You Are Entitled to Your Opinion, Not Your Own Facts

Dr Wilmer Leon

By Dr. Wilmer J. Leon, III

Biden delivers remarks on the U.S. response to conflicts in Israel and Ukraine — 10/19/23

On October 19th President Biden gave an Oval Office address. He was desperately trying to convince the nation to support his $105B military and humanitarian aid package for Israel, Ukraine and border efforts. His focus was on the wars between Israel/Hamas and Ukraine/Russia.

Biden’s presentation was ahistorical, based upon supposition, personal bias and just wrong. One of Biden’s constant underlying themes as he champions support for these failing efforts is that by supporting Israel and Ukraine, we’re supporting “democracy”. One of the prevalent talking points about Israel is that it’s the “only democracy in the Middle East”.  First off, there are many democracies in the Middle East, including Turkey and Algeria. As for the settler colonial state known as Israel, it is not a democracy. It is defined in its declaration of independence as a "Jewish state”. Thus, all authorized political parties must acknowledge Israel as the state of the "Jewish People", meaning you cannot be elected to the Knesset (Parliament) if you call for a secular state for all its citizens. It seizes Palestinian land and destroys Palestinian homes, villages and towns without judicial review. If you are Palestinian living in the “Occupied Territories” , there is no democracy. In fact, democracy, freedom of self-determination and freedom from extra-judicial detainment and murder are a major part of what Hamas is fighting for.

Ukraine is also not a democracy. The current conflict was not “unprovoked” as President Biden loves to claim. The US overthrew the democratically elected government of Viktor Yanukovych in the Maidan Coup in 2014. The actions fomented by the US put an end to democracy in Ukraine. As author and columnist Branko Marcetic writes, “…understanding it is critical to understanding the ongoing standoff over Ukraine…” Dr. Jeffrey Sachs writes, “There were in fact two main U.S. provocations (to the conflict in Ukraine). The first was the U.S. intention to expand NATO to Ukraine and Georgia...The second was the U.S. role in installing a Russophobic regime in Ukraine by the violent overthrow of Ukraine’s pro-Russian President, Viktor Yanukovych, in February 2014.”

If there is democracy and sovereignty in Ukraine, why did the US dispatch former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to Ukraine to end peace negotiations? The Ukrainian news outlet Ukrayinska Pravda reported in May of 2022, "Johnson brought two simple messages to Kyiv. The first is that Putin is a war criminal; he should be pressured, not negotiated with. And the second is that even if Ukraine is ready to sign some agreements on guarantees with Putin, they (the West) are not.” Finally, if there is democracy in Ukraine, why did Zelensky ban 11 “pro-Russian” political parties, limit the media’s access to war coverage and cancel elections? This is the “democracy” that President Biden wants to waste U.S. taxpayer dollars to defend?

On November 29th, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer gave an impassioned 45-minute speech on the floor of the Senate during which he decried the rise of antisemitism in the US and Europe and pushed for support for the Biden administration’s Israel support package. Schumer said, “No matter where we stand on the war in Gaza, all of us must condemn antisemitism with full-throated clarity wherever we see it...” He also said, “From October 7, 2023 in Southern Israel to 2018 at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh to 1999 at the Los Angeles JCC…to 1492 in Spain, 1394 in France, 1290 in England … the Jewish people have been humiliated, ostracized, expelled, enslaved, and massacred for millennia.” The first problem with his rhetoric as well as Biden’s is the conflict in Occupied Palestine did not begin on October 7, 2023.

Schumer is correct. All of us must condemn antisemitism. However, that’s not what this 75-year struggle is about. Schumer, Biden, Blinken, et al are trying to conflate or equate the Palestinian struggle against Zionism (a racist political ideology) with the historic struggles of Jews and Judaism (one of the three Abrahamic religions). Blinken said recently in Israel, “If you’ll permit me a personal aside, I come before you not only as the United States Secretary of State, but also as a Jew.” Biden is on record as saying, "I don't believe you have to be a Jew to be a Zionist, and I am a Zionist." The Palestinian struggle is anti-Zionist, anti-oppression and anti-genocide. It’s not antisemitic. Contrary to the dominant rhetoric, the two are not the same.

