This weekend the United States will be celebrating its 233rd birthday where we celebrate our freedoms and democracy. As fellow Penn Staters enjoy the upcoming weekend with barbecues and fireworks, a particular part of the world is suffering greatly due to American support. America's largest recipient of American foreign aid and artillery is being supplied to a country, Israel, which commits atrocities in Lebanon, West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Israel continues to commit crimes throughout its 61 year history and its ongoing occupation of other people's land is such behavior where Israelis are asking for future trouble and it will regrettably come to them in one form or another, surely. Nobody objects to Israel's right to defend itself, the question is: What is Israel doing illegally occupying Arab land? Amnesty International reports, "The Israeli army has subjected the inhabitants of Gaza to an unremitting blockade, preventing virtually all movement of people and goods in and out of the territory and stocking a growing humanitarian catastrophe." Basic necessities such as cement, glass, toothpaste, crayons, and macaroni (just to name a few) are prevented from being imported by the occupying Israeli Army. President Jimmy Carter, who visited Gaza two weeks ago, called the imposed blockade a "crime and atrocity" where the Palestinians there are "treated like animals." Israel has to stop occupying countries because that is the cause of terrorism, imperialism and interventionism. If you want to end terror you stop it the same way the English did in Palestine, the French in Algeria and the Russians in Afghanistan -- that is, get out of the lands they occupy.

Sammy Haddad

graduate-engineering