Are your taxes paying for killing kids in Israel or for saving them?

Israel state-sponsored child kidnapping
Marianne Azizi writes:

The problem is stark. If you are in the USA, your taxes will go to Israel, one way or another. In Britain people have the option of giving “Gift Aid”. This is a scheme enabling registered charities to reclaim tax on a donation made by a taxpayer, effectively increasing the amount of the donation by a quarter.

I have written many articles on Israel. Those who read them could be pro- or anti-Israel. It doesn’t matter. For one way or another, if you are in Europe or the USA you will be paying for Israel.

Now you have a choice. Either deny the reality that your taxes are paying towards the 36 per cent living in abject poverty there, or rejoice in the fact that your taxes are paying for the Iron Dome anti-missile system.

World leader in welfare kidnapping

It’s a dilemma. For 3 million people who suffer in poverty in Israel and have no interest or care about political discussions worldwide, they won’t see your contribution. Nor will they benefit from donations from American philanthropic organisations.

Poverty is growing in Israel. The splitting up of families by ruthless social workers continues unabated. Fathers continue to commit suicide, mothers continue to live in fear of a knock on the door. Some 10,000 children are taken from their families each and every year, and even Israeli national TV is increasingly aware of the problem. Israel is the world leader in welfare kidnapping.

I am an independent journalist, but not of my own choosing. It happened by accident. I have had a love/hate relationship with the Israel for a decade but with no personal justice in sight.

But for how long do we continue to read articles and prevaricate over them? We have been reading them for decades, some supporting Israel and others exposing its wrongdoing.

We can criticise the authors and denounce them without knowing them. We can decide what we choose to believe. But the reality in the country itself – that’s an entirely different matter. While 3 million people live in poverty, 1 million have No Exit Orders and 10,000 children are snatched from their parents and placed in private, profit-making institutions each year. Sitting in an armchair in the USA will not change that reality.

Voiceless and unreported

Personally, and with many others from all over the world joining in, I am going to put my money where my mouth is. Giving up my job, my home and any income, I am choosing to walk over 50 miles from Haifa to Tel Aviv over a period of 12 days to film, write and comment on the actual people of Israel who have no voice. In “Walk4kids September 2015”, you will get a window onto the life in Israel that is unreported.

I am pro-human and I truly believe that 10,000 children taken away from their families, with another 350,000 at risk and 800,000 declared hungry, is not the way to continue to fund the state of Israel.

Am I pro-Israel and anti-Palestinian? Am I pro-Palestinian and anti-Semitic? Therein lies your question as you read this article. I am pro all people who live in day- to-day misery, and I am totally against funds going to anyone but those people.

Who should you believe: the voices in authority expressed in the mainstream media, or those on the ground who see the issues every single day?

Last month I spoke in Geneva about freedom of speech for human rights defenders in Israel and the plight of children in that country. I am pro-human and I truly believe that 10,000 children taken away from their families, with another 350,000 at risk and 800,000 declared hungry, is not the way to continue to fund the state of Israel. Human rights defenders inside the country should not be imprisoned for democratically opposing a view. This is 2015.

As with other countries, Israel has major social and civil rights issues. Should these be kept secret at the cost of 500 suicides a year? I don’t think so.

I believe that if you are pro-Palestinian you may believe all these children will make a new brutal army in a few years time. If you are pro-Israel – why would you sacrifice so many lives for an ideology? The fact is, a child locked in a private institution and crying for its parents has no political view, just pain.

Any arguments of “left or right” are academic to those who live in day-to-day suffering both sides of the wall. There are now nearly 2 million children, both Palestinian and Israeli, who are hungry and have no hope of a future.

While you drink coffee and pass judgement, look at your children and your grandchildren as you read and ask yourself if you could be so objective if someone took them from you in the next five minutes.

Then ask yourself what you are funding.

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