[Marxism] 18 writers - 3 Nobel Prize winners -- protest Israeli moves to liquidate Palestinian nation

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

www.thenation.com


A Letter from 18 Writers


by _NONE

[from the August 28, 2006 issue]


including three Nobel Prize recipients 


The latest chapter of the conflict between Israel and Palestine began
when Israeli forces abducted two civilians, a doctor and his brother,
from Gaza. An incident scarcely reported anywhere, except in the Turkish
press. The following day the Palestinians took an Israeli soldier
prisoner--and proposed a negotiated exchange against prisoners taken by
the Israelis--there are approximately 10,000 in Israeli jails. 

That this "kidnapping" was considered an outrage, whereas the illegal
military occupation of the West Bank and the systematic appropriation of
its natural resources--most particularly that of water--by the Israeli
Defense (!) Forces is considered a regrettable but realistic fact of
life, is typical of the double standards repeatedly employed by the West
in face of what has befallen the Palestinians, on the land allotted to
them by international agreements, during the last seventy years. 

Today outrage follows outrage; makeshift missiles cross sophisticated
ones. The latter usually find their target situated where the
disinherited and crowded poor live, waiting for what was once called
Justice. Both categories of missile rip bodies apart horribly--who but
field commanders can forget this for a moment? 

Each provocation and counter-provocation is contested and preached over.
But the subsequent arguments, accusations and vows, all serve as a
distraction in order to divert world attention from a long-term
military, economic and geographic practice whose political aim is
nothing less than the liquidation of the Palestinian nation. 

This has to be said loud and clear, for the practice, only half declared
and often covert, is advancing fast these days, and, in our opinion, it
must be unceasingly and eternally recognized for what it is and
resisted. 

PS: As Juliano Mer Khamis, director of the documentary film Arna's
Children, asked: "Who is going to paint the 'Guernica' of Lebanon?" 

John Berger
Noam Chomsky
Harold Pinter 
José Saramago
Eduardo Galeano
Arundhati Roy
Naomi Klein
Howard Zinn
Charles Glass
Richard Falk
Gore Vidal
Russell Banks
Thomas Keneally
Chris Abani
Carolyn Forché
Martín Espada
Jessica Hagedorn
Toni Morrison 

This letter has been printed in newspapers throughout the world,
including Le Monde, El País, The Independent and La Repubblica. 


 
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