Peace out, yo
Israeli Defense Forces are smashing their way into the Gaza Strip half a world away in retaliation for Palestinians' attack on an IDF outpost and the kidnapping of a soldier (link here).In Sudan, the Khartoum regime makes war on its own people, sending attack helicopters and gang-raping murderers to do their bloody work (link here).
Meanwhile, Canadian forces are operating in Afghanistan, making war on terrorists that would just love to plunge Afghanistan into a medieval theocracy and staging ground for worldwide jihad (link here).
War is as much a part of the daily news cycle as ever, but in Vancouver, some are trying to give peace a chance. The World Peace Forum has attracted nearly 3,000 delegates and peace lobbyists a plenty to discuss the violent state of the world and steps people might take to deal with it.
Since I'd recently criticized one group of peace activists, the anti-imperalist and anti-logic MAWO, I figured I at least owed the rest of our resident peace-pluggers a fair hearing. I went to the Vancouver Public Library tonight and checked out a forum entitled "Are We Yesterday's Tomorrow Today?" I wasn't really sure what the title meant, but I figured it would be interesting.
Some highlights:
1. The Raging Grannies, the famous radical singing grandmas singing troupe, sang their hearts out. You rock, ladies.
2. Jose Ubaque of Colombia talked (with the assistance of an interpreter) about his artist/activist group's efforts to protest paramilitary violence that is killing innocent young people in Soacha, Colombia. For more information about his cause, contact funrayuela@yahoo.com
3. Dr. Edward Shaffer, an American veteran of the Second World War, spoke about the terrible decisions that so
ldiers are forced to make in war, where one must consign some to an almost certain death so that more may live. The elder broke down in tears for a moment as he described the scene in the last days of the war of liberating a German-run concentration camp where the bodies were piled up like discarded furniture.On later learning that the Japanese had surrendured following the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, he reported being exhultant at not having to face the prospect of likely dying on the Japanese islands. His feeling changed when someone told him the US had dropped the bomb to show the Russians what they could do, even though the Japanese were on the verge of surrender. He later joined Veterans Against Nuclear Arms.
4. Palestinian youth Amany Rishmawi, who organizes non-violent resistance, told of the suffering of her people. I'd been following the Yahoo! newswire updates on the unfolding Gaza crisis, so I wondered what she was feeling. Actually, I was a little surprised that the examples she used were pretty tame: soldiers confiscating Palestinian flags as they searched her home, Palestinian youth shut out from employment and education as the security wall keeps them from their appointments. In the crossfire between terrorists and the IDF, lots of her relatives have no doubt lost life and limb.
She did make statement that I found incredible, that since Palestinian women are forced to wait at checkpoints before getting to hospitals on the Israeli side (owing to the security precautions brought on by suicide bombings in Israel proper) , "almost all Palestinian women have to give birth at the checkpoints. Because they are not at hospital, almost all of the children and many of the women die."
I hadn't heard about this, so I checked it out. A recent UN report detailed that 60 women had given birth at checkpoints and 36 of the infants had died. It isn't the demographic disaster that Rishmawi had talked about, but it still sounds pretty terrible.
Of course, Palestinian terror tactics (using ambulances to transport weapons and militants and using women as suicide bombers) have necessitated the use of checkpoints by the IDF to protect their own civilian population.
But it's yet another example of what Dr. Shaffer had spoken about earlier. In war, some decisions may be lethal for some to give others (on your side) a better chance to live.
Hopefully, one day the aspirations of the delegates at the peace forum will one day be realized and no one will ever have to make that choice again.
But right now, the news cycle just keeps grinding on...
tags: peace, world peace forum, peace protest, peace activism, peace activist, 2006, terror, Canadian Forces, violence, news
posted by Jonathon Narvey @ 9:41 PM
1 Comments:
At 7:41 PM,
Anonymous saidâ¦
I wonder why Amany Rishmawi doesn't wonder at why these pregnant Palestinian women are having to travel to Israel to go to a hospital where they can deliver their children and not to a Palestinian hospital.
I wonder if Rishmawi wonders about what the Palestinian leadership did with the billions in welfare given them by the international community over the last 15 years for the purpose of helping them build a societal infrastructure including hospitals to care for their people. The hospitals did not get built.
I wonder if Rishmawi knows that of the billions Palestinians received, little was used for the purposes intended.
Instead Arafat stole hundreds of millions, siphoned off hundreds of millions more to Palestinian terrorists to enable them to continue their inhuman attacks on innocent Israelis and the rest of the welfare Palestinians received was pretty much squandered on nothing.
I wonder why Palestinian supporters who condemn Israel at every turn and for the plight of Palestinians, don't wonder about these things.
I suspect Amany Rishmawi, like all the pro-Palestinian sympathizers, so passionately hateful of Israel, know the lack of adequate Palestinian hospitals is due to Palestinians’ own failures that have nothing to do with Israel. They know that, but ignore it as they carry on their campaign to blame and demonize Israel.
I also wonder whether Rishmawi knows that at least a few female Palestinian would be suicide bombers have tried to enter Israel disguised as pregnant, but their ruse was discovered and they were arrested.
Obviously concern and regret should be expressed if delays in processing Palestinians through checkpoints into Israel to get to Israeli hospitals contributed to the death of some newborns.
The report of the U.N. detailing that 60 Palestinian mothers gave birth at Israeli checkpoints and 36 newborns died, suggesting their deaths were due to delays at the checkpoints is immediately suspect on a number of counts, not the least of which is that a great many reports from various U.N. agencies, such as UNRWA have been repeatedly found to be very suspect for a number of reasons including cherry picked facts, wild assumptions and engaging in voodoo statistics.
Even if that U.N. report is accurate, to lay any fault at the doorstep of Israel for taking steps to protect themselves from Jew hating Palestinian terrorists is hypocritical and perverse.
The only persons to blame for the deaths of any newborn Palestinian children which was actually caused or contributed to by delays at Israeli checkpoints, are the Palestinian leadership and the Palestinians themselves for failing all these years to demand of their leaders that welfare monies paid for their benefit, be used for their benefit and for the purpose of building a society for which that welfare was given.
Blame can also be assigned specifically to those Palestinian female suicide bombers who by disguising themselves as being pregnant, tried to escape close scrutiny at the checkpoints to gain entry to Israel to murder innocent Israelis.
Is it any wonder that the Israeli border checkpoint guards are cautious in screening even Palestinian women appearing to be pregnant.
Palestinians should be directing their anger at their own leaders and not Israel for their difficulties including deaths, if any of their newborns which deaths were contributed to by processing delays at Israeli border checkpoints.
That problem regarding delays at Israeli checkpoints would never have arisen in the first place had the Palestinians from the billions in welfare given them, built a societal infrastructure including hospitals for Palestinians instead of suicide bombs for innocent Israelis.
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