Monday, March 24, 2008
I Love my Hypocrisy
In my previous post I criticized Israelis for not being sensitive to the fact that they had stolen the land out from under the Palestinians and now are aggrieved because the Palestinians are turning to desperate, terrorist tactics to avenge their loss or to recover their territory. As an American, I have no right to put forward such criticism. Perhaps not my own direct ancestors, but the ancestors of many Americans were guilty of stealing land right out from under the Native Americans who had inhabited this continent from time immemorial before the Europeans came and claimed it.
I have read that the early English colonists in New England believed that God wanted them to have the land. The tangible evidence in favor of such a notion was that the natives died like flies from diseases that to the English were childhood diseases, in particular, measles. At the time no one understood the germ theory of disease, to say nothing of diseases caused by viruses, such as measles. A hundred years later, when people knew something about how diseases are passed from one person to another, Americans (of European descent) gave the natives blankets that had been used by small pox patients in the sure knowledge that the natives would catch the disease and succumb to it.
Perhaps the superstitious belief of the early colonists in New England can be understood and perhaps forgiven. One can not forgive those who gave small pox infected blankets to the natives to get rid of them (natives and blankets both).
Considering our own past and the ways in which we have acquired title to this section of a continent, do we have standing to criticize the people of Israel for their continuing colonization of Palestinian lands? I think not.
I think that what Americans did to eliminate most of the natives in our own country is shameful and deplorable. I think that what the Israelis are doing to do the Palestinians out of what land they have left is shameful and deplorable. The pot is calling the kettle black.
I have read that the early English colonists in New England believed that God wanted them to have the land. The tangible evidence in favor of such a notion was that the natives died like flies from diseases that to the English were childhood diseases, in particular, measles. At the time no one understood the germ theory of disease, to say nothing of diseases caused by viruses, such as measles. A hundred years later, when people knew something about how diseases are passed from one person to another, Americans (of European descent) gave the natives blankets that had been used by small pox patients in the sure knowledge that the natives would catch the disease and succumb to it.
Perhaps the superstitious belief of the early colonists in New England can be understood and perhaps forgiven. One can not forgive those who gave small pox infected blankets to the natives to get rid of them (natives and blankets both).
Considering our own past and the ways in which we have acquired title to this section of a continent, do we have standing to criticize the people of Israel for their continuing colonization of Palestinian lands? I think not.
I think that what Americans did to eliminate most of the natives in our own country is shameful and deplorable. I think that what the Israelis are doing to do the Palestinians out of what land they have left is shameful and deplorable. The pot is calling the kettle black.
