Editor,
Readers found Richard M. Berthold's column published in the Daily Lobo on March 14 in which he compared Israel with the Nazi government objectionable.
In late 2006, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu toured the U.S. with a massive "Iran is Nazi Germany" publicity campaign.
That approach to warmongering didn't sell in the U.S. and even earned a rebuke from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Putting aside Nazi Germany, how about comparing the systematic human-rights violations of Israel and China?
China claims Tibet as its own. Many factions of the Israeli government and public lay full claim to Palestinian land. China has transferred large populations of Han Chinese into Tibet, and Israel has used financial incentives to encourage hundreds of thousands to transfer to Jewish-only settlements inside the occupied territories.
Palestinians and Tibetans have been displaced by war and occupation. After the founding of Israel, an estimated 4 million to 6 million Palestinians became refugees, comprising about two-thirds of the Palestinian people. The Tibetan exile government estimates 1.2 million Tibetans died as a direct result of China's invasion of Tibet. There are now an estimated 100,000 to 200,000 Tibetan refugees out of a total Tibetan population of about 6 million.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
The Israeli government refuses to allow Palestinian refugees to return, while offering any Jew in the world Israeli citizenship. China will not even allow the exiled Dalai Lama to return for a visit. Palestinians living in Israel and Tibetans in China are impoverished by government
policies of ethnic discrimination.
Israel has tortured Palestinians, and China has tortured Tibetans, including female monks. Perhaps inspired by ancient China, Israel is building a great big apartheid wall to keep out Palestinians.
What has been the U.S. government's response? The U.S. gives Israel more than $3 billion in aid per year. Israel uses U.S.-made and U.S.-financed fighter planes, combat helicopters, drones, missiles and cluster bombs to kill civilians in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon.
The book The Israel Lobby argues donations and intimidation by pro-Israel groups powerfully influence U.S. political parties and candidates. China's influence over the U.S. looms much larger. China holds an estimated $1 trillion in U.S. treasuries and bonds, which keeps the bankrupt U.S. economy from collapsing and helps finance U.S. government expenditures such as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
U.S. trade policy encouraged consumers to buy $300 billion of Chinese goods last year; U.S. exports were worth only $65 billion. How likely is it that the U.S. government will object to China having its way with Tibetans?
Systematic violations of human rights by governments affect all of us. The next Tibetan monk to be killed would have carried on the nonviolent teachings of the Dalai Lama. The next Palestinian to be killed might have become a peacemaker and saved Israeli lives.
This year marks not only the 2008 Olympics, but the 60th anniversary of the founding of Israel and the "Naqba," the catastrophe for Palestinians. We'll be seeing plenty of propaganda from the Chinese and Israeli governments. Take a stand for human rights.
Vicki Johnson
Daily Lobo reader
