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CounterPunch
January
4, 2003
How the West (Bank) was Won
by FRANK FUGATE
The other day I was set for some relaxation time
watching on TV the 1963 movie, "How the West Was Won,"
with a star-studded cast, including, Spencer Tracy and Henry
Fonda and partially directed by John Ford. Later I watched a
documentary on the History channel about the untold story of
General Custer's last stand against the Indians --now called
Native Americans.
The movie "How the West Was Won,"
is a grandiose Hollywood make-believe spin-job about the early
pioneers, refugees from the Old World, spreading like a plague
across new America and our Army chasing the Native Americans
off their ancestral land to make room for these immigrants. The
History channel program happened to be more balanced by at least
showing some of the Native Americans points-of-view.
As it turned out neither was very relaxing.
I had a hard time concentrating on the TV. Why? My mind kept
wondering to another West --the West Bank. A similar struggle
is taking place between the hoards of settlers pouring into Israel
and the West Bank with their insatiable appetite for land, which
requires displacement of native Palestinians. The Palestinians,
similar to the Native Americans, are standing in the way of Sharon's
vision of a greater Israel.
Volumes have been written on how America's
west was won, so it is not necessary to spend any time on this
dark period in American history, except to tell you how my mind
began comparing American history with this present day struggle.
We Americans are a proud people. We never miss a chance to tell
the world about our heritage a heritage we forcefully and
brutally took from other humans. Yes, we called them savages
--today we might call them terrorists.
As in the Middle East, we played tit-for-tat
with the Native Americans until might became right. We had an
Army equipped with modern weapons against savages outfitted with
stone-point arrows and stone axes; today it is American supplied
tanks against stone throwing teenagers. We destroyed Native American
cities by burning their tepees and slaughtering their old people,
women, and children; today American bulldozers are being used
to flatten Palestinian homes and American supplied rockets to
vaporize the old people, women and children. We slaughtered the
Buffalo and other "game" which forced Native Americans
into hopeless starvation; today Sharon's Army of vengeance enforces
starvation curfews. We desecrated Native Americans' sacred hills
in our lust for gold; today the Sharon's Army desecrates Palestinian
churches and mosques.
When the braves could take no more they
left the reservations and became raiding parties destroying settler
homes and families in retaliation. Today the Intifada and suicide
bombers have become the braves of frontier days --in BOTH cases
against hopeless odds. BOTH methods were and are despicable,
and were and will be failures in their objective. The Army of
vengeance, with all it's might, was unable to round up the marauders
and force them back on their reservations of despair, so the
politicians devised a more potent weapon --treaties. Today it
was the Oslo and Camp David accords. The native Palestinians,
negotiating from a position of weakness, after years of occupation,
genocide, starvation, and humiliation were expected to blindly
agree to terms of impunity as the Native American had been.
One only has to visit the Native American reservations to foresee
the future for the native Palestinians ---BOTH once proud people
reduced to poverty and despair.
As I watched the TV movie and the documentary,
I began to realize it is not about right or wrong, it is not
about savages or terrorists, it is not about religion it
is about one of the ten commandments --covet not thy neighbor's
belongings --it is about greed and the forceful conquest of thy
neighbor's land. Occupation and intimidation until they have
no will --until they have no dignity --until they are driven
from their land into modern day reservations, such as Ain Al-Hilweh
and other horrible refugee camps in Lebanon with their deplorable
living conditions.
I have often wondered why the majority
of American people, noted for being for the underdog, have little
empathy for the plight of the Palestinians according to media
polls. It becomes more apparent when a recent poll showed only
14% of the American people know were Iraq is located on a world
map. How can they be so ignorant about geography and yet blindly
follow the pro-Israel news media, our self-centered politicians,
and buffoons like Jerry Fawell. That I will never understand.
I can understand why campaign money-hungry politicians, such
as Tom DeLay, a religious fanatic who appears at times to be
suffering from brain damage, who appears to have no honor, who
appears to sell out to the deepest pockets, and who appears to
buckle-under to special-interest group pressure. They willingly
give away our tax dollars to the renegade Sharon so he can kill
more Palestinians and take more land. For them it is a matter
of survival survival so they can continue to sit on their
prestigious fat jobs in Washington and accumulate mind-boggling
annuities. Then there is John McCain who shuns an investigation
of our USS Liberty being deliberately attack by a "friendly"
country as if it were some plague. Why? Who is he protecting?
I keep asking myself, what is President
Bush's agenda? He continues his orchestrated crusade of whipping
the American people into war frenzy against the Iraqi people
so he can remove their despot leader Saddam. Is that where it
ends? Rumors keep leaking out of Washington that Bush has a greater
vision for the Middle East than just eliminating Saddam. Is it
to keep his popularity high, a son's revenge, oil, or is it a
religious vision of returning control of the region to the Zionists
--a biblical prophesy requirement for an Armageddon incidentally,
a prophesy from a Bible written mostly by Hebrew scribes. If
not, why is he so occupied with the Middle East and yet doesn't
make a whimper when the dictatorial psychopathic leader of North
Korea keeps threatening America and thumbing his nose at him.
North Korea is becoming a far greater threat to the world with
weapons of mass destruction than Saddam has ever been. The difference
could be North Korea is not sitting on Israel's doorstep nor
do they occupy the birthplace of Christianity and Judaism.
How does it all end? I shuddered as
the horrible thought passed through my mind --will Hollywood
some day produce a movie, directed by a think alike Aaron Spielberg
or John Ford, "How the West Bank Was Won," --and then
an impish smile brought relief to my gloomy thoughts --or will
it be a History Channel documentary, "the untold story of
Sharon's last stand?"
Frank Fugate
spent 33 plus years living in the Middle East primarily in Saudi
Arabia. He retired from Aramco in 1988 as a Senior Vice President
and Aramco Board member. He can be reached at: ffugate@austin.rr.com
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