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TechnoratiChildren of Gaza, Run to the Angels
Ironically, it was in Palestine, 20 years ago, that I concluded that there is no God. For how could a God, who claims to love all and treat all with impartiality, allow such horrors like those in Palestine to happen?
This unbelief grew stronger with each curfew, with each strike that mourned the death of yet one more martyr, with a decapitation induced by gunfire in the main square on a sunny Ramallah afternoon so many years ago. But it was cemented the day I had to tell one of my fifth grade students that his brother had just been taken away by the Israeli army. His expression, his body going limp, the shuddering of his shoulders as he wept with his classmates…that's what finally did it.
Nearly 20 years have passed since that day, and I have now married into a Gazan family. I am a wife and mother, the sister and aunt of so many kids living the horror of what Gaza has become. As we watch the footage of Israel's onslaught, I hear myself, whispering as I see one more martyred child, "Run to the angels….run." After so many years, this living nightmare is fostering a burning desire to believe once again in the afterlife.
Caged, starved, sniped, suffocated. They are slaughtered like sheep, but the leaders of the free world just cannot seem to find a moment to comment. Golfing, vacationing, Obama, Bush, even the EU, they just aren't important enough. My mutterings have become a like a canter. I call out to these stricken and shattered little bodies, who frankly never experienced life to lose it. The only consolation to offer is the respite found in death.
A crowd gathers, shrouded in gas, smoke and dust. In the front stand eight young fathers, each holding a white swaddled bundle of what used to be a son, a daughter. For a few moments there is no screaming, no chanting or crying, but a moment of quiet and stillness that presses one to wonder just whom has been granted the greater mercy, the toddler who caught the snipers bullet, or the young father, who will have to find some way to live beyond this moment?
A young boy sits on the sidewalk beside his mother. She is propped up against the wall of a collapsed building and her life is bleeding out all over the sidewalk. It is spattered on his face and smeared on his shirt. She uses the last of her strength to lift her arm and clutch his cheek in her palm and then she is gone. He rests his head in his hands and cries. He is all alone.
The camera zooms in on the scene of a freshly detonated building, a civilian home. A little girls brown curly hair covered in dust and eyes wide open is all that can be found of her. Her mother wails and pulls her hair while her father frantically searches among the rubble for the rest of his daughter, where could she be? I whisper again, "you will be made whole again in Paradise. Run to the angels".
What amazing faith. What strong devotion that a father loses his mother, father, wife and eight children, that this man before anything can assert, "God is Great, Thank God for Everything". He holds his child, now still and ashen, he smothers him with kisses and then gently pulls back the sheet to expose two bullet holes in his chest. He then tenderly places the child beside his brother and again, pulls the sheet back of his youngest son to reveal a single snipers bullet to the chest. He can barely compose himself and he moans to the sympathizing camera man, "God is Great, Thank God for Everything".
An old and wrinkled Imam so lovingly cradles a little girl's lifeless body, as if mishandling her now could inflict more pain, he mumbles a benediction and gently lies her beside her sisters and her brothers in the mass grave. I try to comfort her, saying, "Finally, a place of safety. Rest beside your sister. Your brother. Put your fears to rest and meet your beloved Prophet and the many of your little friends who have fallen before you."
Hospitals, schools, mosques, civilian homes, UN shelters, all worthy targets. Doctors, medicines, food and water, truckloads of relief from all corners of the world line up for miles at the Egyptian border but they are refused entry. Security is high, food is scarce, water is completely gone.
Faith seems to spring forth in the strangest of moments. For me, it seems to be coming full circle out of desperation and in agony, for the sake of the snow-white souls of the many bloodied and dismembered innocents of Gaza.
UN workers coordinate with Israelis to get civilians to safety inside a UN school. Hundreds are tucked inside the mutually agreed safe haven. Soon after, the school comes under Israeli fire. Bruised and battered refugees stare Satan in the face, clad in his fatigues. Hundreds wounded, scores dead, many lost and unaccounted for.
Governments negotiate a cease-fire. Rumors buzz of conspiracies. The US President-elect is forever silent. Parents search beneath the collapsed walls for what remains of their children. Shattered concrete, random arms and legs, broken glass, tossed together in a bloody hodge-podge. But, in my mind, I see them whole, their little bodies swiftly being swept up into Paradise and I call out to them, "Run!"
58 Comments so far
Show AllThe US government, who is responsible for supporting and arming, including with 400 nuclear warheads, the genocidal state of Israel (really Occupied Palestine), is the number one problem here.
The number two problem is YOU, who do nothing about it.
That same US government allows sites like this plastic progressive sandbox to operate relatively unfettered.
Why?
Because they view it as a useful SAFTY VALVE: they know if you piddle away your time posting and hand-wringing here that you won't march on Washington and throw their asses out.
As always, the ball is in YOUR court--and I don't see you doing squat.
I think about the children of Gaza every day. The ones who survive will be traumatized for life. No amount of Jewish suffering in the past can justify the slaughter of these innocents.
