January, 2009: America Celebrates, and Averts Its Eyes from a Massacre
Gaza lies bleeding; a destitute prison camp ravaged by unspeakable savagery. Our old president helped enable the slaughter. Our new president dissembles, and falls silent. How long can this depraved indifference continue? Is this the vaunted "new way forward" with the Muslim world? Our empire of death is truly a bipartisan endeavor.
"Yet, all the world helps after an earthquake," said a doctor at the Shifa hospital in Gaza. "We feel very frustrated," he continued. "The West, Europe and the U.S., watched this killing go on for 22 days, as though they were watching a movie, watching the killing of women and children without doing anything to stop it. I was expecting to die at any moment. I held my babies and expected to die. There was no safe place in Gaza."
Write the new president on behalf of the murdered children of Gaza. Tell him there is no new way forward until we learn to see. Tell his to see, here, and here, and here, and here and here.
This is the address for the White House contact form.
Here is a list of names of children killed in Gaza. Use one of the names in your letter. Stand as a child of Gaza for all the children killed in this hideous assault. This was my letter:
Dear President Obama,
I write to you on behalf of Lama Talal Hamdan, a ten year old girl killed in the Israeli assault on Gaza. Lama's death was a crime, and each day our nation stands silent in its toleration of this crime, Lama dies again. I ask that you commit your administration, and our country, to the pursuit of justice for the spirit of Lama Talal Hamdan, and to the achievement of a just and lasting peace for the family of Lama, and for all the children of Palestine.
Yours sincerely, and in fellow American citizenship.
Dan Kervick
Bow, New Hampshire
A Child of Gaza
"Yet, all the world helps after an earthquake," said a doctor at the Shifa hospital in Gaza. "We feel very frustrated," he continued. "The West, Europe and the U.S., watched this killing go on for 22 days, as though they were watching a movie, watching the killing of women and children without doing anything to stop it. I was expecting to die at any moment. I held my babies and expected to die. There was no safe place in Gaza."
Write the new president on behalf of the murdered children of Gaza. Tell him there is no new way forward until we learn to see. Tell his to see, here, and here, and here, and here and here.
This is the address for the White House contact form.
Here is a list of names of children killed in Gaza. Use one of the names in your letter. Stand as a child of Gaza for all the children killed in this hideous assault. This was my letter:
Dear President Obama,
I write to you on behalf of Lama Talal Hamdan, a ten year old girl killed in the Israeli assault on Gaza. Lama's death was a crime, and each day our nation stands silent in its toleration of this crime, Lama dies again. I ask that you commit your administration, and our country, to the pursuit of justice for the spirit of Lama Talal Hamdan, and to the achievement of a just and lasting peace for the family of Lama, and for all the children of Palestine.
Yours sincerely, and in fellow American citizenship.
Dan Kervick
Bow, New Hampshire
A Child of Gaza
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Done.
Ahmed Riad Mohammed Al-Sinwar Boy 3
January 25, 2009 3:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks Don.
January 25, 2009 10:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
It is unbelievable to see and tolerate such inhuman massacre of common civilians and remain silent. I contacted my senators when I could not take it anymore, but off course got no response. Neither did congress even mention that it not appropriate to kill innocent civilians to such a large number indiscremenately by any powerful neighbor.
January 25, 2009 12:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
The only way you change this is to keep reminding Americans that it is the distractions in the middle east, the trillions of dollars wasted and wastING still, every day, every week, every month, every year that are continuing costs to American children. How much health care could we buy American children for the money we waste in the middle east? How many Pell Grants could we provide? How many schools could we build?
January 25, 2009 12:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
We must address these tragedies or we are simply contributing to them by inaction. Hamas hides behind innocent people while it sends missiles into Israel. Israel responds.
I feel that the new team appointed to handle this problem will speed into action. Mitchell is a genius at negotiations, as is the ambassador. Secretary Clinton will focus on this mess.
Communications to our leaders as to our concerns are a must if we are to partake in our own democracy.
January 25, 2009 1:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, the president needs our voices crying out for peace and justice. Thanks for yours!
January 25, 2009 5:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
How much less besieged do you think you should feel by that same lot 'here' than the Gazans feel?
Or to put it another way, would you rather be attacked by their tanks?, or their group of thieving bankers sucking the wealth out of your country before your eyes.
January 25, 2009 5:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Renaye. How sweet.
January 26, 2009 9:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
renaye I think you should shave your head so we can all see the nazi tatoo.
January 26, 2009 9:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Obama did not speak out against the Israeli action in Gaza because it was justified. Hamas had fired over 10,000 rockets and shells at Israel, aiming at civilians.
The death and destruction suffered by Palestinian children is indeed terrible, but simply moaning about it does nothing. If you want someone to blame, try blaming Hamas, which used Palestinian children as human shields for its rocket attacks on Israeli civilians.
January 25, 2009 6:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
somibear,
I will just repeat here what I wrote in a recent reply to Armchair Guerrilla in the comments section of Bernard Avishai's latest post:
It appears you and I have very different interpretations of the fundamental aims and tactics of the Israeli assault, Armchair Guerrilla. You appear to believe the purpose of the assault was to hit Hamas targets, and that the civilian casualties and damage are the unavoidable and regrettable by-product of a war in which legitimate military targets are located in civilian areas. It is my view that part of the very purpose of the assault was to inflict pain on the Palestinian community in Gaza. Israel wishes to isolate Hamas, and defeat it politically by separating it from the broader populace. The chosen means of doing that was to send the message to ordinary Palestinians that if they are connected to Hamas in any way - if family members are in Hamas, if they live near a Hamas office, if they work in a Hamas-run school or hospital, if Hamas members are their neighbors - then they are targets. The civilian deaths were not a regrettable collateral by-product of the war; they were part of the plan.
I also believe Israel intended to inflict shock and awe on the populace by the use of fearsome and indiscriminate high-tech weapons like phosphorous weapons and Dime bombs, so as to send the message to Palestinians that resistance is futile, and that there is no safe place in Gaza. The despair felt by a Palestinian father holding his dead children is what Israel sought.
January 25, 2009 6:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sadly, I believe Dan is right. Israel wants to inflict pain of the community in Gaza as a tactic. Israel wants to scare the Palestinians into rejecting Hamas. It isn't right. Has to be stopped.
January 25, 2009 7:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
How did I get in here anyway?
January 26, 2009 6:36 PM | Reply | Permalink