To Gaza, With Love

It's an article, written by Medea Benjamin. She's a peace activists, a co-founder of the feminist anti-war group Code Pink: Women for Peace, and involved with the anti-war organization United for Peace and Justice.
For Los Angeles Times she's "one of the high profile leaders of the peace movement". But of course, for some she's a terrorist supporter.

For me, she's a brave and courageous woman.


This is what she wrote in common dreams

When I traveled to Gaza last week, everywhere I went, a photo haunted me. I saw it in a brochure called "Gaza will not die" that Hamas gives out to visitors at the border crossing. A poster-sized version was posted outside a makeshift memorial at the Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. And now that I am back home, the image comes to me when I look at children playing in the park, when I glance at the school across the street, when I go to sleep at night.

It is a photo of a young Palestinian girl who is literally buried alive in the rubble from a bomb blast, with just her head protruding from the ruins. Her eyes are closed, her mouth partially open, as if she were in a deep sleep. Dried blood covers her lips, her cheeks, her hair. Someone with a glove is reaching down to touch her forehead, showing one final gesture of kindness in the midst of such inhumanity.

What was this little girl's name, I wonder. How old was she? Was she sleeping when the bomb hit her home? Did she die a quick death or a slow, agonizing one? Where are her parents, her siblings? How are they faring?

Of the 1,330 Palestinians killed by the Israeli military during the 22-day invasion of Gaza, 437 were children. Let me repeat that: 437 children-each as beautiful and precious as our own.

As a Jew, an American and a mother, I felt compelled to witness, firsthand, what my people and my taxdollars had done during this invasion. Visiting Gaza filled me with unbearable sadness. Unlike the primitive weapons of Hamas, the Israelis had so many sophisticated ways to murder, maim and destroy-unmanned drones, F-16s dropping "smart bombs" that miss, Apache helicopters launching missiles, tanks firing from the ground, ships shelling Gaza from the sea. So many horrific weapons stamped with Made in the USA. While Hamas' attacks on Israeli villages are deplorable, Israel's disproportionate response is unconscionable, with 1,330 Palestinians dead vs. 13 Israelis.

At the end of her article she wrote that On March 7, she will return to Gaza with a large international delegation, bringing aid but more importantly, pressuring the Israeli, U.S. and Egyptian governments to open the borders and lift the siege.

Many members of the delegation are Jews. We will travel in the spirit of tikkun olam, repairing the world, but with a heavy sense of responsibility, shame and yes, compassion. We will never be able to bring back to life the little girl buried in the rubble. But we can-and will--hold her in our hearts as we bring a message from America and a growing number of American Jews: To Gaza, With Love.

What impressed me most were the comments posted by common dreamers, the readers.

dakinirise February 17th, 2009 3:22 pm
Thank you, Medea, for your truth-telling, your passion, committment and compassion. I am honored to be a part of CODEPINK. May your words of heart and humanity reach out and help to mightily transform peoples thinking, beliefs and actions. May the Great Goddesss of Compassion look after you all on your journey to Gaza -- and always. Blessed Be.

IzakFriend February 17th, 2009 3:22 pm
I always assume that Jews who confess that we are really Nazis and that the Arabs have the righteous duty to kill us, are creations of Arab agit-prop.

Jim Glover February 17th, 2009 6:36 pm
Izak,
You are full of false assumptions and need Help.

Daga February 18th, 2009 12:55 am
It is a sad fact that persecuted people often becomes persecutors, the same way a molested child becomes a child molestor. The psychological mechanism behind this paradox transformation is, I believe, self-justification.

The "Blut und Boden" ideologies in Nazism and Zionism are identical, and the difference between Avigdor Liebermann and Julius Streicher miniscule.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Streicher.

Instead of criticizing people like Medea Benjamin ,Uri Averny , Norman Finkelstein , Noam Chomsky etc, you should support them. When the zionist locust swarm has been removed from Palestine, and their mad philosophy but a bad dream. All that stands between the jews and the unison condemnation from the rest of the world are those "Self-hating Jews"

npwr.luv February 17th, 2009 3:35 pm
M E D E A,

Bless you for your stalwart conviction and daily movement toward creating a humane world and alleviating the onerous pathological warmongering of the US & Israel -- and foremost for those generations of innocent children.

You are a heroine of epic proportion, and although the bleak realities so often must cloud your horizon, please be assured that millions of us stand alongside you in ALL of this.

