Category: News and Views
Dr. Nurit Peled-Elhanan is the mother of Smadar Elhanan, 13 years old when killed by a suicide bomber in Jerusalem in September 1997.
Thank you for inviting me to this today. It is always an honour and a pleasure to be here, among you (at the European Parliament).
However, I must admit I believe you should have invited a Palestinian woman at my stead, because the women who suffer most from violence in my country are the Palestinian women. And I would like to dedicate my speech to Miriam R’aban and her husband Kamal, from Bet Lahiya in the Gaza strip, whose five small children were killed by Israeli soldiers while picking strawberries at the family`s strawberry field. No one will ever stand trial for this murder.
When I asked the people who invited me here why didn’t they invite a Palestinian woman, the answer was that it would make the discussion too localized.
I don’t know what is non-localized violence. Racism and discrimination may be theoretical concepts and universal phenomena but their impact is always local, and real. Pain is local, humiliation, sexual abuse, torture and death, are all very local, and so are the scars.
It is true, unfortunately, that the local violence inflicted on Palestinian women by the government of Israel and the Israeli army, has expanded around the globe, In fact, state violence and army violence, individual and collective violence, are the lot of Muslim women today, not only in Palestine but wherever the enlightened western world is setting its big imperialistic foot. It is violence which is hardly ever addressed and which is halfheartedly condoned by most people in Europe and in the USA.
This is because the so-called free world is afraid of the Muslim womb.
Great France of “la liberte égalite et la fraternite” is scared of little girls with head scarves. Great Jewish Israel is afraid of the Muslim womb which its ministers call a demographic threat.
Almighty America and Great Britain are infecting their respective citizens with blind fear of the Muslims, who are depicted as vile, primitive and blood-thirsty, apart from their being non-democratic, chauvinistic and mass producers of future terrorists. This in spite of the fact that the people who are destroying the world today are not Muslim. One of them is a devout Christian, one is Anglican and one is a non-devout Jew.
I have never experienced the suffering Palestinian women undergo every day, every hour, I don’t know the kind of violence that turns a woman’s life into constant hell. This daily physical and mental torture of women who are deprived of their basic human rights and needs of privacy and dignity, women whose homes are broken into at any moment of day and night, who are ordered at a gun-point to strip naked in front of strangers and their own children, whose houses are demolished , who are deprived of their livelihood and of any normal family life. This is not part of my personal ordeal.
But I am a victim of violence against women insofar as violence against children is actually violence against mothers. Palestinian, Iraqi, Afghan women are my sisters because we are all at the grip of the same unscrupulous criminals who call themselves leaders of the free enlightened world and in the name of this freedom and enlightenment rob us of our children.
Furthermore, Israeli, American, Italian and British mothers have been for the most part violently blinded and brainwashed to such a degree that they cannot realize their only sisters, their only allies in the world are the Muslim Palestinian, Iraqi or Afghani mothers, whose children are killed by our children or who blow themselves to pieces with our sons and daughters. They are all mind-infected by the same viruses engendered by politicians. And the viruses , though they may have various illustrious names–such as Democracy, Patriotism, God, Homeland–are all the same. They are all part of false and fake ideologies that are meant to enrich the rich and to empower the powerful.
We are all the victims of mental, psychological and cultural violence that turn us to one homogenic group of bereaved or potentially bereaved mothers. Western mothers who are taught to believe their uterus is a national asset just like they are taught to believe that the Muslim uterus is an international threat. They are educated not to cry out: `I gave him birth, I breast fed him, he is mine, and I will not let him be the one whose life is cheaper than oil, whose future is less worth than a piece of land.`
All of us are terrorized by mind-infecting education to believe all we can do is either pray for our sons to come back home or be proud of their dead bodies.
And all of us were brought up to bear all this silently, to contain our fear and frustration, to take Prozac for anxiety, but never hail Mama Courage in public. Never be real Jewish or Italian or Irish mothers.
I am a victim of state violence. My natural and civil rights as a mother have been violated and are violated because I have to fear the day my son would reach his 18th birthday and be taken away from me to be the game tool of criminals such as Sharon, Bush, Blair and their clan of blood-thirsty, oil-thirsty, land thirsty generals.
Living in the world I live in, in the state I live in, in the regime I live in, I don’t dare to offer Muslim women any ideas how to change their lives. I don’t want them to take off their scarves, or educate their children differently, and I will not urge them to constitute Democracies in the image of Western democracies that despise them and their kind. I just want to ask them humbly to be my sisters, to express my admiration for their perseverance and for their courage to carry on, to have children and to maintain a dignified family life in spite of the impossible conditions my world in putting them in. I want to tell them we are all bonded by the same pain, we all the victims of the same sort of violence even though they suffer much more, for they are the ones who are mistreated by my government and its army, sponsored by my taxes.
