NOBEL CALL FOR ALGERIA 

We are human beings.  

Horrified by the slaughters in the name of fundamentalism, we express our ultimate and universal reprobation concerning all acts of bloody savagery committed by the armed groups which terrorize Algeria. No political or religious speech, whatsoever, can ever legitimate the massacre of innocents, the murder of a child, the rape of a woman.

Mere scientists, researchers, and leaders devoted to the good of mankind, without any exclusion in terms of belonging and creeds, we want the whole people of Algeria to know about our deep emotion, and utter solidarity, facing the trials they live through. Aware of their daily courage, witnesses to the struggle of a people standing, surviving, and resisting noiselessly, we humbly affirm our heartfelt presence by their side.

Tell us what we can do for you, and how we can do it.

We are the members of the same human species. Let the will to live prevail, free and fearless !

 

Supported by :

9 Peace Nobels : Norman Borlaug (USA, 1970), le Dalai Lama (Tibet, 1989), Pdt Gorbachev (Russia, 1990), Mairead Maguire (Ireland, 1976), Adolfo Pérez Esquivel (Argentina, 1980), José Ramos-Horta (East-Timor, 1996), Desmond Tutu (South Africa, 1984), Elie Wiesel (USA, 1986), Betty Williams (Ireland, 1976) 

3 Literature Nobels : Saul Bellow (USA, 1976), Claude Simon (France, 1985), Wole Soyinka (Nigeria, 1986) 

24 Chemistry Nobels : Paul Boyer (USA, 1997), Herbert Brown (USA, 1979), Elias Corey (USA, 1990), Sir John W. Cornforth (UK, 1975), Paul Crutzen (Netherlands, 1995), Robert Curl (USA, 1996), Manfred Eigen (Germany, 1967), Richard Ernst (Switzerland, 1991), Ernst Otto Fischer (Germany, 1973), Herbert Hauptman (USA, 1985), Dudley Herschbach (USA, 1986), Roald Hoffmann (Poland, 1981), Robert Huber (Germany, 1988), Jerome Karle (USA, 1985), Sir Aaron Klug (Lithuania, 1982), Sir Harold Kroto (UK, 1996), Jean-Marie Lehn (France, 1987), William Lipscomb (USA, 1976), Rudolph Marcus (Canada, 1992), Max Perutz (Austria, 1962), John Polanyi (Canada, 1986), Ilya Prigogine (Russia, 1977), Jens Skou (Denmark, 1997), Henry Taube (Canada, 1983) 

19 Medicine Nobels : Julius Axelrod (USA, 1970), Baruj Benacerraf (Venezuela, 1980), Stanley Cohen (USA, 1986), Jean Dausset (France, 1980), Christian de Duve (Belgium, 1974), Renato Dulbecco (Italy, 1975), Edmond Fischer (USA, 1992), Roger Guillemin (France, 1977), François Jacob (France, 1965), Arthur Kornberg (USA, 1959), Edwin Krebs (USA, 1992), Ed Lewis (USA, 1995), Cesar Milstein (Argentina, 1984), Daniel Nathans (USA, 1978), George Palade (Romania, 1974), Richard Roberts (UK, 1993), Philip Sharp (USA, 1993), Maurice Wilkins (UK, 1962), Rolf Zinkernagel (Switzerland, 1996) 

10 Physics Nobels : Georg Bednorz (Germany, 1987), Nicolaas Bloembergen (Netherlands, 1981), Arthur Schawlow (USA, 1981), Steven Chu (USA, 1997), Claude Cohen-Tannoudji (France, 1997), Jerome Friedman (USA, 1990), Klaus von Klitzing (Germany, 1985), Arno Penzias (Germany, 1978), Heinrich Rohrer (Switzerland, 1986), Simon van der Meer (Netherlands, 1984) 

 

3 Economics Nobels : Gérard Debreu (France, 1983), Franco Modigliani (Italy, 1985), Herbert Simon (USA, 1978) 

This Call was widely published in the Algerian media, and broadcast on the Algerian radio network. 

Le Matin (April 13, 1998, cover page) : “58 Prix Nobel se prononcent contre l’intégrisme”
El Khabar (April 14, 1998): “Messagers de paix et Nobel”
El Watan (April 14, 1998) “58 Prix Nobel dénoncent le terrorisme en Algérie”
La Tribune (April 14, 1998) “des Nobel condamnent les carnages commis en Algérie”
El Moudjahid (April 15, 1998, cover page) “le combat de l’Algérie est exemplaire”
Liberté (April 15, 1998) “le geste des Messageries de la Paix”
Le Soir d’Algérie (April 15, 1998) “mettre fin à la désinformation”
Horizons (April 15, 1998) “58 Prix Nobel condamnent les actes de sauvagerie commis en Algérie”
El Moudjahid (April 16, 1998) “l’objectif est de lutter contre la désinformation sur l’Algérie”
Le Matin (April 16, 1998) “d’autres Nobel vont signer”
La Nouvelle République (April 16, 1998) “on se démarque de la désinformation” 

 The context : 

Towards the end of the Dark Years, the Black Decade…

 

In Bosnia, we could testify about the way a Nobel campaign would work, and change mentalities on the ground. People, at every level, simple soldiers, field commanders, politicians, media editors, through the thick fog and din of war, were impressed by these voices which managed to reach them, and relate to the repressed parts of their former selves. The names mattered a lot to them. It came as a mental shock, switching from the madness of routine horror back to sanity and common sense – a sense of hope again. Something to remind them of the future, of the aftermath.

In Algeria, one of the most striking messages we received from the Nobel community came from the American writer Saul Bellow. He ended his pledge of support with this memorable line : “It is sure to intimidate those nasty bastards.”

Nasty bastards refering to the terrorists, the Islamist fundamentalists who had devastated the country for years.

Saul Bellow made us all think. His logic was quite rational actually. It goes like this :

You should not presume that fanatics are made of one block, one essence. You should not form a monolithic vision of them. As if they could only be defeated by superior firepower. They have their own fault-lines. Hidden inside. Before pledging themselves to jihad and terror, they also were, for a number of them, students, teachers, mechanics, carpenters, what have you. Part of them still needs to relate to the world they left, that we represent. 

If and when this world stands up, and speaks out, against their deeds, it does send them a shock-wave. Particularly on the moral ground, since they claim to rule morality. When people who are notorious worldwide are brave enough to speak their truth, it does destabilize them inside. Not only them, but more specifically, the people around them, the fringe they need to survive, for logistics, communications, outside support, et cet.

Terrorism cannot survive without this fringe, composed of people who still work and live in the world that jihadis have vowed to destroy.

This fringe, buffer-zone, is where the ideology of terror can and will be defeated.

 

OUR FIRST NOBEL CALL : 1995 

the Zenica-Sarajevo Call to the fighters and leaders in former Yugoslavia

This Call, signed by 33 Nobel Laureates + Members of the European Parliament and Personalities, was broadcast on most radios and tv stations in Bosnia, repeatedly, from April to the summer of 1995, on the three sides : Bosnians, Croats, and Serbs (NTV Zetel in Zenica, Studio 99 in Sarajevo, Kis-TV in Kiseljak, the two radios of Mostar, TV-Pale).

ENOUGH ! Enough blood ! Enough speeches ! Enough alibis !
The balance of this war, who can draw it up ?
Who can tell others about the loss of a brother, of a son, of a wife ?
War always took frightfully more than it gave.
Strategic, territorial games have led to terror,
To amputations, to the toothless grimaces of the after-war times.
After war, we know there is no promised land.
After war, those only who have lost all pay the price
of nightmares, of general carelessness, of back to normal loneliness.
After war, there are no heroes left, no just causes.
There are only cripples left, and disfigured faces,
Among the ruins, and the earth graves into lines.
Because we want the stench of war no more,
Because we all know there is no military solution,
We call for a powerful movement of peace and reconciliation
For a final cease-fire on all the territory of former Yugoslavia
We must finally have the courage and sanity to say it is ENOUGH
We must prevent any more massacres !
Not one more bullet, not one more shell, nevermore !

