American Shame

September 24, 2007 was a bad day for me. It was bad because it was the first time in my life that I actually felt ashamed to be an American. That being said, I must also say that I realize that this may make me look bad and may even draw the attention of authorities my way. So, allow me to explain the thought process behind that expression of shame.

On September 24, 2007, the United States received a visitor from the nation of Iran. This visitor was no ordinary visitor. It wasn’t a diplomat, an ambassador or even a representative. It was none other than the President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The sense of shame I feel stems from the treatment that he received once he  was here. His arrival was met with derision and nastiness, the likes of which I have never witnessed for anyone other than a murderer, rapist, animal abuser, child molester or something else along those lines. Why are we treating the leader of another country in this manner? Have we lost any and all sense of what diplomacy means? I am not saying that we should never question the motivations of the leader of another nation. What I am saying is that we should be doing it with a sense of dignity and a display of manners and etiquette.

So why are we treating Mr. Ahmadinejad this way? Is it because he threatened to “wipe Israel off the map”? Well, if the truth about this alleged statement were told, this is not what he said. What he said was actually quoting someone else and it went like this: “Imam ghoft een rezhim-e ishghalgar-e qods bayad az safheh-ye ruzgar mahv shavad.” When translated, what he said was: “The Imam said this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time.” Where in that statement does it say anything about wiping anything off of any map, much less a whole country or its people? It doesn’t. It implies destroying a government, which is entirely different from destroying a nation. If Ahmadinejad’s desire to destroy the Israeli regime is a bad thing, then what of the Bush administration’s actual destruction of a regime that it didn’t like? What is more destructive and damaging; stating that an oppressive regime should be destroyed or actually destroying the regime?

I suppose that some of you (assuming anyone is actually reading this) are wondering why anyone would consider the current Israeli regime as being oppressive. Do I really have to explain it? Yes? Alright then, I will. The Israeli government has occupied Palestinian territory since 1967. Since this time, they have gradually settled Palestinian land while systematically removing the Palestinian people from the land that is rightfully theirs. They have done so through the bulldozing of their homes and farmland, the imprisonment of over 9000 of their citizens, the targeted assassinations of suspected “terrorists” and roughly 500 permanent “checkpoints” that restrict the freedom of movement within these territories. These are but a few. Take a look at this document, where I found this statement on the last page:

“The Occupied Palestinian Territory is of special importance to the future of human rights in the world. Human rights in Palestine have been on the agenda of the United Nations for 60 years; and more particularly for the past 40 years since the occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in 1967. For years the occupation of Palestine and apartheid in South Africa vied for attention from the international community. In 1994, apartheid came to an end and Palestine became the only developing country in the world under the subjugation of a Western-affiliated regime.

Herein lies its significance to the future of human rights. There are other regimes, particularly in the developing world, that suppress human rights, but there is no other case of a Western-affiliated regime that denies self-determination and human rights to a developing people and that has done so for so long. This explains why the OPT has become a test for the West, a test by which its commitment to human rights is to be judged.

If the West fails this test, it can hardly expect the developing world to address human rights violations seriously in its own countries, and the West appears to be failing this test.

The EU pays conscience money to the Palestinian people through the Temporary International Mechanism but nevertheless joins the United States and other Western countries, such as Australia and Canada, in failing to put pressure on Israel to accept Palestinian self-determination and to discontinue its violations of human rights.

The Quartet, comprising the United States, the European Union, the United Nations and the Russian Federation, is a party to this failure. If the West, which has hitherto led the promotion of human rights throughout the world, cannot demonstrate a real commitment to the human rights of the Palestinian people, the international human rights movement, which can claim to be the greatest achievement of the international community of the past 60 years, will be endangered and placed in jeopardy.”

Can this point be made any clearer? Can the importance of this need be stressed any harder? If you need more convincing, take a look at this UNICEF report.

So, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wants an oppressive regime held responsible for the actions that it takes that harms an entire culture, eh? How dare he come to the United States demanding that sort of nonsense! That’s simply preposterous! That sort of behavior is exactly what this war on terror is designed to prevent! We can’t have these members of the “Axis of Evil” actually asking for something positive! That would undermine American sovereignty and inhibit the desire for freedom the world over!