Sufferning never justifies suffering....
The truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/commentaries/3737
Awfully few worthwhile posts in this page; posts by 0necaptjim, DavidG, and SiouxRose being worthy. There's too much of what 0necaptjim's post says, ""Stupid is as stupid does" Forest Gump ...". People don't take adequate time to seriously [think] before expressing what they think they have to say and there-upon say [stupid] things.
However, wherein SiouxRose wrote, "It is the fundamentalist Jewish perspective that remains stuck in the losing paradigm that sees reward to self for reducing other. Fundamentalist Christian views, all twisted by ideas about punishment, and those of the Muslim world that enslave women ...", I have to disagree, somewhat.
What that quoted bit says about the "Muslim world" is NOT true of the whole of that "world", for not all Muslims "enslave" or subjugate women. There are also Muslims who treat women as equals. Some also believe in non-theocratic govt, preferring, and rightly so, secular govt.
Additionally, it is far from only the "Muslim world" that has believed in "enslaving", i.e., subjugating, women. We find the same in the history of Christian churches, the ones instituted by humans, not by Jesus of Nazareth. We also find this in plenty of other religions, perhaps even among some athiests. We find it still in the USA where women are perhaps not 'enslaved', but are treated as lesser; f.e., women being compensated less for similar or identical jobs, including govt jobs. We find that happening in the U.S., but also in Canada and other so-called developed countries.
Women have gained very considerably liberation with the women's movement, whatever it is precisely called or entitled, but the liberation is not fully complete yet. Throughout much, if not all, of human history, men have tended to subjugate women, but never have [all] men gone along with this. When some who did not really go along with such ways happened to seem to do so in public, this could, if not was, only to keep the family, including the couple, safe from state or mass, mob oppression or violence, while the couple lived as equals at all other times, whenever safe from violent society.
In any case, even today it is still not only Muslims or some, if not many, Muslims who subjugate women, and not all Muslims who do this do it equally; some can, and surely do, do it more extremely than others.
I read since 2003 that Saddam Hussein's govt was secular, anti-theocratic, and employed Iraqis of various religious beliefs, while also having had a govt with around 38% of it being women, who had very equal rights to personal security or safety, free education and health care, etcetera. How much of the U.S. govt, Canadian govt, ... do women make for, proportionally? Do these govts have around 38% of employed people being women, or less than this? I don't know what the percentage is, but doubt it's as high as 38%. What about the U.S. Congress, where I believe to see mostly males, [by far] mostly? What about the U.S. Senate? Etcetera.
As for SiouxRose's reference to "Fundamentalist Christian views", I think for this you have to look mainly at the U.S.
The murder of both Palestinian and Israeli children is horrible, immoral, inhuman. If the Hamas bombs did not fall on the Israeli children (and women and men and old and young), would the Israeli bombs fall on the Palestinian people? Neither is righteous and both sides are guilty.
Sioux Rose
Good morning, Mike, I appreciate your pointing that out. What I meant to state was the fundamentalist interpretation and practice of Islam (perverted by the likes of the Taliban who essentially hold women, including ones who previously held high academic degrees, under virtual house arrest) is the culprit. I apologize for painting a broad brush over the Muslim sects, that was not my intention.
The Taliban are also Pakistan's proxy army and are backed by the ISI. Prior to the Taliban during the reign of the Afghan King Zahir Shah in the 1950's-1970's Afghan women were gaining equal rights (it was enshrined in the constitution back then) and women were university graduates, they worked all sorts of jobs, and dressed in the style of Jackie O' in Kabul. I have the photos from my in-laws to prove it. It was a different world. Afghanistan's Islam had its roots in Sufism afterall Jaluddin Rumi was an Afghan who fled to Turkey during the Mongol invasion. Afghanistan was a peaceful country and popular with American hippies. War and the rise of Saudi backed fundamentalism in South Asia changed the equation. The West encouraged radical Islam to fight the communists/Soviet Union. This radical Islam encouraged during the era of the Cold War is now the blowback we are all suffering from. I don't need to go into the details as we all know that now. Muslims have been the first victim of this as most do not want to live under the radicals. The West has also been the victim of this.
The East and the West should unite. My wife read a couple of Hindu and Buddhist books from the East whereby the authors present a great way for the West and the East to stop quarreling over their differences but instead to find common ground. I also notice one common feature among the peaceful sectors of all religions. They always make it clear that we're one and the same in the end. By the way, did you know that in the Far East, eating meat was rare and reserved for only the top class until the last century?
Maybe the Age of Oil has been nothing but a curse to us all. Ironically, the plant oil of peace, hempseed oil, can replace all that black gold that mankind has been digging out for the last century and a half. If we can overturn the ban on Cannabis, we all can and will win against the religious fundamentalists, warmongers, and believe it or not the financial elites.
