[gha] Re: [HumanRights] Samer near death and more + Your Joint Article aboit Intefaith Harmony of Palestinian and Jewish nations
- From: Mazin Qumsiyeh <mazin@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: Leo Semashko <leo.semashko@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2013 09:12:25 -0800
Dear all
I wrote the email below to explain why I am not entering into a
"discussion". I realized there is a forum called "Peace from Harmony" and
Leo now added me to this forum. I now share this letter to the forum.
Please note I am chairman of the Palestinian Center for Rapprochement
Between People; the first center to bring Israelis and Palestinians
together to work for peace (not for normalizing colonization or
occupation). We are 12 million Palestinians, 7 million of us are refugees
or displaced people. 530 villages and towns were ethnically cleansed
between 1948-1950. The first step to peace is to join the hundreds of
thousands of us (Israelis and Palestinians) to insist on implementing the
internationally recognized rights of all Palestinian refugees to return to
their homes and lands from which they were ethnically cleansed. I am sure
Leo would have reacted the same way as I did if he had been around in 1940
and someone approached him to reconcile based on harmony (with no justice)
with Nazis who were killing so many people. Peace/harmony without reality
or justice is meaningless or is an illusion.
Hedva chose to respond by a long letter that did not address the substance
of my letter but merely attack me personally (as hateful etc). I find this
only a validation of the facts stated in my message. As I and fellow
Israeli peace activists get arrested regularly by the apartheid regime, it
is sad that Leo and Hedva chose to line up behind tribal notions and
project their emotions on others instead of dealing honestly with the
substance of reality,
I hope you will allow my message through to the list if you are really
interested in truth and harmony and that you all will read the links
provided below and respond rationally and without tribalistic emotions.
Dear Leo
The article you shared is simply a regurgitation of mythologies that even
intelligent Zionists have long abandoned. Even a Zionist historian like
Benny Morris documented the processes of history that surrounded the
creation of Israel etc. But even the regurgitation was done rather crudely
and without much thought or even proper language. It is actually rather
childish rants similar to those that the extremist settlers in Hebron say
as they attack native Palestinians, foreign visitors, diplomats, and media.
Mr Hedva would do well to read a bit of history so that his propaganda
efforts would be a little more credible and perhaps worthy of an
individualized response. For answers to his myths and many more similar
myths, may I suggest he look at this http://qumsiyeh.org/liesandtruths/
Now for the issue of harmony between religions and nations etc. That is a
more worthy issue. But there are many books and voluminous articles
written on the subject. I myself wrote two books and over 100 articles
that deal with the subject and published in many widely read journals etc.
I also read many other books and can recommend a few including by Jewish
intellectuals (e.g. Marc Ellis, Out of the Ashes; Mark Braverman, Judas
Magnes, etc). See also
http://qumsiyeh.org/openletterbygeorgesalzman/
http://qumsiyeh.org/answertorosenfeld/
http://qumsiyeh.org/einsteinetalonbegin/
I do not believe in reinventing the wheel. Perhaps publishing some of the
existing articles or selections from the existing books on your website
maybe helpful to your readers.
Finally, I caution people from equating oppressed with oppressor, colonized
with colonizers. This is a common error and a tool of the oppressor. In
South Africa under apartheid, the struggle was not between black and white
people but between those who supported apartheid (black and white) and
those who opposed it (black and white). In the struggles in Europe between
1932-1945 it was not between a "German Nation" and a "Jewish nation" but
between humans who opposed racism and those who supported it (including
leading Zionists who collaborated with Nazi Germany*).
* See Jewish authors Lenni Brenner, 51 Documents: History of Nazi Zionist
Collaboration; Edwin Black, The Transfer Agreement; Norman Finkelstein, The
Holocaust Industry; Naeim Giladi, Ben Gurion's scandals)
Best
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