Gaza is being bombed by Israel. Frightened children, their hungry mothers and the rest of their poor families are being bombed.Schools, hospitals, mosques, markets and other public places are being bombed.The cover for this, the terrible excuse, is that they are attacking terrorists.But what could be more terrifying that to take your children to school only to see it bombed and your children crushed to death under a pile of rubble? Israel says they are retaliating for the occasional angry rocket fired from Gaza, all puny fireworks compared to the awful might of the Israeli military’s 100 pound bombs.As is so often the case, the term ‘terrorism’ is but a rhetorical smokescreen behind which the strong crush the weak. People of conscience everywhere are protesting.
President elect Obama, spending the holidays with his family in Hawaii, has yet to acknowledge the demonstrators along the road he travels to and from his physical workouts.Like many Americans, most of them voted for him filled with hope that at last we would have a strong peacemaker for a President. Is the President elect afraid to offend the Israeli lobby who were so generous to his campaign?Is he afraid that if the continuous flow of arms from the US to Israel were to stop the economy would take yet another hit?Was the illusion that he was a peacemaker a mere campaign trick?There is an election campaign now in Israel too, each candidate trying to prove they are tougher and more strident than the other in their condemnation and support for the bombing of Gaza, playing on the toxic hatred too many Jews have for Palestinians.We have elected the first black man to office and he has turned his back on the peace movement.Will he also turn his back on the poor, on the homeless and on ordinary Americans who are in danger of losing their family homes?He’s filled his cabinet with staunch supporters of the corporate status quo, the military industrial complex.
We missed an opportunity to elect the first black person as President of the United States who was the embodiment of all the ideals in the mythology built around Obama for his election campaign, who was also a woman.Cynthia McKinney, the Green Party candidate for President, despite having no press following her around or the support of the US government is using all her meager connections in the region and risking her life to get humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza.Israeli gun ships rammed the small yacht carrying her along with a doctor, other medical workers and 3 tons of medical supplies warning them to stay away.The boat, damaged and taking on water, thankfully made it to Lebanon. We missed that grand opportunity but we cannot afford to miss any more such opportunities.Despite the hopeful and confidant demeanor of Obama his silence is much more than cowardice.No, any silence in the face of such sustained atrocities is a vicious silence.
Howard Switzer is a columnist, an ecological architect who helps people with buildings of earth and straw and was the 2006 Green Party candidate for governor of Tennessee.
