Today on Democracy Now’s broadcast, Ali Abuninah, “the co-founder of the Electronic Intifada and author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse,” spoke a bunch of words which, frankly, made me sit back in my chair. Not because of what he said on its own, mind you, but the words he chose to say (below), in conjunction with the remarkable passion and clarity in which he shared them, was extremely powerful and impressive;
“[P]eople have tried to reach Gaza to break the siege by land. They have tried by sea. And they have lost their lives. They have given their lives in the cause of breaking this siege on Gaza. And we have to ask […] for what crime are 1.5 million people in Gaza being held prisoner? [W]hen will the Obama administration stop this outrageous complicity, this enabling, this acting as an accomplice with these crimes against people in Palestine and now against Americans, Turks, Greeks, Jordanians, Palestinians, Lebanese, Swedes, French people, German people, members of Parliament, doctors, retired people, trying to bring medicine to people in Gaza? That our government has not stood up and condemned this in the clearest possible terms is a sign that something is sick in the United States’ system when it comes to speaking about and dealing with Israel. There is a sickness that has to be addressed.”
I couldn’t agree more. You know things are bad when you are confident you can never be shocked by anything you hear on the news, yet one morning, yesterday morning in fact, you turn on the radio and hear something, such as this senseless massacre, and your only reaction is to want to roll over and cry…