The Tragedy by Jonathan Azaziah

[Anonymous]

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My name is Jonathan Michael Azaziah.

My father is an Iraqi Hebrew whose native tongue is Arabic, and my mother is half Moroccan Hebrew who was born in Boston.  Her other half is ethnic white Russian.  I was raised in an outspoken anti-Zionist household, that pushed the boundaries of prejudice towards Ashkenazim, and while I do not condone my father's feelings exactly, I do believe they are justified and have an undeniable validity.  While I do not identify with any religion, I cling to my roots because of the struggle they represent.  My uncle Isaac, my cousin Michah, his Palestinian fiancee Jamilah, my Ethiopian Hebrew mentor Nehemiah Judah, my friend Esther Shifaz, and her comrade Reza Ahmad, have all died at the hands of the Zionist entity.  May they all rest in peace.    

There have been many words used to describe the situation in Israel between the Zionist colonialists and the indigenous Palestinians.  It has been called a conflict.  It has been called a quagmire.  It has been called a struggle.  But after the deaths of 1.5 million Palestinians, an estimated 50,000 Israelis, and 4.5 million Palestinians becoming refugees in their own land, there is only more word that possesses acceptable suitability.  And that word is tragedy.  When innocent people become the pawns in a chess game played by the powers that be, and their very existence is expendable in the eyes of these powers, that, is by its very nature, tragic.  While there has been casualties on the Israeli side of the fence, or in this case, a 405 mile long, 25 foot high barbed wire laced block, appropriately and menacingly titled The Iron Wall, it is the result of the ever-growing occupation.  The Universe thrives when the forces of balance are in constant motion.  It is a surefire sign that it is functioning properly.  And in the eyes of the cabal running this world, the morbid opposite of occupation, is of course, resistance.  It is only logical.  If a man walks into your home, rapes your wife, kills your children, then politely informs you he will be moving his wife and children in, are you going to allow him to do so?  Whether you are the type of human being that believes in fighting back, or whether you are a pacifist, at this point, your animal instincts will kick in, and you strike back against this murdering psychopath on the motivation of your survival mechanism.  This scenario is a quite literal interpretation of the Israeli-Palestinian tragedy.

The radical Zionist Irgun and Stern gangs committed unthinkable, evil acts of terrorism for a little over a decade, to insure the viability of a Jewish state, including the now infamous King David Hotel bombing.  These groups raped and pillaged their way to democracy, and that is by no means a generalization.  Just ask the innocent, and helpless, victims of Deir Yassin.  Irgun, which was a radical offshoot of Haganah, and Stern, which was an even more radical offshoot of Irgun, were encouraged by their superiors to use whatever means they felt were necessary to accomplish their mission; they would later become the founding members of the IDF, the Mossad, and the internal security service, Shin Bet.  Terrorists like Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir would be placed into the highest political office in Israel, and both of these terrorists would have a hand in the murder of President John F. Kennedy.  And here, in the United States Of America, we are blessed to have the son of an Irgun terrorist in our esteemed House Of Representatives.  His name is Rahm Emanuel, and he will now serve as Chief Of Staff to Barack Obama.  This terrorist isn't being singled out because of the sins of his father, but the sins of his own volition.  He served in the IDF.  

While Hamas was trained and funded by the Mossad in an attempt to control the opposition, and Fatah was trained and by the CIA in an American attempt to keep an eye on their staunch ally, genuine Palestinian terrorism, or in my personal opinion, resistance, was most certainly learned from the godfathers of Israel.  While it is obviously not my belief that Israeli blood is more valuable than Palestinian blood, or vice versa for that matter, I believe innocent life is innocent life, this is a frighteningly real belief of many American Zionists and many Israeli Zionists, including the military.  Even more frightening, is the radicalized extremist view that Palestinians, and Arabs in general, are beneath them, and should not even be considered human beings.  This lack of concern for any life other than their own was evidenced clearly when IDF fired almost a million bullets into Palestinian homes at the onset of the Second Intifada in 2000.  Innocent civilian casualties on either side of the tragedy are to be mourned, for it is truly sad and heartbreaking.  But something must be made clear.  The Palestinians fight with rocks, sticks, and whatever else they can get their hands on.  The Israelis fight with tanks.  The Palestinians live under curfew, surveillance, and military oppression.  The Israelis enjoy the freedoms of a democratic society.  More than 100,000 olive trees have been uprooted, at the behest of the Israeli government, and at the hands of American contractors like Caterpillar.  This has severely damaged the economic livelihood of many Palestinian farmers who relied on the trees.  Israelis go to, and from, their jobs with no issue whatsoever, and their only worry is performing accordingly so their boss doesn't fire them.  Israelis are not the victims of genocide, they are the perpetrators of it.  Palestinians do not have clean water to bathe in because the water wells have been confiscated by the Zionist state.  The Israelis have clean water because they stole it from the Palestinians, and in turn, have created an ecological disaster.

