Questioning the inhumanity of Israel’s occupation consistently brings out the worst in Republicans. None of them see Palestinians as fully human. All of them follow Trump’s lead and paint anyone who advocates for Palestinian’s rights as a supporter of “terrorists”.
In her tweet, Rep. Omar is clearly condemning and lamenting Hamas’ firing of unguided rockets into Israel. Rep. Omar does this in the same terms as she uses for Israeli troops firing on protesters, which is equally condemnable. This comparison is what Fleischer cannot stomach, they want to cover up and excuse civilian killings by the Israeli government.
Given the role her father played in starting a ruinous war under false pretenses, Cheney should be ashamed to ever speak about the Middle-East. But shame and regret for causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands simply isn’t the Republican way.
These are dangerous smears by Rep. Cheney and Ari Fleischer. Rep. Ilhan Omar has already received numerous death threats. A man in Florida and another in New Yorkhave been arrested for making death threats towards her.
These smears are also false. Rep. Omar is asking the question that any thinking, feeling human being should ask. How much more must ordinary people suffer. This is a question that seems to drive Republicans like Ari Fleischer insane because they do not care a whit about Palestinian suffering. Republicans trot out “black on black crime”, “thugs” and myriad other racist tropes to blame racial inequity in the US on marginalized populations. They use similar, racist, othering tropes against Palestinians.
Fleischer and the Republicans’ inability to recognize Palestinians’ humanity goes so far that he has even smeared Bernie Sanders (who is Jewish), merely because he stood up for the right of all people to protest.
Fleischer has also attacked AOC, claiming she’s “anti-Israel”. The Israeli government has violated the rights of millions of Palestinians for decades. In March, a UN report found that Israeli troops had fired live ammunition at Palestinian protesters in Gaza repeatedly over the course of a year, maiming thousands and killing 189, including 32 children.
reported the deaths of 189 Palestinians, of whom 183 — including 32 children — were killed by live ammunition. The commission said snipers firing such ammunition also injured 6,106 Palestinians, inflicting many life-changing wounds. […]
After March 30, 2018, tens of thousands of Palestinians turned out along the fence on Fridays to demand an end to Israel’s draconian blockade of Gaza and the right to return to land that belonged to their ancestors in what is now Israel. Additional mass protests are expected to note the start of the first anniversary and beyond. — www.nytimes.com/…
Ari Fleischer hasn’t said a single word about the killing of hundreds of people in Gaza by Israeli troops. That’s because Palestinians aren’t seen as fully human by Republicans. Like other black, brown and indigenous people, their lives are seen as worth less, their rights as contingent on “good behavior”.
As Israeli troops were killing dozens, his sole concern was that the NY Times ran a headline that read “Israelis Kill Dozens in Gaza”. Fleischer was upset that the NY Times hadn’t dehumanized all the protesters by calling them “terrorists”. Republicans and their far-right allies across the world know full well that the only way to justify the oppression of millions is to de-humanize them, and that is what Fleischer wants to do. He is upset at Ilhan Omar, Bernie Sanders and AOC precisely because they see Palestinians as fellow human beings. He would rather we see all Palestinians as beastly terrorists.
The far-right Likud government that has run Israel for most of the past 45 years was founded by terrorists who blew up markets and cafes. Both Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir became prime ministers in Israel. Both of them ordered terrorist attacks on civilians. They and their fellow terrorists in Irgun and Lehi have had many public spaces named for them.
What Netanyahu did not say, was that entire Birthright trips could be built around the plaques and monuments which Israel has erected in recent years to honor the bombings and other terrorist killings committed by the members of the Irgun Zvai Leumi and Lehi pre-state underground groups – not to mention the highways, boulevards, schools, and town squares named for the armed bands’ respective commanders in chief – the late Israeli prime ministers Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir. […]
“The terror attack on the King David Hotel in Jerusalem was in its day the equivalent of the Twin Towers,” wrote historian Tom Segev in 2006, after Benjamin Netanyahu had taken center stage at a commemoration celebrating the 60th anniversary of the attack. Years later, Segev would call it, “at the time the most lethal terrorist attack in history.”
The blast, which levelled six floors of a wing of the hotel with 350 kilograms of explosive, killed 91 people, all but 16 of them civilians. Most of the dead were British government staffers or hotel employees. There were 41 Arabs, 28 British citizens, 17 Jews, two Armenians, one Russian, one Greek and one Egyptian. — www.haaretz.com/…
Yes, that’s right the current Israeli Prime Minister attended a celebration of a terrorist attack that killed dozens of civilians.
You will never, ever hear Fleischer or other Republicans call Likud’s founders “terrorists”, even though they carried out numerous bomb attacks and massacres on civilians, especially Palestinians. You will never hear them call supporters of Benjamin Netanyahu, who now leads this organization “terrorist sympathizers”. You will not hear them refer to the Israeli army’s deliberate bombing of residential buildings which has killed hundreds of children as a war crime.
These terms are reserved for others who don’t look like them or don’t pray like them.
Trump is, in a real sense, the essence of Republican and right-wing politics, they all lie, misinform and advocate for violence. They all want impunity for criminality by those they identify with. They do not believe in equality, they want supremacy for themselves and the group they identify with.
He just does it more openly than most.