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How
the West (Bank) was Won
by
FRANK FUGATE, CounterPunch, January
4, 2003
http://www.counterpunch.org/fugate01042003.html
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 De Lay, 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?"
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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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