The reason why I say Israelis, and not the Israeli government, is because the silence of Israel's citizens is just as deafening as the silence of America's citizens when it comes to the wrongdoing here in our country.  In both instances, we have sheep, collaborating knowingly and unknowingly with deranged and destructive forces.  And the pro-Zionist media networks in America, Britain, and Israel seldom portray the detriment of the Palestinian people.  The only time it is shown, is if it will benefit the colonization in some manner.  At this point in time, there are 142 settlement towns with a total population of 484,562.  The Oslo Peace Accords were a sham.  The idea of returning the Golan Heights to Syria, or "Rabin's Deposit" as it is known now, most likely died with the assassinated prime minister.  There has been U.N. Resolution after U.N. Resolution condemning Israel for horrendous human rights violations, 88 in total.  One of these resolutions was numbered 3379, and it equated Zionism with racism.  Despite the consensus amongst the international community, the settlements continue.  Under the hard-line leadership of Ehud Olmert, several attempts to halt the settlements were deflected, and then forgotten.  The Iron Wall is growing, it is assumed to reach the 500 mile mark by late next year, and opposition to the apartheid on the Israeli side is constantly undergoing transformation because of the consequences of being called a traitor.

Which brings me to the reason why this was written.  My close friend, Esther Shifaz, an Israeli-born Mizrahi Jew of Iranian descent, gave her life for the fight against Zionist power on September 7th 2008.  She was 22 years old, and would've been 23 on December 28th.  Esther was sublimely intelligent, extremely beautiful inside and out, and hoped to become a lawyer in international law to defend those being victimized by the Zionist criminals.  She was born in Netivot, an Israeli development town, and one of the poorest communities in Israel.  She moved into the predominantly Arab-Jewish slum in Tel Aviv, The Hatikva Quarter, when she was 8 and became embroiled in the Palestinian culture of racism, occupation, and oppression.  My friend fell in love with a Palestinian boy, and their families were ecstatic about such a connection.  When Esther was 14, her love, the aforementioned Palestinian boy, Ibrahim Abdul-Zahir, and two of her friends, were marching into Safra Square to protest the disgusting behavior of IDF in their neighborhood, when they were fired upon by IDF.  Esther said she heard them reload after the first barrage.  Ibrahim was shot twice in his head.  He died instantly.  One of her friends, Shalom Ben-Sabra, was also killed after a shot in the chest.  He died from loss of blood.  Their weapons were signs of protest, not guns, not knives, or bombs.  Esther, and her other friend, Anaan Abbas, survived, but were never the same.  Anaan became clinically depressed, putting her at odds with her family.  She ran away, and has not returned home as far as I know.  Esther's family spent their life savings to leave Israel for New York and made an attempt to put the misery behind her.  This was not the case.  She became close with another dear friend of mine, Fatima, a Lebanese girl who lost an uncle, a niece, and a nephew in the 2006 genocide.  And through Fatima, she became close with me.  When Fatima left for Israel in June of this year, it didn't take long for Esther to follow.  Under serious pressure, completely positive of a mole in the mix, and with the lives of her brethren and coalition on the line, Esther took matters into her own hands, and on September 7th, blew herself up at a weapons depot in Ramallah, killing herself, the mole, 13 Israeli soldiers, and wounding 30 others.

The story was displayed on Haaretz' website under the banner of "Yet Another Palestinian Suicide Bomber."  It was taken off when the location was discovered, and any further reporting would jeopardize National Security as they say. Whether they knew the bomber was my Mizrahi friend or not, is unknown.  If they do, I am 99.9% sure that it will never come out because it will empower other Mizrahi Jews struggling with their identity; they are told that all Jews are equal, yet it is Mizrahim and Ethiopians who live in development towns in destitution, and Ashkenazis who live plush; and it would also further display the staggering similarities between Palestinians, Mizrahim, and Ethiopian Jews, facilitating unity.  The Zionist state, cannot have unity.  Due to Dearabization, as discussed and documented in Ilan Pappe's "The Ethnic Cleansing Of Palestine", and Nissim Rejwan's "An Outsider In The Promised Land", Mizrahim have been stripped of their ugly history in Israel, and are taught that it was the Arabs that forced them out of their homelands.  (The same Arabs they had lived side by side with, in peace, and brotherhood, for more than a millennia, until the Zionist machine began advancing its agenda.)  This, of course, could not be any further from the truth.

If Mizrahim knew the truth about their history, a new group would rise up and finish what the Israeli Black Panthers started 35 years ago, I'm sure of that.  If they knew it was Zionist agents that placed bombs in their synagogues, schools, and coffeehouses in Iraq, blew up ships full of Jews in Morocco, funded the Nazi occupation of Tunisia, and murdered rabbis in Yemen, there would be a revolution indeed.  If they knew, that the first prime-minister of Israel, the godfather of Labor Zionism himself, David Ben-Gurion, thought of Mizrahim as "human dust", and, "devoid of culture, education, and civility", maybe, just MAYBE, they would wake up.  And if those Hitlerite statements aren't enough, then the disturbing story of Operation X-Ray/Operation Ringworm, should definitely do the trick.  In 1951, David-Ben-Gurion was eager to test out the new radioactive weaponry he had acquired from an arms deal signed by traitor, President Harry Truman.  Ben-Gurion had Menachem Begin take 100,000 Mizrahi children who had just 'emigrated' from their Arab homelands, to a facility to be treated for ringworm.  What happened next is one of the many tragedies that plague the Zionist state's beginnings.  In terms of numbers, it comes nowhere near Al-Nakba, but in terms of suffering, it is equally as horrifying.  The children were infected with 35 Times the amount of radiation the human body can take, and 6,000 died in the first few days.  The remaining victims would perish in the coming weeks.  If that STILL doesn't change the viewpoints of Mizrahi Jews that grew up with Zionist brainwashing, then enough is enough, and it is time to call them what they are, and that is "Zionist enemy."

