The War on Gaza’s Children
An entire generation of Palestinians in Gaza is growing up stunted: physically and nutritionally stunted because they are not getting enough to eat; emotionally stunted because of the pressures of living in a virtual prison and facing the constant threat of destruction and displacement; intellectually and academically stunted because they cannot concentrate — or, even if they can, because they are trying to study and learn in circumstances that no child should have to endure.
Even before Israel this week declared Gaza “hostile territory” — apparently in preparation for cutting off the last remaining supplies of fuel and electricity to 1.5 million men, women and children — the situation was dire.
As a result of Israel’s blockade on most imports and exports and other policies designed to punish the populace, about 70% of Gaza’s workforce is now unemployed or without pay, according to the United Nations, and about 80% of its residents live in grinding poverty. About 1.2 million of them are now dependent for their day-to-day survival on food handouts from U.N. or international agencies, without which, as the World Food Program’s Kirstie Campbell put it, “they are liable to starve.”
An increasing number of Palestinian families in Gaza are unable to offer their children more than one meager meal a day, often little more than rice and boiled lentils. Fresh fruit and vegetables are beyond the reach of many families. Meat and chicken are impossibly expensive. Gaza faces the rich waters of the Mediterranean, but fish is unavailable in its markets because the Israeli navy has curtailed the movements of Gaza’s fishermen.
Los Angeles parents who have spent the last few weeks running from one back-to-school sale to another could do worse than to spare a few minutes to think about their counterparts in the Gaza Strip. As a result of the siege, Gaza is not only short of raw textiles and other key goods but also paper, ink and vital school supplies. One-third of Gaza’s children started the school year missing necessary textbooks. John Ging, the Gaza director of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, whose schools take care of 200,000 children in Gaza, has warned that children come to school “hungry and unable to concentrate.”
Israel says that its policies in Gaza are designed to put pressure on the Palestinian population to in turn put pressure on those who fire crude home-made rockets from Gaza into the Israeli town of Sderot. Those rocket attacks are wrong. But it is also wrong to punish an entire population for the actions of a few — actions that the schoolchildren of Gaza and their beleagueredparents are in any case powerless to stop.
It is a violation of international law to collectively punish more than a million people for something they did not do. According to the Geneva Convention, to which it is a signatory, Israel actually has the obligation to ensure the well-being of the people on whom it has chosen to impose a military occupation for more than four decades.
Instead, it has shrugged off the law. It has ignored the repeated demands of the U.N. Security Council. It has dismissed the International Court of Justice in the Hague. What John Dugard, the U.N.’s special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied territories, refers to as the “carefully managed” strangulation of Gaza — in full view of an uncaring world — is explicitly part of its strategy. “The idea,” said Dov Weisglass, an Israeli government advisor, “is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not make them die of hunger.”
Saree Makdisi is a professor of English literature at UCLA and the author of “Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation,” forthcoming from Norton.
© 2007 The Los Angeles Times
The average Palestinian woman has 5 children and the average Israeli 2.5. Do you really think they give a rat’s ass about the future of the Palestinian children?
What Israel is committing in Gaza is the modern day equivalent of the holocaust (yeah, the zionist scum will crawl out any minute now). The Israelis are the perpetrators of this violence and oppression because choking a few million people is just that, you dont need to gas them, just starve them to death.
sphne, that’s no reason to slaughter the Palestinian children or kill them indirectly. I know Jews who have large families.
Did anyone see the latest picture of the 16-year-old Palestinian who was throwing rocks at an Israeli tank? The Israelis ran him over and crushed his skull. I guess they consider throwing rocks at tanks to be terrorism. If they kill kids, however, that’s the right of Isreal to “defend itself.”
Why are Israelis allowed to get away with obvious crimes against humanity/war crimes? Oh, I forgot, the U.S. OK’s it — even supports it by arming and funding Israel with our tax money!
Thanks to the axis of evil (U.S., Israel, U.K.) the Geneva Convention is meaningless and the U.N. is a defunct, mangled, powerless instituition that actually does more harm than good.
How is it possible that a crime like this cannot bump ‘Britney’ off the friggin front pages ?!!