13 Nobel Peace Laureates :

Martin Luther King’s widow – Coretta Scott King (USA, 1964)
Mairead Maguire (Ireland, 1976)
Betty Williams (Ireland, 1976)
Mother Teresa (Albania, 1979)
Adolfo Perez Esquivel (Argentina, 1980)
Reverend Desmond Tutu (South-Africa, 1984)
Elie Wiesel (Romania, 1986)
the 14th Dalai Lama (Tibet, 1989)
Pdt Mikhail Gorbachev (Russia, 1990)
Rigoberta Menchu (Guatemala, 1992)
Pdt F.W. de Klerk (South-Africa, 1993)
Pdt Yaser Arafat (Egypt, 1994)
PM Yitzhak Rabin (Israel, 1994)

7 Nobel Chemistry Laureates

Max Perutz (Austria, 1962)
Vladimir Prelog (Bosnia, 1975)
Sir John W. Cornforth (Great-Britain, 1975)
Henry Taube (Canada, 1983)
Jean-Marie Lehn (France, 1987)
Robert Huber (Germany, 1988)
Elias Corey (USA, 1990)

6 Nobel Medicine Laureates

François Jacob (France, 1965)
Jean Dausset (France, 1980)
Cesar Milstein (Argentina, 1984)
Stanley Cohen (USA, 1986)
Rita Levi-Montalcini (Italy, 1986)
Erwin Neher (Germany, 1991)

7 Nobel Physics Laureates

Louis Néel (France, 1970)
Nicolaas Bloembergen (the Netherlands, 1981)
Simon van der Meer (Switzerland, 1984)
Heinrich Rohrer (Switzerland, 1986)
Georg Bednorz (Germany, 1987)
Alexander Müller (Switzerland, 1987)
Jack Steinberger (Germany, 1988)

Non-Nobel Personalities : Joan Baez (USA), Tony Benn (G-B, MP), Dalil Boubakeur (Algeria-France), Martin Gray (Poland), Henri Laborit (France), Jules Roy (France)

 

Members of the European Parliament : Dominique Baudis (France), Philippe Herzog (France), Alexander Langer (Italy); Mireille Elmalan (France), Nana Mouskouri (Greece)

The context :

   

* See translation of this article by Isabelle Horlans (photo credit), in the French daily L’Union (August 8, 1993) below : “Bosnie : the last march of the peace pilgrims”

 In the beginning, in the spring of 1993, there was an article by a French war reporter, Jean-Paul Mari, who informed his readers that in besieged Sarajevo, Bosnia, there was a man, Zlatko Dizdarevic, with a team of journalists, living and working underground, in the caves of their Oslobodenje headquarters, as the tower with its offices had been reduced to rubble by enemy artillery.

 There also was a convoy of people from many nations (France, Poland, Italy, Greece, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, the United States…), in the summer of 1993, gathered under the motto “MIR SADA” (“PEACE NOW”), who had pledged itself to break the siege of Sarajevo. Two thousand of these “peace pilgrims” made it to Split, on the Dalmatian Coast, with trucks, buses and cars. Half of those reached the first front lines, on the shore of Lake Prozor in Middle Bosnia, in 120 cars and buses. Of these thousand, only sixty drove all the way, through front lines and check-points, to Sarajevo, in one Italian bus and less than 10 cars. The result was a de facto cease-fire, and for some time it looked like something was happening in Sarajevo, at last, after 15 months of siege.

 

 We did not even have maps of the former-Yugoslavia… We did not have a truck or a van… There was no Peace Lines then. Needless to say, we were penniless, and knew there would be no gas stations in war zones… We only knew that we had to go back, that Bosnia was staring at us, and that we just could not turn a deaf ear to it. We started from scratch, had to go begging around until we found a benevolent used cars salesman, in his little wooden cabin, who first entrusted us with one of his Renault Trafic vans. Then, we had to fill the van with boxes of food, drugs, candles, clothes, blankets, lots of books too, since we had heard Sarajevo’s mayor, Muhamed Kreševljaković, warn us that, despite the hardships of the siege, they were sick and tired of being treated like “mere digestive systems”. The other dire warning he gave us concerned the fact that only 5% of humanitarian help ever reached his citizens. The rest was swindled away by militias and the usual war profiteers. Part of our relief, at the end of our 20 some convoys, was that we never lost one box or one kilo of anything to these budala (traffickers in Bosnian), thugs.

        

From the Dalmatian Coast to Sarajevo, you had around 60 check-points, and just one track through the mountains to connect the capital of Bosnia to the rest of the world : the Diamond Road. It had been named thus by the British of the United Nations Protection Force who controlled this part of Bosnia.

            

On the other side of the mountain, you had the burning city of Gornji-Vakuf, and yet another mountain to climb, until you reached the Lashva Valley, with more towns under fire, starting with Novi-Travnik and Vitez. Maybe Vitez was the strangest of all, since in the heart of it you found Stari-Vitez, a Muslim section, besieged by the rest of Vitez (Croats), themselves under attack from the Muslim Armija from Zenica, with their dreaded auxiliaries, the mudjahideen, Muslim volunteers who had come by the hundreds from as far as… Afghanistan (it is said that Bin Laden was there and got himself a Bosnian passport at the time, and that Bosnia was Al Qaida’s training field in Europe – cf. Unholy terror, by John R. Schindler, Zenith Press, 2007, pp. 123-124).

 

             

To us, this was never about new borders, new flags, and ancient grudges. Instead, it was all about the fate of people, and kids foremost, who got caught under the compelling spell of granata, mortar shells, and snipers’ bullets, that were the prevailing type of weather we had in those days. The boy on the third picture is the last victim of the war between Croats and Bosniaks in Middle Bosnia. He was only 10, playing with his two friends and the dog before their home, in Vitez. The granata that killed him, in February 1994, was fired from Stari-Vitez, a few hundred yards away. On the second picture, you see the impact of such a granata. What difference does it make, now, that he was a Croat, or a Bosniak, or a Serb ?

 

             

We had to think twice, we had to think hard. What was it we could really do, to be on the side of the U.N. Protection Force, with those who really tried to stop this madness of butchering human beings in the name of new nations, of die-hard nationalism. Too often in the name of personal profit, whether you call it obvious looting or war-profiteering ? One van held no more than a ton and a half of whatever. It was no rocket science to find out that, even with a dozen trucks like our better-equipped Alsatian friends from the n.g.o. Presence (picture on the left above) conveying 100 tons each time, it was like a few drops of relief in an ocean of pain.

100,000 kilos of food, say, for 100,000 people in the Southern city of Mostar – if you ever could distribute equally to each and all – would only amount to 1 kilo per person and per trip. We had to search upstream for the sources of the conflict. As we came to understand the culture of the pre-warring factions, among the younger generations, was more or less the same, one thing we did was to record hundreds of cassette tapes with all the anti-war songs we could think of. This was always a great success at check-points. Instead of cartons of cigarettes or bottles of hard liquor, we’d pay them with songs. One of the most mind-blowing scenes happened on the Vrbanja Bridge in Sarajevo, in 1995, when the Bosnian soldiers started dancing to one of our most popular songs. We were surrounded by loaded guns, and people half-willing to use them, depending upon the hour of day and their state of intoxication, but the victory of the guitar over the gun was still quite dubious.

As songs come and go, we came up with the idea that texts were needed, something more solid, to remind each and every fighter of what it was all about, pre-war, when they were farmers, teachers, employees, students… We did write to a few people for authorizations, and met with Martin Gray, the Warsaw Ghetto survivor, in the home where he had survived the lethal flames of a wild bush fire in the South of France (cf. his best-seller For Those I loved). Martin gave us such a warm welcome, and it was clear that much of our inspiration came from his own struggle as a teenager in Warsaw, how he crossed the lines, and went through barriers and obstacles.

It was then we got down to serious business : duplicating, translating into Serbo-Croat the most relevant extracts from him, Henry David Thoreau, Voltaire, La Boétie, Giono, Khalil Gibran, Richard Bach, Saint-Exupéry, Walt Whitman, Plato, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Thich Nhat Hanh, Brassens, Ferré… We brought those booklets through the check-points, distributed them widely, everywhere we went. What a scene it was to hear a ten-year old reading these words of Jean Giono out loud to his younger sister and family ! “Kada neko nema dovoljno hrabosti…” : “When one does not have the courage to be a peace maker, one is a warrior…” (picture in the middle).

* Translation of the article “Bosnia : the last march of the peace pilgrims” : “Unable to reach Sarajevo at this stage, because of the violence of the fighting, at a time when NATO is only expecting a green light from the UN to launch air strikes in Bosnia, one thousand protesters of the “Mir Sada” convoy participated yesterday in a peace march towards the Mostar Cathedral, another symbolic town. The van of the Equilibre group from Champagne-Ardenne (France) drove back home via Zadar, to assess the needs of the population in this war-stricken area.”