I kid, of course. Well, I should say that I used a generous portion of sarcasm for that last paragraph. I really wasn’t kidding. I think that the Bush administration, the government controlled mainstream media and the flock of lemmings that follows them actually believe that way. I also think that that is sad, disgusting, disheartening and is a sign of terrible things to come.

The President of Columbia University, Lee Bollinger, stated during his “introduction” of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that Mr. Ahmadinejad exhibited “all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator”. I’m sorry, but my understanding of etiquette was that, when you invited someone to come as a guest to an event that you were holding, you didn’t insult the guest. This was akin to inviting someone to a party under false pretenses and then beating the shit out of them once they arrived. I can understand not agreeing with him, but verbally assaulting him during his introduction was in poor taste at best. Maybe I’ll win the lottery and, once he is out of office, I will invite George W. Bush to be a paid speaker at an engagement and introduce him as “that idiot who somehow got elected President and proceeded to murder hundreds of thousands of people on behalf of his corporate friends”. It might not be true, but was the statement made by Lee Bollinger true? I suppose he forgot that Ahmadinejad was actually democratically elected with a margin of 62%, which is more than Bush received in either national election that he has participated in. The truth is this: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is hated in this country because of his opinions regarding Israel and, more importantly, the Holocaust. Since the US government feels somehow beholden to Israeli interests, they can not tolerate any questioning of Israeli policy or the veracity of the Holocaust. The fact that Shimon Peres has now come forward and criticized Columbia University and this is national news speaks volumes to this fact. It seems a bit silly to me.

As for the Holocaust, I see no issue with performing more research on the subject. This is what Ahmadinejad asked for. He never said that it did not happen. He merely stated that more research was needed. I would not call this Holocaust denial; I would call it Holocaust Revisionism. Given the fact that Mr. Ahmadinejad is himself and academic, it makes sense that he could also be a historical revisionist. Historical revisionism is an academic approach that holds that a given slice of history, as it has been traditionally told, may not be entirely accurate, and should hence be revised accordingly. Is it wrong to question a history of which you were not a part and know only one side of? Either way, the use of the Holocaust as a justification for the treatment of the Palestinians holds no water with me. No more so than paying reparations to former slaves. It seems like a great idea except that you are punishing a person who has committed no crime to benefit a person who has done nothing to warrant the reward. I am about to commit an unpardonable sin here, so consider yourself warned. The Holocaust did not only affect Jews! GASP! Literally defined, the word Holocaust means “destruction by fire”. I suppose that the other 4,109,500 – 6,286,000 who were killed in the concentration camps don’t count. These people included Soviet POWs, political dissidents, Serbs, Poles, Roma (Gypsies), Freemasons, disabled, Spanish POWs, Gay men and Jehovah's Witnesses. But don’t worry about them, they do not matter here. In fact, they do not matter at all. The funny thing about these other groups who were persecuted, tortured and killed is that they didn’t ask for a whole country to call their own that was on already occupied land. Another funny thing about them is that there aren’t hundreds of thousands more people dead at their hands since 1948.

I don’t want anyone to come away from this blog thinking that I hate Jews or that I am a Holocaust denier anything of the sort. Despite my previous statements within this writing, I am nothing of the sort. I do not dislike Jews any more than I dislike anyone else. I view no race, religion or ethnic group on anything more than an individual level. What one member of an ethnic group does to me has no bearing on the ethnic group as a whole. I wish that everyone else felt the same way. The Holocaust is a historical fact and there is no denying it. In fact, I think that research should be continual regarding it so that we never forget it and that it remains fresh in our minds.

I am, however, an anti-Zionist. I will remain this for as long as I shall live. No one has any right to occupy the land of another at the expense of the life and liberty of the previous occupant. I also have a problem with the current Israeli regime. I actually have more of a problem with the United States government’s support of it. I do not understand the logic behind sanctioning South Africa for its Apartheid policies but supporting Israel in theirs. I do not wish to see Israel fall. I merely wish to see it live in peace with its neighbors the Palestinians as part of a two state solution. Equality for every human, not just a select few. That's what the world needs more than anything else.