadcasts, they urged the Arabs living there to leave, so that the invading armies could operate without interference. They could return after the expected quick victory in that “holy war,†get their property back — and that of the Jews. Things turned out differently. The invading armies were defeated. Those who had left became refugees — people without a country. Those who stayed, and their children, are full-fledged citizens of the State of Israel.
These so-called “Palestinian refugees†have not been allowed to settle in the “indivisible Arab nation.†They have been supported in camps since 1948. So far, over $2.0 billion has been spent on their maintenance. No end is in sight. Who pays for that? You guessed it: Through UNWRA Relief, the United States contributes more than 60% of the total cost.
The Arab countries, among them some of the richest in the world, who fritter away their enormous fortunes on frivolous luxuries, are satisfied to leave their Arab brethren in those miserable camps. They have never contributed a penny to their maintenance.
Another side of the “refugee†story. But there is another side to the “refugee†story. Little is heard of the 800,000 Jewish refugees from Arab countries, who fled those countries to settle in the newly formed Jewish State of Israel. Every one of these refugees was immediately accepted, resettled, taken care of, and given full citizenship by the fledgling, impoverished, and embattled Jewish State. There never has been, and there certainly is not now, a Jewish “refugee†camp in Israel or anywhere else.
The Arab “refugees†who fled Israel left little wealth and little history, since most of them had not come to “Palestine†until Jewish settlers opened economic opportunities in what had been a desolate country for centuries. But the Jews of Arab lands have a history going back thousands of years. When forced to flee, they left behind land, wealth, and a long history. They arrived in Israel, quite literally only “with their shirts on their backs.†They now make up almost 60% of the vibrant and productive population of Israel. What have the Arabs, the richest people in the world, done with their “refugees†in more than 50 years? They have kept them in misery, on the dole of the world, and have taught their hopeless youth the “skills†of suicide missions and of slaughtering defenseless and unarmed men, women, and children.
If the Arab nations truly decided to make peace with Israel and to put an end to the century-long strife, they could easily accomplish it by accepting the “Palestinian refugees†in their countries and, just as Israel did with Jewish refugees from Arab countries, integrating them into their societies and making useful citizens of them. In fact, acceptance in their countries might also be offered to the Israeli Arabs, who, despite enjoying a higher standard of living, education, and health than Arabs in any of the surrounding countries and despite having the same civil rights as Israeli Jews, are not happy to live in a Jewish state.
Population transfers are common, especially in the wake of wars. They have been practiced throughout history. In 1923, Greece and Turkey agreed to the resettlement of 2 million Greeks and 800,000 Turks; in 1945, the resettlement of 3 million Germans from Poland and Czechoslovakia was arranged. Following the collapse of its North African Empire, France accepted close to 1.5 million people. More than 12 million(!) Muslims and Hindus were exchanged between India and Pakistan. Israel has recognized this historical necessity. The “Arab Nation,” with its enormous wealth and vast under-populated lands, has stubbornly refused to face facts.
It is clear that the “Palestinian refugee problem†is a red herring, kept alive by the Arab nations for their political purposes, and with cynical disregard for the great number of impoverished people who live in these camps. It is being kept alive and is being used as a “non-negotiable†bargaining chip, for the purpose of destroying the State of Israel — a feat that the Arabs have attempted several times by military means, but which has always ended in disastrous failure. Apart from the unsolvable social problems it would create, the introduction of, say, even one-half of the 5 million who claim to be “refugees†would, with one stroke, dramatically alter the demographic makeup of the country and would inevitably destroy the Jewish State. That is of course the whole idea behind the demand for the “return of the refugeesâ€. If the Arab nations were willing to solve the “refugee problem,†the legitimacy of Israel could no longer be questioned. But that is not acceptable to the Arabs. They are firmly committed not to allow Israel or any “non-believers†to be in control of any part of the Middle East. It is that, and that alone, which is the real cause of the “Palestinian refugee problem.â€
There were several pograms against Jews in the 1920’s followed by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem being a sympathizer of Hitler.
Excuse me Flat5, but just the other week a young Palestinian teenager was killed by an Israeli drone while playing football with a friend in front of his home. Palestinians die at the check points because they can’t get needed immediate health care services. Old men have been tied to their donkeys which have then been whipped to speed. One died when he partially fell off and his head was smashed on the curb. Some Israeli Defence Forces had tee-shirts made, now banned. One type showed a gunsight fixed on an obviously pregnant woman, and the caption was ‘One Shot Two Kills.’ Other types were equally disgusting! And if you want to go way back to 1948, near 100 people were killed when a late Israeli Prime Minister and his gang blew up the King David Hotel. Why can’t Palestinians get clean drinking water? Why are Palestinian farmers’ crops held to rot at check points? Why do some illegal Jewish settlers in the occupied territories shoot Palestinian farmers, burn their fields and olive trees, and like the KKK perform terrifying acts towards Palestinian farmers and the police do little. Terrorism is not unique to those you have a problem with Flat5.
