Israel not to blame for suffering of Palestinians

It’s time to stop explaining that it isn’t Israel that is keeping the Palestinian people in their decrepit state but their own cruel leadership, and not just in Gaza and the West Bank, where conditions are multiple times more superior than in the decrepit, heart-wrenching refugee camps in neighboring Arab countries.

The American mind cannot wrap itself around this bare truth never having experienced such deceit and exploitation. It’s beyond our ken. Time to stop explaining and start attacking the foolish, false and outrageous deceits presented by speakers like Miko Peled, who spoke at the Unitarian Universalist Church to, very likely, the same audience that attended Dr. Mona El-Farra’s talk at this same, reputable institution.

The audience swallowed such outlandish “facts” presented by Peled while showing a picture of Israeli generals claiming that there was no reason for the 1967 Six-Day War in which the tiny Israeli air force decimated Egypt’s air force in six hours. Peled neglected to mention that after weeks of frantic appeals to the U.N., Israel found herself surrounded by 500,000 Arab troops, more than 5,000 tanks and 1,000 fighter planes with Jerusalem isolated and in desperate need of food and more important, water. Hadn’t anyone in that audience been in the military? Generals don’t declare war. Generals take orders, and if they don’t, they get fired, like Gen. Douglas MacArthur. With eminent attack by these devastating forces, with no other option than to suffer the casualties of this attack on all her fronts, the Israeli Parliament voted to go to war.

The audience, probably, not aware of the history of Gaza, simply swallowed Peled’s, “There never was a Gaza. That’s just an arbitrary line drawn by Israel.” Educated in Israel, Peled didn’t know that Gaza has a 4,000-year history with a pivotal battle in World War I? Peled’s handouts emphasized the Deir Yassin massacre where the Jews, allegedly, slaughtered defenseless Arabs. Check out “Best Hoaxes and Pranks” and you will find that this phony “massacre” was an enormous hoax.

Of all the Palestinian leaders who have depressed their people, perhaps none was as successful as Yassar Arafat, exposed by the journalist Leslie Stahl in a 60 Minutes segment unmasking Arafat’s stealing billions, keeping those he was supposedly protecting in despair so Israel, then like now, could be blamed. Arafat not only siphoned off profits, causing basic commodities such as bread to be prohibitively expensive, but watered down gasoline with kerosene, ruining the engines of Palestinians’ cars. At that very time, Mahmoud Abbas, the current head of the Palestinian Authority, built a $2 million home in improvised Gaza.

Jeffery Haas (“Learn about the children of Gaza,” My View, Dec. 2), certainly, knows the causes of his horrendous distortions in his recent article, “horrendous Israeli invasions … critically needed electricity … chronic lack of clean water …,” but his readers and Dr. El-Farra’s audience don’t. Israel, perhaps stupidly, supplies both electricity and water to Gaza, and the warring Hamas and Palestinian Authority limit the allocations to gain leverage. Ten-year siege by Israel? What about, also, by Egypt? No mention of the murders of Israelis that forced Israel to replace its Gazan workers with workers from Thailand, Romania and the Philippines. So much for Palestinian unemployment.

BDS was successful in driving SodaStream out of the West Bank, successful in putting 1,000 Arabs out of work. The Israeli government built the new Soda Stream plant just outside the Arab town of Rahat to give the Arabs work. Why not outside a Jewish town? Victoria’s Secret buys much of its fabric from a factory in the former SodaStream town. Why not boycott Victoria’s Secret and put the rest of the Arabs in that region out of work?

Ruth Moss is a resident of Santa Fe and Be’er Sheva, Israel.