by RAOUF HALABY
Had the above taken place, the dastardly act would have preempted all the networks’ programs, including the Republican Presidential debate, the raging fires and storms across the globe, the tragic Ukraine blood-letting, Trump’s myriad misdeeds, Biden’s faltering numbers, the economy, and the catastrophic heat dome that has enveloped the globe. And it would have been a 24/7 story for an entire week’s worth of news cycles, with AIPAC and politicians of every stripe leading the charge that anti-Semitism has reared up its ugly face.
Had the above happened, condemnation from all quarters, especially from the faith-based groups should, indeed, be expected.
On August 22, 2023 The Israeli Mishtara ((police) branded the star of David on the face of a Palestinian man. More sadly, only one news outlet reported this heinously ghastly act. This is only one of myriad dastardly and malevolently abhorrent crimes perpetrated on an entire Palestinian citizenry. Egged on by their xenophobic leaders and a handful of rabbis, Israeli soldiers and citizens run wild in Palestinian communities. And thousands of Jewish settlers are given free reign to carry out pogroms, wiping out entire villages, killing and maiming people of all ages. Palestinian children have been particularly targeted.
And on August 22, 2023, I sent the following missive to a handful of friends, former colleagues, and the editors/contributors of Good Faith Media, an online religious outlet claiming to be a progressive Evangelical entity.
While the aforementioned is indeed more progressive than most Southern Baptist Evangelical groups, their editors’/writers’ indignation (with one exception) about acts of violence and human rights violations is, at best, selective.
The Dear All missive stated:
To those who see Israel through the prism of end of times lunacy, today’s God’s chosen are no different from their ancestors, who used the God they created in their image (not the His image of the Torah) to justify their hatred, killing, avowed racism, pettiness, deception, theft, xenophobia, misogyny, and greed. And these are the people who hold the Holocaust as an aberrant event in history (yes, it was) will accuse me of being an anti-Semite – even though I am a Semite. Heil, Israel, Heil, Netanyahu, Heil US politicians funding the Apartheid cauldron of hatred called Israel.
And Jesus wept!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
In deep sorrow,
Raouf
Sent to some 15 people and penned by The Telegraph’s James Rothwell, the following paraphrased report, dated August 22, 2023, Is a chilling one:
After brutally beating Mr. Sheik Ali in the Shuafat refugee camp, the Israeli police are said to have branded “a Palestinian man’s face with a star of David while violently arresting him without recording the incident on their body cameras.” A photograph taken by Mr. Ali’s lawyer “showed wounds on his left cheek, underneath a black eye, which seemed to resemble the Jewish religious symbol.” As always, the Israeli police “disputed [the use of force and claimed that the mark] was ‘presumably’ caused by pressure from a shoelace on an arresting officer’s boot.”
O yeah, These must be special boot shoe laces.
The shuafat refugee camp is located in occupied East Jerusalem. As “the video footage emerged of a separate incident in which Israeli police officers shot an unarmed Palestinian man in the back of the head, …violence has worsened over the past 15 months with frequent Israeli raids [and] assaults [by settlers] on Palestinian villages.”
Counterpunch for more