OK, the title might be a little harsh, but ever since the Holocaust happened, it’s been pretty much true. (See, I feel I even have to say that in order to cover my ass.)

They’ve become an untouchable ethnic group – considered above reproach – simply because there was a highly public, disgusting perpetration of evil against them.

Read this:

Unfortunately, the UN’s conference on race in South Africa has been undermined by…well…racism. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.

The forum’s declaration called Israel “a racist apartheid state” and called for an end to its “systematic perpetration of racist crimes, including war crimes, acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing”.

The Israelis, predictably, were a little incensed by this, and decided to walk out. And then so did the United States.

As an American, I get tired of how much we pander to Israel, how much we help them. Israel itself was artificially constructed, and they get lots of free money and guns and training from the USA, the United Kingdom and France, all so we Western consuming nations can have a way to exert control in the Middle East – coincidentally the location of the oil we want so much.

So, essentially, we are walking out of the race conference for oil.

I agree the wording in the declaration might be a bit harsh, but come on, folks, ever since its institution in the ’40s, Israel has been systematically encroaching on Palestinian territory, and fighting a shameless war against an adversary who fights back with far fewer guns and a lot more rocks, and who has to resort to terrorist tactics just to try to get the Israeli oppressors to leave them alone.

I can’t ignore the parallels between the current Israeli/Palestinian crisis and the exploration and colonization of North America at the expense of its native inhabitants. The only difference is that the Jews actually lived there once, so they felt they had a right to live there again. Problem is, they lost that war – centuries ago – and they’re only maintaining it now with an awful lot of help.

For its part, Israel claims that this is a “political” issue, and so not tied to racism. That might be the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Come on, guys, you know as well as I do that the issue isn’t that simple: there’s tons of racism running rampant in the region on both sides, and to ignore that side of the topic shows that…well…maybe you’re not qualified to be attending a conference on race after all.

All wars turn into racism at some point; you have to dehumanize the enemy in order to stomach slaughtering them. To pretend your war is somehow clean of racism is not only irresponsible; it’s appalling.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 4th, 2001 at 2:04 and is filed under Miscellany. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.