The Taliban are also Pakistan's proxy army and are backed by the ISI. Prior to the Taliban during the reign of the Afghan King Zahir Shah in the 1950's-1970's Afghan women were gaining equal rights (it was enshrined in the constitution back then) and women were university graduates, they worked all sorts of jobs, and dressed in the style of Jackie O' in Kabul. I have the photos from my in-laws to prove it. It was a different world. Afghanistan's Islam had its roots in Sufism afterall Jaluddin Rumi was an Afghan who fled to Turkey during the Mongol invasion. Afghanistan was a peaceful country and popular with American hippies. War and the rise of Saudi backed fundamentalism in South Asia changed the equation. The West encouraged radical Islam to fight the communists/Soviet Union. This radical Islam encouraged during the era of the Cold War is now the blowback we are all suffering from. I don't need to go into the details as we all know that now. Muslims have been the first victim of this as most do not want to live under the radicals. The West has also been the victim of this.
"sc January 10th, 2009 5:37 pm
wikipedia ...
...
Hamas support for an Islamic state is perhaps as problematic as Israel's insistence on a Jewish state. But, Hamas leadership has shown some flexibility."
TRUE in the latter case, while false in the former. Hamas calls for an Islamic state, perhaps, but its Sharia law would only apply for Shiite Palestinians, Hamas has clearly stated before and surely remains steadfast about honouring.
SC:
"Also see:
"Hamas, unlike the Fatah, refused to accept Israel's existence. Its charter calls for an end to Israel, though during the 2006 election campaign, Hamas did not mention its call for the destruction of Israel in its electoral manifesto.[37] ..."
FALSE. Hamas did not refuse as above-quoted. What Hamas has clearly stated and more than once is that it cannot recognize Israel's existence because Israel steadfastly refuses to recognizes Palestine's existence, for if not for this reality, then Hamas would accept Israel's existence and formally so.
Why on Earth should Hamas recognize Israel when Israel steadfastly refuses to recognize and [respect] Palestine and its population?! Definitely no valid reason for doing other than Hamas has in this particular cases, while also on other issues or questions.
Wikipedia, btw, is not the most reliable source of information; most people know.
readytotransform ,
YOU only speak of religion and God as you yourself perceive and cannot speak for everyone. One such example in your post is wherein it says, "To keep praising God, in whatever form one believes in is honestly not healing. It can't be because it isn't real". That is your own religious belief and definitely doesn't speak of everyone else's religious beliefs.
========================
"Maplefudge January 10th, 2009 6:35 pm
From an atheist's viewpoint this entire conflict is like Harry Potter fans murdering Lord of the Rings fans. Who is which doesn't matter in the least. It's all crap. So I just watch and feel horribly sad for the lives wasted by ignorance. We are all the same ..."
WRONG. We are NOT "all the same". While we are all human, we are not all the same. Some humans are psychopaths, like the people who rule over the U.S. govt, the Israeli govt, and all govts aligned, for one reason or another, with these other two govts are psychopaths, which is to say violent sociopaths. Some people are intensively avare, full of avarice, greed. Etcetera. And these people are not the same as people who aren't like them. So, again, we are not all the same.
Also, the analogy to "Harry Potter fans murdering Lord of the Rings fans" is rather bogus, for the Israeli war of aggression on Gazans and Hamas is NOT really about religion. We can include the fact that most Israeli Jews do not descend from Biblical Jews, but from Eastern Europe and are caucasion, white; but that's not the reason why I say that this conflict is not about religion. If it was about religion in terms of the Israeli part, then the Israeli Jews would abide by the Torah, the law of Moses or laws of Moses, and they definitely and clearly do not abide by these laws at all, really. As for the Palestinians, the only reason why they're at all trying to fight against the criminal aggressions of the Israeli forces is for defence, defence of sovereignty and their lives, not for defence of religion.
Israeli leadership and that backed by U.S. leadership, hidden, front stage, and behind the scenes, all of these characters, they're like Hell's armies on Earth, but they don't commit their crimes against humanity for the sake of any religion. They do it because they are psychopaths, extremely greedy, lustful for power, and so on. They make use of religion, often anyway, but never in any sincere terms; it's instead used to cover up real motives.
Want an idea that we can send viral?...On the night of the inauguration...January 20th.....at 8PM....We the People step outside and hold a candle, a flashlight or a torch for the starving and dying children in Gaza...a message to the new president and a message to the new CONgress that we do not support the slaughter of innocent children..............Please send it around to everyone you know......IT'S THE LEAST WE THE PEOPLE CAN DO FOR THE GUILTLESS CHILDREN OF GAZA............
Beauty is truth, truth beauty,....that is all ye need on earth, and all ye need to know.....John Keats
The Zionists deliberately target Palestinian children because they don't want them to grow up and become guerrillas.
The Palestinins know this--and that's why they produce so many children.
Unfortunately, the human reproductive machine is no match for latest technology weapons.
Were I to have the button in my hand, there wouldn't be an Israel by morning.
Having just come back from a rally and march in support of Gaza and to end the israeli siege i must also comment on a couple things in this piece.
