[News] Russell Tribunal on Palestine - Cynthia McKinney
Anti-Imperialist News
news at freedomarchives.org
Tue Mar 16 14:54:53 EDT 2010
From Cynthia McKinney
"They're White Just Like Us . . . "
March 16, 2010
"They're white just like us and the people they're killing . . . are Arabs."
This bit of erudition came, with a shrug of the
shoulders, at the end of the first session of the
newly-formed Russell Tribunal on Palestine. It
was not a part of the official record because it
was stated in the anteroom, just off the
auditorium of the elegantly-appointed Barcelona
Lawyers Building where the Tribunal was
held. The person making this comment was not an
official expert witness--but he was a European
who understood the mindset that made Europeans
complicit, not only in Israel's crimes against
the Palestinian people, but also in Israel's impunity.
The Russell Tribunal on Palestine is organized by
the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation and has
local organizing committees in each of the places
where sessions will be held: Europe, United
Kingdom, South Africa, and the United
States. The Tribunal will next venture into
London, then to South Africa to ponder the
peculiar institution of Israeli apartheid. And
finally to the U.S. where the mother of all complicity resides.
The Tribunal stresses its independence from the
influence of special interests and each Local
Organizing Committee conducts fundraising
activities to make each Session a
success. Barcelona can be chalked up as a
success that serves the Tribunal organizers well
for the upcoming London Session. More
information on the Barcelona proceedings can be
found at
<http://www.russelltribunalonpalestine.net/>http://www.russelltribunalonpalestine.net/.
The original Bertrand Russell Tribunal was seated
in the mid-1960s and considered the case against
the U.S. war against Vietnam. Its second seating
was to deliberate on human rights abuses in Latin
America. Consideration of the situation of the
people of Palestine commands its third seating.
The organizers of the Russell Tribunal on
Palestine scoured the globe to find people of
conscience to serve as jurors who are noted for
acting on their convictions. The jurors include
a woman who served with Bertrand Russell on the
original Tribunal and another woman whose work
eventually was recognized with a Nobel Peace
Prize. The Tribunal's mandate is to inform and
urge action by a larger community of conscience
and its urgency is the understanding that the
Tribunal must act in the face of inaction by
national and international authorities.
In addition, the "BRussells" Tribunal on Iraq
(operating from Brussels, Belgium at
<http://brusselstribunal.org/index.htm>http://brusselstribunal.org/index.htm)
is the brainchild of Russell Tribunal veteran
François Houtart. The BRussells Tribunal was
conducted in 2004 and found the United States
guilty of committing an act of aggression against Iraq.
The Russell Tribunal on Palestine, Barcelona
Session, convened for three days, considered the
evidence presented to it, and delivered its
decision in response to a series of questions
that could be summed up as: "Is the E.U.
complicit in Israel's crimes against
Palestinians, and if so, in what way? What is
the E.U.'s legal responsibility to itself and to international law?"
During the proceedings, I did pose the "Why?"
question several times. However, the unofficial
respondent answered the question in a way that
even I was totally unprepared for: from his gut.
"They're white just like us and the people they're killing . . . are Arabs."
This comment haunted me for the remainder of my
European tour. And, it seemed that I could never
escape it. In Brussels and then again in Paris;
in London, I was consistently reminded of the
color line and that I was traveling in places not
usually broken by it: economic and political
status in these places is as defined by skin
color as it is in the United States, the
Presidency of Barack Obama notwithstanding.
Combine my European experience with the fact of
the illegal pillage of Africa by way of stoked
"civil wars" and fake "rebel groups" created for
the purpose of facilitating non-African Africa
pillage--done since the first Berlin Conference
that organized the so-called "Scramble for
Africa" at the dawn of the 20th
Century. Juxtapose that to the opening of the
19th Century where Africans in Haiti defeated
Napoleon Bonaparte's Army. Not only was Africa
robbed of its strongest human resources for
centuries during slavery, it continues to be
robbed of its human and natural resources even
now. Africans' patrimony is being transferred,
on the cheap, to Europe, the United States, and Israel.
Anyone who doubts these facts should consider the
case of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC),
now suffering six million dead just since the
Rwandan/Ugandan invasion in August of 1998
facilitated by the United States. The tragedy is
told in the first United Nations Report on the
pillage of DRC, written by Madame Ba-N-Dow, whose
life was threatened by those named in the report,
causing her to have to go into hiding because she
told the truth. Additionally, numerous books and
articles on the subject have been written by
Camerounian-Parisian Charles Onana of Editions
Duboiris, for those who read French, and by Wayne
Madsen and Keith Harmon Snow, for those who don't.
