Is Fatah rocking chance for national unity

Comment by Khalid Amayreh in Occupied E. Jerusalem

".....A few days ago, an Israeli Rabbi of Iraqi origin called Palestinians and Arabs “donkeys.”

According to the right-wing Israeli newspaper, the Jerusalem Post, the Rabbi, Yitzhak Basri, told followers that “the Arabs are donkeys and beasts; they are inferiors, they are imbued with the filth of a snake, there are pure people and impure people, and the Arabs are impure. As to why did God not create them to walk on all fours, since they are donkeys? The reason is that they must build and clean, but must always understand that they are donkeys. There is no room for them in our schools.”

There should be no doubt whatsoever that Barak and most of the rest of Israeli political and military leaders, not to mention the Israeli military establishment from the lowest-ranking soldier to the highest-ranking officer, hold virtually identical views toward the Palestinians.

After all, one wouldn’t murder all these innocent people with such a shocking ease and shocking wantonness if one didn’t view the victims as animals and sub-humans that ought to be exterminated.

And let there be no illusion that Israel is committing these pornographic atrocities because of the firing of “rockets” from the Gaza Strip onto Israeli settlements on the other side of the border.

Israel is a state that lies as often as it breathes. It is a country that would be willing to carry out a holocaust against another people and then defend the colossal crime as a legitimate exercise of self-defense. We are talking about a depraved state, ruled by vile war criminals who very much resemble the gurus of Nazism.

In light, it is imperative that Fatah and Hamas forget the past and start a genuine and honest process of national reconciliation now. This would be an appropriate response to ongoing genocide in Gaza.

Failing to do so, God forbid, would spell disaster for the Palestinian cause, the Palestinian people and for Hamas and Fatah alike. It would also give Israel a clear green light to carry out even more pornographic massacres in the West Bank and Gaza and murder every Palestinian leader who dares say “No” to Zionazism."