The sincerity and heartfilled feelings are clear and are expressed poetically. But i think there is a risk of romanticizing all of this. And to be honest, it is not healthy to not be angry at "God" or life or the universe, when one is in the position that the Gazans are in. To keep praising God, in whatever form one believes in is honestly not healing. It can't be because it isn't real. It is a religious belief that one can not ever truly subscribe to because it simply isn't the nature or reality of human psychology. That emotional energy is being repressed and will end up hurting that individual either physically or in other ways. A plethora of ways. PTSD just can't be cured with a religious by-pass.
I see this religious romanticizing in this piece and it is disturbing. It is part of the root problem in this world. And i think the word 'martyr' is often used instead of the word 'victim'. And quite honestly, just a Ghandi said an eye for an eye creates a world of blindmen, so i believe that martyrdom creates a world of dead people.
Peace.
readytotransform
The man in the article praising God just lost his wife, mother, father and eight children. If he turns to God instead of losing his mind or becoming a suicide bomber, how is that wrong?
Allah worshiping Arabs are not the problem. The Gazan's are being slaughtered by Isralies. And it is about Ethnic Cleansing, Occupation, Expulsion and Pogroms. I've not heard God mentioned once by Israel.
But Allah, he seems to live in these Palestinian's hearts, are they the problem? If not, neither are their hearts.
Peace to You.
Azjoe, i would like to respond to your thoughtful response...
I was not pointing out anything about someone's religious persuasion whatsoever. I was speaking psychologically only. I have spent 20 years working with PTSD with individuals from all kinds of circumstances.
And i will make a change. You are right, if that is what gets a person through the initial tragic shock, so be it. But eventually, people need to face the reality of their rage and the full range of emotions. Religions do not offer this. They want people to repress or deny any emotions that are considered 'wrong' or 'unreligious'. Violence comes from feeling unempowered, not from owning one's rage and even hatred.
There are ways to emotionally detox, so to speak. If people were confronting all levels of their anger and expressing it--not acting out on it, then we would go a long way in breaking the cycle of violence. I have worked with this and been very successful in breaking these patterns with people. Again, the 'religious' 'peacemakers' follow a very distorted view of human psychology. And it obviously isn't working. Not here in the u.s. and not in the mid east.
Look at all the ngo's in that region. I don't see a big difference over the years. You can't deny powerful emotional energy any more than you can deny you are a human being. People are afraid of their feelings, so they act out, get depressed, anxious, violent, physically ill and on and on....
Human beings need to stop being afraid of themselves. That is the key. Religions do not help here at all. Obvioulsy. Look at this world at this time. And one more point, i am no atheist. But organized religions are a big problem as far as i have seen and experienced. They are patriarchal and about control more than anything, underneath it all.
peace to you ...
Good Morning readytotransform, Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I too am pretty horrified by most religious practices except prayer and meditation. Personally the words Christ spoke, few actually, The Sermon on the Mount, speak to my heart. A message of love and caring for each other.
Christ never used the words religion or church. He spoke of Faith, Hope and Love. Hi-Jacked? God Yes, listen to that Satanic scumbag the non-Reverand Hagee...may Syphilis find his brain today!
God is Good
God is Great
Sioux Rose
READY TO: Whereas Mars promotes war, Venus promotes the arts. Would you agree that providing materials that would help persons assuage their feelings (rage, etc) through a variety of media might prove helpful to the healing process? Music, sculpture, dance, photography, writing, poetry. It seems we were given 5 senses to know a multitude of potential pleasures. The smell of gardenias, the taste of a good red wine accompanied by a pasta soaked in garlic, the healing power of touch, the incredibly magnificent range of topograhies on this planet's surface, etc. BEAUTY heals.
And in contrast, I'd like to see all those who were prominent in facilitating the Iraqi war, that in a sense gave Israel carte blanche to copy the sickening rationale of pre-emptive war/aggression forced to watch HOURS of video footage showing the agonizing mutilation of innocent people, and HEAR their cries. To hold a child and look into their soulful eyes should mean NEVER to make, sell, or use a weapon--particularly a bomb--on ANYONE ever again. When Christ said, "Be ye as children to enter the kingdom," perhaps that is the medicine Condi Rice and the other neo-cons need to be immersed in... spending time with children to tap the root of innocence that they so blithely act to destroy, and their Israeli neo-con "cousins" along with them.
Sioux Rose, Good points.
I would agree with all you've said here. I personally work with a process of emotional release that works immediately with people (try it you'll like it) :) That energy of anger and pain and rage simply must be expressed--alone. This creates neurological changes. Also it is physically healing--it promotes the optimum functioning of the immune system.
Stress, in all forms, comes down to repressed emotions. They effect the physiology because feelings are where the mind meets the body. And we are taught to deny our 'dark' feelings because we are afraid of ourselves. The 'shadow' is this pool of repressed anger. And you see, i know that people who have such horrific things happen to them are angry at life itself, underneath it all. Because, yes, you are angry at your oppressor, etc. But then there is that deeper level of anger at life itself for being as it is. And this is within all of us.
