121Contact

April 9 2011 Where were you when Baghdad fell? Demonstrating alone in Union Square.

Alone together in New York Cities April 9th Anti-Whatever demonstration against...War/Nukes/Budget Cuts for Education/Invasion of [Libya, Palestine, Zimbabwe, Iraq, Afghanistan]  /Zionism/Terrorism/Attacks on Unions/...

The signs said it all. In fact they said just about everything a moral,  upstanding person could stand up for...if they bothered to stand up at all.

THEY HELD A PEACE DEMONSTRATION

AND NOBODY BOTHERED TO COME.

After hanging around with the few hundred or so demonstrators who didn't even fill Union Square on a beautiful sunny day in Manhattan [We think there were more people gobbling goodies from the farmers market!] I headed home feeling quite alone. How could it be that so few wanted to stand up next to me and protest the odious foreign policy of the United States of America? to stand up against intollerance? How could it be that so few held compassion strong enough to do something about it?

And then, in a quiet evening speaking with Iraqis, both here and in Baghdad, I got another, less self-centered, perspective. For some Iraqis this day marks a critical disruption of thought and feeling. There were those who rejoiced when Baghdad fell. They knew the end of tyranny was at hand. There were those who felt nothing but the loss of their loved ones and friends as US troops finished the slaughter of soldiers and civilians. There were those whose anger against the invaders grew into a fireball of hatred. But all were ignorant.

Few could foresee the horror of the coming years. And now, these many years later, they can all share the same feelings about the day Baghdad fell. They can all feel the deep sadness...the lives lost, the freedoms gone, the society ruptured...

"Lives lost"? It's like saying "collateral damage". The words carry little weight. The reality is overwhelming.

 

Mar 11 2011 Wars in Palestine-Poetry in Brooklyn

Sometimes we are moved to tears, and sometimes we are moved to poetry, and sometimes poetry cries. We receieved this poem today and want to share it with you.
Bruce and Nisreen, www.121Contact.org

Wars in Palestine
2011, by Jenna Hassan, 6^th Grade, New York City

In Palestine there are many wars

Bombs getting thrown everywhere

Children’s heads falling on the floor

Not even children get a good bye.

Not from their families nor their friends.

Doesn’t that make you want to cry?

 

People have no food to eat

And no clothes to wear.

They pray every day.

To all soldiers they have nothing to say.

When all Muslims there are dead

The soldiers laughed and said

“It’s our country now.

There’s nothing you can do.”

Allah said to Muslims, “Please don’t worry, please don’t cry.

You’ll have a nice home in heaven.” Inshallah.

 

 

 

Jan 1 2011 Mahmoud Darwish: Israel Palestine Poetry Death and Hope

from Under Siege by Mahmoud Darwish

If you had contemplated the victim’s face
And thought it through, you would have remembered your mother in the
Gas chamber, you would have been freed from the reason for the rifle
And you would have changed your mind: this is not the way
to find one’s identity again.

from Bruce and Nisreen

May this year bring peace and security to those in need, and love from all who care.

 

Dec 9 2010 GAZA EXPORTS--Israel 'claims' easing: Palestine's Gaza waits to see.

2007 saw the start of an economically devastating ban on exports from the Gaza Strip. Prior to that time about 450 truckloads of goods left  Gaza each day, providing a significant part of the local economy's revenue.That was instantly reduced to zero. [OK I exagerate. About 4 days worth of trucks have crossed since then].

Yes, we know it is hypocritical for Americans, these days, to invoke the rule of law having trampled it so often in recent years, but the fact remains:

The international law of occupation requires Israel to allow the free movement of people and goods into and out of the Gaza Strip, subject only to individual security checks.

The recent relaxation of exports from Gaza marks a potentially important step taken by Israel. Tony Blair noted that 'for the first time in a long period of time things like furniture, textiles, other light industry will come out Gaza as well as agricultural produce.' He didn't mention the pace at which exports will be allowed to flow out of Gaza, and this is critical to economic recovery for the region.

It was actually a 2009 Dutch/Israeli deal that started the recent impetus to ease restrictions. It covers only carnations and strawberries and is, however, hampered by Israeli delays. A similar deal last year saw only half of the goal reached with some 25 million flowers fed to livestock after perishing while waiting Israeli release.

The sectors mentioned above account for the welfare of about 315,000 Palestinians (owners, workers, and families) without including support workers (transportation, etc.)and their families. Some 70% of the goods used to be sold to the export market.

This latest move by Israel is a step in the right direction, but it is only a baby step.

It will be easy to quantify: just count the trucks.

 

Source articles: Gisha.org, rohama.org, Newsweek,  NYTimes

 

101016 NY Times Portrays Palestinian Resistance as Violent: What about Budrus?

101016 NY Times Portrays Palestinian Resistance as Violent: What about Budrus?
By Bruce Wallace, mail@121Contact.org

Once again the NY Times chooses ‘violent’ as the pictorial image of the Palestinian resistance to the new, illegal under international law,  Israeli settlements [Israel Plan to Build Clouds Peace Talks, NYTimes, Oct 6, 2010].