700,000 Palestinians were forced off there land by the Israeli forces or fled for fear (3 massacres where well known) in 1948. And according to Benny Morris in his insiteful and well researched , ‘The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem’, Israeli forces were never out gunned or out numbered in the 1948 war, contrary to popular myth.
If you do some research you will find that many Palestinians have as much relationship to Canaanites as many Jews. A poly-theistic Jewish religion transformed into a mono-theistic form. Along came Jesus, a poor Jew who split the religion with his campaign against corruption in the temples and Roman rule. That divide, evolved into the Christian faith and that split into numerous sects itself. Then came the Islamic wave and some Jews and Christian converted to Islam. That over simplifies it, but the point is you are beating up on your kin.
You prove to me that there was a big wealthy state of David. Archaeologists have dug through that time level over and over and come up with nothing.
It’s time to make friends. Many Jews abhor what Israel is doing, some even live peacefully amongst the Palestinians as equals, and likewise some Palestinians have gone out of their way protecting Jews from angry mobs. Before the invention of Zionism, Jews Christians and Muslims generally got on well there. John
Amen John!!!! Agree, concur, I’m in your corner, and I’ve got your back. We’re missing several millions more with our thoughts. Peace is with us..
Harlem
flat5 is a frightening person with no real life. To go to websites with good, considerate writers and to denigrate them in every way shows a warped attitude typical of the Zionists. While nobody is perfect, it is ridiculous to speak up for the criminal behaviour of a very privileged group who still claim victimhood. Get a life and keep your venom away from good people.
Now I see skip gainer, another racist. I suppose both of you will vote for Michele Bachman
You are an ignoramus and assume to be a psychic. I happen to be a very strong supporter of President Obama and have been a life long Democrat. I’m also old enough to have experienced antisemitism as a child, and know that wind when it is present…
Try looking at your own bigoted comments before you start whining about antisemitism flat5. Its amazing how much bigotry and intolerance comes from the same group that constantly accuses everyone else of being racists while ignoring their own bigotry. What arrogance. What a monumental disconnect.
As for “Skip Gainer”, people under rocks shouldn’t throw stones. You’re living proof there skippy.
So this is where Alice and Wonderland Walker has been. Please put her back under her rock and her pulitzer. Hell they gave obama won the noble peace prize because he is black, the man had never done anything to earn it. These are nothing more than titles to make the ones who feel superior to the rest of us good about themselves.
Howard Jacobson: Why Alice Walker shouldn’t sail to Gaza
GAZA
It should not need arguing, this late in the ethical history of mankind, that good people can do great harm. One of the finest and funniest novels ever written — Don Quixote — charts the damage left in the wake of a man who would make the world a better place.
Human beings are seldom more dangerous than when they are sentimentally overcome by the goodness of their own intentions. That Alice Walker believes it is right to join the Freedom Flotilla II to Gaza I do not have the slightest doubt. But beyond associating her decision with Gandhi, Martin Luther King and very nearly, when she talks about the preciousness of children, Jesus Christ, she fails to give a single convincing reason for it.
“One child must never be set above another child,” she says. A sentiment that will find an echo in every heart. But how does it justify the flotilla? Gaza is under siege, Israelis will tell you, because weapons are fired from it into Israel, threatening the lives of Israeli children. If the blockade is lifted there is a fear that more lethal and far-reaching weapons will be acquired, and the lives of more Israeli children endangered.
You may want to argue that had Gaza been treated differently it would have responded differently, but if the aim of the flotilla is to ensure that one child will not be set above another it is hard to see how challenging the blockade will achieve it. All an Israeli parent will see is a highly charged emotionalism disguising an action that, by its very partiality, chooses the Palestinian child over the Israeli.
The boat on which Alice Walker will be traveling is called The Audacity of Hope. Forgive me for seeing a measure of self- importance in that reference. It will be carrying, Alice Walker tells us, “Letters expressing solidarity and love.” Not, presumably, for Israeli children. Perhaps it is thought that Israeli children are the recipients of enough love already. So what about solidarity? It is meant to sound innocuous. “That is all.”
Alice Walker makes plain, “its cargo will be carrying.” But what will these letters of solidarity be expressing solidarity with? Solidarity is a political term implying commonality of interest or aspiration. So what interest or aspiration do Alice Walker and her fellow travelers share with the people of Gaza? A desire for freedom? Well we all aspire to that. A longing to live in peace?