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Ben-Dror Yemini, YNet News, February 25, 2025

As northerners sent home, hard-hit Metula says more time needed to heal war wounds
Diana Bletter, The Times of Israel, February 25, 2025

Mass evictions from West Bank refugee camps could backfire on Israel
Ron Ben-Yishai, YNet News, February 24, 2025

Hamas Official Expresses Reservations About Oct. 7 Attack on Israel
Adam Rasgon, The New York Times, February 24, 2025

Israel: Press remarks by High Representative Kaja Kallas after the EU-Israel Association Council
Kaja Kallas, EEAS, February 24, 2025

Mass evictions from West Bank refugee camps could backfire on Israel
Ron Ben-Yishai, YNet News, February 24, 2025

Israel says army to stay in evacuated West Bank camps for ‘coming year’
Agence France-Presse, Al Monitor, February 23, 2025

Agam Berger reveals she was mostly held by Hamas in homes with Palestinian families
The Jerusalem Post, February 23, 2025

Life in Gaza Since the Cease-fire: Destruction Everywhere – and Hamas Rule
Sheren Falah Saab, Haaretz, February 23, 2025

Egypt looks forward to France, EU support to its Gaza reconstruction plan
Noha El Tawil, Egypt Today, February 23, 2025

« Le Liban est épuisé par les guerres des autres sur son territoire », lance Aoun aux Iraniens
L’Orient Le Jour, 23 février, 2025

Israel says army to stay in evacuated West Bank camps for ‘coming year’
Al Monitor, February 23, 2025

Hamas says Gaza truce gravely endangered after Israel’s prisoner delay
The Jordan Times, February 23, 2025

‘If We Don’t Treat Their PTSD Now, We’re Dooming Israeli War Veterans to a Life of Domestic Violence’
Ayelett Shani, Haaretz, February 22, 2025

Bathing once every 10 days: The reality of northern Gaza’s water crisis
Maram Humaid, Al Jazeera, February 21, 2025

Bibas mother confirmed dead as Gaza hostage-prisoner swap set to go ahead
Agence France-Presse, Al Monitor , February 21, 2025

We cannot mourn until Shiri Bibas is returned, family says
Anna Lamche, BBC, February 21, 2025 [“There is no forgiveness for abandoning them”]

Netanyahu orders army to step up West Bank offensive after bus bombs
Agence France-Presse, Al Monitor, February 21, 2025

In visit to Tulkarem, Netanyahu calls to expand West Bank counterterror operation
Lazar Berman, The Times of Israel, February 21, 2025

Quick-thinking passenger prevents mass casualties in coordinated bus bombings near Tel Aviv
Dan Raban, YNet News, February 21, 2025

Al-Mujahedeen: The fringe terror group behind murder of Bibas children
Einav Halabi, YNet News, February 21, 2025

Sixteen months of lies: Who failed the Bibas family?
Maayan Hoffman, YNet News, February 21, 2025

Body returned from Gaza is not Bibas mother, Israeli military says
BBC, February 21, 2025

Arab leaders meet in Saudi Arabia to hash out Gaza plan
Haitham El-Tabei, Al Monitor, February 21, 2025

Oded Lifshitz’s son, as his father’s body is set to return: ‘It’s a tragic death of suffering, the anger will stay forever’
Haaretz, February 20, 2025

Bodies of slain hostages brought to Israel after grotesque Hamas ceremony, 503 days since they were abducted alive
Emanuel Fabian, The Times of Israel, February 20, 2025

Coffins of Bibas children reveal Hamas’s ruthless ideology
Yonah Jeremy Bob, The Jerusalem Post, February 20, 2025

Expect US-Saudi ties to get stronger, Saudi minister says [“you can’t not talk to other people”]
Joseph Haboush, Al Arabiya, February 20, 2025

Trump’s Gaza takeover proposal was ‘misconstrued,’ says Witkoff [solutions that have not worked…]
Al Arabiya, February 20, 2025

West Bank terror crackdown sees largest displacement of Palestinians since 1967
Agencies, The Times of Israel, February 19, 2025

‘He was unrecognisable’ say family of freed hostage
BBC, February 19, 2025

How Israeli leaders ignore accountability, hold contempt for citizens – opinion
Yaakov Katz, The Jerusalem Post, February 14, 2025

Abbas Fires Top PA Official Who Opposed to Cut Payments to Families of Jailed Palestinians
Jack Khoury, Haaretz, February 19, 2025

Senior official accuses Mossad, Shin Bet chiefs for ‘only making concessions’ in hostage negotiations
Itamar Eichner, YNet News, February 19, 2025

For First Time Since 2000, Lebanese Gov’t Guidelines Do Not Mention ‘Armed Resistance’
Jack Khoury, Haaretz, February 18, 2025

Hostages’ families mark 500th day of captivity with fast, rallies across Israel
The Times of Israel, February 17, 2025

The cease-fire illusion: Understanding the religious dimensions of peace
Rabbi Daniel Rowe, YNet News, February 15, 2025

Israeli Army Operations Drive 30,000 Palestinians From West Bank Refugee Camps
Hagar Shezaf, Jack Khoury, Haaretz, February 15, 2025

Interrogations, Isolation, Undrinkable Water: Israeli Hostages Describe Torture in Hamas Captivity
Haaretz, February 15, 2025

Despite rejection of Trump’s Gaza plan, Hamas and PA at odds over postwar control
Khalil Sayegh, Al Monitor, February 15, 2025

These Are the Three Israeli Hostages Released From Hamas Captivity on Saturday
Jack Khoury, Jonathan Lis, Bar Peleg, Ran Shimoni, Nir Hasson, Haaretz, February 14, 2025

How Israeli leaders ignore accountability, hold contempt for citizens – Opinon
Yaakov Katz, The Jerusalem Post, February 14, 2025

‘I wasn’t fired because I was a bad defense minister’
Nadav Eyal, YNet News, February 12, 2025

Released From Detention, Owners of East Jerusalem Bookstore Still Don’t Know Why They Were Arrested
Nir Hasson, Haaretz, February 13, 2025

‘No to Ethnic Cleansing’ | Hundreds of U.S. Rabbis, Jewish Celebrities Condemn Trump Gaza Plan in NYT Ad
Etan Nechin, Haaretz, February 13, 2025

‘Big win for Trump’: US welcomes PA prisoner payment reform, which Israel dismissed
Jacob Magid, The Times of Israel, February 12, 2025

Germany paves way for deployment of police to EU’s Gaza-Egypt border mission
Reuters, February 12, 2025

In post-October 7 Israel, a Children’s Coloring Book Is Considered a Ticking Time Bomb
Editorial, Haaretz, February 12, 2024

In Israel, Selling Books About Palestinians Is Now ‘Incitement to Terrorism’
David Issacharoff, Haaretz, February 12, 2025

‘I wasn’t fired because I was a bad defense minister’
Nadav Eyal, YNet News, February 12, 2025

Germany to post staff for EU’s Gaza-Egypt border mission, says government source
Reuters, Al Arabiya News, February 11, 2025

‘Hell worse than what we have already?’: Gazans respond to Trump’s plans
Reuters, Einav Halabi, YNet News, February 11, 2025

Palestinian booksellers released to house arrest after police raid sparks outcry
Charlie Summers, The Times of Israel, February 11, 2025

‘Let Hell Break Out’: Trump Says Gaza Cease-fire Should End Saturday if All Israeli Hostages Not Released
Ben Samuels, Haaretz, February 11, 2025

Palestinian books matter
Nadav Tamir, The Times of Israel, February 11, 2025

The day Israel came for the booksellers
Oren Ziv, +972, February 11, 2025

‘They Took Every Book With a Palestinian Flag on It’: Israeli Police Raids Iconic E. J’lem Bookshop, Arrest Owners
Nir Hasson, DPA, Haaretz, February 10, 2025

Dozens of Palestinian families flee Israeli operation in West Bank
Zayin Jaafar, Hossam Ezzedine; Al Monitor, February 10, 2025

Israeli police raid prominent Palestinian bookshop in East Jerusalem
Reuters, February 10, 2025