Never mind that the most successful resistance to date has been non-violent. The West Bank village of Budrus used non-violence to halt an extension of the ‘security wall’ through their olive orchards. Hundreds of Israelis crossed over to join them, international peace monitors recorded the peaceful demonstrations, the army backed off, and the government finally changed the route of the wall.

Other villages are using similar tactics. There is a significant population in Palestine who are non-violent, who want no part of the violence directed against Israel, and who have no desire to act violently in the face of Israeli oppression. Like most populations anywhere in the world, most Palestinians want to live a quiet life of peace, make a better life for their children, and take a break from thinking about politics, death, and destruction.

But the NY Times chose this picture to represent the Palestinian resistance:
a stone-thrower; a now classical symbol of violent resistance.

Can the Times be ignorant of its power to construct a violent definition of Palestinians in the minds of its readers? We think not. Therefore we can only assume the New York Times wants people to think of all Palestinians as violent.

Why? What does the NYTimes have to gain by propagating this lie? If you have figured this out then please let us know with your comments on the blog: www.121Contact.typepad.com .

June 3 2010 Solving the Israel/Palestine problem

No, this is not a proposal by 121Contact. The 'solution' came to us from a dear friend and unorthodox thinker named Wright Salisbury whose son-in-law Ted Hennessey, 35, died on one of the hijacked flights. After Hennessey’s death, Salisbury co-founded the Alliance for Jewish-Christian-Muslim Understanding, which provides speakers and puts on programs to improve interfaith relations. 

So we both lost loved ones, and we both speak our minds, and we both belong to September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows--but we don't think alike.

So why put his solution here? Because it is the product of thought and reason, and it is creative and challenging. It is the product of minds like Wright's, and not bullets, bombs, nor barricades that will bring peace to the Palestinians and the Israelis. Give it a read:

Solving the Israel/Palestine problem, by Wright Salisbury

The solution to the problem of Gaza is both simple and difficult.  Let me explain:

Palestine can't function as a nation divided, as it is, between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, nor will Israel enjoy any peace until Palestine is one geographically united country.  The solution is to for Israel to annex the Gaza Strip and move anyone who wants to leave (presumably all the muslims who live there) to a territory to the north of and contiguous with the West Bank.

This territory, I believe, should include a territory approximately 25 kilometers wide running north-northeast to a point approximately parallel to the north end of the Sea of Galilee, thence due west to the coastline north of Acre, including the disputed area of the Golan Heights, which Syria ought to be willing to cede permanently to Palestine, though they contest Israel's right to it.  This would give the Palestinians far more territory than they presently occupy on the west bank and continued access to the Mediterranean.

Such a solution would raise howls of protest from both Israelis and Palestinians, both of whom would suffer severe dislocations, but it is, in my opinion, the only solution that stands a chance of permanently ending the squabbles between them that threaten to consume them both.

Dec 29 2009 Have you heard about the 'Gaza Freedom March'? Probably not.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who notices that our American news media fail to help us understand our position in the world, and fail to help us understand why so many people in the world despise us.

Harvard's Stephen M. Walt wrote this piece for Foreign Policy

 

 

Did you know that the Gaza Freedom March -- a group of over 1300 peace

activists from 43 countries -- is protesting the continued siege of Gaza, on the anniversary of the brutal Israeli assault that killed over a thousand people last year? (There is also a separate effort to bring a convoy of relief aid to the Gazans, under the auspices of the group Viva Palestina).

 

Did you know that the Freedom March is now stuck in Cairo, because the Egyptian government has denied them permission to travel to Gaza? The Mubarak regime has its own issues with Hamas, and it is also dependent on U.S. economic and military aid. Israel and the United States don't want the adverse publicity that the Freedom March might generate and are perfectly content to let the Gazans suffer, so needless to say Washington isn't putting any pressure on Egypt to let the  convoy through.

 

Did you know that this event is being extensively covered in the Arab world,[2] and may be causing problems for Mubarak & Co., as the Egyptians are once again being exposed as complicit in the collective punishment that Israel is inflicting on the population of Gaza?  

Did you know that one of the participants in the convoy is an 85-year-old Holocaust survivor (Hedy Epstein), and that she recently began a hunger strike to protest the refusal to let the convoy go to Gaza?

 

You probably didn't know about any of this, but it's not really your fault. You probably get your news from mainstream outlets like the New York Times or Washington Post, and neither of these illustrious newspapers has bothered to cover this story. What do they consider important? Well, in the case of the Times, their idea of a big Mideast story right now is the heart-warming saga of a little shwarma shop in Amman. 

