LIELA KHALID strikes a defient pose, as a freedom fighter, she is no better off than our own Winnie Mandela — bellicose, belligerent and given to blank statements that go down with the masses. One is reminded of so many rallies in which the soft, voices of reason, the call of peace were drowned out by the insane resort to weapons — the invocation of “one settler one bullet”, now replaced by “one zionist, one bullet” and the whole schtick of Arab Nationalism — the Palestinian Nationalist State in which activists of this country are now expected to support a Free Palestine, having had some cause in the past to identify with the struggle for a Free South Africa
As a Jewish Anarchist, one has misgivings about being here, at a meeting to show solidarity with those in Lebenon & Gaza, children massacred by the Israeli war machine. The photographs of butchered babies with their guts spewing out are as stomach wrenching as any black and white sepia print from Belsen or Triblenka.
It is not all that hard to see where the world has gone mad. Zionism, i.e. belief in a Jewish State, is being contradicted by another belief system, the belief in a Palestian State and Leila Khalid, one should add, has nothing better to offer us than Olmert, except worship of the state.
According to Khalid, Moslems, Jews, and Christians will live together in a Palestine, as it was, before the Zionists came. Amidst calls for the destruction of Israel, the resort to a foundation myth about Khalid’s future state — Marxist State
Worship? She is neither a Jew, nor a Moslem. In fact there is very little to say about her religious affiliations suffice to say she wants no part of it — an Arab Nationalist to the last.
Is there any point then to this drama — Hamas, the PLO, Hizbollah, or the Israeli Defence Force? Our own movement?
All sides seem to have been driven insane by the land issue, while the drums of Arab Nationalism are being beaten, the fracas around the rights of Jews to worship at the Temple Wall in East Jerusalem is forgotten, as too the rights of Moslems and Christians to practice their own religion.
One can only sigh with a heavy heart, this conflict is not as cut-and-dried as our own, instead, I call for justice and a common humanity and want no part of either state — Israel or Palestine.
SHALOM, SALAAM, MAY PEACE BE UPON YOU.