One Smiling Face

It is being named as the worst floods in living memory of Pakistan. There is desperate need for rescue, shelter, clean water and food. Aid is rushing in from all over world with relief to help victims of this flood disaster.

It is now the 2nd week into the disaster and Pakistan is still only in the middle of the monsoon season. The floods have spread to Pakistani Punjab, a vast grain growing region, and to Sind and part of Indian Ladak. To date 1,600 lives have been lost, and those are only that could be accounted for. More than 12 million people are displaced. 80% of the country’s food stock has been washed away, water logged or contaminated. Access to most places gone with roads and bridges washed away. Villages totally submerged. The people are now exposed to waterborne diseases.

Pictures of families wading with children and possessions on their heads, shoulder deep in water fill TV screens as the rest of world watches in horror.

But amidst all this there is joy: A smiling face we see. The face of the country’s leader in London, President Asif Ali Zardari smiling for the cameras .

One Pakistani
Not present
Not crying for his people
Not experiencing the suffering
Not counting the dead
Of his Pakistan.

Hiroshima Remembered
Today let there be this request:
Please bequeath the universe to our children intact, in peace, and in love.
Our moment has come to disarm nuclear weapons.

Attack on Aid Providers

The recent attack on a flotilla of aid ships in international waters shocked the world. Israel knew the ships had set off in spite of their warning. Those volunteering ships, aid, crew and passengers on the flotilla also knew Israel objected but nobody expected the Israeli Government would act so high handed in trying to abort the charitable mission .

It was too cowardly an act and too foolish and dangerous of the Israel soldiers to descend on to the ship of civilians before dawn, in the dark, frightening them into defensive action. Imagine a ship full of men, woman and children who see naval boats speed towards them and helicopters arrive overhead from which commandos in battle uniform rappel with machine guns and land in their midst. Did not the soldiers expect any reaction? With this act they managed to kill and wound, and confiscate not only the ship but also personal property. What a disaster!

Politicians, statesmen and stateswomen around the world were outraged but like a lot of mealy mouthed puppets what most seem to do is talk, words and more words: ‘this is deeply regrettable, a tragic loss of life, this is ridiculous, intolerable, unacceptable’ and they keep spewing a whole lot of pathetic words. We need action. Will punishment be meted out for the atrocities?

If the Israelis fear weapons being hidden with the aid material brought in an international body could be set up to inspect the goods coming in.

Recently British and Australian passports were forged in Israel and Israeli assassins killed Hamas commander Mahmoud al Mabhouh.

When US Vice President Joe Biden was in Israel to talk of curbing further build up of Israeli homes in occupied land the Israeli government snubbed the US and the whole world by announcing new plans for expansion of more than 1,600 homes.

These two incidents alone show how little respect Israel has for rest of the world.

In December 2008 with the aim of halting rockets from Gaza Israel launched a three week war with the Palestinians who had no planes, no bombs, no tanks, no modern artillery. 1,400 Palestinians were killed and 13 Israeli attackers died. A year on they have reported no success story, and in spite of Israel’s claim of allowing aid they see fit, 1.5 million Palestinians, cramped into a narrow strip of land, still lack food, clean water, medical facilities, schools and housing. If the Israeli government was as compassionate as it tries to tell the world it should by now have built up the infrastructure it destroyed.

I hope this last atrocious Israeli attack will result in serious action being taken against this unholy government. Let there be accountability in action, not just in talk.

It is now time to ask – Where Israel’s borders are?

Dear President BARACK OBAMA

Congratulations on your successful first year.

Against all odds

In his inauguration speech President Obama informed America and the world: ‘Challenges are real. They are serious and many. And they will not be easily solved in a very short time.’

But he has accomplished much of what he set out to do and in a short time. St. Petersburg Times, the Pulitzer Prize-winning , fact-checking service reports in detail: http://www.politifact.com/

When he came to office he inherited a horrendous legacy of a country in crisis, and the collapse of world economy, and hate and anger at home and abroad.

In the one short year he has the financial institutes working, created transparency, travelled widely not only attending meeting after meeting at home and abroad, but has met world leaders in their own countries or at the White House to redeem the love and respect America had lost in the past few years. His representatives have gone abroad to renew good will and trade connections.

But the one year certainly seems a desperately long time to the opponents of President Obama.

The cry goes out: close Guantanamo but don’t bring the men we capture, our prisoners to our shores; get rid of Al Qaeda but don’t spend our money and don’t send out our soldiers; we want healthcare but don’t tax us; create jobs, but don’t anger countries from whom we buy what we can produce locally. One after another mealy mouthed screams continue.

Since the election it would seem the Republicans are keen to divide the country, it’s us and him. Smear campaigners work overtime, digging deeper and deeper. Hyper-hysterical media feed the public with out-of-context irrelevant and false information. What weird democracy is this!