Whenever a tragedy happens to us, this level is triggered. And it goes deep. It is at the core of what we call the 'human condition'. "Why do bad things happen to good people"? and so forth. I coach people to 'go there'. Many are afraid they are offending 'God' if they do. That comes from our religions. But we need to be real with ourselves and then express what is inside. Not act out, but release.
Along with this release, i agree with all you've said and find it refreshing. If i recall, weren't german citizens required to go to the liberated concentration camps to see what had been done in their name? I wonder though, in the case of Ashcroft or Cheney. They loved to go to Abu Grahib and see the torture. If people are sadists, for example, i don't think that kind of experience would have an effect on them. I think they would just shut down. That is my opinion. But it could be effective for others who are not as pathological, who were part of this process. Even the masses of americans who backed the war.
And while i am at it. What about the u.s. soldiers who have killed over a million Iraqis? They did see what they did on the ground. But that is a whole other story. See, it could work the other way. If people are forced to 'see' what they have brought about, they could get even more defensive and negative...They will want to rationalize even more deeply. Cognitive dissonance. It is so hard to predict, you see?
But no one really gets away with anything. It is wired in. People will suffer for what they have done. Consciousness, as you well know, is quite profound. We are all ONE and what we do to another, we do to ourselves. There are no defenses that stop that process from occuring...
Thank you for you wonderful suggestions...
Sioux Rose
READY TO TRANSFORM: I admire and acknowledge the work that you do. I think the human psyche is a lot like an onion or lotus, perhaps. There are so many levels. If we peel back too far, we are apt to come to some raw nerves as given the history of this planet, who among us has not experienced war or some loss so dear to our hearts, some pain so impossible to our bodies, that a remnant of this memory is retained in some portion of our brain, being or soul. This brings me to the subject of anger. There IS much to be angry about. One of my favorite jokes is a man being treated for depression as he relates to his shrink all the money he's recently lost in stocks and pension plans. The question is should the man be prescribed anti-depressants, or as was true up until recently (since now the paradigm is upside down and who is in any position to give sound advice) be sent to a better accountant?
I live near the Rosewood calamity. I have met family members who may have participated in gruesome acts against a peaceful small Black community. What I have witnessed is that the vast majority who own racism cannot make peace with the scar tissues upon their own souls for the rage vented against another set of persons. This is why Christ focused on forgiveness, because it is the ONLY spiritually "cost-effective" way to neutralize the toxic psychic material we all carry. Lately I have had a virtual parade of all my ex's come back into my life (there is an astrological indication, a rare one, that I believe is facilitating this phenomenon) and I get to see where fate took each one. Of course when I was in the midst of each intense affair I wanted to remain there, but either I left, or the partner left and now with hindsight I can see WHY. We all grow at different paces. One adage I came up with to explain this is, "When it's time to let go, the flower and the tree both surely know." Letting go is a difficult thing, the greatest example of which is death. I watched my father die 3 years ago and then my step-Mom, and my neighbor also just passed away. It must be far more difficult for those who do not believe in an afterlife; however, after reading quite a few texts from a number of authors with nothing in common who converged on the same conclusions, I believe that LOVE is immortal, and those we have truly loved meet up with us time and time again. Unfortunately the reverse is true. We meet our "enemies" and until the energy is shifted to acceptance (perhaps through the application of forgiveness as medicine), the trials recur. This is what we are seeing on a collective level in the holy land. Immortally yours, Sioux
What a beautiful response, Sioux....Truly.
Thank you so much.
Sioux Rose
READY: We are kindred spirits, and the word Namaste, "I salute the Light in you" applies. Many thanks.
Well said...
Fusion
From an atheist's viewpoint this entire conflict is like Harry Potter fans murdering Lord of the Rings fans. Who is which doesn't matter in the least. It's all crap. So I just watch and feel horribly sad for the lives wasted by ignorance. We are all the same but some can see clearly and some have been indoctrinated into archaic tribal blood cults. FUCK ALL RELIGION!
This is not a religious conflict. It's just white europeans - once again - seizing land that is not theirs by killing the inhabitants.
http://www.users.bigpond.com/pmurray
http://www.paulmurray.id.au/ageofworms
Exactly-it's a land grab, Murder and Ethnic Cleansing of the first order. But mostly it's a land grab. "Islamofascism" is a William Kristol term. Islam ain't the problem. Allah's chill. Maybe William Kristol* and his ilk are the problem though.
*Neocons, Zionists. NOT Righteous Jews, who once again, whose Judaism ain't the problem either, it ain't religion.
FullMoon.
I second that.
Suzanne,
My thoughts are with you and those in Gaza subjected to attacks that no humans should have to endure. May they be with the angels and may we find a way to stop this bloodshed and halt the strikes against Gaza.
Jeevee
Who said it: POWER CORRUPTS AND ABSOLUTE POWER CORRUPTS ABSOLUTELY.
