The tyrant exists only in the imagination of his subjects - Tamim Al-Barghouti
Some of us are witnessing the beginnings of regime change in Tunisia and Egypt. ( I say some of us because the major news channels in the US are not reporting the massive Egyptian uprising) This is not the ‘regime change’ so beloved by our governments working covertly behind their chosen despots and dictators who disenfranchise their own people and keep them in poverty and humiliation. The people on the streets in Egypt and Tunisia are not looking for palaces and wealth. They are marching for the universal values of justice and human rights; the right not to be tortured by their own police; the right to freedom of expression; dignity and the right to choose their own leaders fair and square.
The price of food is rising. An income of $2 a day allows no room for manouvre. All over the world forests and peatlands are being ripped up to provide plantations , not for food, but for fuel to satiate the ever growing demand for energy for industry and 3 car families who will not comprehend their own greed.
$2 dollars a day is the average Egyptian income. In Gaza where there is over 60% unemployment (due to the obliteration of industry by the IDF) there is barely any money at all. The Palestinian Papers have served to highlight the truth we already knew – that the PA was just another western puppet, bought off and toeing the delinquent Zionist line.
Egypt receives the second highest monetary handout, after Israel, from the US. Egypt is the puppet of America and the people will have a hard time effecting change. They know this, and their bravery is all the more remarkable because of it. Without the compliance of Egypt the Palestinians could not be kept under siege, and it is this way because our governments conspire to make it this way. The US conspires with the UN to announce the illegality of settlements, bombings, massacres, siege and destruction, yet ensures that each of these things can happen by funding them all. Nothing is achieved except bloodshed. There was no peace process.
Ordinary citizens are taking to the streets and it is entirely possible that Palestinians, so badly let down by those purporting to represent them, will follow. The 7.6 million Palestinian refugees could march. The door is opening. The borders are creaking. Would Israel massacre 7.6 million people walking peacefully back to their homes, or are the third generation refugees so snug in their cocoon of distant and safe resistance that everything they say they want is not worth the risk to life and limb after all. This may be their only chance. Pubic opinion is on the side of the oppressed.
Israel wants the world to forget that the right of millions of Palestinian refugees to return to the place from which they fled is enshrined in international law. The right of return is a Right. They do not need permission.