Islam in itself, like Judaism in itself and Christianity in itself, is not a threat to me or to anyone. American imperialism is, European indifference and co-operation is and Israeli racism and its cruel regime of occupation is. It is racism, educational propaganda and inculcated xenophobia that convince Israeli soldiers to order Palestinian women at gun-point, to strip in front of their children for security reasons, it is the deepest disrespect for the other that allow American soldiers to rape Iraqi women, that give license to Israeli jailers to keep young women in inhuman conditions, without necessary hygienic aids, without electricity in the winter, without clean water or clean mattresses and to separate them from their breast-fed babies and toddlers. To bar their way to hospitals, to block their way to education, to confiscate their lands, to uproot their trees and prevent them from cultivating their fields.
I cannot completely understand Palestinian women or their suffering. I don’t know how I would have survived such humiliation, such disrespect from the whole world. All I know is that the voice of mothers has been suffocated for too long in this war-stricken planet. Mothers` cry is not heard because mothers are not invited to international forums such as this one. This I know and it is very little. But it is enough for me to remember these women are my sisters, and that they deserve that I should cry for them, and fight for them. And when they lose their children in strawberry fields or on filthy roads by the checkpoints, when their children are shot on their way to school by Israeli children who were educated to believe that love and compassion are race and religion dependent, the only thing I can do is stand by them and their betrayed babies, and ask what Anna Akhmatova–another mother who lived in a regime of violence against women and children–asked:
Why does that strea
cris, that's a great speech, but I wish all of it was there.
In other words, Israel/America/Europe =bad, Palestinians/Arabs =good.
Let's not forget that if those who fire their rockets could make them more harmful and accurate, they would.
The truth is that Israelis have done bad things to Palestinians, and Palestinians have done bad things to Israelis.
For Loui. Only few words were cut off from her speech. This is because the zone sets a limit of 800 characters. But here is the posting of the entire last paragraph, including the missing words.
I cannot completely understand Palestinian women or their suffering. I don’t know how I would have survived such humiliation, such disrespect from the whole world. All I know is that the voice of mothers has been suffocated for too long in this war-stricken planet. Mothers` cry is not heard because mothers are not invited to international forums such as this one. This I know and it is very little. But it is enough for me to remember these women are my sisters, and that they deserve that I should cry for them, and fight for them. And when they lose their children in strawberry fields or on filthy roads by the checkpoints, when their children are shot on their way to school by Israeli children who were educated to believe that love and compassion are race and religion dependent, the only thing I can do is stand by them and their betrayed babies, and ask what Anna Akhmatova–another mother who lived in a regime of violence against women and children–asked:
Why does that streak o blood, rip the petal of your cheek?
My response to Post three by seenior is the following:
Seenior is essentially right, although I would put it not in terms of good and bad, but in terms of aggressor and victim, oppresser and oppressed. I know that this is not his intention, but I have no problem with what he is saying, I only have a problem with his lack of understanding or attention to the deeper issues. He is saying it out of sarcasm or cynicism, and I say it with conviction.
I essentially agree with everything in Dr. Nurit Peled-Elhanan speech, At least as far as the Palestinian component of her speech is concerned. She seems to have understood the real injustices associated with settler colonialism. Israel is a product of European intollerence of the Jews, Pogroms in Russia and Poland, and the Holocaust in Germany. No need to prove that Zionism is a nineteenth/early twentieth century European nationalist movement who sought to resolve the suffering of the European Jewry at Palestinian expense. The outcome was the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 at the ruins of the Palestinian society whose people have either been ethnically cleansed and turned into refugees or rendered into a status of perminently occupied population. The State of Israel was created to be A jewish state to the exclusion of the indiginous Palestinian population who have been ethnically cleansed in the brutal War between 1947-and 1948 and had 90% of their land and properties expropriated and given to mostly European Jews. The Palestinians were neither compensated for their expropriation, nor were they allowed to return to their homes ever since.
If you divorce Israel from Zionism and British colonialism, and imagine it as existing in Palestine from time immemorial, and that the horrible Palestinians are attacking it, then one should be looking for the semetry between Israeli violence and Palestinian resistance which seenior is trying to inject into the discussion of this conflict. I reject this semetry and I put the blame squarely on the Racist principles inherent in Zionism and the state of Israel. What the palestinians have been doing for over 100 years of Zionist assaults is nothing more than exercising their natural right to resist dispossession and distitution at the hands of an extremely violent racist white european settler colonialist movement. The Palestinians biggest problem is that they realized the danger of Zionism very late in the European settler colonialist game. If the Palestinians took a tougher and more resolute stand in the 1920's and the 1930's and crushed the early Zionist gangs who were coming from Europe as soon as they set a foot in Palestine, the state of Israel would not have been born. I guess this is the price the Palestinian people paid for being tollerant with Jewish immigration. Similarly, the Palestinian political leadership in the early twentieth century could not understand the evil character of British colonialism. Although the British stated as part of their agenda the creation of a national home for the jews in Palestine, the Palestinian leadership at the time opted for fruitless political dialogues with the colonial authorities, instead of taking national liberation and the genuine war for independence as a strategic choice. This leadership has failed to see that the British were buying more time to allow for more Jewish settlers from Europe to come in and create a critical demographic mass. They believed that the "civilized European colonialists" are rational enough, and would not be so evil to even think of replacing an indiginous population with European settlers.
