Prescribing Surfboards for Peace
JERUSALEM, Aug. 21 - The noted American surfer, Dr. Dorian Paskowitz, has high hopes for Gaza, and like the waves, he will not let anything stop him trying to see them through.
On Tuesday, Dr. Paskowitz, 86, a retired Jewish physician from Hawaii popularly known as Doc, personally delivered 15 new surfboards to Palestinian surfing enthusiasts there. 
He talked the Israeli authorities into opening up the fortresslike Erez crossing for that purpose, overcoming their repeated protestations about the volatile security situation, he said - even though hardly any nonessential goods have been allowed into the Gaza Strip since Hamas took over there in June.
“We used every wily wit that any Jew could muster,” Dr. Paskowitz said, deliberately poking fun at an ethnic stereotype while speaking after the event by telephone from Tel Aviv. He was accompanied by his son David, 48, one of his nine children and a former surfing world champion.
The endeavor started with an article in The Los Angeles Times three weeks ago about a beach in Gaza called Al Deira. It featured a photograph of two Palestinian surfers with one old surfboard between them. “My son and I said, why don’t we go over and help them get some boards,” Dr. Paskowitz recalled.
The Paskowitzes started to pull strings. An Israeli benefactor from a sports gear chain put up a few thousand dollars to bring them over. The world’s greatest surfing pro, Kelly Slater, gave his support. And Doc activated Arthur Rashkovan, the Israeli representative of Surfers for Peace, an organization founded by the Paskowitzes and Mr. Slater, an American of Syrian descent.
“Arthur is a grassroots Shimon Peres,” Dr. Paskowitz said, referring to the 84-year-old president of Israel, an inveterate advocate of peace. “He knows how to get things done.”
Mr. Rashkovan, who lives in Tel Aviv, first met Dr. Paskowitz 10 years ago at a surfing camp in California. He says he persuaded four Israeli surfing equipment companies to donate the boards.
Their passage through Erez was coordinated by the Israeli military administration there. OneVoice, an Israeli-Palestinian conflict resolution organization, helped bring the Palestinians across to receive the boards.
Among the Palestinians were the two riders whose photograph Dr. Paskowitz had seen in the newspaper. “There were tears in their eyes,” he said. His hope is that the new boards will inspire Gaza’s surfers to start manufacturing their own. “From a board comes a group of guys who ride,” he said. “From the group comes a business, then an industry, then a fantastic amount of money. I’m talking about billions, all from one board.”
That seems far-fetched for now. Since the militant group Hamas seized control of Gaza, the main commercial crossing has been closed and many local industries have collapsed.
One of the Palestinian surfers, Muhammad Jayab, described himself in the article Dr. Paskowitz had read as sympathetic to Hamas. That did not put Doc off. “To be able to go to your enemies and give them something that makes them happy is a most fulfilling adventure,” he said.
His gesture could not tamp down the hostilities in Gaza, in which three Palestinian militants and two children were killed in Israeli strikes on Tuesday.
Three militants from the Islamic Jihad group were killed by Israeli ground forces Tuesday after they were spotted near the Gaza perimeter fence. An army spokesman said that sniper rifles had been found at the scene, and that the group had probably intended to carry out an attack. An Islamic Jihad spokesman said the three had been about to undertake “a jihad operation.”
Later on Tuesday, ground forces fired at two young Palestinians who the army said had been spotted near a Qassam rocket launcher, in an area where rockets had recently been fired. Palestinian medical officials identified the two as 10-year-old and 12-year-old boys. According to Palestinian reports, they were killed by a tank shell.
Three rockets landed in Israel on Tuesday afternoon, one hitting an empty kindergarten in the border town of Sderot.
In a statement, Israeli Army officials said Palestinian militant organizations “have been known in the past to send children to retrieve Qassam rocket launchers and equipment” after rocket attacks. “It seems likely this was the case here,” the statement said.
Separately, the European Commission announced that it would resume deliveries of fuel to the Gaza power plant on Wednesday, on a provisional basis, pending the results of an audit to ensure that the fuel aid does not end up benefiting Hamas. The European Union, the United States and Israel classify Hamas as a terrorist organization.
Many Gazans have been left without electricity in the past few days after European financing of the plant stopped. The Europeans suspected that Hamas was taxing the electricity generated at the plant.
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
Serfs up.
The Israeli army is now developing machine gun mounted surfboards.
Surfboards? For dead Palestinean children?
What a bright, brilliant, wonderful, simple gesture.
These are the sweet words of the kind of man who should be running things:
“To be able to go to your enemies and give them something that makes them happy is a most fulfilling adventure,” he said.
Why change the big success that weapons have achieved?
I think that the general direction this takes toward solving seemingly intractable world problems is vital and too overlooked. There is great potential for this throughout the world. Giving “surfboards” can be a cornerstone of American foreign policy! How could this play out in Iraq right now?
Let’s take it in perspective of time. If at the same time the “Shock and Awe” strategy was being developed, set into place and executed the US had a mere Billion of dollars in Sports equipment (bikes of every sort, roller blades, basketballs, frisbees, ping-pong, tennis, weight training) and arts & craft equipment & materials along with hand tools and construction gear to be handed out to the people? Think about it. Everything from looms, tools to make looms and material to use on them and so on in all the arts & crafts, the industrial arts, even fashion things like makeup and halter tops!
I know it sounds crazy. I think that the solutions to our little problem are like that: they sound crazy. Until you actually work it out. A Billion dollars buys a lot of that kind of equipment and materials. You can even include a great many trainers-teachers-coaches for a few hundred Million more! (At a tenth the price of a Stillwaters’ mercenary) And a great deal of these people could be ex vets and their families that would love to go back and provide daycare, teaching assistance, coaching and encouragement to the children and citizens of Iraq and Afghanistan. And the healing for all this would facilitate? Priceless.
When I asked my Vietnam Vet friends about such a program they cried.
Even a smile can make a difference; every action ripples on.
Metroeloise: When I was in Vietnam in 1995 doing volunteer work with children I saw a lot of Vietnam Vets visiting there from the US and meeting the Vietnamese men who served with Ho Chi Minh’s forces in Vietnam. They were a part of peace delegations. It was amazing to see this and these two groups of former enemies sitting down for tea and talking about their experiences and healing each other’s pain.
The Iraqi national football (soccer) team might be the single most unifying institution in the country.
Hey, this guy has been doing ukuleles for Peace in the same region for a coupla years now! These guyz could work miracles if they got together.
http://www.captainkazoo.com/UFP.HTML
Bambi
Is the kind doctor for returning the shores of all of Palestine to the Palestinians?
Did surfing save the Samoans on their Islands?
Or is Gaza to be the Ghetto Beach Boogie bone?
A “peaceful two state solution”….right….the two Palestinian states…Gaza and the still occupied West Bank.
There is also a story about soy foam boards. Since the major maker of foam for the core of boards decided to go out of business more than a year ago, some guy has come up with an organic foam that uses no petroleum base and is biodegradable. This is an example of what can be done with innovation and the money to get it going.
There is another good NGO called “Play for Peace” which uses sports to bring opposing sides together.
what a fucking idea ?