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Something that needs to change

In the aftermath of Gaza

An empire and occupier has no right to demand that subjugated peoples' resistance be nonviolent. "Make it more convenient for us to oppress you," one might as well say.

Until the US and Israel end their wars and occupations--until US taxpayers stop the funding that makes state terrorism possible--we have no right to demand an end to the use of homemade bombs, largely ineffective rockets, or the rocks and rubble to which we have reduced the homes of the occupied.

Only when we have stopped our aggression will we begin to have any right to lecture our victims about their methods of defending themselves.

I am tired of hearing about the need for Palestinians to adopt Gandhi's nonviolent resistance. Gandhi faced an occupier that proved more humane than the US has to date proved itself. Even if this weren't the case, who are we--the beneficiaries of the Holocaust of tens of millions of Native Americans--to pontificate about the small-scale violence of native peoples?

And I am tired of NOT hearing about the nonviolent resistance that takes place daily in Palestine. There is a movement, yes, and there is also, continuously, a people saying, "We will not be moved." We have not won, but we will not be defeated. We will not leave. We will live our lives.

To hell with the hypocrisy that demands a superhuman "Palestinian Mandela" before it acknowledges Palestinians' humanity. The hypocrites forget that before Mandela was an icon, he was a "terrorist" and certainly a prisoner of almost thirty years. Palestinians have been imprisoned for more than sixty. So white South Africa also proved itself more humane than we have been.

To hell with the willing historical blindness that says, "We cannot negotiate with the Hamas terrorists--only with Fatah." Before Hamas took power, it was Arafat's Fatah who were the terrorists with whom "we" could not negotiate. Drive the Palestinians still further into starvation and despair and "we" might meet up with "terrorists" of whom we really ought to be afraid.

Nonviolent resistance is the high road to liberation. Let's all take it, certainly. But if we close that road, we must realize that others still have a right to reach their destination.