Perhaps it would be easier for the Republicans and the Tea-baggers and the Christian Fundamentalists if President Obama did not have a exotic name, and if he’d been born in the boondocks in USA somewhere. And perhaps it would even be a little tolerable if he’d was a slave son. Adversaries and armed rebellions and assassination plots would be fewer.

Not a coalition for the betterment of the people but an ignorant, ‘demented, vindictive’ opposition to democracy is what I see.

I appreciate the heartfelt defense and the passionate plea of Amikam Levy, consul general of Israel (2 January, Israel has a right to protect its own citizens). It is horrific that an endless number of mortar shells and rockets are launched into Israel where the citizens live in terror and uncertainty. But I find the letter intended to enlighten Hong Kong people seriously flawed, unbalanced and simplistic.

Over years Israel has split and driven Palestinian families out of their homes and farms. Numbers killed, maimed, and men and women and boys imprisoned is huge in comparison to those killed or harmed by the Palestinian movements or Hamas. Israel and countries flaunting democracy refuse to recognize Hamas, a legally elected body. Severe sanctions have been placed on the people. A different result to the elections could have taken place had not the Israeli government curtailed the election process by closing checkpoints. The Palestinians are only allowed access and exit though Israel controlled check-points at which Palestinians spend hours queuing up with passes. The Palestinians have become a society dependent on aid and outside help which in turn is dependent on Israel’s whims to close borders and checkpoints whenever it suspects smuggling of weapons could be taking place under the ever watchful detection of control masters. Access to power, fuel, food, water and medicine and even education are in the hands of the Israelis. Is it any wonder illegal tunnels have cropped up connecting Gaza to the Egyptian border? Endless numbers of embargos have deprived the people of all basic needs and have left them without self-reliance and dignity.

United Nations General Assembly on November 29, 1947, divided the region into two states, one Arab and one Jewish, a national home for the Jewish people created. Jerusalem was to be designated an international city. On May 14, 1948 the state of Israel declared independence and this was followed by a war with the surrounding Arab states, which refused to accept the plan foisted on them. Since then the region has seen nothing but this dance of war in which Israel was able to continuously expand Jewish borders beyond those in the UN Partition Plan. These wars have resulted in decades of severe poverty and unemployment and violence for the Palestinian people.

It was very kind of Israel to return Gaza to its people after 40 years of occupation in which time they did little to improve the lives of the people. The Gazans have been prisoners in their own land with Israel controlling all exit and entrance points: sea, land and air. For the last two years Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have endured daily crises over shortages of everything especially when food when aid is held up and not allowed in.

In November 2008 Ismail Haniyah said that Hamas was willing to accept a Israel long-term hudna, or truce requesting Israel recognize the Palestinians’ national rights, recognize the 1949 armistice lines and withdraw itself from all Palestinian territories including the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Israel illegally occupied and has settled the West Bank and Gaza Strip (Palestinian territories) for years driving away families and destroying their livelihood. This long-term displeasure of Palestinians about their land donated by outside forces so the Israel can be born is not going to be wiped out with weapons.

Might of military power is on the side of Israel. Israel has the third or forth most powerful army in the world. Israel has Satellite control and GSP systems to check on movements of all Palestinians helping it pinpoint its targets. Israel is a nuclear power but refuses to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty or allow inspection of its nuclear facilities. U.S. is its largest aid provider and also gives billions of dollars worth of military aid. It receives help from the US in the way military technology know how. Air fire power of F-16 fighter jets, Apache helicopter gunships, Arrow missile tanks and other weaponry are supplied and subsidized by the U.S., funded by US taxpayers who unknowingly help an illegal occupation, expansion of settlement projects, and gross human rights violations against the Palestinian civilian population. Financial aid from U.S. Foreign Assistance Act specifies that all receivers must account on how the money is spent but the only country that does not do so is Israel. U.S. closes a blind eye and funds this brutal repression and colonization to maintain its imperialism in the region.

Against the military might and precision targeted attacks of the Israelis the Palestinians throw stones against tanks and launch primitive and short-range rockets from back yards. If this is not so tragic it could be hilarious.

Israelis seeks peace, no peace can come about if Israel refuses to sit down with Hamas leaders to discuss it. It is true Hamas refused to recognize Israel as a sovereign nation at one time. Not surprising knowing what has gone on. Hamas and the rest of the Palestinians know that their land was negotiated away by outsiders and handed over to Israelis to make a homeland for the Jews who instead of showing a little gratitude have become aggressive oppressors.

Poverty fear and hatred is rife in the hearts of the Palestinians many of whom have known no lives except as refugees. The young see no future; they do not even have a present. What kind peace does arrogant Israel backed by America and its allies expect after what we have seen in this ‘let’s-wipe-them-out” war. The Gazans have had their life sucked out. The horror of current war will have an immense impact on the psychology of Gazan families.

If Israel can stop the Hamas rockets after this current slaughter of the Palestinian people I hope Israel has the decency to rebuild the country and give them back their lives and their freedom and their dignity.