Deadmeat Leadership [Archives:2001/14/Focus]
COMMON SENSE
By: Hassan Al-Haifi
Yes, it is Earth Day in the Holy Land. However, Earth Day is not meant to placate the Greens or the environmentalists of the world, who are struggling against a menacing world of big industry and agribusiness and all those nasty conglomerates that are desecrating all that is left of the natural beauty and the ecological balance, so necessary for the continuation of life. In Palestine, Earth Day is a whole different story. In Palestine Earth Day is a part of a more severe fight for life, not against factories or smoking chimneys of coal burning power stations, but against the barrels of tanks and the rockets of helicopter gunships out to kill little children, who ask for nothing out of life, except for a chance to see the light of the next day. Earth Day is a desperate struggle to hold on to an identity in the little land that is left to a people who have never seen normalcy in life for over fifty years. Earth Day is a symbolic reminder to the world that it is condoning deliberate and systematic murder of the indigenous population of the Holy Land by an arrogant colonialist menace, that knows no bounds to the immorality of its military and security apparatus in the Holy Land. Yes, in the Holy Land there is murder being instigated, licensed by the United States of America and blessed by all the Western Media.
In the Holy Land, words have totally different meanings. A struggle for the right to live in peace is called terrorism. In the Holy Land, masterminds of massacres become national leaders, because the merits of moral behavior have no place in a Zionist cause that thrives on the indiscriminate killing of helpless children, who are used for target practice by the Israeli Defense and Security forces. In the Holy Land, the helpless victims are told to cease their violence, when the facts show that over 400 people have been killed and over 5000 wounded civilians by the very same forces that are calling for the security of the Israeli citizens. What a farce?
In the Holy Land, there is no such thing as mercy to any one who claims to be a Palestinian, because the Palestinians are the victims of a bloodthirsty enemy in their midst, who has already taken most of their land and left a considerable number of the population, widowed or orphaned and of course homeless, with the blessings of the United States and the turned faces of the rest of the world.
Even their fellow Arabs have forsaken them. Two Arab Summits and again we realize that we are a nation without any feelings of affinity to our blood brothers in Palestine, and no hope in the entire lot of the Arab leadership. What leadership do we have, when they have failed to reflect any of our sentiments to our blood brothers in Palestine? What are they afraid of, if they shut the oil to those who are giving the killing machine of Zion all its tools and support.
To our brothers in Palestine, please forgive your fellow Arabs and Moslems everywhere, who are sincere in their sympathy for your tragic plight in this menacing world we live in. We had tried in vain to make it clear to our leaders that we really want them to do something for their brothers in Palestine, or else stay home and carry on business as usual against your own people. They met in Cairo and they met in Amman and the result: Sharon releases his helicopter gunships and heavy armor against the unarmed Palestinian children, already suffering from a tightly enforced siege to make it clear that there is no room for Palestinians in the Land of Zion – and no leadership in the Arab World. It is distressing that when a nation has so much leverage and all the elements needed to uphold a legitimate cause, we found our leaders as helpless as lambs waiting to be slaughtered because they have been found with Foot and Mouth Disease. A leadership that does not project any hope, self-respect and even feelings for the sentiments that are shouted loud and clear from Mauritania to the Persian Gulf: “For God’s sake, you guys do something, to help relieve the terrible plight of our brothers in Palestine. Forget about America, the United Nations, the European Community and the Russian Federation. They know what is going on Palestine, but they know that our leaders are the last to care, so why should they care? They are right! Why should all those powerful countries or blocs care about the Palestinians, when our leaders have shown that the blood brothers of the Palestinians do not care either. But the Arab people do care, and have expressly told their leaders; we will back you no matter how extreme your action may seem. All the Arab people are ready to sacrifice whatever is needed to relieve our Palestinian brothers from the Godless enemy that has raped the Holy Land and stained its gentle hills with the pure blood of its indigenous people, killed in cold blood, because they refuse to give up their last foothold in the land that was to them the whole Earth. The Arabs know that they have the making of a Great Nation, but our leaders insist that we should never aspire for such fantasies. Yet, they insist that only they know what is right for us. What is not right for us, as a Great Nation, or simply God fearing simple people, is to watch our blood brothers in Palestine become slaughtered night and day by Ariel Sharon and his Zionist thugs. We know it is wrong to stand idle and have Summits that fail to even agree on what to discuss, let alone how to deal with the Zionist menace that has now unleashed its ferocity against our helpless brothers in Palestine.
We implored our leaders do anything, give them the funds we have contributed to the cause. But even our own hard-earned money has not reached our poor brothers in Palestine.
What is wrong with our conscience? No, my brothers in Palestine, rest assured, our consciences are alive and well. Our leaders may not have consciences, but believe me every Arab in the street is ready to sacrifice anything that will ease your pain and sorrow. Every Palestinian child that falls to the bullets of the Israelis is our child. Every mosque and church that the Israeli bulldozers destroy is our mosque and our church. For fifty years, we have been waiting for America to see the light of their misguided policy in the Holy Land, only to find that Israel is the author of that policy and our oil continues to flow to them. If only our leaders just threaten to use the oil as a weapon – a God given weapon to make up for our weaknesses in just about every other area, including the weakness of leadership without a mission – a cause – deadmeat.
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