Just as we must condemn antisemitism in all of its forms, we must also condemn genocide, apartheid, the dehumanization of Palestinians and collective punishment. This is what the settler-colonial government of Israel has been inflicting upon the Palestinians for seventy-five years with the help of the US. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant is on record as saying, “We are fighting against animals, not people…” Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich is on record saying there was “no such thing as a Palestinian” because “there is no such thing as the Palestinian people”. Palestinian people are “an invention” of the past century. This in in direct contradiction to the Balfour Declaration of 1917, “His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine…” Take note, the “homeland” is in Palestine not Israel.

During his speech in the Senate, Schumer specifically called out the phrase " from the river to the sea," saying it alarms Jewish people to hear it used. This phrase is not a call for extermination, it is a call for freedom and equality among all inhabitants of the region. When does the sensitivities of Jewish people outweigh the genocide of Palestinians? This differs from the first Zionist claims of ‘a land without a people for a people without a land’ which ignores and/or denies the very existence of the people that are indigenous to the area. This sounds eerily reminiscent of South African apartheid (and Israel was one of the largest supporters of South African apartheid) and the US genocide of Native Americans.

"Just as we must condemn antisemitism in all of its forms, we must also condemn genocide, apartheid, the dehumanization of Palestinians and collective punishment. This is what the settler-colonial government of Israel has been inflicting upon the Palestinians for seventy-five years with the help of the US..."

Schumer also added that because many of the incidents targeting Jewish people have come alongside left-wing demonstrations against Israel, liberal Jewish people "are feeling singled, targeted and isolated." If this is true, why are “left-wing” organizations such as Jewish Voice for Peace, American Council of Judaism and IfNotNow speaking out in support of Palestine? Are they not Jewish enough for Senator Schumer? This is a not so veiled attempt by Schumer to turn the opposition to the genocide and atrocities being committed against the Palestinians from a moral imperative to a political discussion.

Stefanie Fox, Executive Director of Jewish Voice for Peace, has criticized Schumer’s speech. “At a time when white supremacists and white nationalists take advantage of this moment to sow confusion and promote antisemitism, Islamophobia and racism, misstating what antisemitism is harms all of our work for justice and endangers our communities…This is reprehensible.”

Schumer said that his “heart breaks for the thousands of Palestinian civilians who have been killed or are suffering in this conflict.” If that’s true, Senator Schumer, and not some trite talking point in a failed attempt to show balance, then the solution is very simple. Stop rallying support for and voting to fund the apartheid and genocide of Palestinians. Stop voting to send US taxpayers dollars (in violation of American law) to Israel. Why don’t you stand in the Senate and oppose Israel’s National Security Minister Itamir Ben-Gvir handing out assault rifles purchased from the US to settlers in the West Bank so they can murder Palestinians?

Now, one of the Zionists' main problems is that Israel is losing support for its oppression from all corners of the world. Israel’s asymmetric and disproportionate response to the Resistance is bombing the world into reality. As with the 1972 photo of Phan Thi Kim Phuc often referred to as “the napalm girl” that helped to turn world’s opinion against the Vietnam War, images of people suffering (mostly women and children) before and after Israel’s war declaration are turning their support towards Palestine. AntiWar.com reports, the latest poll from Data for Progress found that 61% of American voters support the idea of the US calling for a “permanent” ceasefire in Gaza and a general de-escalation of violence, including 76% of Democrats, 49% of Republicans, and 57% of independent or third-party voters.

As Miriam Makeba aka “Mama Africa” sang about in “Piece of Ground”:

“White man don't sleep long and don't sleep too deep

Or your life and your possessions, how long will you keep?

For I've heard a rumor that's running around

That the black man's demanding his own piece of ground”

The tide is starting to turn from supporting apartheid in the Occupied Territories. What was previously a blind eye is now being focused on the genocide. Biden, Blinken, Schumer, et al have to lie. Otherwise, how do they sell genocide, ethnic cleansing and war crimes to the American people and the world? They are entitled to their opinions but not their own facts.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR / SOURCE

Dr. Wilmer Leon is the Producer/ Host of the nationally broadcast call-in talk radio program “Inside the Issues with Leon,” on SiriusXM Satellite radio channel 126. Co-Host of “The Critical Hour” on Radio Sputnik and host of “Connecting the Dots” podcast and author of Politics Another Perspective. Go to www.wilmerleon.com or email: wjl3us@yahoo.com. www.twitter.com/drwleon and Dr. Leon’s Prescription at Facebook.com © 2023 InfoWave Communications, LLC.