This is the greatest indictment of the criminal elites in ‘the international community’ or ‘the free world’. The sheer audacity, complacency and utter comtempt for international law and for humanity’s concepts and values of fairness render European leaders together with their North American friends morally perverted. Such cowardice, hypocricy and undeniable racism deserves utter contempt and our citizens are simply acting according to elite’s dictates like sheep to the slaughter. Populations can no longer remain passive, lest to the dertiment of our human values with all bloody hell to pay. We need to fight back now against such an occupation, 60 years old, and demand justice for those people whatever the cost. Has Israel the right to exist with such injustice? Never! Never! Never!
There cannot be peace without justice for the Plestinian people especially the refugees and the Israelis must be prosecuted for crimes against humanity. Jews must, at a minimum, be forced to share that land with the Palestinians for ever reconciliation and peace to be truely established for its people and the current Palestinian diaspora. It must be forced in the name of Justice and regardless of the cost, if true peace is to prevail. Facts on the ground render any other attempted solution defunct, regardless of spin calling injustice ‘Just’.
I believe that most Jewish people would support such concepts of justice and come to the conclusion that for their semetic speaking indigenous brothers and sisters in Palestine they must share that wonderful land together. Should the various facist, racist regiems, empowered in Tel Aviv with Uncle Sam’s largesse continue to appropriate the name of the Jewish people in its dictates and actions, then it is surely time for Jews everywhere to admit this State’s illegitimacy. That is what it always was from birth, an illegitimate enterprise. So, it must be transformed in the hope that a new State for all the people, Jews and Palestinians, can emerge to become beautiful in peaceful times ahead. Presently, the most the UN can say is to ask Israel to reconsider its present course. It is 40 years since ‘67 and all the ‘international community’, ‘The Quartet’, The UN and worst of all the EU can do, is support, indeed insist that Palestinians must accept demands while Israel gets fatter. No demands on them to slim down or any such demand. Eternal shame be upon us all. This state of affairs will come back to haunt us and we will reap the wrath to come upon our children.
The portrait Makdisi paints of Palestinians as hapless victims of Israeli “occupation” and “oppression” is just plain dishonest. What mothers and fathers in Los Angeles ought to think about is why generations of Palestinians prefer to have their children starve than to live in peace with Jews.
The suggestion that the firing of over 2,700 rockets into Sderot, Israel (since last year alone) is the work of a few bad apples is also dishonest. It is the work of Hamas, the terrorist party that 70% of Palestinians elected last January and that a few months ago violently wrested control of Gaza from Fatah, the terrorist party that lost the election.
Makdisi’s dishonesty extends to her failure to mention what occurred on the second day of the new school year for children in Sderot: one of Hamas’ “crude, home-made” rockets struck dangerously close to a kindergarten classroom. The intended tragedy was averted, but several children had to be treated for shock. The rockets may be crude and home-made; nevertheless, they kill and maim when they reach their intended targets - Israeli civilians.
Angelenos need to understand that Palestinians aren’t victims of an Israeli occupation. They’re victims of a muslim-supremacist culture that makes it easier to demonize Israel than to confront the true source of their troubles: their Muslim brethren. The horrific violence between Shi’a and Sunni in Iraq demonstrates the Palestinian dilemma. Those who reject muslim-supremacy and want to make peace still maintain their humanity. Thus, they don’t have the stomachs to engage in violence, which is inevitable, if they want to overthrow the monsters who refuse peace at all costs. They stay alive, but their circumstances never improve. In fact, with ever-increasing violence being the only thing their leaders have been willing to offer Israel, their circumstances have only ever gone from bad to worse.
Instead of promoting Palestinian fairy tales, Makdisi and other “progressives” ought to admit that, like the most Palestinians themselves, they’ve opted for the easy way
Who will write about the “Anne Frank” of Palestine? What Israel is doing to Palestinian children is a true holocaust!
Michael Scheuer (Imperial Hubris) and Jeanne Garafolo on Bill Maher talk about America’s support for Israel:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAehMPVFFE0
Alsa, I fear that this never ending genocidal assault on the innocent will start people thinking - not that the Holocaust didn’t happen but that the Holocaust didn’t happen enough.
Israel thought the Holocast was such a great thing, they have been living off it for years now, that they have decided to do the same things to the Palestinians. I am so ashamed to be a citizen of the US (Not a consumer) because the US Israel and the UK are the greatest destoyers of life in the world. Lest the Anti-semite charge is levied against me, please remember that the Palestinians are also Semites. Too many people are stupid when it comes to what is a Semite.