WHY DID GOD CREATE HUMANS?
The answer is clear: He didn't! We just crawled out of the slime and imposed ourselves upon the world.
The sooner we disappear back into the slime, the better!
www.dangerouscreation.com
I read not many years ago that the Palestinian constitution calls for the destruction of Israel and all Israelis. So where is the difference?
I ask not because I "take sides" - I haven't. I just really want to know where the author's thoughts are when Hamas bombs the children of Israel?
wikipedia seems to have a pretty good synopsis of Hamas and positions it has taken.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas
I perceive (that in the past) Hamas might have accepted a long term truce (perhaps one that would have led to a de-facto two state solution).
Hamas support for an Islamic state is perhaps as problematic as Israel's insistence on a Jewish state. But, Hamas leadership has shown some flexibility.
"On 26 January 2004, senior Hamas official Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi offered a 10-year truce, or hudna, in return for a complete withdrawal by Israel from the territories captured in the Six Day War, and the establishment of a Palestinian state (it later repeated the same offer after winning the majority in the PLC, accepting the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative[32]). Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin stated that the group could accept a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Rantissi confirmed that Hamas had come to the conclusion that it was "difficult to liberate all our land at this stage, so we accept a phased liberation"(wikipedia).
Also see:
"Hamas, unlike the Fatah, refused to accept Israel's existence. Its charter calls for an end to Israel, though during the 2006 election campaign, Hamas did not mention its call for the destruction of Israel in its electoral manifesto.[37] On 25 January 2006, after winning the Palestinian elections, Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar gave an interview to Al-Manar TV denouncing foreign demands that Hamas recognize Israel's right to exist.[55] After the establishment of Hamas government, Dr Al-Zahar stated his "dreams of hanging a huge map of the world on the wall at my Gaza home which does not show Israel on it...I hope that our dream to have our independent state on all historic Palestine (including Israel). This dream will become real one day. I'm certain of this because there is no place for the state of Israel on this land". He also "didn't rule out the possibility of having Jews, Muslims and Christians living under the sovereignty of an Islamic state, adding that the Palestinians never hated the Jews and that only the Israeli occupation was their enemy".[56] (wikipedia)
Ironically, not only Hamas desires a one-state resolution. Israeli settlers have made a two state solution nearly impossible. In some ways this leads to a position not so far from that of Hamas which wants an Islamic state. The settlers (and Israelis who allowed this) have created a de-facto Jewish state spreading throughout the West Bank -- but with dire consequences as this ever spreading takeover is one based upon apartheid.
Israel's continued "settlement" (with hundreds of thousands of Israelis carving up what were Palestinian lands and relegating Palestinians to walled in cantons) has resulted in a system of apartheid. (Palestinians can't leave Nablus except on foot via checkpoint; Palestinians can't drive on the Israeli only roads; Palestinians can not travel from one place to another without Israeli checkpoint and making huge detours around the Israel wall.)
Please everyone keep in mind not recognizing a state or wishing it did not exist is not illegal or immoral ( think Taiwan). Any Palestinian would be damn dumb if he did not wish israel to disappear. Wishing to eradicate a state by force of arms is a serious matter. You may legally attack the threatening state but what rational person would think that would solve the problem? Before attacking; negotiations, diplomacy and compromises are necessary. Israel refuses to honor bedrock International Law such as Right of Return and the UN resolution to return the 1967 War lands. A one state Palestinian majority is the best solution.
Thank you for this reference, SC.
You read lies.
Rainborowe
*Rainborowe" - there are multiple sites on the internet that refer to the PLO charter and its call for the destruction of Israel. Perhaps with the death of Arafat that is no longer the case. I asked a question and still wait for intelligent responses. I am curious.
I recall reading that former Israel Prime Minister Golda Meir wrote (not verbatim), "The killing will stop when they love their children as much as they hate us." BOTH sides need to consider that.
You said "the Palestine Constitution" not the PLO charter. They are two different documents. It isn't in there and it hasn't been in the PLO charter (for what that's worth any more)for many years (before the death of Arafat).
About loving their children: a nasty piece of racist claptrap from the very racist Golda Meir.
Rainborowe
Any loss of a child through war is a tragedy, but your post is just down right stupid.
No my post was not stupid. It was a question. CD posters should read before responding.
"Stupid is as stupid does" Forest Gump--And what we have here is a thoughtful analysis of the reality of this massacre which the writer expresses through the eyes of the victims. No, the only stupid one is the one who would declare this piece stupid.
"Are Israelis pathological killers!"
It's the title of my latest post. I believe that they are. And I believe they are intent upon massive genocide in Gaza. After all, the fewer Gazans there are, the fewer they have to move on as they take the Gaza Strip, make it a part of Greater Israel.
