NATIVE PALESTINIANS by Jim Redwine

Gavel Gamut

 by Jim RedwineBy Jim Redwine

(Week of 19 October 2015)

NATIVE PALESTINIANS

My family tree has numerous branches but the trunk is mainly German and English. The recipe also calls for some Scotch-Irish, Swiss and too little Native American to get on the rolls of the tribes my ancestors anecdotally accumulated while living in Indian Territory for more than half a century before Oklahoma became a state in 1907.

Perhaps it is my birth and childhood on the Osage Nation and the influence of the Native Americans with whom I grew up, but ever since I became aware of Native American history from 1492 and Middle Eastern history from 1917, I have seen a similarity between European and United States behavior toward Native Americans and the treatment of the Palestinians by first, the British, then the United Nations, and then from 1948 until today, the United States and Jewish Israelis.

These issues are never far from the focus of America’s mass media and are currently filling the airwaves as several dozen Palestinians have been killed by Israeli Jewish police and military and seven Jewish Israelis have been killed by Palestinians in the last week.

As these events have been transpiring, numerous pundits and reporters have asked, “Why is this happening?” Why would Palestinians as young as sixteen attack Jews in the face of almost certain death, especially when all that is likely to result is the end of the attacker’s life and death or serious injury to the Jewish Israeli? No one is asking why the dozens of Palestinians are being killed or why entire Palestinian neighborhoods are being punished for the actions of what even the Jewish Israelis assert are those of “lone wolves”, i.e., unorganized, impassioned individuals.

America has a great deal to atone for in our treatment of native peoples from our Nation’s birth until now and of our treatment of Jews until 1948. However, neither we nor other similarly guilty nations should attempt to assuage our consciences on the backs of the Palestinians who were completely innocent of European and Soviet anti-Semitism.

These issues have become even more complicated by the beliefs of some Christians concerning Jews, Israel and the Second Coming. It is difficult to rationally discuss the facts when some believe the events are divinely ordained.

However, perhaps there is room for give and take. Next week we might see if such  thoughts are possible.