It’s easy to tell real who the real anti-semites are, because they hate Palestinians as much as they hate Israelis and Jews, and will only use the plight of the former to complain about the latter; but they’re also at the forefront of the anti-immigrant groups in Europe. (When push came to shove in the French election, they voted for the Jewish Hungarian Sarkozy who could be counted on to go after immigrants, and is now eagerly part of the Bomb-Iran-Now group.)
All Israel’s supporters want now is a compensatory Holocaust — since the actual camp survivors are not particularly well taken care of & are dying off, someone has to be the new enemy which will provide a target for the everlasting vengeance, and the Arabs (whether actually ‘Arab’ or not) are the ones chosen for the sacrifice, and as the US was so efficient in decimating our own idigenous peoples, our rulers have jumped at the opportunity to show these 21st century savages, as they’ve been cast in our new racist propaganda, that “we mean business” (in the words of neo-zionazi Micahel Ledeen) by “throwing their countr[ies] up against the wall”.
Why maintain the little vacation colony for a few million foreign Jewish immigrants (few of whom had any relation to or compassion for the Nazi victims, except as examples of why they needed to have a similar militarist state) and for fundamentalist pilgrims to go into ecstasies over being in the *cough* ‘Holy Land’?
givemeabreak, how can you ignore the great injustice perpetrated on the Palestinians? Two wrongs do not make a right. Shalom.
Muslim supremacist culture is the rason so sayeth a poster by the name of Gimmeabreak. That’s amusing as Muslims don’t call themselves “the chosen people” that something the Zionists call themselves. Chosen means above everyone else. Last time I checked its the hard-core Zionists that were the supremacist culture. Progressive Jews don’t call themselves that as they see themselves as equal to the gentiles and the gentiles as their brothers and sisters. This is why I admire Rabbi Lerner from Tikken as he espouses those ideals. I’d also like to add the fact that Muslims recognize Judaism and Christianity and the leaders/prophets of these faiths as it says they must do so in the Quran and its an important tenant of Islam. Muslims and Christians of good faith along with those of other world relgions including many Jews are angry at the apartheid being practiced under the occupation. Its very simple. Defending oneself under occuation and annihilaton does not make one a supremacist. It makes one a survivor.
Just to throw this out; Muslims consider themselves superior to non-muslims and further are instructed in their own religous teachings to dominate and subjugate non-muslim peoplesand their lands. Its called Sharia Law. One honestly has to ask how muslims can wail for Palestine AND al-andaluc at the same time. If you fail to see the hypocrisy, read some history.
massud.. ALL extreme fundamentalists in all deluded dogmas believe they are superior. Its what that ludicrous belief leads to that is important’..
Saw and heard some of these zionist cnuts just a while ago at a public meeting here in Melbourne.. Lemme tell you they are a huge problem..
The young are so brain washed by their parents stories of gods supreme people that all others are beneath contempt.
That their belief system is a perversion of true Judaism and the teachings of the Torah does not seem to bother them..
They are seriously deluded and will tell you to your face that black is white..
What the IDF are doing to the Palestinians are Crimes against Humanity, in the situation where the oppressors declared it to be a war, it become War Crimes..
It is all the more evil CONSIDERING they beat their breasts and bleat about the PAST crimes carried out against THEIR ancestors, to divert criticism of THEIR ongoing (60 years ) crimes against the Palestinians.
That makes their crimes far far more heinous than any thing they can dredge up.
As an American, and as a Jew, I am ashamed!
An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
Wake up Israel!
Wake up America!
Wake up Europe!
Time to realize that we are all brothers and sisters and learn to live together.
Who is making a buck off of the suffering? — the first who need to go!
Next time, they’d better elect a party that actually cares about the people’s well-being. Hamas pumps Palestinain pride and digs their grave.
Children stunted? WHy send them play at rocket launching sites??
Of course blame bad Israel for everything.
This theory that somehow israel is the victim ( that gimmeabreak and his fellow zionist scum pull out of their ass every day) will defnitely not convince modern day Angelenos or Californians anymore.
Despite the complete media blackout when it comes to reporting israeli crimes (thanks to the national zionist media) people ALL over the world and here in California can easily see through the lies. The recent provocation and the ass-kicking israel received from Hezbollah was an eye-opener and hopefully the full extent of israeli crimes against Palestinians will find its way to the mainstream media.
