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 Posted by Aron Trauring on September 05 2002 (Thursday) : 12:27 PM"Oh God, please tell Sharon to end the curfew by this Saturday so that I can go to school." So begins the nightly prayer of Sam Bahour's 8 year old daughter. For most of us the current closure in the occupied territories is an abstract concept. Bahour makes it real in this sobering account, told simply and without anger. The excuse for Israel's imprisonment of millions of Palestinians is the "prevention of terrorism." Of course, the policy is totally ineffective. Every day terrorist attempts are made on Israel and when they are prevented, it is through the viligence of the border patrols, not by the lockdown of the Palestinian population. Today two cars carrying 600 kg of explosives were stopped near Pardes Hana. Keeping Bahour's family in a virtual jail did nothing to stop the creation of the car bomb or its near delivery to Israel. On the contrary - the despair of the Palestinian people are the wings upon which Palestinian terrorism flies. If Israel was truly interested in stopping terrorism, it would end the closure and the violence against the Palestinians, and redeploy the security forces to border patrol. It would also get behind the many realistic diplomatic initiatives now on the table, most recently one by the EC. But as Bahour notes, the real effect of the closure is to force Palestinians who can leave Palestine, to do so. The current Israeli government wants the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, not peace. < | >
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"Entre los individuos, como entre las naciones, el respeto al derecho ajeno es la paz -- Among individuals, as among nations, respect for the rights of others is peace" -Benito Juárez
"It isn't enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn't enough to believe in it. One must work at it." -Eleanor Roosevelt "Let them call me a rebel and welcome. I feel no concern from it. But should I suffer the misery of devils, were I to make a whore of my soul" -Thomas Paine | |
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God, tell Sharon
