Thank you again for trying to show how apparently disconnected histories are indeed connected and converging toward a world more and more emancipated from the shackles of a genocidal system (see I was surprised that you referred to the Irish. Not that the example is out of place, but because the African continent continues to be the most fertile ground for comparing what the Palestinians are enduring. By African, I do mean also those who were taken away. By African I include Haiti, yesterday and today.

The collective punishment currently inflicted on the Palestinians is very much like the collective punishment which has been unleashed, and has not stopped, against the descendants of those who, against all expectations, overthrew slavery by battling all of the biggest armies of the time (France, England, Spain). From 1791 through 1804, without the help of any humanitarian organization, those who were considered less than humans rose to say no to a dehumanizing system. For that act, the descendants of the slaves who managed the unthinkable have been severely punished. The treatment of Haitians today derives from exactly the same motivation as the one which has triggered the wrath of the Israeli state, supported to the hilt by the so-called International Community, against people who are simply asking to be treated like everyone else: with dignity WITHOUT THE CRUTCHES OF HUMANITARIANISM. The system has not just been bankrupt. What we are observing is worse than genocide: one of the victims of genocide has been anointed to inflict collective punishment. Collectively, how did we get to this point? Before colonialism there was something else. During WWII Hitler was THE Evil and we well remember what he inflicted to the Jews. But what if EVIL did stem from something other than a mad person? What if EVIL can also be seen at work during previous phases of our collective history? What if EVIL is genetically rooted - so to speak - in the system which rose out of turning masses of humanity into fodder for the continuation of a system which seems not to know when, where and how to stop. Are we going to be reduced to being mere spectators to the next phase, namely the turning of the Planet into an unlivable place?