Pepe Escobar on israel:
” The majority of Israel’s political elite is still wallowing in the mire of Zeev Jabotinsky, a Zionist in love with fascism in 1930s Europe. This treatment of Palestinians bears all the elements of fascism: radical (Israeli) nationalism; racism (the demonization of Palestinians as a sub-race); colonialism; expansionism (the goal of Israel); a penchant for a military dictatorship (the preferred method for ruling Palestinians); and absolute indifference to the point of despising the (Arab) poor.”
gimmeabreak
you are either uneducated
and idiot
or more likely a HYPOCRITE
EVER SINCE THE ZIONISTS MOVED INTO PALESTINE WITH BRITISH BLESSINGS, THEY HAVE DONE NOTHING MORE THAN ROB AND PLUNDER AND MAKE THE LIVES OF PALESTINIANS UNBEARABLE.
“Palestinians aren’t victims of an Israeli occupation”
PALESTINIANS HAVE BEEN THE VICTIMS OF JEWISH MIGRATION SINCE THE LATE 1800′S WITH THE CULMINATION OF THE CREATION OF ISRAEL BY A BUNCH OF TERRORISTS WHO EVEN KILLED THE BRITISH WHO WERE ON THEIR SIDE!
JEWISH MIGRATION WAS SUPPOSED TO BE ALLOWED AS LONG AS THE RIGHTS OF THE PALESTINIANS LIVING THERE WERE NOT AFFECTED. MANY JEWISH PEOPLE DID MIGRATE AND LIVED PEACEFULY AMONG PALESTINIANS. IT WAS THE ZIONISTS WHO HAD OTHER PLANS..
(see Vladimir Jabotinsky and the REVISIONIST PARTY) Thugs who created “youth groups” who wore brown shirts and had special salutes. Menachem Begin being a proud member.
So please SPARE US your “FAIRY TALES”…
They’re getting these nonsense and bullcrap words such as “illegal combatant”, “hostile territory” and “enemy entity” from their supporter and mentor: The U.S. of A.
If Israel engages in another war, it’ll be their last battle, and its nuclear arsenal would be useless when people’s army already get inside what is now known as Israel. Save your families and leave while you have a chance!
As much as people may want it to happen, the six million israelis are not going to simply get on a boat and go home.
So. the two sides need to figure out how to live together.
I would think that the following would be a good start.
Israel :
1. Israel pull out of the West Bank settlements established after 1967.
2. Dismantle all interior checkpoints.
3. Provide for a rail and road connection to connect Gaza and the West Bank.
4. Open Sea Lanes, Airspace, and Egyptian Border crossings.
5. Release tax monies to Palestinians.
6. Compensate families DIRECTLY involved in being uprooted from homes in 1948.
Palestine :
1. Stop Attacks on Israel - Rockets, Suicide Bombers, Snipers, Ect.
2. Either stop electing governments whose Charter calls for the Destruction of Israel or make Hamas revise charter.
3. Stop fanning hatred of Jews in Palestinian Media.
4. Acknowledge Israels right to exist.
5. Urge Arab Countries to pay reparations to Jewish Families forced out of their countries since 1948. (Those Directly affected)
this seems to me as a good start. Both sides will need to change.
gimmeabreak, 2:12 pm
“The portrait Makdisi paints of Palestinians as hapless victims of Israeli “occupation” and “oppression” is just plain dishonest. What mothers and fathers in Los Angeles ought to think about is why generations of Palestinians prefer to have their children starve than to live in peace with Jews.”
A truly ignorant, oblivious comment, gimme. If Israelis have every right to punish Palestinian children for the actions of Hamas, then radical Islamists are justified in retaliating against US citizens (and children) for the actions of the US Army and Blackwater.
Gemmeabreak,
Go tell your friends in LA that what you found out today is that most Jews in the world are against what the radical Zionists are doing to the Palestinians.
But the majority of progressive Jews, we don’t have any more control over that policy (the War economy of the world) and it’s consequences than the majority of Americans have over What the War profiteering policies of the US are…that is the struggle of the world is in right now as we kibitz on line and guess what ….We the people are winning and you guys already lost and the world hates Bush/Cheney and the Christian Zionists for their Super Power Supremacy doctrine to make war the main purpose for the people of our beautiful little Planet…..but I love to see Ya Squirm.