Trump Says Displaced Palestinians Won’t Have Right to Return to Gaza Under His Plan
Ben Samuels, Haaretz, February 10, 2025

What will anger at sight of gaunt hostages mean for a fragile ceasefire ?
Joe Inwood, BBC, February 9, 2025

Thousands Protest Across Israel | ‘We Need Strong Leadership,’ Freed IDF Spotter Says, Demanding Israel Strikes Full Hostage Deal
Bar Peleg, Linda Dayan, Adi hashmonai, Eden Solomon, Nir Hasson, Haaretz, February 8, 2025

Gaunt and frail, hostages Eli Sharabi, Or Levy and Ohad Ben Ami freed after 16 months
Emanuel Fabian, The Times of Israel, February 8, 2025

World horrified by hostages’ condition, Hamas’s show
Israel National News, February 8, 2025

Gaza’s Road to Recovery Runs Through Damascus, Not Trump’s Mar-a-Lago
Zvi Bar’el, Haaretz, February 7, 2025

Fighting in Jenin Shows the Israeli Army’s New Ethos Is Clearly ‘Shoot First’
Amos Harel, Haaretz, February 7, 2025

There’s no electricity, no supplies, no jobs. And they think they can just ‘own’ Gaza like it’s real estate? We are not for sale
Mahmoud Mushtaha, +972, February 5/7, 2025

Gazans dreamed of returning to Rafah. The reality is a nightmare
Ruwaida Kamal Amer, +972, February 4/7, 2025

Axis of Alarm: How Trump’s Plan to Expel Gazans Is Uniting Arab States – and threatening Israel
Zvi Bar’el, Haaretz, February 6, 2025

Palestinians in Gaza on Trump’s plan: ‘We would rather die here than leave’
Malak A Tantesh, The Guardian, January 31 / February 5, 2025

Trump’s Gaza Plan Is Unworkable, Analysts Say. Does He Really Mean It ?
Patrick Kingsley, The New York Times, February 5, 2025

Gallant Says Hostage Deal Was Ready in Summer, Less Murderers Would Have Been Released
Haaretz, February 5, 2025

‘In the Tents, We Still Had Hope’: Gazans Return Home as Scale of Destruction Sets In
Sheren Falah Saab, Haaretz, February 3, 2025

How Long Would It Take to Flatten Paris ?
Odeh Bisharat, Haaretz, February 3, 2025

After 9 months, Rafah Border Crossing reopens for patients to leave Gaza for Egypt
Agencies, The Times of Israel, February 1, 2025

Disillusioned Gazans return south after finding northern homes in ruins
Ohad Merlin, The Jerusalem Post, February 1, 2025

‘Death itself could not get us out of here!’ Gazans reject Trump’s proposal
Rasha Abu Jalal, Al Monitor, February 1, 2025

Sick, Wounded Palestinian Children Cross Gaza-Egypt Border as Israel-Hamas Cease-fire Holds
The Associated Press, February 1, 2025

‘War is good for business’: Israeli startups going global after key role in Gaza
Emily Rose, The Times of Israel, January 31, 2025

Israel/Palestinian Territories – France’s contribution to the European EUBAM Rafah mission (31 January 25)
France Diplomacy, January 31, 2025

Gaza’s Rafah crossing set to reopen Saturday, to be run by PA with EU monitors
Agencies, The Times of Israel, January 31, 2025

EUBAM Rafah: Statement by Spokesperson on redeployment of the mission at the Rafah Crossing Point
EEAS, Europa, January 31, 2025

‘Army of Militias’: Reservist’s Explosive Book on Gaza Exposes Israel’s War Machine From Within
Ronen Tal, Haaretz, January 30, 2025

3 Israelis, 5 Thais: This is what the hostage release will look like
Itamar Eichner, Yoav Zitun, Nina Fox, Yossi Yehoshua, YNet News, January 30, 2025

Among Palestinians Slated for Release: Fatah Leader in Jenin, Masterminds of Bus Bombings
Jack Khoury, Josh Breiner, Haaretz, January 30, 2025

My Family’s Killer Will Be Released in the Israel-Hamas Hostage Deal, but I’d Still Vote for It
Oran Almog, Haaretz, January 28, 2025

Destruction of homes leaves Palestinians unable to safely return to Rafah
Doctors Without Borders, January 28, 2025

‘Suddenly, I have a daughter who speaks Arabic’: Romi Gonen’s first days of freedom
Sharon Kidon, YNet News, January 28, 2025

Jordan launches eight-day assistance air bridge with 16 flights daily to Gaza
The Jordan Times, January 28, 2025

Palestinians Celebrate Returning to Northern Gaza After Over a Year as Israel-Hamas Cease-fire Holds
Jack Khoury, Amos Harel, Associated Press, Jonathan Lis, Haaretz, January 27, 2025

Thousands sleep outdoors as passage to the north delayed
YNet News, January 26, 2025

Hamas parades ‘victory’ in hostage deal: The message behind the spectacle – analysis
Seth J. Frantzman, The Jerusalem Post, January 25, 2025

Hamas to name next Israeli hostages set to be released
Raffi Berg, BBC, January 24, 2025

No life, no hope: Gaza prepares for mass return of displaced residents
Einav Halabi, YNet News, January 23, 2025

The Reconstruction of Gaza: Facts and Fantasies
David Rosenberg, Haaretz, January 23, 2025

Hamas is making big comeback in Gaza during ceasefire, expert warns
Michael Milshtein, The Jerusalem Post, January 23, 2025

Israeli Gov’t Orders the Blocking of Dozens of West Bank Roads Through End of Hostage Deal
Hagar Shezaf, Haaretz, January 22, 2025

Palestinian Authority reportedly to manage Gaza’s Rafah crossing under UN supervision
Lior Ben Ari, YNet News, January 22, 2025

‘There is life after death’: Romi Gonen makes first post since returning from captivity
YNet News, January 22, 2025

Hamas: What has happened to its most prominent leaders ?
BBC, January 21, 2025

Analysis, Prisoner, Terrorist: The Hard Questions Israelis Need to Ask About Palestinians, and Themselves
Dahlia Scheindlin, Haaretz, January 21, 2025

Gazans shocked at devastation; ‘We have no life. We will live on the streets’
Eliasaf Kosman, Einav Halabi, YNet News, January 20, 2025

By Car, Foot and Donkey Cart: Gaza’s Displaced Begin Returning to Their Ruined Homes
Sheren Falah Saab, Haaretz, January 20, 2025

Gazans shocked at devastation; ‘We have no life. We will live on the streets’
Eliasaf Kosman, Einav Halabi, YNet News, January 20, 2025

Romi Gonen, Emily Damari and Doron Steinbrecher first hostages to be freed
Yael Ciechanover, Gaya Zohar, Hagar Kochavi, YNet News, January 19, 2025

How Hamas survived a year of the Israel-Hamas War – analysis
Seth J. Frantzman, The Jerusalem Post, January 19, 2025

Hamas emerges from Gaza’s tunnels, showing it never lost control – analysis
Seth J. Frantzman, The Jerusalem Post, January 19, 2025

Hamas emerges from Gaza’s tunnels, showing it never lost control – analysis
How Hamas survived a year of the Israel-Hamas War – analysis
Seth J. Frantzman, The Jerusalem Post, January 19, 2025

In This Story, the Killing of Two Innocent Palestinians in Balata by Israeli Troops Was Just the Beginning
Gideon Levy & Alex Levac, Haaretz, January 17, 2025

An Israeli Reserve Soldier’s War Journal, Part Two: Back Home, Then Back to Gaza
Tom Levinson, Haaretz, January 14, 2025

Casualties of war are devastating to confused nation
Ben-Dror Yemini, YNet News, January 12, 2025

Israel’s Gaza war costs exceed $67B: Report
Middle East Monitor, January 11, 2025

Trump revokes sanctions on Israeli settlers in West Bank: What we know
Rosaleen Carroll, Al Monitor, January 11, 2025

Israel signs deals to produce its own heavy bombs
The Washington Post, January 7, 2025

What do Liri’s eyes say about your suffering?
Meirav Leshem Gonen, YNet News, January 6, 2025

Hostage families: Israel has created ‘Schindler’s list’ that will abandon them to a horrific death
Uri Sela, The Jerusalem Post, January 6, 2025

Relatives of Israeli Hostages on Hamas List Wary After Constant Disappointments
Nir Hasson, Eden Solomon, Bar Peleg, Haaretz, January 6, 2025

