I discovered this letter by John Berger earlier today
apparently it is being circulated
I would encourage you to continue these efforts, freely copy and pasting at will.
To me, it is a concise and powerful statement:
Its second paragraph states so succinctly and plainly those
lamentable facts that we have struggled to articulate through blinding tears and anger
to those who refuse to listen,
reducing it to its most tangible terms,
because although this issue should hardly be reduced to simple body count ratio
in unceasingly is
and this has become our greatest evidence.
-----
In Face of the Israeli Attacks on Gaza
We are now spectators of the latest -- and perhaps penultimate -- chapter of the 60 year old conflict between Israel and the Palestinian people. About the complexities of this tragic conflict billions of words have been pronounced, defending one side or the other.
Today, in face of the Israeli attacks on Gaza, the essential calculation, which was always covertly there, behind this conflict, has been blatantly revealed. The death of one Israeli victim justifies the killing of a hundred Palestinians. One Israeli life is worth a hundred Palestinian lives.
This is what the Israeli State and the world media more or less -- with marginal questioning -- mindlessly repeat. And this claim, which has accompanied and justified the longest Occupation of foreign territories in 20th C. European history, is viscerally racist. That the Jewish people should accept this, that the world should concur, that the Palestinians should submit to it -- is one of history's ironic jokes. There's no laughter anywhere. We can, however, refute it, more and more vocally.
Let's do so.
John Berger
27 December 2008
apparently it is being circulated
I would encourage you to continue these efforts, freely copy and pasting at will.
To me, it is a concise and powerful statement:
Its second paragraph states so succinctly and plainly those
lamentable facts that we have struggled to articulate through blinding tears and anger
to those who refuse to listen,
reducing it to its most tangible terms,
because although this issue should hardly be reduced to simple body count ratio
in unceasingly is
and this has become our greatest evidence.
-----
In Face of the Israeli Attacks on Gaza
We are now spectators of the latest -- and perhaps penultimate -- chapter of the 60 year old conflict between Israel and the Palestinian people. About the complexities of this tragic conflict billions of words have been pronounced, defending one side or the other.
Today, in face of the Israeli attacks on Gaza, the essential calculation, which was always covertly there, behind this conflict, has been blatantly revealed. The death of one Israeli victim justifies the killing of a hundred Palestinians. One Israeli life is worth a hundred Palestinian lives.
This is what the Israeli State and the world media more or less -- with marginal questioning -- mindlessly repeat. And this claim, which has accompanied and justified the longest Occupation of foreign territories in 20th C. European history, is viscerally racist. That the Jewish people should accept this, that the world should concur, that the Palestinians should submit to it -- is one of history's ironic jokes. There's no laughter anywhere. We can, however, refute it, more and more vocally.
Let's do so.
John Berger
27 December 2008
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