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What I Would Do - A Manifesto For Change!

Written by silvios on

I would instruct God that next time he is in talks with President George W Bush, I would tell him to keep it simple. As he did with Moses, saying: “Perfect thyself. Thou shalt not kill, give false testimony or covet thy neighbour's house.” I would tell him that I‘m just not enraptured by this world and future destruction, that he claims you have decreed upon him.

Then I recalled the recent 90^th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, which in reality was just the making public of an under-the-table agreement made long before and how we have betrayed the promise we made to the indigenous peoples of Palestine on that, I think this needs to be readdressed. Look at all the trouble it has caused and this year’s 40^th anniversary of the Six Day War was a timely reminder.

Then came Remembrance Day, the 11^th of the 11^th. I remembered the ‘War to End All Wars’ of WWI and how there was a notion of ‘Never, never, never again,’ after WWII. How we reneged on those - to the point where; like the inventors of the cigarette having got the dosage just right, the capitalists can inflict upon the world an endless war that doesn’t affect so much of the main body that they can get away with it. But when you think of the effects of depleted uranium weaponry, the surge in cancers and birth defects in the children of Iraq and the growth in disablements of returning veterans, which has risen from 5% in WWII to around 50% from these Gulf Wars. I don’t know about a ban on smoking, it should be an outright ban on ‘war,’ in public places.

While there is talk of more war to come, how is it that the first man to call for a ‘nuclear-free’ Middle East, Mordechai Vanunu, Israeli ‘nuclear’ whistleblower, is still under house arrest? Wouldn’t it be cheaper for Israel to cast him into exile and provide the Non-Proliferation Treaty lobby with a valuable mouthpiece? Shouldn’t there be a louder call for Israel to sign the NPT before they offload a few on Iran?

Talking of incarcerated mouthpieces, I would join the former Israeli minister in his consideration of and the Palestinian all-party call, for the release of popular elected PLC member, Marwan Barghouti – especially considering the recent fatal third anniversary of the death of Yasser Arafat, which only highlighted a disunity amongst the factions and which someone of his stature can only help to restore.

While this November closed with the 60^th remembrance of the Partitioning of Palestine, which some might say lead to a ‘clash of civilisations,’ I don’t see it like that at all. I see it as rich men’s greed holding sway over the lives of the poor and at the time just gave the precursor to the IDF, Haganah, a green light to begin the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian villages, beginning with al-Khisas on December 18^th with five children among the dead.

It’s 10 years now since the following was published: ‘Palestine Should Sue Israel for Genocide before the International Court of Justice,’ drawn up by F. A. Boyle, which says:

“These World Court legal proceedings will prove to the entire world and to all of history that what the Nazis did to the Jews a generation ago is legally similar to what the Israelis are currently doing to the Palestinian People today: genocide.”

While Christmas crumbles, Banksy descends, and pilgrims flock to the town of nativity, only this year to find that a certain Christmas carol has been revised: "Oh Little Town of Bethlehem, Encircled by the Green Line Wall."

They are saying that 2007 is on course to become the safest year in Israel since the turn of the millennium but you have to ask yourself, ‘at what price?’ As the leader of a European medical delegation visiting Gaza, Dr Walter Conti, recently said; "It’s unjust to punish the people as a whole. Israel is detaining all the Palestinians in a big prison 'ghetto' similar to what happened with the Jews in World War II,"

And I wonder what this day - the International Day of Human Rights - will have in store for the likes of young Mohammed Abu Amra and Salem al-Masri, unaware that they’re waiting permission, for their right to life in Gaza.

Where would I start with this ‘What I Would Do?’ I certainly won’t be asking Mr G W Bush what his God has to say, I would set precedence, heed the call of the medicine men and “Break the Siege on Gaza NOW!”

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