By Marcus M. Mottley, Ph.D.
I have had it. I have been silent too long. I have watched too long… silently. Enough is enough.
The world watches… silently as Israel destroys Palestine. The world watches silently as Israel kills children, mothers, grandmothers and great grandfathers. The world watches silently. Antigua watches… silently!
World leaders – all of them – are afraid to raise a voice against Israel. World leaders – cowardly – all of them – afraid to confront the genocidal Israeli aggression against the people of Palestine. Antiguan leaders… cowardly… silent…
And why? Hamas, they say, started the current situation by firing a few missiles against Israel… killing a handful of Israelis. And for that, Israel, in return kills almost a thousand Palestinian men, women and children and wounds thousands more. Israel destroys schools, hospitals, apartment buildings and Palestinian infrastructure.
And why? Because Israel senses a change in the air. A new administration is entering Washington, and Israel is uncertain of how the new president will really respond to the one-sided power play in the mid-east. And so, using Hamas stupid and folly attack they respond with all their might.
Israel, the only nuclear power in the region, receiving billions of U.S. dollars of military aid every year, receiving the best of America’s military weaponry – uses it against poor people who can scarcely afford food.
Over the years, I have noticed that the world seems to put more value on a few Israeli lives than hundreds of Palestinian lives. A Palestinian suicide bomber creates havoc in an Israeli town and kills ten Israelis. Israel responds by unleashing its military might and kills five hundred Palestinian. One Israeli child dies… world leaders respond with outrage. Fifteen Palestinian children die… those same leaders are silent.
They say… like Bush and Rice said recently… that Israel has a right to defend itself. OK. So what about the Palestinians? I guess they have no rights at all. No rights to defend their lands stolen first by the British and given to Israel. And then perpetually being stolen and carved up by Israel for the Jewish immigrants they import from around the world. I don’t care how old this issue is… these are modern times. You cannot steal my land and say it belonged to your ancestors ten thousand years ago. All people everywhere have a right to defend their land.
And the world watches and is silent as Israel steals the land and kills the owners… and the children of the owners. As a matter of fact the world does not only watch… they help Israel to perpetrate these heinous acts… not only with their silence… but with the moneys and weapons that they give Israel every year.
I cannot perceive anything more terrifying than hearing the monstrous road of 20 of the world’s most sophisticated and technologically capable warplanes rolling through the skies dropping bombs at will without my people having any chance to defend ourselves.
I cannot perceive anything more terrible than having tanks roll across the soccer fields of my schools and down the alleys of my communities belching exploding rockets into our schools, mosques and hospitals.
I cannot perceive anything more terrorist-like than seeing our babies being blown up in their cribs, seeing our young children with their legs blown off, and seeing our elderly dying at the sides of our streets.
I cannot perceive a feeling of being so very helpless knowing that I cannot respond… that I have no war planes to fight back with… that I have no tanks to roll around in and confront the enemy…
I cannot perceive how it feels to know… that no one cares… that all the other nations… even my Muslim brother and sister nations… silent…
Israel… a country… a people who ought to know better because of what they endured fifty years ago. Israel… now… they are the perpetrators of murder and worse... trying to wipe out the Palestinian leadership… and the world is as silent now as it was when something similar was perpetrated against them.
Israel… and why is the world afraid of Israel? That answer is for another day. Today… Israel, here is one person who is not afraid of you. But the rest of the world is.
And, our leaders in Antigua are like those others. Cowardly. Afraid to raise their voices publicly.
I have had it. I have been silent too long. I have watched too long… silently. Enough is enough. I will no longer be silent.