The story of my friend Esther, is vitally important for two reasons.  The first reason is the desperation so many feel in Israel.  The only way they can fight back, and strike back against the establishment, is after their humanity is stripped from them, and they feel their life is meant to end for their cause, not for God as portrayed by the racist and ignorant media.  The other reason is, it shows that it is not Jews to blame, it is Zionists.  There are Jews that are just as vehement in their campaign to end the occupation as Palestinians are.  It is also true, that most of these Jews are of Mizrahi and Ethiopian origin, and the reason for their resistance, is because they experience racism and oppression from the White, European, Ashkenazi-run state as well.  The poverty and excessive drug use is rampant in most Mizrahi and Ethiopian communities.  Just like the Cosa Nostra and Kosher Nostra pumped heroin and cocaine into ghettos for the CIA here in America, the Israeli and Russian mob families pump ecstasy and cocaine into the development towns of Israel for the Mossad.  The Israeli prison system is mainly comprised of Mizrahim and Ethiopians.  Mizrahi women are not afforded the same opportunities that Ashkenazi women are, and are forced to dye their hair and change their eye color if they wish to be successful.  This is documented in Iraqi Jewish activist Loolwa Khazzoom's melancholy but brilliant book, The Flying Camel.  Despite the vast social disparities, and they are vast, there are Ashkenazi groups dedicated to the death of the apartheid too, the most prominent one being the EAAI, Ethnic Ashkenazim Against Israel.  There are also dedicated Ashkenazi individuals, like Norman Finklestein, who have written fearlessly and extensively on the Zionist entity's disturbing and evil misconduct to the detriment of his own personal and professional life.  And despite his stubbornness in perpetuating the "6 Million Died" myth, he should be commended for his efforts.

The point is, the problem is not Jew.  The problem is not Muslim.  The problem is not Hebrew.  And the problem is not Arab.  The problem is Zionism, which has its foundations in atheistic nationalism, socialism, and Talmudic-supremacist racism that has given maniacs the ability to commit genocide in its name with not even a drop of remorse, not even the false religious kind.  I am a Brooklyn baby.  I was born and raised in the Marcy projects of Bedford-Stuyvesant, and there were points in my life, where the violence was brutal enough, that walking to school, or to the cornerstore to get candy was unbearably scary.  I've buried many brothers and sisters, seen many battles, and I have mental, and physical scars that tell the story, as do many of my people who survived the struggle.  But nothing...... and I mean nothing..... here in America, no matter how fucked up the slum may be, compares to the horrors of Palestine.  Desmond Tutu has likened the conditions to apartheid South Africa, but worse.  Women are raped by Israeli military officials.  The slaughter of innocent civilians is not condemned, but condoned.  Palestinian children are doused with gasoline and lit on fire for the amusement of IDF.  Fundamentalist settlers verbally and physically assault Hebron residents with more and more viciousness.  American hellfire missiles are launched from Israeli helicopters into working class neighborhoods, or whatever is left of them.  Napalm is fired from Israeli fighter jets.  Bombs are dropped when militance begins climbing, etc, etc, etc.

What my friend Esther did, took the utmost courage.  I do not support the tactic of suicide, not because of what ensues after it, but because it takes the gorgeous soul away from the people that love them.  You hear me girl?  I love you.  And your moms loves you.  And your pops loves you.  And they miss you terribly.  They're devastated, and they're lost without you.  You need to give them a sign or something, if there is such a thing as an afterlife.  And because of beautiful souls like yours, I believe there is.  I do understand everything and see it for what it is though.  Through and through.  And I do feel the pain deep in my heart.  Thank you Esther, for fighting for those who cannot fight.  Now it is time for us to speak for those who cannot speak, and when the time comes, we will continue your fight.  Word to the doves that have bled, Free Palestine is what I'm screaming 'till my skin is colored in red.....  

Sources:
The Iron Wall (film) by Mohammed Alatar
The Israel Lobby by Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer
The Flying Camel by Loolwa Khazzoom
Outsider In The Promised Land by Nissim Rejwan
Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappe
The Iron Wall (book) by Avi Shlaim
Final Judgement by Michael Collins Piper
Overcoming Zionism by Joel Kovel
Whiteout by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair
Ben-Gurion's Scandals by Naeim Giladi
The Case Against Israel by Michael Neumann
The Ashkenazi Zionist Eraser by Sami Shalom Chetrit