June 29, 2009

• UN AND PALESTINE

  

  Dancing is a perpendicular expression of a horizontal desire.  (George Bernard Shaw)

   

  Date:  6/22/09

   

  To:

   

  Re:  The United Nations and the Palestine Issue

   

  And much of what you decried I also decried when we attacked Iraq with our “shock and awe” warfare.  I cried when I saw mothers holding their dead infants.  Dead, not because of a bomb, but because of a lack of medicine and/or milk because the bridges were blown up and there were no deliveries.  Hospitals were useless because they had no electricity or supplies.  Men who had been drafted against their will into the army were being killed and leaving wives and children with no means of support and bereft.  I was ashamed.

   

  Many people will talk of 9/11 as being a watershed experience for them.  For me, the watershed experience was when we invaded Iraq.  I no longer wanted to be considered an American.  But I didn’t want to just stand back and say it was all the fault of Bush and the administration.  It was their fault, but it was also the fault of our society that allowed him to do this heinous act without any question.  So that is when I decided that I would no longer consider myself an American, or a member of any tribe or nation.  Instead I would consider myself a Global Citizen.

   

  And then I did a lot of thinking as to what does it mean to be a Global Citizen.  And that is where I realized that the answer to that was in supporting the work of the United Nations.  Not the UN of the General Assembly (GA) or the Security Council (SC), but the work of the UN agencies – the WHO, UNESCO, UNICEF, etc.  These agencies, in collaboration with the over 25,000 NGOs around the world are where the good in this world is being performed. 

   

  I have written about the need for our society to have a paradigm change from one of competition and control to one of collaboration and cooperation.  Whether in our education, our jobs, our international relations, or whatever, we need to shift from focusing on competition and instead focus on working together.  And I have used the UN as a metaphor of that principle.  The Security Council and General Assembly are examples of the competition and control paradigm.  The US (especially under Bush) wanted nothing to do with the UN unless it could control it.  However the agencies were a model of what could be done through collaboration and cooperation.  For example, when the Tsunami hit, it was the work of the UN agencies and over 250 NGOs that made that so much more successful in its relief than we experienced with our own Hurricane Katrina. 

   

  I have often used the model of the Rotary and the Polio Plus program.  Rotary started with just the polio program early in the 80′s but then, after seeing their success, the WHO joined with them and it became the Polio Plus program to eradicate not one but all five major childhood diseases.  What a model that program is.

   

  When most people think of the UN and the Middle East, all they see is ineffectiveness.  Because of the US allowing Israel to thumb its nose at all of the UN’s resolutions condemning its settlements and “overkill” in its use of force against the Palestinians, the SC and GA are ineffective.  However most people do not realize that there is a tremendous amount of aid that is being given to all of the Palestinian refugees through the work of NGOs and the UN.  And the UN has been responsible for the hospitals and schools in the refugee camps and internment/Apartheid camps.  It is just a shame that this good that is being done is remedial and nothing can be done in a preventive way.  I find that the US complacency and even encouragement of Israeli policies to be shameful.  (What else can you call the US allowance of Israel to continue its encroachment with additional settlements but encouragement?) 

   

  At the time of our invasion of Iraq, after doing some root-cause analysis, I realized a truth.  Those who were in favor of our “shock and awe” invasion were motivated by fear.  This is not including the Administration and others with their hidden agendas, but real people whom I knew as friends.  However those like myself who were against the aggressive and destructive actions were motivated by empathy.  And I realized that empathy is the greatest antidote to fear.  And that is why and how empathy became one of my four missions in life to learn and teach.  And I resolved that if I have a choice, and thank god I do have a choice, I would rather be known as a person who is motivated by empathy rather than motivated by fear. 

   

  And I find the same truth in the Israeli/Palestine conflict.  And no, I don’t see Obama changing things in Palestine but instead he is allowing Israel to continue with their illegal settlements and disregard of Palestine as a separate autonomous State.

   

  (Note:  The extremists in Israel are Zionists – so this does not include all Israelis as I know many Jews in the US and from Israel who are ashamed of what their government does.)

   

  • 11:24 pm
  • Leave a comment