Is helping the Palestinian people necessarily being anti-Israel or anti-Jewish?
It need not be. There are community-services based groups which give genuine humanitarian aid to people in need, wherever they may be,- to the Palestinians, to the Israelis, Christians, Moslems and Jews.They are the genuine "do-gooders".
However, there are Western people who take a political stand on the Israel-Palestinian conflict based on personal emotive biases, fuelled by propaganda and ill-conceived or ignorant premises and a lack of trust and loyalty towards their own people and their own Western Nations and Western values.
From their website, for example, I got this snippet of information about such a group of women, IWPS:
"IWPS-Palestine is an international team of women based in Haris (a village in the Salfit Governorate of the West Bank) who provide international accompaniment to Palestinian civilians, document and nonviolently intervene in human rights abuses, support acts of nonviolent resistance to end the brutal and illegal military Occupation and oppose the Apartheid Wall." Etc.
From the emotive language used, it is immediately apparent that they are totally biased against Israel,- not simply wanting to help the Palestinians. Everything on the P. side is "legal" everything on the Israeli side is "illegal", "apartheid", etc.?
Anti-Semites will identify with these sentiments immediately and rush in to help with this "non-violent" resistance, (a la Rachel Corrie, from that other "non-violent" group of activists known as ISM.)
How Jews can identify with these groups is beyond me,- but then, I also have tribal loyalties which others donnot share and I know that if the Palestinian people, the Arabs, were different, there wouldn't need to be a conflict like the one which currently exists in that region! If the Islamists would have been and would be accepting of a non-Islamic presence among them, none of the current problems for their fellow Arabs would be occurring,whether in the Palestinian territories or e.g.in Iraq.
What's going on in liberated, autonomous Gaza today and in Iraq is indicative of their way of life. Respect for democracy? Respect for the Rule of Law? Respect for the authorities and elected officialdom? Respect for the dignity and life of the individual? And of women? (Yet women are the first ones rushing in to help the poor Palestinians?)
Others among our people obviously don't know nor care, nor believe that. For example:"Hannah is a young Jewish woman for the USA and she has been working with IWPS for a couple of years and is now coordinating the Birthright Unplugged trips for young Jewish people and activists, with another woman from IWPS, Dunya who is Arab-American and Muslim. Hannah writes regularly about her experiences in Palestine and Israel.- .. She describes the full impact of the wall and the "new" terminals set up by the Israelis (some under the guise of the Israeli tourism ministry!!) "
This came with her report from a "green-left discussion group". Given that all Western Governments have put out current travel alerts for their citizens to avoid the Territories and Egypt because of the threat of kidnappings,- what are Jewish Americans thinking of by going there?
What wonderful targets for kidnapping:- firstly, Jewish and women,- if they survive at all, then the Israelis would have to do something to get them out, at great risk to their own people;- and the Americans, will have to apply pressure on Israel to help their citizens.
Personally, my instinct is that they deserve everything they would get and more. If "Hannah" et al. were my kids however,- it would simply cause me great grief!
Am I glad I am not in that position.
As for the Palestinians whom they are supposed to be helping,- from some reports which I read, most ordinary citizens would prefer to be left alone to get on with their lives in peace,- alongside the Israelis and without their local or foreign activists' help,- thank you very much!
They could have it so good! Israel's ideal is "to be a light onto the nations"!
Halevaj the world would let them. The Messiah would need to come first however.
MM.
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