Part 8: Jake Paresky in progress
We Watch ‘The Moral Challanges of the Gaza War’ 11/03/2023 The Glenn Show. Featuring: Glenn ‘Glennocide’ Loury (GL) Professor Brown University, Rhode Island and John ‘Smoke them Out’ McWhorter (JM) Professor Columbia University, New York.
Back to the The Glenn Show
Sonny got his shirt cleaned up and was back just in time to hear JM say, “…my reading has suggested that, um, the idea is to eliminate most of the leadership…”
“Pfft! His reading, he says. ‘Eliminate’. Whut he means is ‘kill’. Remember George Carlin’s ‘shell shock’ routine? Keep adding syllables to water down harsh language. E-lim-in-ate is four syllables when kill–one syllable–does the job.”
After ‘eliminating the leadership’, JM talked about ‘eliminating the tunnels.’
“Zionists have tried that for decades, man.” Cosmo said. “Tried pumping sea water into them. That contaminated the Gaza aquifer which also flows under Israel. Dumb. America tax payers picked up the tab. Extra dumb.”
“They tried pumping poison gas into them-which is a war crime. Where’s Hamas holding their Israeli hostages? In the tunnels. Dumb and evil. The Israelis killed at least one of their own down there with gas, according to the guy’s mother. She put that on his tombstone. Israeli troops from ‘the most moral army in the world’ came and stole that Israeli woman’s headstone off her son’s grave.”
“Israelis claim all that bombing, and bull dozing bodies in cemeteries is to eliminate Hamas tunnels. Hamas has tunnels 70 meters deep. Meters! What the apartheid regime accomplished was making it worse for their own people, and for Gaza civilians, and looking like idiots.”
“I think aggressive helplessness is the term.” Gene said. “Here’s a question. Zionist cheerleaders talk about Hamas tunnels all the time. Why don’t they ever talk about the Zionist tunnel network? Eh? Like Kirya, the Israeli Supreme Command bunker that can hold a thousand people? That’s in tunnels under downtown Tel Aviv.”
“While they’re at it, why don’t they talk about all their military bases located behind hospitals and schools? Or their politicians who live in civilian neighborhoods? Can you say ‘human shields?'”
“Onward, Tim.” Roy said. “I’d ask if this can get worse but, I’ve got a hunch.”
Tim shrugged. “It’s this way, Roy. The professor says Hamas and its tunnels must be eliminated now or they’ll end up “…with a new generation growing up with absolutely nothing to do. You know they barely have jobs. They’re penned into that area for better or for worse…”
“GODDAMMIT!” Jake yelled, as swearing erupted around the room. “FOR BETTER OR FOR WORSE?”
To our credit we’d done pretty well so far but this was too much. The enlightened professor wasn’t finished.
“…where what they live for, their whole sense of identity, is based on hating Israel.”
Jake was boiling mad. “I’ll speak to this.” he said. We’d never seen Jake so pissed.
“I began my teaching carreer in 1987. That was the first year of the First Intifada. The ‘Bone Breaking Intifada.’ Israel ordered troops to break Palestinian bones, and they did, and they thought it was great because they didn’t have to pay to keep people in jail. They’d break their bones and the people couldn’t protest for weeks or months, or maybe never, until they mended. They broke children’s bones.
Now, at that time, Palestinian students were second only to the Israelis in performance. And if Israelis had included the Orthodox Haredi boys who study religion instead of math and science, I’d put even money the Palestinian kids would come out on top. Israel didn’t want that. They needed Palestinians to do grunt work in their fields, to wash floors, work on high scaffolding…they didn’t want Palestinians who’d out compete them in academics and technology. So what did they do?
They shut down every goddam school in the Occupied West Bank. Kindergarten to College. Vocational Schools to Universities all closed down. Education was an integral part of Palesinian life and the Israelis knew it. Closing their schools was collective punishment. Hebron University stayed closed from January of 1988 to June of 1991. How do you think Rhode Island and New York would respond if a foreign occupier shut down every school public and private. What if they shuttered Columbia and Brown for four years?”