The Gaza Flotilla: Egotists, idiots, and Israel-haters
Posted on 06/27/2011 by Meryl Yourish
The second Gaza flotilla is now confirmed to be filled with people who care more about how the world perceives them than why they are actually attempting to break a naval blockade of a country run by terrorists devoted to the destruction of children. None of those quoted seem to have a grasp of the actual conditions in the Gaza Strip. No, this is the maritime equivalent of a vanity publication: Let’s get on a ship, get boarded by the IDF, and go to dinner parties for the rest of our lives telling our anti-Israel, anti-Zionist, liberal friends what brave, brave people we were to defy the soldiers of the racist, apartheid state of Israel—in international waters, no less!
Alice Walker is the most literate of the Flotilla Fools. She explains, via CNN, why she is doing this:
Our boat, The Audacity of Hope, will be carrying letters to the people of Gaza. Letters expressing solidarity and love. That is all its cargo will consist of. If the Israeli military attacks us, it will be as if they attacked the mailman. This should go down hilariously in the annals of history. But if they insist on attacking us, wounding us, even murdering us, as they did some of the activists in the last flotilla, Freedom Flotilla I, what is to be done?
Translation: Ooooh, look how brave I am. They might kill me, but I’m going anyway—to bring my valuable cargo of letters expressing solidarity and love
That’s funny. I thought the flotilla’s purpose was to bring humanitarian aid into Gaza. At the moment, The Audacity of Hope is stuck in a Greek port undergoing a seaworthiness exam. The crew now includes Ha’aretz’s most anti-Israel reporter, Amira Hass, who is documenting the daily routine of “What to do in case of an Israeli army attack†lectures.
There are nine other passengers in their sixties, and many others between 40 and 60.
So why are they doing this?
“I’m appalled, as are many friends and colleagues, by the conditions in Gaza and by the silence of the international community regarding the ongoing blockade in Gaza,†says Lyn Adamson, trying to explain why they are taking this calculated risk.
Adamson, 59, a Quaker from Toronto, is active in a number of social justice advocacy groups.
“In the absence of effective action by the international community to pressure Israel and Egypt to change their policies … we, at the grass roots, must take action,†she says.
Note the ridiculousness of the quotes. There is no humanitarian crisis. Gazans are now importing luxury cars through the smuggling tunnels, and building luxury hotels and malls. Israeli allows everything but weapons and construction material inside. Oh. Wait. They’re allowing construction material now, too. So why is the flotilla still coming? Let’s go back to Alice Walker again:
It is justice and respect that I want the world to dust off and put – without delay, and with tenderness – back on the head of the Palestinian child. It will be imperfect justice and respect because the injustice and disrespect have been so severe. But I believe we are right to try.
Ah. “Justice and respect.†This is how, she says, she is repaying her debt to the Jews who marched with Martin Luther King: By freeing the Gazans from oppression. Alice Walker is a deluded fool. The only oppression Gazans are suffering from is the oppression of Hamas rule. There was no blockade until Hamas took over the territory. Since that time, Sharia law has been slowly but surely enforced on the people of Gaza. Women are being forced to wear headscarves. Christians are being driven out; their churches and meeting centers bombed. Segregation of the sexes is being enforced. Has Alice Walker written a word about that?
No.
The term “useful idiots†has been used so much in the blogosphere that it is nearly meaningless now. But these fools are, in truth, the perfect example of Lenin’s useful idiots. The publicity they reap for the Hamas overlords is worth millions. News organizations are “embedding†reporters in the flotilla boats, as if this were a war against Israel and their reporters need to write about it. And yet, this is a war against Israel, waged by terrorists, and fought by useful idiots like Medea Benjamin and Alice Walker.
Three boats are already on their way. Greece is holding seven ships, and Israeli is exerting tremendous pressure on Greece to refuse to allow the boats to sail from their ports. Here’s hoping the pressure works. Because when you read the words of the people on board, you realize that the flotilla’s purpose is not to support Gaza. It is to defy and destroy Israel. Once again, let me point out the ninth “Point of Unity†stated as the flotilla’s mission on its website:
We recognize the right of all Palestinian refugees and exiles and their heirs to return without delay to their homes in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, to recover their properties, and to receive compensation for damage, dispossession and unlawful use of such property, in accordance with international law. This is in the first instance an individual and not a collective right, and cannot be negotiated except by the individual.
Right. That’s clear enough: An end to Israel is the true goal of the Flotilla Fools, and people like Alice Walker? Useful idiots. Of more than one organization.
Flat5,
You mean Israel is a country full of terrorists? Or do you mean Gaza? And what business would Israel have blockading Gaza–that’s not part of Israel.