The horror that is taking place in Gaza makes the Nazis look like Sunday School kids. Israel must be stopped before its madness consumes the whole world.
www.dangerouscreation.com
It gets irritating when big massacres like this happen, that you get so much selfish propaganda that only considers the suffering of one group. I dont mean Israelis. On Counterspin this week Ali Abunimah appeared and he mentioned that in israeli tv they talk about getting help for distressed Israeli pets affected by the rocket fire from Gaza, and he says it with disgust as if the listener is supposed to think: yeah! those crazy israelis! Their priorities are so warped!
Its an appeal to bigotry-the notion that everyone is a liberal humanist-just as Israel does when it says: every jew is worth more than an arab.
Abunimah has made such comments before and it suggests that he doesnt give a damn about non humans. This unfortunately fits a stereotype about Middle Eastern people. I recall a few years ago a Palestinian woman gave a press conference and she said something like: the West care more about animals than they do about us!
Well, let's have a reality check.
No, the West does not care more about animals(or rather the non human ones--last i checked, humans were organic). If they did people wouldnt be massacring billions in farms with no sunlight, or torturing them in labs, or circuses and zoos. or using them as the basis for insults(you know, like comparing Palestinians to cockroaches or Jews to pigs).
Also-Israel doesnt care more about animals than Palestinians, if they did they wouldnt have factory farms and vivisection labs(or breeding featherless chickens), or be attacking Gaza and risking the lives of the non humans who also reside there as prisoners(I once heard that israel was accused of sewing a bomb inside a dog and sending it off--something the Germans did. And of course some palestinians have also been accused of strapping bombs to the carts of donkeys).
Promoting your cause by trying to belittle an even more victimized group is not only abysmal, but hypocritical.
israel is a jewish supremacist society. It feels that jews come first and anyone who is a jew and doesnt side with them is a traitor.
Abunimah is making a similar appeal--he is saying what counts is being human, and to show any concern for non humans while humans are suffering is to be a traitor.
REALITY CHECK: Humans will always suffer and be killed. You better get used to it. Children will always be abused as long as humans breed them.
if by some miracle raccoons start breeding humans, you can be sure that you will never hear about raccoons raping their children, or injecting them with aids to get out of alimony, or setting them on fire.
No matter what happens, non humans always get the most suffering, misery and dose of injustice.
Yes children are innocent--but not for long. Children can be soldiers in armies and tie fellow children to trees and snip off bits of flesh(nose, ears, eyelids) as happened in Africa, or write messages on bombs to be dropped on civilian areas as Israel did.
Non humans cant do that.
So in short, if you dont like children being slaughtered like sheep, here's an idea, why not try expanding your circle of compassion a bit to include sheep. Maybe reconsider the Eid festival's recreation of the Abraham and Isaac story.
Because no matter how much I sympathize with the horrors happening in Gaza and children being left by the bodies of their parents--I also sympathize with elephant calfs being left by their dead parents.
Trying to get me to curb or redirect my compassion is not going to help you win recruits.
"Maybe reconsider the Eid festival's recreation of the Abraham and Isaac story."
FYI the Eid el-Adha (Feast of the Sacrifice) celebrates Ibrahim's (Abraham's)attempt to sacrifice his son, Isma'il (Ishmael)on the orders of God, and God's substitution of a ram for the boy.
I think it's probably harder to look kindly upon animals when the lives of ones children are apparently worth so much less than the sacrificial ram which at least has to be well treated in life, removed far from the flock for slaughtering, and the carotid cut once and cleanly with a very sharp blade for the sacrifice.
Rainborowe
Mikep-Here's one for you-since you seem not to get it.
It's about the comments on the sniper fire used on the children, which is commonplace with the IDF. A sniper knows what he or she is shooting at-there is no excuse. Not for you, not for anyone. Over 80% of children in the illegally occupied areas of palestine are either shot in the head, or upper chest-kill shots, bucko. You are a troll, and you need to stop with your passive-aggressive bullshit.
Coward.
Sioux Rose
This graphic depiction of the actual lives broken by modern weapons released by those with warped enough consciences to use them so flagrantly on the innocents brings tears to the eyes, pangs to the soul.
This history of brutality reads like an unbroken thread all down the centuries. And yet EVERY master tells us that we must learn to see self in other, learn to trade forgiveness for the need to get even, the desire to exact revenge. It is the fundamentalist Jewish perspective that remains stuck in the losing paradigm that sees reward to self for reducing other. Fundamentalist Christian views, all twisted by ideas about punishment, and those of the Muslim world that enslave women... it is these IDEAS that are our common enemy, enemy to human progress, wiser purpose, better possibilities. What is needed is for the ENLIGHTENED of each religion to come together, admit this, call off the dogs, and ask that rather than see more suffer... all agree to put down their weapons. Of course HONEST peace brokers are needed to act as neutral parties, and I would think the Internatiional Criminal Court might be capable of taking this stance. Certainly the U.S. media & representative bodies is playing favorites. It needs Israel as its scapegoat as much as vice versa, for both nations have acted in similar fashion to claim what is not theirs, and then fabricate an intricate plot line that "validates" their acts of aggression. NO nation, nor people is granted the gift of karmic impunity. Any who use violence, will likely feel its return as blowback. It is so mortifying that this lesson, boldly portrayed in earlier times is being allowed to recapitulate... the weapon systems evolve, but people largely do not, not because they are unable to, but because the old religions hold minds hostage and spend more time fueling antipathies over differences than seeking commonality. The world cannot afford any more war... the challenges that plague us demand that we learn to work together towards solutions in support of sustaining LIFE, not misery for far too many.