It won’t be long when your bosses will be commin to us progressives for a way to get them out of the hole they dug for themselves.
Give my best to LA, Say high to Jackson for me too, Bro.
Jim
bligh: Pretty good laundry list. I’d add a couple additional points:
1) Israel as an ethno-religious state doesn’t appear to be sustainable for the long-term. It should begin a transition to a pluralistic democracy — in practice. The US is a religious (Christian) state in practice, and by many demographics we are well behind other modern democracies. The bulk of the other religious states are Islamic, and they aren’t exactly shining examples of women’s rights, freedom of the press, civil liberties, etc. Religion and state mix like fire and gasoline.
2) The US should fund the Palestinians the same amount they fund the Israelis, proportionate to population numbers.
3) If any peace or security arrangements need to be managed by a third party, it should probably be a UN effort led by China or somesuch. As disconnected a third-party as possible. The US has far too much baggage in that entire region to do anything fairly, even if it wanted to.
bligh,
*Loud applause*. A very fair and sane solution to the conflict.
Rawguy: YOu can be sure the US arms industry, in particular the Carlyle Group is making tons of dough from the Palestinian killings. Remember the Carlyle Group - Papa Bush, the binLaden family and most of his cabinet, plus idiot bush will profit as soon as he leaves office.
From Blight
6. Compensate families DIRECTLY involved in being uprooted from homes in 1948.
These solutions were offered more than once, withdrawal, splitting Jerusalem and the rest of it…
WHat did the Palestinian leaders do?? spit on it of course.
Face 2 truthful facts:
1) While Israel is violating human rights, it is genuinely interested in ending the conflict with far reaching concessions
2) All Palestinian leaders so far, expect for Abbas, have never been interested in Peace with Israel and have sabotaged every attempt to improve the situation. EVERY ATTEMPT! Their misery and victimization is their political tool, to move naive poeple like many of you here…
they have no interest in reducing their own people’s dismay. All they care about are Ideals and Pride. Sadly, it is not the leaders who pay the price for such a primitive line of thinking.
Jews have romantisized the holocaust for so long thanks to jewish movie moguls that they have created their own private killing field that is so precious to them based on their self hatred. Being a semite & a jew comes with alot of dillusions based on an evil called religion. The Jews have taken full advantage and the world calls upon shitzrael to lay down their arms and try peace, of course we all knows jews hate peace and it will never happen. They will continue to kill as long as it fits their need for greed. Hey how original a greedy jew~
“1) While Israel is violating human rights, it is genuinely interested in ending the conflict with far reaching concessions”
Israel is not interested in anything other than wiping the Palestinians off the face of the map.
“2) Their misery and victimization is their political tool, to move naive poeple like many of you here…”
This is EXACTLY what jewish people have been doing, and extraordinarily well, over the last 60 years. Heck they even got a state out of it and they will continue to milk this ‘white guilt’ for the next 100 years and in the process they will bury their crimes against the Palestinians in the killing fields of Gaza and the West Bank.
gyptian… show me one palestinian leader that was genuinely interested in Peace… (except for current Abbas)
You claim that Israel wants to wipe Palestinians out. Hmmm I wonder if the Palestinians do not really want to wipe the Isreali off the map.
Truth is,they both would have liked the other out… So stop demonizing Israel on this bases, shall you. Palestinians are no better.
DESPITE THE ABOVE.. truth is Israel has been more pragmatic in understanding that the Palestinians are not going anywhere and that the solution is an agreement. The Palestinians ARE NOT THERE YET! They are still dreaming their utopic dream of the greater Palestine and DO NOT RECOGNIZE Israel! They REFUSEcpompensation for the refugees, and want them back… Very pragmatic thinking really!
Ok… now, how can you claim peace if you don’t recognize the right of the other to be!! Elemental thinking really…
As for your comment:
“This is EXACTLY what jewish people have been doing, and extraordinarily well, over the last 60 years. Heck they even got a state out of it and they will continue to milk this ‘white guilt’ for the next 100 years and in the process they will bury their crimes against the Palestinians in the killing fields of Gaza and the West Bank.”
Geeezz… Guilt trips?? Who is playing guilt trips and glorifying Victim mentality??? Who is blowing up as a martyr??? Who is teaching the younger generation to hate???