If you do want to learn a bit more about this worthy effort to help the

Gazans, you can go to the group's website, here.[3] Or you can follow it on

Mondoweiss, here.[4] Or even read about it in Ha'aretz, here.[5] And then you

might have a better idea why the Mubarak government isn't very popular,

why Israel faces growing censure for its conduct, why the United States

continues to be despised in much of the Arab and Islamic world, and why

the blogosphere is so important.

 

 

Links

1. http://www.vivapalestina.org/

2. http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/12/20091229135120588522.html

3. http://www.gazafreedommarch.org/article.php?list=type&type=416

4. http://tinyurl.com/yh3ua67

5. http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1138477.html

 

 

Stephen M. Walt is the Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International

Relations at Harvard University and co-author with John J. Mearsheimer of

The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy.

 

 

http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/12/29/have_you_heard_about_the_gaza_freedom_march_probably_not

©2009 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, LLC.

We had been to St. Patrick’s Cathedral. We watched the ice skaters in Rockefeller Center, and then had our picture taken in front of New York’s Christmas tree. The season of peace was upon us and we let the crowds carry us along as we wandered uptown.

We were cold and happy, and then we came across a march in support of Palestine. It was the anniversary of the Gaza massacre, as the Palestinians call it. The Israelis call it Operation Cast Lead.

We joined the several blocks of Muslims,  Jews, and Christians all marching together.

[click to enlarge]

A couple of hundred people brought together by a shared view, a shared hope, and a shared frustration. We were marching for the idea of a peace that has eluded all of us these past 50 or so years. Some few passersby, like us, joined, walked, and prayed. I met Z there. She was one of the first 121Contact American students to write to Baghdad students, back in 2004. Some of N’s students were there also, with their parents.

Whatever name you give it, December 27 marks the anniversary of the murders of over a thousand innocent civilians. Yes, history depends upon the day you choose to start the clock, I know.

This is the Wikipedia version: On 18 December Hamas declared the end of a six-month ceasefire with Israel and on 24 December began an intensification of rocket fire towards the country's towns. On 27 December Israel began a wave of airstrikes on the Gaza Strip with the stated aim of stopping the rocket attacks from and arms smuggling into the territory. Israeli forces attacked military targets, police stations and government buildings. There was also significant damage to civilian buildings. Hamas further intensified its rocket and mortar attacks against Israel, hitting civilian targets throughout the conflict and reaching major Israeli cities Beersheba and Ashdod for the first time. An Israeli ground invasion began on January 3, 2009. The war ended on January 18, when Israel first declared a unilateral ceasefire, followed by Hamas' announcing a one-week ceasefire twelve hours later. Israel completed its withdrawal on January 21.

Between 1,166 and 1,417 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed. More than 400,000 Gazans were left without running water, while 4,000 homes were destroyed or badly damaged, leaving tens of thousands of people homeless; 80 government buildings were hit.

A UN mission headed by Judge Richard Goldstone was established in April 2009 and produced a report in September 2009, accusing both Palestinian militants and Israeli Defense Forces of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity, and recommending bringing those responsible to justice.

Where are the Palestinians and Israelis who will bring the peace? No one outside can do it. Only when the peace-minded people on both sides take charge, take over, take power, will the peace come.

Jan 28 2009 Palestine & Israel: a rational view. What about Iraq?

I guess I like this video because I agree with its point of view. I wish there was a video that described the Iraq situation as clearly.

The video:
http://www.rys2sense.com/hub/get/vid/id/3.htm

The section on 'media filters' is particularly revealing, especially in its relationship to how US media portrayed (or didn't portray) the realities of the Iraqi occupation.

There is, in fact, an illegal occupation that has been going on since the UN told Israel to get out of the occupied territories.

 Only 4 percent of US news reports about West Bank and Gaza talk of the occupation. Israel is portrayed as active in 'self defense', not as illegal occupiers.

UN Resolution 181 calls for the evacuation of Palestine by 1 august 1948.

The Palestinians are angry.

Some have lost all hope.

Some have resorted to violent resistance because of the growing frustration of not getting anywhere.

And all the while the Palestinians suffer sanctions, lack of water, electricity, food, medicine, and the basic feeling of security which allows people to feel that life is worth living.

Jan 11 2009 Phone calls from Gaza - echo from Baghdad

On the phone today a man described the loss of his brother. He also described a lot of other horrors that are right now surrounding him.

And (I must apologize to him someday) my mind wandered.

I thought of Baghdad, and phone calls, and stories of loved ones lost. I marveled, for a moment, at how that certain song of grief in the voice of the Palestinian brother was close harmony to the voices of Baghdadis when they describe their lives under the occupation. I understood even when it was only Arabic and I could only hear the song.

And so, for a moment, the lens through which we learn about peace and justice manifests as the innocent civilians of Gaza and Israel. And we get another chance to advance the moral nature of people all over the world. We will inch forward, again. Inshallah.

I wonder if in Gaza there are those who think that violence is not the answer. I know that Baghdad is filled with such peace loving people.

Peace to you and yours,
b