As I looked into the faces of Europe's most
recent immigrant Africans and Asians, the
immigrant wars being fought today inside Europe,
Israel, and the United States crystallized in the
most dismal of contexts. With each glance into
every face, I strained to make eye-to-eye contact
to see beyond the face of the individual in order
to understand the totality of the life I was
encountering. Sadly, the realities all seemed
the same: certain Europeans (including certain
Americans and Israelis) had arrogated to
themselves the right to go into any land, vilify
the indigenous, denigrate their culture and
dignity, steal the resources, overturn the local
economy, destroy the local polities, and ignore
the human rights of self-determination and
resistance to occupation, and then dare the
"others" to emigrate. For context today: Think
the Muslim World in Africa and Asia. Think Latin America. Think Gaza.
Everywhere around Europe, as is also the case in
Israel and the United States, immigration is an
issue. It seems that Europeans--who have a
quality of life that includes, among other
things, mass transit and continental rapid rail
that works, subsidized education, subsidized
healthcare, and secure work and pensions--have
reached their "immigrant tolerance level:" that
is, more "others" are not welcome. And, as in
the United States, the role of the special
interest media cannot be discounted in the
popularization of hate. This is especially sad
when one realizes that the Europe of today exists
as it does largely because of its past policies
and current bondage with the United States that
politically and economically wreck the countries of the "others."
For example, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Israel
are all diamond trading capitals of the world,
yet none of them is a major miner of
diamonds. The diamonds mainly come from Africa,
and the consequent diamond empire that links all
of these capitals was built on slavery and
theft. (Please see the film "Diamond Empire" by
investigative journalist Janine Roberts, banned
in the United States because of its inconvenient, name-naming content.)
Now, take a look at these diamond-producing
capitals of Sierra Leone, Democratic Republic of
Congo, and black South Africa--even
post-apartheid--and one quickly grasps the level
of theft and criminality that continues still
today. Please think about this the next time you
are tempted to buy a beautiful sparkling diamond
in your local mall jewelry store.
And, for those who have never left America's
shores, one need only look inside the United
States at the genocide of America's indigenous
people and the continued pillage of their land to
understand how today's life of largess was made
possible by years of mistreatment, lawlessness,
and genocide committed generations ago.
In 1948, the cycle began again when Zionists
eager to wield state power were placed in control
of Palestine by Europeans, Britons, and Americans
and created the State of Israel on the land where Palestinians lived.
I inquired of one Israeli testifying at the
Tribunal what did Operation Cast Lead tell us
about the nature of Zionism. And it was through
this line of questioning that I again heard
something that I have heard all over the world,
but never in the media: "I am an anti-Zionist Jew."
In the United States, Zionists at the
Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the American
Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) purport
to speak for all Jews and they would have
non-Jews believe that criticism of them or of
Israel is criticism of all Jews. For many that I
encounter in the world whose only
previous information came from the media, their
most startling discovery is that this is a
lie. And I have heard some of the most
impassioned critiques of Israel's policies toward
Palestinians from anti-Zionist Jews. I intend to write more on this later.
Yesterday, it was announced in the English news
that blacks and Asians are stopped by the police
alarmingly more than whites. The study that
published these findings also suggested that if
such disparities are allowed to persist, then the
communities of color so targeted could become
increasingly disenchanted and volatile. London,
Paris, and Oakland, California have all burned in
recent memory as a result of persistent
disparities and loss of hope for change. If
unchecked now in communities of color, repression of all will surely be next.
Given my experiences and reflections during this
European tour that included the Russell Tribunal;
a standing-room-only meeting of Congolese who
came from all over Europe to Brussels; a
standing-room-only crowd of young people in "the
hood" of a Paris suburb attending an event
organized by rapper Joe Dalton; and several
events in London that included a
standing-room-only 9/11 Truth - 7/7 Tube Truth
event, I find the observation of the Russell
Tribunal attendee both poignant and
relevant: It is still possible for people
battered by propaganda and lies, covert and false
flag operations, and the meanest of media
blackouts to see and hear those of us who dissent
and act on conscience. Our message is being
received. A growing global critical mass see the
humanity that binds us together despite the lies
and the screens of religion, race, ethnicity,
language, gender, and sexual
orientation--skillfully used in the past to divide us.
The real message from my Russell Tribunal
respondent is clear: Resistance to lies,
injustice, war, and indignity is necessary and
more people seeing that, join with us in our principled struggle.
For more information on the Barcelona proceedings, please see:
Press
TV:<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRjG7XrpKZY>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRjG7XrpKZY
The Real news network:
<http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=4882>http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=4882
--
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Silence is the deadliest weapon of mass destruction.
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