Any discussion of the Palestinian/or Arab Israeli conflict that does not place Israel in its proper settler colonial history misses the point. It is in most cases a result of ignorance of the history of Zionism, settler colonialism, and how they created this conflict, while in some other cases it is hypocritical and unsincere. The palestinians have resisted Zionism since it started. Their early resistance was a total failure, partially because of their lack of understanding of the danger of Zionism, and partially because they were not only confronting Zionist gangs, but also a superpower called the British Empire. They have also been resisting Israel since its creation in 1948, and they will, as they should, continue to resist Israel until its collapse. Nothing will put an end to the conflict in the Middle East short of the deZionization of the state of Israel, and the creation of a secular democratic progressive modern state in the place of the current racist apartheid. The new state will and should be a place of peace, where Muslims, Jews, Christians, Buddhists, Atheists or any other religious orientation and national or ethnic origin can live together in harmony. If any semetry is to be made, it must be made between Israel and the white apartheid in South Africa, not between Israeli brutality and Palestinian resistance.
oh, thanks alot for bringing the text version of that great speech. and thanks for striving to educate the brain-washed about the reality of the arab israeli conflect.
I support NEITHER side in this conflict. The Law of Return of 1952 defines persons as Jewish totally outside of the rabbinic definition...1) obviously, a person born to Jewish parents, 2) a person born strictly to a Jewish mother, 3) a convert to Orthodox Judaism. The Law of Return defines persons as Jewish for automatic Israeli citizenship as persons with one Jewish grandparent. ?!?!?! According to that definition, Michael Douglas, Catherine Zeta Jones, and their two kids qualify for "return" to a land they have no connection to as Kirk Douglas, the kids' grandfather, a k a Issur Danielovich, is Jewish. Most Jews are of eastern European origin and have no origins in Israel.
I do not support, either, the Palestinian side. What about Palestinian Christians? They are not conducting themselves in the abominable ways of their Muslim brethren, and they are not getting much better a deal by the Israelis. These were a people who had to get bootleg copies if they wanted to see "Passion of the Christ" as the Israeli authorities forbid it.
I just love the way Arab Muslims characterize Israeli actions as "racist". What about shooting Jewish women who are leaving dental clinics? Or destroying a mixed group of civilians taking buses to work & school? Isn't that racist? No, according to Arab Muslims, and we have many where I live, it's only 'racist' if it affects them, and they are free as birds to make fun of and mistreat any race, culture or religion. I hate them. I suspect if Israel was made into an open, inclusive land for people of all faiths the Arab Muslims would try to destroy that so they could have "something of their own" because according to them no one else's lives matter but theirs.
Once that land belonged to the Jews. Then it was conquered by the Muslims. Then the Roman Catholics conquered it, then the Muslims got it back, then the British conquered it, then the Israelis conquered it.
Israelis and Palestinians are aggressors in the conflict, and there are Israeli and Palestinian victims of the conflict. Though there are racist Israelis, there are racist Muslims in Palestine, Lebanon, Egypt, Iran, Syria and elsewhere, who want Israel to be wiped off the map. It is also worth pointing out that Palestinians have oppressed, abused and denied help to other Palestinians. Their Islamism and militency was their priority.
There cannot be peace in Israel/Palestine, because there are too many people on both sides who think their side is the victim and the other side is the aggressor.
There are some Muslims who think there shouldn't be a Jewish state. However there are Islamic states which aren't even Islamic. If there shouldn't be a Jewish state, there shouldn't be any false Islamic states either.
The same Muslims who complain about how Israelis have treated Palestinians and oppose the state of Israel don't oppose the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, which only exists because Muslims didn't want to live harmoneously alongside Hindus, Sikhs, Budhists and Christians. Though there are religious minorities in Pakistan, they don't enjoy the equality they would if they lived in other countries.
The best solution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is to partition the Palestinian teretories. Gaza should go to Egypt (it was part of Egypt until 1967). Samaria should go to Jordan (It was part of Jordan until 1967). Judea should go to Israel, but be a place where Christians who are being persecuted in Muslim countries such as Pakistan and Egypt can live and practice their faith freely.
Jerusalem should go to Israel, but Muslims should be able to worship freely in the city. If Muslims don't agree that all of Jerusalem should belong to Israel, they should abandon all land that once belonged to people of other religions, or where sites that are or were considered sacred by other religions once stood.
We should not forget that Muslims have never protested against the way Christians are treated in Saudi Arabia, and the way people of other religions have been treated in some Muslim countries or by Muslims. They protest when Muslims kill Jews. They don't protest when Jews kill Muslims. Some people claim to be Muslims, and chant in favour of groups which have killed innocent civilians. The Koran says such groups are unislamic, therefore so are those who support them.
I'm not condoning everything Israelis have done to Palestinians. I don't agree with forcing innocent people from their homes while providing them with no alternative accomodation and career options. I don't see why Muslims can't live in a Jewish state, when people of other religions throughout history have lived in Islamic states, and Muslims today live in countries that consider themselves Christian.