I am writing this article to clarify what exactly I meant, and didn’t mean, last semester when I wore a crossed-out Israeli flag to school. The Jewish Defense League and some students grossly misunderstood my actions, so I am setting the record straight.
During that week, the Israeli government had started building a wall separating itself from Palestinian territories; to construct this wall they were bulldozing houses and cemeteries without making any reparations to the inhabitants (not even to mention Israel’s daily human rights violations on Palestinians). I was extremely appalled by this and I felt that making a statement against the Israeli government was the least I could do here half way across the world. This was not a condemnation of the religion, inhabitants of Israel or a call for violence against the Jewish community as they have alleged. As a Christian, I have tremendous respect for Jews — Jesus was a Jew and also came from Israel.
I don’t recommend violence on any level. I think the actions of groups like Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad have just further perpetuated the problem. Furthermore, their actions have achieved nothing but breeding more violence. I think if they truly wanted to gain freedom and a free state, they would take up peaceful actions against the Israeli government. Good methods would include those of Mahomet Gandhi and Martin Luther King.
And lastly, I have never approved of any attacks on Israel as they have claimed as well. Once again I think attacks on people, especially civilians, are bad. Period. One thing I will say is that rather than just going after those responsible, and I think we should, we must ask what kind of policy is in place that would compel people to walk onto buses and destroy themselves and others. And similarly what would drive people to fly themselves into buildings.
In the case of Israel, they have done everything to undermine the rights and dignity of the Palestinians. They have stripped them of their civil rights, citizenship, voting rights and have attacked civilians on a weekly basis in Israel. Several times, they have even attacked schools. And in the case of the United States, we have had an extremely unevenhanded approach to foreign policy around the world. We gave Saddam Hussein the arms he used to butcher the Kurds from 1988 to 1991. We have looked the other way while our close ally Turkey has committed two of the worst human rights campaigns of the last century against the Kurds and Armenians. We came to the aid of the colonizers in Vietnam rather than promote independence, did nothing while Indonesia killed 200,000 people in its annexation of East Timor. On at least 10 different occasions, we have overthrown democratically elected presidents. And finally supported some of the worst tyrants in the world, such as Baptista in Cuba, Trujillo in the Dominican Republic, Somoza in Guatemala, and Mobuto in Zaire. And probably the worst is having a population of 60 percent obesity while millions of people are dying each year from hunger.
In conclusion, I would like to say that violence and selfishness on any level is bad. I look forward to the day that we can all live in peace and equality, and where we consider the Chilean dream, the Djiboutian dream, the Indonesian dream, not just the American dream. And if we don’t, we at least not accomplish our dream by giving others nightmares.
— Perez is president of the BC Democratic Club and environmental senator for the Associated Students of Bakersfield College.