Re: [Marxism] hit vs. massacre

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Les Schaffer wrote:
> Al Jazeera rightly calls it a massacre, NY Times says "shells hit crowd".

Counterpunch, May 19, 2004

Where's John Kerry?
Homes Destroyed; Death Toll Mounts
By JOSH FRANK

Even if he turns out to be the second worst president in US history,
John F. Kerry will still be better than our sitting president. At least
many liberal and progressive Americans are stating as much in order to
justify their support for the leading Democrat. However, such rationale
does not dilute the fact that most people in the world will not be able
to sense any tangible variation between either, Bush or Kerry.

Just ask the Palestinians who, as the Washington Post reported, suffered
19 (other estimates range between 25-30) deaths in the last nine days
(prior to today's attack by the Israeli military on a Palestinian
demonstration in Rafah that killed at least 10 people) due to hostile
Israeli military aggression in Rafah, a Palestinian refugee camp located
in the Gaza Strip.

Israel "has every right to defend itself from terror," Bush proclaimed
on May 18 to members and supporters of the pro-Zionist lobbying force
known as AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) who are
hunkered down in Washington D.C. this week.

"The United States is strongly committed, and I am strongly committed,
to the security of Israel as a vibrant Jewish state," he said to the
group's 4,500 loyalists. "Israel is a democracy and a friend and has
every right to defend itself from terror."

Democratic Senator John Kerry has been virtually silent regarding the
rising violence in the West Bank, where the United Nations Relief and
Works Agency has estimated over 1,100 Palestinians have been left
homeless due to Israel's latest armored rampage. Coincidentally, both
Kerry and Bush have made no mention of the UN's tally in any of their
recent speeches.

So if Kerry hasn't denounced Israeli policy, where does he stand? Well,
as he proclaimed in the Brown University Student's for Israel
publication earlier this year, "As the only true democracy in the Middle
East, Israel has both the burden and the glory of a vigorous public
square. We as Americans must be the truest and best kind of ally -
forthright enough to say what we think - and steadfast enough to stay
the course in hard passages as well as easy days - the cause of Israel
is the cause of America," Kerry wrote.

Looks like Palestinians won't be seeing in real change in U.S. policy,
despite who wins next November.

And as many befuddled liberals fall in line behind Kerry, they are
privately asking; where's that darn Howard Dean when you need him? Sorry
to say it wouldn't have made a dime's worth of difference for the plight
of Palestinians, regardless if the old doctor were still in the hunt.

"If Israel has to defend itself by striking terrorists elsewhere, it's
going to have to do that," governor Dean told Judy Woodruff in a CNN
interview in 2002. "Terrorism has no place in bringing peace in the
Middle East - nations have the right to defend themselves just as we
defended ourselves by going into Afghanistan to get rid of Al Qaeda."

Sounds frighteningly familiar, doesn't it? Perhaps Bush watches CNN
after all.


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