by I’m not terribly political, but right now I am appalled at our country. It is to our shame that we did not vote to upgrade Palestine to a nonmember observer state of the United Nations. It was the right thing to do and we failed. If we want peace between the two states, we have to recognize that Palestine is a state. How can negotiations ever be fair if both sides don’t have the same rights and privileges? And Hamas has to do the same about Israel. Yes, it sucked about how it all came about, but that genie is never going back into that bottle. Transcend and help make the world a better place.
I also just read this in the Times, “In response to the Palestinian bid, a bipartisan group of senators said Thursday that they would introduce legislation that would cut off foreign aid to the authority if it tried to use the International Criminal Court against Israel …” I don’t understand. If they have a valid case (or cases) to bring, why shouldn’t they have their day in court? Is the International Criminal Court a bad thing or something? I honestly don’t know a lot about it.
I took this at our dress rehearsal last night. If only we could form a chorale and orchestra from Israel and Palestine.
“(Somalia) was a watershed,” said one State Department official, “The idea used to be that terrible countries were terrible because good, decent, innocent people were being oppressed by evil, thuggish leaders. Somalia changed that. Here you have a country where just about everybody is caught up in hatred and fighting. You stop an old lady on the street and ask her if she wants peace, and she’ll say, yes, of course, I pray for it daily. All the things you’d expect her to say. Then ask her if she would be willing for her clan to share power with another in order to have that peace, and she’ll say, ‘With those murderers and thieves? I’d die first.’ People in these countries – Bosnia is a more recent example – don’t want peace. They want victory. They want power. Men, women, old and young. Somalia was the experience that taught us that people in these places bear much of the responsibility for things being the way they are. The hatred and the killing continues because they want it to. Or because they don’t want peace enough to stop it.” (pg 334-335 from Mark Bowden’s book ‘Blackhawk Down’)
I don’t claim to understand the middle east problems, but the roots of it all seem to be an inability for feuding countries to “forgive” wrongs of the past.
Thank you for your comment on my blog. I am at the beginning of a long journey, but being able to write (at last, was suffering a block) hopefully will help.
You’re most welcome. And you are doing lots of things to help!