Northern California Chronicle, Pages 32-33

Richard Becker Dispels Myths About Israel in Palestine, Israel and the U.S. Empire

By Elaine Pasquini

“WHAT’S a good first book to read about the Middle East?” is a question Richard Becker has been asked many times, the West Coast coordinator of ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) told his audience at San Francisco’s Arab Cultural and Community Center on Jan. 6. Aiming to answer this question, the activist penned Palestine, Israel and the U.S. Empire. “What I attempted to write was a book aimed to demolish the myths that have taken the place of the real history,” he explained. “The real history is very important because it’s impossible to understand any contemporary situation without understanding its historical context.”

The first myth Becker debunked is that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is an ancient one between two peoples or religions. “This is a malicious misrepresentation of the real nature and causes of the struggle in the Middle East,” he stated. “There is an irreconcilable conflict in the Middle East, but it is not one between different peoples or faiths. It is the struggle between imperialism, Israel and the dependent Arab regimes on the one hand and the oppressed peoples of this oil-rich and strategic region fighting for liberation and progress on the other. And Palestine is at the very heart of this conflict.”

The Zionist claim that Palestine was “a land without people for a people without land” is another myth, Becker said. “They knew 50 years before the vote that established the state of Israel—at the very first World Zionist Congress—that indeed Palestine was populated by an indigenous population.”

Another myth, according to Becker, was that the British and Americans supported the creation of Israel out of guilt for the treatment of Jews during World War II. Washington did not want the large number of Jews displaced during the war to come to the United States, he contended, because it “regarded them as dangerously radical. Too many of them were socialists and communists. Many people in Europe were radicalized by the war, and the U.S. was going in a different direction.”

Becker disagrees with the frequent comparison of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians to South African apartheid. “The South African apartheid system wanted to exploit the black population for profit, but didn’t want to eliminate them,” he pointed out. “The aim of the Zionists was the removal or extermination of the Palestinians.”

Now that documents from 1947 have become declassified, the reality of the Zionists’ military and political strategy—a plan of massacres and ethnic cleansing to remove the Palestinians—no longer is secret, the author noted. “The ethnic cleansing of Palestine was carried out the only way ethnic cleansing can be—by means of terror.”

Some Israeli supporters appear at San Francisco pro-Palestinian demonstrations carrying signs reading “Israeli is here to stay,” Becker observed.

“Since Israel has the fifth largest military in the world, is protected by the largest military power in the world, and gets assistance and weapons, why would anyone feel it necessary to carry signs that say ”˜Israel is here to stay,’” he wondered. “It’s not really a sign of feeling secure, but feeling insecure. And what is the basis of the insecurity? Is it that they are going to be overwhelmed militarily, when they are the only nuclear power in the Middle East? They are not going to be overwhelmed militarily by the Palestinians. They are not going to be overwhelmed militarily by their neighboring states. The threat that Israel and its supporters perceive is an existential threat, not in some great philosophical sense, but in the most fundamental sense of the word ”˜existential’—that is, that the Palestinians exist.”

As for the future, Becker noted that presently the Palestinian population inside British Mandate Palestine exceeds the Jewish Israeli population.

“So what about the future—what about the two states?” he asked his audience. “If that doesn’t happen and if Israel is intent on annexing land, do they create a legal apartheid system, try for a new transfer? There is the idea—treated by leaders both in Washington and Tel Aviv as far-fetched, radical, ridiculous, and unthinkable—of one state, democratic and secular, with equal rights for all people. What are the real options?”

Dialogues Against Militarism Support Israeli Youth War Resisters

Israeli youth war resisters, known as Shministim (12th graders, in Hebrew) called for an international day of action on Jan. 9 to bring attention to 19-year-old Israeli citizen Or Ben-David, who is serving her third prison term, as well as other Israeli youths who refuse their mandatory military service and are imprisoned because of their moral stand. With few exceptions, military service is compulsory for both male and female 18-year-old Jewish Israelis.

In an open letter signed by 84 students, the Shministim stated: “Our objection to becoming soldiers of the occupation stems from our loyalty to our values and to the society surrounding us and it is part of our ongoing struggle for peace and equality. This is our way and we are willing to pay the price. The occupation is an extreme situation, violent, racist, inhuman, illegal, non-democratic, and immoral. We that have been brought up on values of liberty, justice, righteousness and peace cannot accept it.”

In San Francisco, members of Dialogues Against Militarism (DAM) distributed information and spoke to shoppers at the farmers’ market outside the waterfront Ferry Building in solidarity with the Israeli teenagers who are serving prison terms for refusing to serve in a military that illegally occupies the Palestinian territories.

At a letter-writing stand on the sidewalk, the activists encouraged passersby to write notes of solidarity to be sent to the imprisoned conscientious objectors.

“This action today is nonconfrontational and celebrates the strength of international resistance to militarism and occupation,” DAM member Sarah Lazare told the Washington Report.

The activists also handed out leaflets about the Campaign to End Israeli Apartheid with a list of Israeli-produced products to boycott, including Victoria’s Secret, Ahava, and Sara Lee. “The only way for there to be peace is for Israeli apartheid to end,” said Clare Bayard, who, along with five other DAM members, visited Palestine in November and met with Ben-David and other Shministim.

Elaine Pasquini is a free-lance journalist based in the San Francisco Bay Area.

SIDEBAR

Monsignor’s Museum Brings a Little Bit of the Holy Land to San Francisco

Located in the rectory of San Francisco’s St. Thomas More Church, the Holy Land Museum is a small repository of art and artifacts from Palestine, as well as offering information about the region at the time of the birth of Jesus.

The eclectic collection is a labor of love created by Monsignor Labib Kobti, pastor of St. Thomas More since July 1, 2002. Ever since the popular Lebanese-born clergyman’s investiture, the church has been the home of Northern California’s Arab-American Catholic Community.

Maps on the wall of the three-room museum identify the Babylonian, Sumerian, Assyrian and Hittite civilizations of the Middle East, as well as the areas of Nazareth, Jerusalem and Bethlehem at the time of Jesus’ birth.

A large display case contains oil lamps, Roman and Byzantine coins, and crosses made by the first Christians. One room features examples of clothing and accessories worn by inhabitants of the region. Photographs of the Basilica of the Nativity, Shepherds’ Field and other holy sites grace the walls of this unique gallery.

Located at 2 Thomas More Way (off Brotherhood Way), San Francisco, CA 94132, the museum is open Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., and weekends by appointment (call 415-452-9634). A virtual guided tour is available on the Internet at <http://www.stmchurch.com/holylandmuseum>. The Monsignor also features news from the Middle East on his own Web site, <http://www.al-bushra.org/>.—E.P.