To make sure that she gets to be 25

By Toufic El Rassi
April 20, 2009

Roger Cohen is one of many pugnacious liberal American Zionists that I tend to ignore but his op-ed piece in yesterday’s New York Times bothered me so much that I wanted to respond. In “Israel, Iran and Fear,” Cohen, who has been advocating a softer line on Iran in his columns received a letter from Eran Lerman, the director of the Israel/Middle East office of the American Jewish Committee who, of course, sees the Iranian threat as imminent and existential. By the way, how come every threat to Israel is “existential” but any threat to Lebanon, or Palestine, or any other country isn’t?

In the letter to Cohen Lerman explains that his17 year old daughter, who lives with fear from Iran, “has often demanded to know what I have done, and what Israeli and American leaders have done recently, to make sure that she gets to be 25.” First off, could you imagine a Palestinian father writing a letter to an American Op-Ed writer “demanding” to know what is being done to ensure his child’s right to a 25th birthday?

Of course every 17 year old deserves basic human rights and I actually think that 17 year olds are more like children than adults and should have a chance to live, unlike the Israeli government which killed over 300 children in its recent assault on Gaza

As much fear and dread that 17 year old Israeli girl has over the prospect of reaching the age of 25, the fact is that she is much safer and has a much better chance at reaching 25, and not just reaching 25, but having a living standard, education, and a life that is generally much better than the average Palestinian. The image of a hapless, innocent Israeli 17 year old awake at night thinking about Mahmoud Ahmadenejad and Iran and the specter of the holocaust and annihilation of Israel is a masterstroke of propaganda especially when compared to the reality of Palestinian children not imagining annihilation but actually experiencing it.

To the children of Gaza this is not a fear in the abstract, it is their daily lives, living with cluster bombs and white phosphorous blowing their brothers, and sisters to pieces is an actuality. Let me try to put it another way:

Palestinian children are actually facing annihilation today, right now. But Cohen won’t write about that. In America, Israelis feelings of fear and anxiety are more appropriate topics than the actual death and destruction of Arab children

The question that never arises or is even considered, or will ever be considered is this: Why is the Palestinian and Arab fear and psychological disorders arising from Israeli bombs and occupation less important than Israeli anxiety?

So we in America hear the voice and feel the angst of this young girl who worries about her destruction and feel sympathy and anger at the source of this angst. While the Palestinian boy or girl who goes deaf because of the constant and deliberate sonic booms caused by American made jets flying low over Gaza would never be able to “demand” or even ask in The New York Times if he will reach the age of 25.

Sources:

http://www.ajc.org/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=ijITI2PHKoG&b=849241&ct=6903267

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/20/opinion/20iht-edcohen.html

http://www.counterpunch.org/dickinson11032005.html