I don’t deny Israel’s abuse, but your comments appear completely blind to Palestinian abuse, or so it seems.
The way Israel is making Gaza suffer is wrong. I understand that war is war; however, when did two wrongs ever make a right? As Israel continues to let millions of people suffer, they set no better an example then the few whom they are trying to stop. This seems like a never ending spiral to me. If Israel wants something to be done, they ought to go about it by differently. As quoted from the viewpoint of Israel, “the rocket attacks are wrong,” I would have to respond, and starving millions isn’t?
hey aladdin …
Why should the Palestinians settle for anything less than having their homeland back ? This is not about pragmatism but justice. Israel was created on the backs of the Palestinians. The Palestinians are refugees in their own land. I do not blame a single Palestinian for wanting their land back. How can the worlds 3rd or 4th most highly weaponized army bristling with nukes and every conceivable form of modern weapons claim to be the victim ? No one believes this bull anymore so pull your head out of the sand … a trip to israel will teach you enough about ‘hate’ to last a lifetime !
“Israel says that its policies in Gaza are designed to put pressure on the Palestinian population to in turn put pressure on those who fire crude home-made rockets from Gaza into the Israeli town of Sderot. Those rocket attacks are wrong.”
So you think these rocket attacks are wrong? Since when us defending yourself, your family, community and Nation wrong? What the hell are you thinking? Israel has been committing GENOCIDE, against the Palestinians for decades now. It is escalating because the Israelis think the job is close to being finished. Every time a peaceful settlement is on the horizon Israel shoots it down with an American made F-16. Having watched Israel turn into the very ugly thing that victimized them during World war Two has been the saddest and most enraging thing for me over the past 20 years. You double standard is appalling? Get a clue or shut the fuck up! There can be no such thing as peace without justice first!
“Israel says that its policies in Gaza are designed to put pressure on the Palestinian population to in turn put pressure on those who fire crude home-made rockets from Gaza into the Israeli town of Sderot. Those rocket attacks are wrong.”
So you think these rocket attacks are wrong? Since when us defending yourself, your family, community and Nation wrong? What the hell are you thinking? Israel has been committing GENOCIDE, against the Palestinians for decades now. It is escalating because the Israelis think the job is close to being finished. Every time a peaceful settlement is on the horizon Israel shoots it down with an American made F-16. Having watched Israel turn into the very ugly thing that victimized them during World war Two has been the saddest and most enraging thing for me over the past 20 years. You double standard is appalling? Get a clue or shut the fuck up! There can be no such thing as peace without justice first!
My dughter attended a Friend’s School. One of her good friends is from Gaza. He attended George on full scholarship, an ‘ A’ student. Comes time for his Senior year, so exciting for a young man. He was not allowed to return, thanks to the Israeli govenment.
He sent us photos from his front yard, tanks trained towards what they consider homes. Israeli soldiers armed and waiting.
They have a baby sister, no food left in the home, actually an infant. It was past curfew and the older brother decided to make a mad dash to get some milk, she was screaming in hunger. He was shot dead 10 feet from his home, from his family. For milk.
We can debate politics, should be, could be but this is the realty. How, regardless of age or reason, Israeli army will deny a boy an education he earned and murder another for trying to feed an infant sister.
In the Qur’an the Prophet says ” if you should encounter another and they treat you with respect, you shall treat them unkind, regardless of religion, but if they intend you harm you may do the same”. It is not always the fault of the Muslim. Have you ever considered their use of crude weapons is due to the fact they feel it is their last resort for survival?
Look if Dubai can make islands in the sea built of land fill somebody can make the zionists a new homeland. How about taking some land fill and waste and putting it somewhere just north of antartica and letting them settle there –then they will only have the penguins to bother. Sounds like a good enough plan for them I would think. No one will have to hear their whining any more.
My point being that the Israeli zionists are not happy unless they can provoke and get attention, just like the children of Israel that they are.
Everyone: do not let this discussion devolve into “cock-fighting!” Please, we must all remember there is always “plenty of blame to go around” and the conscientious among us have, and always will, need to move toward a “metagnostic?”, ecoethical, holistic worldview that can prevent violent, competitive behavior and maintain cooperative, healthy behavior at every level of reality: personal - institutional. Please, if anyone has a clue, how can the UN be empowered?