It's tough for anyone in Canada to get through the propaganda being churned out by Israel and Hamas over the war in Gaza. I suspect that blurry confusion is what reduces us to picking sides and pointing fingers.
If you're looking for background, you might want to read this op-ed piece in today's Washington Post by former US President Jimmy Carter:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/07/AR2009010702645.html?wpisrc=newsletter
4 comments:
Good editorial.
A few good points -
We knew that the 1.5 million inhabitants of Gaza were being starved, as the U.N. special rapporteur on the right to food had found that acute malnutrition in Gaza was on the same scale as in the poorest nations in the southern Sahara, with more than half of all Palestinian families eating only one meal a day.
After extended discussions with those from Gaza, these Hamas leaders also agreed to accept any peace agreement that might be negotiated between the Israelis and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who also heads the PLO, provided it was approved by a majority vote of Palestinians in a referendum or by an elected unity government.
Since we were only observers, and not negotiators, we relayed this information to the Egyptians, and they pursued the cease-fire proposal. After about a month, the Egyptians and Hamas informed us that all military action by both sides and all rocket firing would stop on June 19, for a period of six months, and that humanitarian supplies would be restored to the normal level that had existed before Israel's withdrawal in 2005 (about 700 trucks daily).
We were unable to confirm this in Jerusalem because of Israel's unwillingness to admit to any negotiations with Hamas, but rocket firing was soon stopped and there was an increase in supplies of food, water, medicine and fuel. Yet the increase was to an average of about 20 percent of normal levels. And this fragile truce was partially broken on Nov. 4, when Israel launched an attack in Gaza to destroy a defensive tunnel being dug by Hamas inside the wall that encloses Gaza
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I'm gonna have to go with the UN on this whole matter. I did not have the information I do now regarding the food program, nor the recent info regarding the attacking - deliberate targeting - of UN personnel in food convoys and at UN sites - even after direct communication from the UN. This is going WAY too far.
Unfortunately, like the US of A, Israel will never recognize the World Court, so we can't really have effective resolution to any war crimes trials. I like to quote a noted Israeli pacifist in times like this, but I don't think I really need to. Human beings on both sides are repulsed by the actions being carried out by the "Defense Forces" and also by Hamas. Israel needs to stand down, allow the UN in, but I think we need a UN mandated peace-keeping force with the authority to engage combatants on either side.
Once again, this appears to be a case of a UN with less cajones than it should have...
A lot of people were lulled into seeing this as a simple matter of terrorist rocket strikes versus defensive retaliation. That's the real curse of this rotten business - one side framing the conflict in simplistic terms. Gaza has been under a state of siege, the Gazans deliberately cut off from food, medicine and humanitarian aid, and it's been going on for months.
Nobody in the West, certainly nobody in the White House, was holding Tel Aviv to account for the humanitarian crisis in Gaza all those months, were they? No, Bush had given Olmert carte blanche on Gaza. Anybody who dared speak out was castigated and reviled as an anti-Semite.
The United Nations has been hog tied by America's veto on the Security Council. The UN will probably be ineffectual until the Security Council veto provision is rescinded and there is a lively discussion underway on that.
If the Security Council could pass resolutions on, say, a 80 per cent majority, I think you might find the United Nations far more relevant in a big hurry.
I'm a huge supporter of the UN, and I will definitely look forward to changes in the Security Council. We also need the addition of other states, while we pull some of the "permanent" members - who are no longer relevant on the world scene (or, at least expand the permanent member list.
I hope this mess can be sorted out. I have friends on BOTH sides (in Tel Aviv, and in Gaza - but they're living in Qatar now - lucky to have two homes), and they are all hurting...
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