My hope is that you are sustained to continue evermore and in alignment with ever larger numbers of shared souls that are seeking the PEACE and tolerance that is our birthright.

Namaste

Siouxrose February 17th, 2009 5:46 pm
Sioux Rose

NAMASTE: Wonderful words that I totally agree with, and I stand with you and Medea. I love what she had to say about the over-arching power of compassion, and who should be and should have been moved most by it.

m156 February 17th, 2009 3:44 pm
I always assume that Jews who confess that we are really Nazis and that the Arabs have the righteous duty to kill us, are creations of Arab agit-prop.

Gilad Atzmon's take on the canard of "self-hating Jew" is always interesting:

When it comes to criticism raised by a "Jew," Zionists get into a real problem. Because Zionism is supposed to be the "final solution" for all Jews, wherever they are, any criticism made by a Jew must be eradicated..."self-hating" is basically a form of psychotic mode. The Zionists actually admit that something went wrong in the process of Jewish reproduction. A member of the community "lost his mind". First, it saved the Zionists, themselves, from taking any criticism from a "mad man". Second, it warns the rest of the world not to take the criticism seriously, the man is apparently "mad"...With Israeli atrocities on the TV screen night after night, people start to realize that the "mad," "self hating Jew" might have something crucial to say. We better listen to him.

And it was getting better and better.

Susan Schwartz February 17th, 2009 4:55 pm
Mrs. Benjamin, I'm sorry you feel the death toll of only 13 Israelis is too low, so please add the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust to your total count.

Horrified February 17th, 2009 5:12 pm
and what has the six million holocaust victims got to do with the bloodshed Israel unleash on the Palestinians today.. Please do not pull the holocaust card to gain sympathy for Israel aggression. It is so overused that no one is falling for it anymore.

opeluboy February 17th, 2009 5:19 pm
Horrified, I make it a point not to respond to Zionist propagandists on this site, but thanks for doing so yourself. That was one of the most illogical, idiotic and smugly putrid responses I have seen here. I can only imagine her reaction to the little girl buried alive. Probably said something like "Nits make lice." God damn these people.

Susan Schwartz February 17th, 2009 5:22 pm
Perhaps so that the State of Israel lives and is not washed away by anti Semitism again! NEVER AGAIN!!!

Horrified February 17th, 2009 5:28 pm
the only antisemitism that is happening is by non semitic Khazar Jews on semitic Palestinians. Now go take your holocaust whining/ramblings to some other forums!!

Jonah February 17th, 2009 5:53 pm
Where can I find, in person, degenerates such as IzakFriend and the Schwartz? I hate the Israeli and Jewish people ten times more than I ever did due to their posts on CD. And you can call me bigot, anti-semite or any name you want to call me, I will own up to all the epitaphs GLADLY!! I could never wage war on defenseless people. So go screw yourselves. I shall make a 1000 copies of this picture and the article and their posts to put on every car in as many church parking lots this coming Sunday. All Folks should at least pass out the article and picture.

I can copy and paste every single comment there, since they were so refreshing.
Not for IzakFriend and the Schwartz, of course.

Dead Cell February 17th, 2009 11:01 pm
Izak and Scwartz, or whatever the hell your names are:
You people are pathetic. Keep being smug and coy about what's really going on over there. You people are a pain in the ass of the world-and from what I see, you always have been. The day will come when all your self congratulation will come to a very abrupt end. Every day that passes shows israel becoming more and more unrecognizable to the world. Your people are becoming more and more savage-it's becoming normal. It seems that one half of the israelis are being held hostage by the israeli Zionist baboon government. Go ahead and declare war on 7 billion non-jews and see what happens-you'll be chosen all right...
To the rest of you good Jews and Arabs out there who are working for peace no matter what, I salute you!! Keep fighting the good fight. The rest of those Zionist bastards can swim and drown in their own shit for all I care. Go ahead and kill each other already-so we can go about living again. You people are just not worth the effort.
cheers!

freespeechlover February 17th, 2009 11:20 pm
Susan, it won't work anymore. Regardless of 6 million European Jews being killed during the Holocaust, this does not justify the slaughtering of over 1300 Palestinians. It's ye olde "two wrongs do not make a right." And besides. I know you are one of the many trolls sent to sites like this. So this is my last comment regarding your post.

Thanks Medea for a great account. Very moving and accurate.

Yes, thank you Medea Benjamin.
And yes, the hasbara handbook, the propaganda (or whatsoever they call it) has expired. But they'll find another. Like Gilad Shalit.