Here is a TED Talk about a young idealist Israeli doctor trying to improve the healthcare with a motorcycle. At first is seems like another feel-good story about how a young mind improves healthcare. If you stay till the end you will see the connection to Israeli - Palestinian relations.
Monday, August 5, 2013
Palestine, Manning, Healthcare and a Motorcycle
Today we talked about several recurrent issues. Is there any hope for the Palestine Talks? Is Bradley Manning traitor? Are the Republican going to destroy healthcare? We are dishearthened when we view theses issues from the top-down, as institutional problems. But there is another way to see these stories, from the bottom-up, as a people issue. The Palestine problem is the story of people of different cultures who need to get along. Manning was a young idealist who was trying to do what was right. The Healthcare crisis is about people needlessly suffering because of a broken system.
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This letter I recently sent to the BaltSun (not printed)can suffice for my comment: Dear Letters Editor, Baltimore Sun:
ReplyDeleteRe your editorial: “Guarded pessimism: There’s little reason to think this round of the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations will be different, but the U.S. can’t afford not to try again for peace.” (8-1-13)
I think the emphasis on “peace” is a misnomer in this conflict. These “negotiations” are not, and never have been, about peace; Israel has enjoyed relative peace since its inception. The wars it has been involved in have been of its own making, and they have not been between Palestinians. Granted, there have been some Israelis killed by Palestinians (with many, many more Palestinians killed by Israelis), but this does not constitute a war by any means. For one thing, Palestinians do not have the capability to wage a war; they are totally subjected to Israel. The fact that they occasionally attempt to fight back is reasonable. In fact, Ehud Barak has been quoted as saying that, if he were a Palestinian, he would be a terrorist. For the most part though, Palestinians have tried nonviolent resistance.
This conflict is so asymmetrical as to not even be a conflict. Someone (Adam Keller, Gush Shalom) characterized it as being negotiations between a wolf and a lamb, with the mediator being a supporter of the wolf. It is hard to believe that the Palestinians have fallen for yet another “peace process.” This is a prime example of doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Israel has managed to steal so much Palestinian land and water resources during these many peace “processes” that there is not much left for a Palestinian state. One has only to look at a current map to see that this is true. I believe “steal” is the correct word here, as international law* forbids settling ones citizens in occupied territory.
[ *According to the Fourth Geneva Convention adopted in 1949 (to which Israel is a signatory): “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.” Ironically, this was done “to ensure that abuses practiced by the Axis powers would not be legally repeated.”]
I believe the label of “peace process” should be jettisoned in favor of something more basic to the conflict, since it is, and always has been, totally about control of the land. And when one side is busy gobbling up the land which is in question, there doesn’t appear to be much of help in continuing to confer about it. Orwell would even have a tough time with this.
Doris Rausch
PS to my previous comment: I loved the TED Talk, not only for the ambulance idea, but also for the interaction between Israelis and Palestinians. This harmonious relationship used to be pretty much the norm between Muslims, Jews and Christians in Palestine before the onslaught of Zionists tore the communal fabric apart and dispossessed thousands of Palestinians.
ReplyDeleteDory