It seems as if some people who post comments on this blog, some elements of the media and certain governments confuse humanitarian aid with support for terrorism.
Delivering blankets, tents, food, medicine, toys, clothes, educational materials, sports equipment and sanitary goods to people besieged in the largest concentration camp in history is humanitarian.
Doing nothing and/or allowing people to be bombed, shelled, shot at on a daily basis,or standing by when land is illegally grabbed or polluted, water treatment plants are destroyed in order to encourage water born disease, cement plants are targeted so that people cannot rebuild their shattered homes, illegal weapons are used against civilian populations, ambulance crews are targeted as are the police in order to induce a breakdown in civil society... this is supporting terrorism.
Under international law people have a right to protect themselves and I wholeheartedly support that.
I do not support the indiscriminate use of violence against civilian populations by countries, groups, or individuals.
I do not support the discriminatory partition of human, civil and democratic rights within any state or group on the basis of race, class, creed, gender or sexuality.
I see no alternative to a peaceful co-existence between a state of Israel and an independent Palestine.
I do not support a strategy of utterly humiliating the Palestinians before negotiating with them to achieve that aim. (I also think such a strategy will never work and will never happen)
I hope that clarifies my current position. I remain open to argument.
Yes I agree its not about supporting terrorism it is about being humanitarian - dictionary definition- 'a person that seeks to promote human welfare'. I know that when I gave items towards the convoy it was to help the innocent. It was about being a human, demonstrating compassion - to help those who are in need, who are injured or dying from lack of basic medical care. I was too young to help with the Bosnian genocide and this was my chance to help. The facts are undeniable - children have been killed, one child had to wait in his bombed, demolished burnt out home for days with his dead parents. He clung to his dead brother for warmth while waiting for help. What kind of HUMAN would do that???? Having researched genocide in the last 100 years it is clear to see that innocent people caught in wars have been targeted like farm animals up for slaughter. Historically after the event everyone says 'Oh no that shouldn't have happened, it mustn't happen again'. But is does again and again - and now here in Gaza. Innocent people are caught in the fire. Who barters with human life? Is that what evil is?
ReplyDeleteThey say evil is the absence of all love. I don't belong to any sides here I just find it interesting to observe people making comments on someone who actually tried to help and be a HUMAN. Those people 'would' find it easy to comment from the safety of their own home on an expensive laptop, in house that has heating, in house where they can look out of their window without the fear of being killed, in a house where there is clean running water, a tap they turn on with instant hot water for a long bath every day, a fridge filled with food - you know where I am going here. What would they do if they woke up one day and the world they knew had changed without all recognition? What if it happened on their doorstep? What if that doorstep now represented a threshold that couldn't be crossed without the fear of it meaning it could be their last? Who would help them?? I think they would be the first to say where is our aid? Why isn't anyone on the outside helping, stopping this atrocity? I hope they would be thankful for anything, and wouldn't care how it came to them or whoever gave it? I don't want to be reading in five years time 'Gaza - we should have helped!' I hope I don't watch a film titled not 'Welcome to Sarajevo' but 'Welcome to Gaza' - but I expect I will then I can use it in my classes and watch my students cry at the inhumane acts committed and then we can devise plays around it and watch audiences shell shocked and leave the theatre quietly saying to themselves ' I must be a better person..I will be...tomorrow..' but tomorrow never comes. So really I don't know what I'm trying to say here except it makes me upset to think that this is still going on in our world today where we are supposed to be sophisticated, educated and democratic - but it couldn't be further from the truth. The Egyptians believed that when you died your soul would be weighed alongside a single white feather. I think some people need to be very scared when death comes knocking at their door - what will weigh less - the feather or their soul? My last comment would be to those who passively look on and debate this situation without actively doing something to help the innocent - would you want your child to have to face your dead body for days hoping that one day soon someone will come and help and make everything better?