Syria’s New Leader Is Building a State From Scratch, Unfortunately for Him There’s No Handbook
Zvi Bar’el, Haaretz, January 4, 2025

Israelis and Palestinians Are Trapped in an Endless Cycle of Trauma, and May Never Heal
Ofri Ilany, Haaretz, January 4, 2025

$2 Million each: Israel’s fight against Iran’s mixers, producing solid rocket fuel, and the image exposed
YNetnews, January 3, 2025

IDF: Thousands of Soldiers Stopped Serving in Combat Due to Mental Distress
Yaniv Kubovich, Haaretz, January 2, 2025

IDF suicide rate rises amid ongoing war and mass reservist call-ups
Emanuel Fabian, The Times of Israel, January 2, 2025

When Horror and Fear Become Routine: 280 Days of Reserve Duty in Israel and Gaza
Tom Levinson, Haaretz, January 2, 2025

‘We’re Still Breathing, and We Don’t Want to Die’: Testimonies From the Inferno in Northern Gaza
Hanin Majadli, Haaretz, January 2, 2025

Hamas forces are making a substantial comeback in the Gaza Strip
Yonah Jeremy Bob, The Jerusalem Post, January 1, 2025

Israeli arms sales break record for 3rd year in row, reaching $13 billion in 2023
Yonah Jeremy Bob, The Jerusalem Post, January 1, 2025

 

Jerusalem – Qalandya 2006

PEACE LINES MESSAGERIES DE LA PAIX www.peacelines.org peacelines@gmail.com

Belfast, Northern Ireland 2022

 

Newsletter n° 114

January-May 2023

 

In April 2022, mid-April, the decision was taken to suspend updating this section, see what the passing of time would do. How different things would be after a while. We let the while last about the time of a pregnancy, some nine months. When we chose silence, there had been a “terror wave” in Israel, leaving a trail of shock and blood. Nine months later, what do we see ? A massacre of nine Palestinians by the Israeli army in Jenin, the Northernmost Palestinian city, followed by a massacre of seven Jews in a synagogue, and another two Jews elsewhere, a father and a son, shot down by an Arab teenager who is barely thirteen. Sadly, this feels like the umpteenth rerun of the same old feud, dating back to Kafka’s days, when he wrote Jackals and Arabs, first published by Martin Buber, in 1917.

What was the Northern traveler’s perception, after meeting talking jackals and Arabs in the Middle eastern desert, way back in the days of World War I ? “I don’t presume to pass judgment on matters so far removed from my own concerns; it seems to be a very ancient feud; a blood feud, probably; so it will probably take bloodshed to end it.”

Don’t these people know how to count corpses ? Nine to nine, and they will stop, until the next round.

As things were, the jackals of the time had some great expectations regarding the passing Northerner : “Master, you shall end the feud that divides the world.” To which the Arab retorted : “They will continue to be with us until the end of time.(…) They cherish a quite absurd hope, these animals; they are fools, complete fools. (…) Wonderful animals, eh? And how they hate us!”

By the way, the pictures to start this Newsletter 114 : the « same » wall, expanding on some 500 km, to separate Israelis from Palestinians in the left image ; to separate Protestants from Catholics in the right one. You count 15 km of these walls in Belfast proper, coincidentally called Peace Lines. No, we did not pick our denomination in Northern Ireland, but still…

We all live in a world of barriers and borders. Where they are higher and thicker you have to wonder why. In Northern Ireland, people seem to « want » these walls, on both sides. Others, in Europe, and elsewhere, know nothing about this. The dirty little war between the British and the Irish – the British Irish and the Republican Irish – ended in April 1998, with the Good Friday Agreements. Do we have to recall some details ?

They, the IRA Provisional, murdered the present king’s great-uncle, Lord Mountbatten, at the age of 79, in his fishing boat. 1979. Foul murder, you could say. 1984 : they devastated the Grand Hotel in Brighton, targeting the British Prime Minister, killing five, wounding more than thirty. How interesting, the bomber was identified, sentenced to eight life sentences, but was released after 14 years, in 1999, aged 48. He met the daughter of one of his victims in 2000, Jo Berry, and together they have participated in countless meetings organized by Building Bridges for Peace, in Rwanda, Lebanon, and… Israel, Palestine, as well as in Belfast.

In 2005, the IRA formally ended its armed struggle, and proceeded to decommission all its weapons – after killing one thousand armed British personnel and over 600 civilians, in the course of two generations (1969-2005), wounding, maiming thousands ignored.

A bloody forgotten civil war, in what was then the European Union, United Kingdom included. Likewise with the Basque in Spain and France. Euskadi ta Astakasuna (ETA) was formed in 1959, with its symbol of the Snake (the political way) around the Axe (violence), and its motto : « to pursue both ways », until it officially renounced violence and dissolved itself in 2018. Leaving over eight hundred killed and thousands wounded, maimed.

Again, think of another dirty little war, a civil war, within Europe, that lasted over half a century, and that everybody else chose to discount. Baptized Christians killing Christians.

Speaking of the twenty-first century. And then, you have a locked-down world, from 2020 until 2021-2022, immediately followed by war in Ukraine, ongoing. You look at it from space, and it makes you wonder : is this a rational place at all ? What is its rationale ? Its purpose, if any ?

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/tv-radio-web/the-funeral-murders-they-were-like-hyenas-ripping-their-kill-apart-1.3433100

Terror operations led by the IRA and the ETA had a political aim, they were supposed to bring « national liberation ». Yet, they did not achieve any. In 2023, things in Northern Ireland are pretty much the way they were before, the British flag is still flying high. The Europa Hotel, in Belfast, once the « most bombed hotel in the world » (33 times) is still standing, hosting Van Morrison concerts – Van Morrison, the one, only outspoken poet and musician against lockdowns.

As for the Basque country, it is, in 2023, as far from independance as Catalunya is, on the opposite coast of Spain.

What has changed is the perception that people, in Europe and elsewhere, have developed of terror as a means, since September 11, 2001, in the US, and October 13, 2002, in Moscow ; March 11, 2004, in Madrid ; all « in the name of Allah ». You can add Paris, in January and November 2015 ; Brussels, in March 2016.

In Iraq, during the American intervention of 1990-1991, over fifty thousand people lost their life, in the name of « Operation Iraqi Freedom », and up to one million were killed, during the American invasion of Iraq from 2003 to 2011. 2011 being the year war broke out in Syria, with a toll of 600,000 killed, and Libya was destroyed in depth.

 

Look at it from above, the way space travellers will, and hear moonwalker Edgar Mitchell (Apollo 14) confess : « It was clear that those tiny pinpoints of light, in brilliant profusion, were a part of the plan. They were linked together as part of the whole as they framed and formed a backdrop for this fragile planet Earth.

[…] However, as I continued to gaze at Earth, the euphoria, the sense of oneness, of wholeness, of participation, changed into a feeling of deep despair – the darkest, blackest despair. The most agonizing emotional pain I had ever felt, as I contemplated man and his condition on Earth, behaving like ancient warring tribes fighting over food and territorial rights… »

« We are universal beings. We are stewards and keepers of spaceship Earth. » Look at it, as it is. Parched and bleached from burning heat and drought. Doesn’t it make your blood curdle ? Make it a broader swath, including the North of Africa, down to the horn of Ethiopia-Somalia. What do you find there, more deserts, deeper misery in sweltering heat. The scorched arid earth prevails. Whereas tiny Israel could boast itself of having transformed the desert into an oasis.

May 8, 2023 A striking coincidence that this day « Victory » is being celebrated in ceremonies and fanfares, across much of Europe and the world. The victory against evil and destruction. Is it such a victory, when you learn that over 600,000 people have been killed in Ethiopia, and close to 400,000 in Yemen, right across the Red Sea ? Predictably, local media, regional news, will not cover what is happening across the fences they establish.

Hence the need and power of the global view, from a vertical distance.

Praise be to the first man who ever went up into space, for a triple ride around us. 1961, April 12. The man who always smiled, kept his grin. Yuri Gagarin.

Followed in June 1963 by the first woman ever up in space, Valentina Tereshkova. They did not go up in a spirit of territorial conquest. The vision clearly was to extend the comprehension of humankind and its sailing, drifting,  fragile spaceship Earth.

