Dear friends, the following sections are from an email from Kathy Kelly, Co-Coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence, January 19, 2009:
Dr. Atallah Tarazi, a General Surgeon at Gaza City’s Shifaa Hospital, invited us to meet him in his home, in Gaza City, just a few blocks away from the Shifaa Hospital.
“One of the worst aspects of this war,” says Dr. Tarazi, “is the lack of respect for the UN. Three United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) schools were bombed. In Jabaliyah, more than 45 people were killed at a UN school; F16s bombed UNRWA supplies and stores.”
“In Shifaa Hospital, we saw plumes of smoke for day and night. All Gaza, every day, was covered with smoke and chemicals. We don’t know how it affects the health.”
“Yes, ‘rockets’ did go out,” says Dr. Tarazi, referring to Hamas rockets fired into Israeli towns, “and we felt sympathy for any Israelis hurt by the rockets. But, if someone hurts you with a pin, you don’t cut off his head. You ask WHY the person tried to prick you with a pin. Consider that people here are trapped in a prison and there is a shortage of everything. No one can repair anything. People wanted borders opened so that goods could come and go. After six months of closed borders, people are frustrated. Now, one side declares a cease fire, they say nothing about opening the borders, nothing about withdrawal, and yet they want NATO to help tighten the siege.”
“I hope President Obama will be much better than George Bush concerning these things,” said Dr. Tarazi. “Human beings that have such a strong army should be civilized and not behave like a terrorist group. Fanatics can be expected to use terror, but a democratic state shouldn’t use fallacious statements as an excuse for massive killing. A state which does this should be brought before an International Court of Justice.”
“And yet,” he said, “we must experiment with ways of love. We are trying, with Jewish people…by feelings and actions. We need to succeed. We need to live together. We are trying to be in good relations with all the partners, all the views.”
“The strongest weapon all over the world is love,” says Dr. Tarazi, adding that he has always believed this and has said this to his colleagues, whether Muslim, Christian or Jewish, throughout his career. He recalled declaring this same belief at the Eretz border crossing, shortly after the Israelis launched “Operation Cast Lead.” He had been among the 200 Christians who were chosen (800 had applied) to cross the border and celebrate the Orthodox Christmas holiday with family members in the West Bank. When the attacks began, he ended his holiday and hurried to the border, knowing he must return to his work
and his family. At the border crossing, he greeted soldiers, “Merry Christmas.” Soldiers answered, “Do you have weapons?” “Yes,” Dr. Tarazi replied, “I have the strongest weapon of all, the weapon of love.“
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Dr. Tarazi is clearly on the right track in reinforcing the concept of love for each other. The behaviours of love implemented can do nothing but ensure good human relations. These behaviours include complete empathy and total honesty with the self and the other. Love is pure integrity. The article itself is also completely correct in saying that one of the greatest tragedies of the conflict between Hamas and the Israeli people is the disrespect for the UN Relief and Works Agency. The agency should have been respected as a place of safety and healing. Offensive missiles should never have been shot from anywhere close to that facility. Truly this is a complete lack of integrity on the part of Hamas, or whomever it was that legally authorized use of a UN facilities grounds as a vehicle for war.
The greatest challenge in this conflict is our own desire for love and resolution without recognizing that underlying extremist actions are due to deep seated beliefs about the inferiority of their chosen enemies, and the absolute necessity of their enemies destruction in any manner or deception possible. Extremist indoctrination begins at extremely young ages, setting it and making it impossible that such people will ever cease affronts towards the hated. (whether physical or by conveying dysfunctional perceptions).
Logically, had Hamas stopped firing rockets and opened talks about fair responsibilities between neighbours and to its own people, in the first place, there would never have been a need to respond in self-defense. Who in their right mind would not expect an equal or stronger response when firing at someone. Is it not common knowledge that when you punch someone to excess you may expect a stronger punch back because the person you punched wants you to stop hurting them. Perhaps this was the actual intent: Disrespect a people so much that your very purpose in live is to harrass someone so much until they hit back; and then, of course, blame them because, after all, everyone knows they are the problem. Have you not been told this since you were 3 years old?
If someone was constantly firing shots at your house, and your life became one of endless harrassment and dodging, and then you discovered that the source is the person crossing your lawn with their “grocery bags” for him and his extended family, would you not want to put a stop to the items in the bag that were fired at you and your house? How would you ensure that the innocents in his extended family still got their food, but the shells he fired were stopped. Please don’t fault the fired at for not coming up with the perfect solution on how to defend themselves. The problem needs to be stopped at the source. The source is where the hatred originally omits from. It does not emit from the object of hatred. That source also posions and damages the peoples closest to it.
Hamas has been firing it’s “pin pricks” for 8 years at the Israeli people, their children, their schools. For years these people haven’t had the peace to drive in the street or go to school without being on alert for a bomb siren. Could you live like that? Think about it. And think very very carefully when anyone with a title reduces such offenses to a “pin prick”. Deep hatred towards the Jewish people and its spread by indoctrination and our tolerance and apathy towards that indoctrination has been going on for centuries. Who can blame the jewish people for finally maturing and standing up for themselves and demanding that it stop. Relatively speaking, they’ve been peaceable and pliable for centuries. Only a peaceable and pliable people could possibly be subjected to the murder of 6 million of its members within 5 years or less. Not to mention the ongoing dogma.
One cannot expect to consistently push and indoctirnate hatred without eventually having those who are hated begin to push back. Dr. Tarazi’s use of the term “pin prick” enormoulsy betrays and diminishes the long history, and ongoing lifestyle actions of hatred and indoctrination against Israelis or jewish peoples by extremist Islamists. It is also a reflection of Dr. Tarazi’s perception as developed by every input he has ever received in his development as a person. The presentation of this article takes advantage of our own western belief system and deep desire for the greater good by responding with resolution and love. Although I truly belief at the very core of my own upbring that there is a way, what still comes to mind is that, yes, indeed, love is a weapon.
Thank you for these kinds of a great blog. In which else could one get these kinds of information written in this kind of an incite full way? I have a presentation that I am just now working on, and I have been searching for these kinds of information.