Letter: From the perspective of colonized peoples
Published: 01-14-2025 3:00 PM |
I would like to thank John Buttrick for his My Turn “Exploring U.S. Complicity With Israeli Genocide.” I would ask, however, that we now dispatch the idea that Israel had a right to defend itself. From the perspective of the African Liberation Movements that fought white settler colonizers, Africans had the absolute right to drive out their oppressors. During the liberation struggles against the Italians in Ethiopia, the British in Kenya, the French in Algeria, the Germans in Namibia and the Portuguese in Angola and Mozambique — to name but a few anti-colonial struggles — cadres of the liberation movements targeted, when necessary, the white settler colonizers that profited from colonization and did not hesitate to kill Africans to maintain their dominance.
All the conditions that applied to the anti-colonial struggles in Africa apply to the artificial state of Israel and Israel’s illegal white settler colonization of Palestine. From the perspective of former colonized peoples, there is no confusion about using force to free yourself from oppressive colonization. The United States is unquestionably aiding and abetting the Israeli occupation, ethnic cleansing and genocidal white settler colonization of Palestine.
Is it “embarrassing?” No! That is not the word that this situation merits. “Guilty” is a much more accurate term. Look at the context of Palestine from the perspective of African and other colonized peoples and you will understand the horror that the U.S. has wrought.
Thomas Coffman
Concord