The vertical dimension provides the lever needed to lift reality to higher grounds, not to get caught into quagmires of déjà vu, déjà entendu. Take it back to the birth of the millenium. The famed year 2000. How did it start ? With the explosion of the Thermostat, at the hinge of the continents, blood on the Esplanade, in Jerusalem.

Passivity amounting to complicity was no option. What had worked in Bosnia, with the Zenica, Sarajevo Call to the fighters and leaders in former Yugoslavia  had to be tried again.

It was published in Le Monde Diplomatique in December 2000, with the support of 33 Nobel laureates, reminding us of Einstein’s warning : « Peace cannot be kept by force, it can only be achieved by understanding ». The Dalai Lama joined in this Call, with Joseph Rotblat (one of the signatories of the Russell-Einstein Manifesto), Roald Hoffmann, François Jacob, Werner Arber, and quite a few distinguished researchers, but to no avail. So that we reiterated with a more focused campaign in 2001, Peace through Justice, supported by 18 Nobel laureates this time (among them Ilya Prigogine, Desmond Tutu, Maurice Wilkins…). The focus was « the settlements recognized as sources of inequity and hatred », which « have to be evacuated non-violently ». It would take time to the Israeli leaders to heed this call though, as they had to face a raging campaign of suicide bombings in all public places, cafés, buses, restaurants…

To really understand what the feeling was like, by the end of 2000 and mid-2001, you should check upon a list of all the random attacks against civilians, going as far back as 1993-1994 actually. Mostly by Hamas, from the first one in October 1993 until November 1999, with five of them by members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

You have to double-check two lists, one in English, the other in French, to get the facts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_rocket_attacks_on_Israel

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronologie_du_terrorisme_palestinien

 

An unprecedented breakthrough between archenemies, who agreed to meet face to face, listen to each other, after half a century of mayhem and bloodshed. The Jews had their Shoah in Europe, and then the exodus of hundreds of thousands from Arab countries in the sixties. The Arabs had their Nakba, in 1948. 1991-1993 : at last, their leaders could convene, for the sake of peace.

There had been the Madrid Conference in 1991, which paved the way to the Oslo Accords, signed in Washington on September 13, 1993.

 

Except that some, in the Palestinian community, wanted no such thing, and the first reaction to Oslo came three weeks after Washington, when a boobytrapped car exploded in Beit El, leaving some thirty wounded, and then in the spring of 1994, two more bombs aimed at buses, leaving thirteen dead. October 1994, two more terror attacks, in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, scores of maimed and killed. ember 1994 : Palestinian Islamic Jihad joined in the attacks, which were not to abate until the summer of 1999, the first car-ramming into a crowd, by Hamas. Malls, cafés, restaurants, markets, bus-stops, no place in Israel was safe. Violence was running out of control : in February 1994, at the Cave of Patriarchs in Hebron (where supposedly Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, and Lea are buried), an Israeli settler opened fire on a Friday, during prayer, on the worshippers at Ibrahim’s Mosque, and left 155 in their blood, 29 of them lifeless.

Hence the long bitterness, on one side, against Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, to this day ; on the other side, against such faceless individuals in the Israeli community, perceived as settlers, extremists, and deadly dangers on the way – one of those shooting at Prime Minister Rabin in his back, on November 4, 1995. Leaving Israel rudderless at the time.

You have to see that nothing was clear-cut, in terms of leadership. As for peace accords, not only do the leaders have to survive long enough, but they do not materialize on the ground as long as a real peace policy is not implemented, and institutionalized, from the kindergartens and schools to the mainstream media. The fact is that no such policy was ever organized, in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Ramallah or Gaza.

effects. The tenth Prime Minister of Israel had been on the job one year, he would stay in power eight more months only.

Oslo redux, July 2000, in Camp David, Maryland, a military base sixty miles from Washington. Same causes, same

 

After him came General Sharon, with possibly more personal and military prestige than his predecessors combined. The second Intifada, uprising, had broken out though, in October 2000, five months before his election. The extent of deadly terror attacks since October 2000 (making it blood-clear that no peace process could be in the works) was such in 2001 and 2002, rising from 4-5 a year in 1997-1998 to 12 in 2000, 65 in 2001, 63 in 2002, that the first priority of the Israeli side, during these hellish two years, was to protect itself, not only through counter-attack with tanks and missiles, but through the erection of a high wall, à la Belfast, to prevent terrorists from easily  entering their territory.

To make things clear, people born after 1990-2000 should know that circulation was free and fluid, all through Israel and Gaza, before the fatal years 2001-2002.

Here is what the Qalandiya checkpoint, between Jerusalem and Ramallah, looked like. All you had, in terms of military presence, was a small sentry-box and a sort of tent, on a slope, and a few large rocks along the road. A handful of soldiers manned it, less than five, sometimes no more than 3.

That was Qalandiya in the summer of 2001. Very little control of identity and car documents, far and in between. One soldier, or two, would stand in the midst of the passing crowd, without angst or any protection to really speak of. The same applied to the Gaza Strip. During the First Intifada I had walked, and hitch-hiked, from the North, Beit Lahia, to Egypt, without any hindrance, whatsoever.

 

Now, this is what we got instead. All the way from Jenin up North to Ramallah and Gaza.

They started building the first segment of the « Security Fence » in the summer of 2003, also calling it « Separation Fence », Geder HaHafrada. A concept that Yitzhak Rabin, possibly, was the first to coin officially, as far back as 1994, declaring « We have to decide on separation as a philosophy », which he put in a famous nutshell « We must take Gaza out of Tel Aviv ». After a vision à la de Gaulle, regarding the French presence in Algeria. It was a simple demographic equation.

Now that the Security/Separation Wall was being built, General Sharon had freer hands to deal with the problem of the non-violent evacuation of what the Peace through Justice Campaign of 2001 called « the settlements recognized as sources of inequity and hatred ».

Except that he did not have a majority for that, his own party, the Likud, was opposed to it. On the grounds that it would lead to chaos in evacuated zones, once done. August 2004, he still lacked the support needed to act.

 

No matter what, he did it all the same, got it approved by the Knesset in February 2005, and sent troops to implement it in August 2005. It was done by September 12.
The all time hero, who had taken part in every war (1948, 1956, 1967, 1973) and been wounded twice (1948 & 1973) made it.

His main opponent, the present Prime Minister, however, had warned against the move, arguing that Gaza would become « a huge base for terror ». The fact is, several hours only after the completion of the evacuation, the first two rockets were fired from Gaza into Israel, at Sderot and Yad Mordechai.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Palestinian_rocket_attacks_on_Israel_in_2002%E2%80%932006

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Palestinian_rocket_attacks_on_Israel_in_2001

Not that rockets and mortars began in September 2005, as can be seen from the lists of rocket attacks prior to the evacuation, but they intensified continually, increasing in size, range, and power of destruction. We then launched our third Nobel campaign in 2005, the Nobel Call Against Terror, For Common Sense, « Because we are all human beings, Because we are horrified by this endless waste of human life in the name of nation or religion, Because we refuse the logics of blood pacts and any terror, We whole-heartedly praise[d] the courage of the Israeli and Palestinian leaders and people who are taking bold steps on the way to justice and common sense. » http://www.peacelines.org/israel-palestine-2000-2014-c24800090 « Be sure the world is watching, with deep expectations. We are at your side. »

 

May 10, 2023

The writing of this Newsletter was interrupted, on May 9th, by a new round of « armed dialogue » between the conflicting sides, when a wave of forty combat helicopters and jets raided into the Gaza skies, to decapitate the top echelon of Islamic Jihad, leaving three of their commanders dead, with their wives and children.

Predictably, hundreds of rockets were fired into Israel in that wake, 350 they say, half of them falling short, within the Gaza Strip. What a striking coincidence that the last item in this Newsletter has been a map about the Range of missiles launched from the Gaza Strip…

Living under the cleaver, under the gun. The sword of Damocleus always suspended above our heads. I have spent wonderful times with families both sides of the fence, in Gaza and Sderot. I love these people. When together, we talk about subjects in depth, the generation gap, the relations between parents and children, the shift from authority in excess to lack of credibility, the use of social media, artificial intelligence, and so on. They describe to me what their life feels like, under the permanent threat of missiles and rockets. These friends in Sderot recall the time the mother and daughter had retreated from the kitchen into a back room, just seconds before a rocket exploded in the kitchen. I can see all the remains of burst rockets on the metal shelves of the police station in Sderot.