“No idea, Jake.” Al said. “From what we’ve heard so far I expect some would just roll over and pee on themselves.”
“Well Palestinian teachers didn’t. They set up popular committees to educate kids outside the schools. They’d hold classes where Israelis couldn’t see. If they got caught, the Israelis arrested them. For teaching! They’d arrest kids they caught with books. Israel wasn’t able to stop education in both Gaza and the West Bank at the same time so with Gaza most of the schools stayed open but Israel tried to control the curriculum. Books and maps with Palestine in them were forbidden.”
“How’d hidden schools work?”
“Long story short, respect for teachers and parents, the cornerstone of Palestinian culture, began to erode. Kids out facing tanks and live ammunition are pretty full of themselves. A lot of them went to prison. What do political prisoners learn? Not algebra. Not chemistry. They learn to resist the enemy. Like Irish during ‘The Troubles’ in Maze Prison. They were shot. They were gassed. They lost years of education. Their memorization skills atrophied. Discipline went down. They lost their competitive edge. They lost their chance at college. They’re called the ‘lost generation.’ 300,000 students.
Among other things, it put more kids in the streets for Israeli Occupation troops to shoot. And shoot them they did. Sometimes the Jewish state would let schools open for a few months. When that happened Israeli troops were known to encircle the schools to shoot at kids who were coming or going.”
“Is that documented?”
“Yes, Ira. In spades: Gaza, Jerusalem, Nablus, Jenin, Ramallah…and it didn’t end there. It happened during the Second Intifada. And in 2008 Israel timed the bombing raids starting its Cast Lead massacre in Gaza to coincide with school classes changing when the maximum number of children would be in the streets. Say what you will about Hamas. Under them Palestinians in Gaza were pulling out of the Zionist pit. They promoted education for girls as well as boys. Under Hamas there was an arts and culture center in Gaza where children learned to sing and dance. Five story building with libraries and study centers. Let me say it again. It was supported by the Hamas government. Girls as well as boys. And what happened? Israel bombed it with American planes and American bombs that YOU paid for with YOUR tax dollars. Five story building gone in five seconds. Israel doesn’t want these people to have anything. That’s what these professors support.”
“You really think they support that?”
“Of course they do.” Gene put in. “To support is: ‘to uphold or defend as valid or right.’ Meaning it’s not what we think we support, or what we’d like to support, or what we’ve been told we support –lied to or not–it’s what we do support.”
Jake pointed out that Loury says “We’ve been asked to choose sides, in effect, we’re siding with Israel.”
“Makes you wonder,” Jake said. “Who, exactly, asked them to choose sides? Nobody asked me to choose sides. Did anyone ask any of you to choose sides? ‘In effect’ or otherwise?”
“Not me,” Sonny said. “When I went to Paris Island I took an oath to protect this country against all enemies foreign and domestic. Hell if I’d sign no loyalty oath to Israel.”
“No shit.” Tony added. “I support Moaiad, my friends, Moaiad! Not some cretino who’s never met him telling me Moaiad’s, “growing up with absolutely nothing to do…what he lives on, his whole sense of identity hating Israel.”
to be continued
*Author’s note: On May 21, 2024 while documenting Israeli attacks on Palestinian schools during the Intifadas, I came across an article in the Middle East Eye about Israel’s terrorist troops raiding Jenin in the West Bank where they killed two students who were leaving school (one wearing his bicycle helmet), their teacher (who was in his car heading home, his blood was on their school papers in the back seat of his car), three other members of the community, and a surgeon who was on his way to the hospital where he’d worked for 17-years. Nineteen others wounded. Out of habit I wrote the citation down. Had to leave the room after I wrote down the date of the Israeli attack, looked at it again, and it sunk in: May 21, 2024. The massacre had just happened a few hours before. DC
