Might Does Not Make Wrong Right

By Nidal Sakr

(MAF - 1/8/09) B y all accounts, what is happening in Gaza today

is a new chapter in history. Not so much because Israeli atrocities
against Palestinians are unprecedented in historical proportions,
but because the world conscience got a rude awakening when we
all asked ourselves: “What if this happened to me and my family?”

For the first time, we could not help but to look at the Palestinian
question from a moral and human perspective instead of political.
We all saw the question in stark contrast with our political
perceptions and personal convictions.

Certainly, the question of Palestine or Israel has been one that is essentially moral first and
foremost, a fundamental question many thought we could forever evade.

Is human life equally sacred? Or do we place discriminatory scale on people’s lives according to
our own inclinations?

If the answer is human life is NOT equally sacred, then we are simply Nazis or fascists who do
not fit in a civilized or human world. After all, there is nothing moral about selective morality.

If the answer is yes, that human life is equally sacred, then we may need to look at the crisis in
the right proportion.

Out of the million and a half people of Gaza, 700 Palestinians killed to date is proportionally
equivalent to 2,800 Israelis killed, while the more than 3,000 Palestinians injured so far amounts
to shockingly 13,200 Israelis injured.

I submit that grand total Israeli casualties of the dead and injured since its inception sixty some
years ago, does not amount to the mere proportion of Palestinians killed of 2,800.
Self admittedly, the United States has been a full partner in Israeli assault. What that would
proportionally mean in terms of US casualties is even more shocking.

Ready for this? Palestinian casualties in merely ten days or so of Israeli assault would amount to
a staggering 140,000 Americans dead, and 660,000 Americans injured.

Now let us all look at this from another perspective. When we lost 3000 in 9/11, we did not settle
for any less than a global war that killed and injured millions in Afghanistan, Iraq and other places.
While we are yet to confess to our blunder in Afghanistan, sanity and rationale for Iraq war is now
undisputable.

As Iraqi life is equally sacred to American life, what if Iraq inflicted a proportional toll of American
casualties equivalent to what we did to Iraqis? It suffices to say that number of American
casualties in such a case would come close to all the millions killed in WWII.

Such proportionality may have traces in so called Judeo-Christian history as in Spanish

Inquisition, and Holocaust for example, but luckily it goes in fundamental conflict with premises
that govern the Islamic model.

However, the question of moral equivalency is one we cannot afford to either ignore or escape.
As we all saw in Gaza, “Might Does Not Make Wrong Right,” and “Human Spirit Undoubtedly is
Ever Un-Breakable.” The lesson we learned from the latest Israeli blunder is that you cannot go
on forever distorting facts and truths about a human situation you choose to politicize.

In the end, it all comes down to one fact: “Injustice is Self-Destructive.” I contend that the first
casualty of Gaza war is not the Palestinian victims. In Palestinian terms there is no more
honorable death than dying for a cause. Their cause is to fight against oppression, occupation,
and to die in pursuit of freedom.

After all, even we Americans engrave the term “Live Free or Die” on our license plates, upholding
such a value as humanly supreme.

The first casualty of Gaza War is the disputed morality of all who took part in Israeli aggression,
namely Israel and all its supporters. Albeit baseless, Israel's mere attempt to justify bombing
schools, hospitals, orphanages, universities, rescue teams, ambulance crews, houses of worship,
and civilian infrastructure, to name a few, is both repulsive and more shocking to blind Israeli
supporters first and foremost.

By now, we all know that Israeli War on Gaza was in collusion with a number of parties, aside
from Israel and the United States. What these parties have in common is that they are all
dictatorial, illegitimate, and corrupt. Further, these very parties are primarily blamed for US
blunder in the Middle East and for fueling the anti-American sentiment in the region.

Indeed, from the darkness of Gaza shines a new dawn, one in which we can all shed our bigotry,
hate, and self destructiveness and see each other as humans in equal light. Indeed, the people of
Gaza are the heroes of new age.

Instead of catastrophic “moral equivalency” predicament, we all have a chance to declare:

Injustice no more, bigotry and hate no longer, and equality in humanity is our only way to go.

As a new age is dissipating our darkness, it is only fitting to say: “Welcome to Gaza New World
Order.”

To unsubscribe, click here with UNSUBSCRIBE in the subject line.

Send your feedback to info@marchforjustice.com