I mean, please, don’t minimize the size and effect of these rockets from Gaza. I have had meetings with doctors and psychologists telling me what constant pre and post-trauma stress do to people’s minds, starting with infants, children. In Gaza, I have spent time with a teenager turned blind after a missile exploded in the street as he was going to buy bread at the baker’s. I also see all the wounded veterans gathered on a beach at night, with their amputated arms or legs, for recreation of some kind.

I don’t see any « Israelis », « Jews », « Palestinians », or « Muslims » there. I only see people. Hurting people, suffering people, built the same way, dressed the same way, eating the same way, aching the same way.

In 2005, we had hopes. Eleven Peace Nobel laureates supported our stand – South Africa’s President de Klerk among them, Shirin Ebadi from Tehran, Jody Williams (against landmines), Joseph Rotblat again, followed by 57 others, and as we thought this wouldn’t be enough, we addressed people who could make a difference, based on their courage too, and world vision : astronauts Edgar Mitchell, as a moonwalker, Russell Schweickart (who circled around the moon), Jean-François Clervoy, Umberto Guidoni ; Jean-Bernard Bonnet (for his world record in skydiving at 11.000 m) ; Loïc Leferme (world record in No-Limits apnoea at -171 m) ; and the sailor Maud Fontenoy,

who rowed 3700 km across the Atlantic ocean when she was 25, and then 6780 km across the Pacific ocean, two years later. We thought these seven brave souls commanded absolute respect, from their experience of what our world is really made of, and how we can relate to it. People would look into their lives, and draw inspiration from them.

 

It did not matter that they were « American », « French », or « Italian ». All that mattered is that they had done it, they had been where no others had been, and brought another angle, to think outside the usual boxes.

As fellow journalists in Israel had warned us that Nobel laureates might not be enough, we added about a hundred Members of the European Parliament, among them General Morillon (for his role as UNPROFOR commander in Bosnia), ex-PM Michel Rocard, and more, from 22 other European countries. There was a real feeling of togetherness, of commitment, of care.

« Whatever obstacles may come now, everything you achieve for the sake of peace, justice, and non-violence, will benefit the whole human species. »

To understand the nature of the obstacles that came after the evacuation not only of Gaza, but of four settlements in the West Bank (notably Kadim and Ganim near Jenin in the North, but also Khomesh, a few kilometers above Nablus), one has to take a look at the whole context, between 2005 and 2007, from North to South – and face the bottom-line question : were our 2001 and 2005 hopes not founded in reality ? Was General Sharon wrong to push for the forcible evacuation of « the settlements recognized as sources of inequity and hatred » ?

Whenever things get that heavy, I suggest we take a double approach : distance ourselves from the conundrum, far enough, and then check out about the specifics on the ground, in terms of fairness. On this picture, taken in February 1984, you see Bruce McCandless II, floating into space, the first human being to ever fly freely, untethered, into the black vacuum of cosmos. Some twelves hours in all. A former naval aviator, he makes you think, well, it all is a matter of vision, understanding of possibilities, and training, isn’t it.

With the right people, at the right place and time. But basically, first a matter of personal, and collective, vision. Whether you end up flying 286 km above Earth, or watch the world and things as they are from your watchtower, somewhere. What do we see tonight, as of May 11, on the second day of rockets fired from Gaza (one thousand of them in two days) ? These deadly fireworks – the launchings from the South, the interceptions further North. Is this a way to live ? And still counting.

 

A popular Israeli singer held a concert before 40,000 people in Tel Aviv tonight, claiming « No one can silence us ! ». In the meantime, hospitals in Gaza are stuffed with blood-covered stretchers and wounded. The Islamic Jihad leaders rejoice at their few hits in Israel, and call for the people to climb on rooftops and celebrate the pain and loss of life in Israel.

« Est-ce ainsi que les hommes vivent ? » (Aragon). Can’t they see we have other burning concerns ? 1 The rising global heat, with its countless tragedies worldwide. 2 The current threat of a world war, nuclear (the US vs Russia). 3  The appalling lack of personal purpose ; blind resignation all over. 4 The growing collapse of the birth rate in one hemisphere. 5 The damage done yet by Artificial Intelligence to the fabric of society (« AI has hacked the operating system of our civilization » Harari).

 

Last but alas not least, the incredible amount of misperceptions, miscalculations, among leaders.

And the unholy alliance of political and so-called religious views leading to the use of terror attacks against civilians, East and West, North and South. Seven scourges to deal with, most urgently.

« Our house is on fire ! » cried the young Greta Thunberg in Davos, the epicentre of Europe, at the World Economic Forum, in January 2019 – and what has changed since ? Do we see more firemen and firewomen than before ? The very clear and simple question for each of us, whether we live in Gaza, Davos, Belfast, or Tunis, Montelimar, being : have we redefined our purpose and capacities, in the light of the global plagues burdening us all presently ?

The people who celebrate the loss of life and the pain on « the other side », thirsty for vengeance, don’t they realize how it is all intertwined, and that an eye for an eye will turn the world blinder yet than it already is, speaking of their own world ? For « it is an easy thing to hear sounds of love in the thunderstorm that destroys our enemies’ house … Then the groan and the dolour are quite forgotten (…) and the poor in the prison and the soldier in the field When the shatter’d bone hath laid him groaning among the happier dead ». (William Blake, The Price of Experience)

 

May 21, 2023

As this Letter is getting close to its end, dozens of us have their mind in Cape Canaveral, Florida, the Kennedy Space center, where a team of four astronauts is due to take off shortly before midnight, to join the ISS, International Space Station, where seven others are expecting them, three Russians, three Americans, and an Emirati, Sultan Al Neyadi, who was the first Arab on a space walk in April 2023. Their names : Rayyanah Barnawi, a breast cancer researcher, from Saudi Arabia ; Ali Al-Qarni, also from Arabia ; Peggy Whitson, a Nasa astronaut, and John Schoffner, from Tennessee. A few years ago, women were not allowed to drive a car in the Saudi kingdom. Look what a few years will do…

Did we not mention three Russians and three Americans manning the ISS together, with the first Arab spacewalker, whereas on the ground in Eurasia, other Americans are planning to send F-16 jet fighters to bomb Russian troops ? For thirty years now, Americans and Russians have been busy working for and in that visionary vessel flying above the Earth. Where’s the catch-22 ?

In the meantime, back at the Hinge of Continents, named Palestine by some, Israel by others, since our mind is focused on rockets now, we’ve had some fifteen hundred rockets, loaded with explosive heads, sent from Gaza randomly towards Israeli territory. Their achievement was to kill an old lady, aged 80, wheeling her handicapped husband towards a shelter, and a Palestinian worker from Gaza.

 

Whereas the counter-attack missiles from Israel decimated the leadership of the rocket launchers, murdered thirty people (half of them identified as terrorists) and wounded over one hundred fifty, from all walks of life.

What’s the sense ?

Thinking of Rayyanah Barnawi’s intent gaze into our reality, and her joy at the idea of sharing her experience through cameras with kids in the Middle East while aboard the ISS : « Being able to see their faces when they see astronauts from their own region for the first time is so thrilling… »

 

This letter is intended, among others, for these kids. Thinking outside the boxes. Addressing the commanders on the field, « all these rather primitive rockets, what’s the point ? what do they achieve ? to kill an old lady pushing her husband in his wheelchair, and a countryman from the Strip, father of six, mutilating his brother by his side, was this what the Struggle is about ? Repetitive as it is, time after time after time… »

« Can’t you hear the commanders of the Others scoffing, ‘so you want to play R & M ? Rockets and Missiles ? Fine with us – you’re Islamic Jihad, by your own volition, we’re the Good Guys… let’s play ! »

This lack of sense, of personal purpose, whether we are in Kiev, Gaza, Davos, or Montelimar, drags us down, and blocks the issues, as can be seen in all situations of ongoing conflict and suffering.  Blind to the context, the global view, the big picture.

Whereas we have highly qualified human beings, in their continuous quest for the precise decisions, the perfect gestures, out there, slowly dancing into space – and we’d keep rushing blindly, down here, to the next stumbling block, the next predictable obstacles ?

Look at it all from the ISS. It may be pilot Sultan, or Rayyanah, the first woman from the Middle East into space.

And who cares that it was, indeed, the first spacewalk in Arab history ?