When human beings prove so capable of displaying depraved indifference, a belief in the after life is the only hope of salvation, of living with the pain of loss, senseless loss... what a horror!
The old religions do not mandate this world of insanity, it is the passages that man chooses to emphasis that makes the Holocaust. All of the old religions also have the truths that if followed would make a pradise on earth
All they have to do to end it is recognize Israel and stop waging an illegal war. It's extremely simple. As long as they continue to wage war, naturally Israel is going to defend itself. Just as any civilized nation would do.
Why would Hamas recognize israel when israel assassinates and kidnapps Hamas's demcractically elected leaders during Hamas's self imposed ceasefire? Does any unrecognized nation have the right to attack any nation that does not recognize it? Since when is retaliating for land grabs,blockades and assassinations illegal?
Posturing as a civilized nation does not make it so. A civilized nation would comply with UN Resolutions 242 and 194 and stop butchering children. What kind of psychopath would stand with those cowards?
He has lost his senses just like many of the bloodthirsty Goebbelsian supporters of Israel trolling these boards. They are sick in mind and sick in spirit, the true face of evil if Satan really did exist.
mike,
Have you lost your senses? Do you realize that Israel broke the recent truce time and time again, killing 22 Palestinians? Israel blockaded Gaza (a collective punishment designed to overthrow the democratically elected Hamas gov't) depriving people of medicine, food, fuel, sustenance. During this time ZERO Israelis were killed by rockets fired from Gaza. During some months of the truce, there were very few to no Palestianian rockets, yet Israel continued to kill Paelstinians. You can ask Hamas to bow to an imperialist (as seen by the continued land grab in the West Bank) Israeli gov't, but I don't see how that achieves peace.
There are many similarities here with South Africa where colonial rule was eventually ended. Israel's colonial rule in the region may one day similarly be over.
Even according to your narrative of defense, the Israeli killing of extended families, dozens sheltering in a UN school, UN workers... this hardly amounts to defense. It looks more like war crimes.
Hamas would most likely agree to a truce IF Israel stopped its "targeted" killings (unlike the last truce) and it opened the borders. Israel instead goes on killing.
You sound like a broken record.
How many times can a man turn his head
And pretend that he just doesn't see?
Joe
As soon as Israel recognize Palestine and stop the bloody occupation. Where is it officially stated that Israel recognizes Palestine. Why is it Israel can defend itself but not the Palestinians nor anybody else in the region that is the victim of Israeli terrorism....You are a dupe! A zionist dupe that is.
Glenn Ford
I am ashamed, ashamed to be living in the belly of the beast and ashamed to be human. For forty years I have been hoping the government that controls the land I live on would show an increment of morality, it has not. It is a serial mass murderer. Even in defeating the Nazi's it would have been much better if this government was able to peacefully pre-empt the Nazi's program.Congress's support of the Palestinian Holocaust and the escalation of the Afghanistan occupation has me broken hearted. I know my sorrow is inconsequential compared to my children's suffering in Gaza and Afghanistan. Who could defend herding people into a building and then shelling it. Who could defend murdering six people and then saying that the one resultant retalitory death of one of there own justifies the slaughter of thousands? There were many oppurtunities for peace but the zionist guests in Palestine always demanded more, and assassinated their own peacemakers. When Hamas was democratically elected, dozens of their ministers were systematically assassinated and kidnapped, yet Hamas's wish for Peace was so disciplined that they did not retaliate for one year. Wanting to dissolve israel peacefully is not illegal or immoral. It is probably one of the best options for world Peace. israel was politically constructed peacefully and violently and it would be best if it was peacefully destructed.The world community is not obligated to honor every people's delusional desires. But the world community is obligated to peacefully end the reign of terror of nations that promote mass murder. And israel is the USA's Frankenstein, the USA created it, nourished and manufactures and funds most of the munitions killing Palestinians. The USA is still in denial regarding the Native American Holocaust, Lakota elders freeze to death for lack of blankets but the USA can afford cluster bombs that mostly kill children. There is no repentance for the millions killed in Southeast Asia, their is no remorse for the million killed in Iraq, no the USA just continues to slaughter the most innoccent in Palestine and Afghanistan. Hopefully " the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice" and the nations of greed,cruelity and ignorance will collapse as peacefully as possible upon their dung heaps.
Ever since USA took over global hegemony from the UK after WWII...
They have been taking over the colonial resource wars of their allies...
Israel/Palestine from the British... Vietnam from the French... Ad Naseum...