 

« We are locked in history » says Werner Herzog in his humble film, The Cave of Lost Dreams. If all it takes to get unlocked is to raise our eyes, and see what the stars owe to the night, then, as Greta puts it, « No one is too small to make a difference. »

 

 

 

	PEACE LINES MESSAGERIES DE LA PAIX www.peacelines.org peacelines@gmail.com
Newsletter n°115 April 2023    1993-2023 Thirty Years Later On the Mistakes of War

 

 

To think it all started thirty years ago, this continuous commitment to peace…. It was born in the summer of 1993, when it was reported that Sarajevo was besieged, and peace pilgrims were expected to reach the starving city. Sarajevo, where the first World War was triggered, on a fateful day of June 1914, when the Archduke of Austria and his wife were assassinated, at point-blank range. The assassins’ motive was to free Bosnia Herzegovine from the Austro-Hungarian rule, and establish a South Slav, Yugoslav, state. Instead, the shadowy game of alliances led to the first world conflagration with its horrific toll of 20 million killed, half of them civilians, and 20 million wounded, maimed.

This is where we come from. We the French, the Russians, the Germans, the Austrians, the British, the Italians, the Serbs, and so many more. It is easier to point to the European countries who were wise enough not to get involved into this mass butchery. Namely, the Swiss, in the very heart of Europe, the Czechs, the Slovaks, the Danes, Swedes, Norwegians, the Spaniards, and few others.

Twenty-one years later, the Second World War was initiated among the very same belligerants, within the same vortex of European nations, this time with a toll of 50 to 70 million killed. Fewer peoples were strong enough not to get caught into this « civilized » inferno – the Swiss, always, the Spaniards to a large extent, the Portuguese.

Why reminisce ? As I write these lines, April 23, 2023, I have received a message from skydiving friends who inform me that our airfield is being occupied by troops for about three weeks, due to « military training inter-armies of great amplitude ».

« Ne remuez pas les bottes ! C’est mon principe. » Arthur Rimbaud, August 25, 1870

Reasons to worry : over thirteen thousand people have been killed since February 2022, and through the « jeu des alliances »  more and more countries are implied, not only the U.S.A. but Germany and France, England, Poland, selling weapons of all kinds, a flourishing business if any – last year alone, Ukrainian imports of armament were multiplied by 60.

Now, if you take a look at the seven main world exporters of deadly devices, you will find the USA on top, with 40% of the lethal trade, followed by Russia, with 16%, little France with 11%, China with 5.2%, Germany with 4.2%, Italy with 3.8%, the United Kingdom with 3.2%, and Spain with 2.6%. Source : https://www.radiofrance.fr/franceinter/l-ukraine-troisieme-importateur-mondial-les-ventes-d-armes-dans-le-monde-en-cinq-infographies-2001505 and SIPRI.

https://www.sipri.org/media/press-release/2023/surge-arms-imports-europe-while-us-dominance-global-arms-trade-increases

Not that we need any kind of moralistic finger-wagging at anyone in particular. Just delve into history, to get a better perspective at where we come from, where we’re going. The major war the US were actors of, after WW II and Korea (1950-1953, over 4 million killed, most of them Korean), was Viet-Nam, for which Robert McNamara was the « architect », as Secretary of Defense from 1961 to 1968. By many in his homeland, he was considered as the brain behind the three million Vietnamese killed that the US left behind, after their defeat and hasty retreat in 1975.

You should really listen to the same man, thirty years after he took office in Washington. When asked by Carl Bernstein, for TIME magazine, whether the war in Iraq was moving out of control in early 1991, he retorted : « No military operation can be totally under control, especially one with high-tech weapons. » « I tell you Jesus Christ himself can't keep one of these things under control. »

This was a man in his 75th year speaking, long considered a « falcon », and by no means a pacifist at any time of his life. I cannot even begin to say how moved I am by this confession, simple and straightforward as it is.

Ever since I first read it, thirty-two years ago, it has stayed with me.

Robert McNamara (whose middle name is Strange) passed away in 2009. Strange indeed. Bless his soul. I mean, the courage it has taken him, for such a coming out.

What was true then, is just as true, or truer today.

« It's not just events moving out of control. […] because of misinformation and misperceptions, there are misjudgments as to where a nation's interests lie and what can be accomplished. – [Take the missile crisis, for example, 1962] you cannot imagine the extent of misjudgment, misinformation. Events were really out of the control of either party, though both the Russians and we were trying to maintain control. »

Don’t we feel like repeating the content of this expertise ! You cannot imagine the extent of misjudgment, misinformation and misperceptions involved in the political processes leading to sending men to their untimely death and demise.

Please listen to Robert S. McNamara. He can be found online :

https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,972307-5,00.html

« The consequences of military action are unpredictable. I learned this as Secretary [of Defense] time after time after time. »

And if you wonder why the heartbreaking horror inflicted to Ukrainians on both sides of the divide, has not spread even farther, take the case of Viet-Nam, China & Russia vs the US and their allies, when after a few years the commanders did not know what to do, and decided  « one of the greatest bombing campaigns in the history of warfare » :

• Q. You thought the bombing would work at the time?
• A. No, I didn't think it would work at the time.
• Q. Why undertake it then?
• A. Because we had to try to prove it wouldn't work, number one, and other people thought it would work.

Isn’t just this exactly as they always do ?

I had read the Bernstein interview of Robert St. McNamara, when it was published, in February 1991 – just one week before the end of the Gulf War. Had he somehow whistled the end game ?

How we all forget fast… The toll : over one hundred thousand killed among the Iraqi people, less than 300 for the U.S. and its usual allies, the U.K., France, Germany, Canada, Italy… Was war over in early March 1991 ? By the end of the same month of March 1991, it broke out in the Balkans, in Bosnia. First in Croatia, then Slovenia. Who remembers the bombings of Vukovar, Dubrovnik ?

The question, for me then, and for some others in France, Italy, Greece, Spain, Sweden, Belgium… was : We cannot let this happen, and look the other way !

If you take a closer look at Europe as a geographic entity, you realize that its center of gravity actually is in Switzerland. Between Zurich and Davos. You could also say it is in Austria, in Innsbruck. Checking upon the maps, you then realize that the distance from Davos to Dubrovnik is 800 km, to Sarajevo : 745. From Zürich to Sarajevo : 860 km. The dreadful fire of war was at our door.

The problem, though, was to find volunteers to go there. Guess what, nobody wants to go to war ! Even as a peace volunteer. You can’t blame them, can you ? Showing clearly that men get dragged into war, it doesn’t fall on them naturally. Plus, what fleet, what means, did we have ? Was there a We only ? The picture of four standing people shows our first volunteer, in the winter of 1993, with three British soldiers of the U.N.Protection Force, around a meagre fire of planks, on the Diamond Road, the only mountain track open, from Split on the coast to Sarajevo and the north of Bosnia. On the left you see a small Renault van, filled with solid food, milk, books, blankets, under the label HUMANITARNA POMOC (pronounced Pomotsh), our first two words in Serbo-Croat. Pomoc meaning Aid, Relief.

 

Such was our pass, across the sixty-some checkpoints on our way. To protect us, and all civilians, you had these men of the UNPROFOR, at the most dangerous spots. And protect us, they did, indeed, including a tank which fired a shell at a sniper who was taking aim at us. Praise be to these British and French soldiers of peace who paid a heavy price in casualties to contain the devastation.

Over 60,000 people lost their life in this war. The lessons to us were many : You do need an efficient, reliable army to stem the rogue elements who behave as war profiteers, or terrormongers. You can’t feed hundreds of thousands of people. Food alone is not the issue. You won’t play Santa Klaus for a week and then disappear. You had better find ways of acting upstream, on the fabric of war. In this enterprise you need help from people of authority & prestige. It is a long struggle, that only ends with a « return to normal ». You will save countless numbers of unknown people on the way, and you may save your own soul, but you will lose some others that you thought you knew. Anyway, never expect anything in return. You need to be strong to sustain, and dedicated within to really pursue. There is no frontier between others and self. Empathy prevails.

 

You wonder where the astronaut comes into this picture.

His name is Edgar Mitchell, and he is one of the twelve men who walked on the moon. Also the author of books well worth reading, The way of the explorer, Earthrise, Reflections of the Moon, We Are One…   We, who were nobodies thirty years ago, who had nothing, who did not know anything either abour the Balkans, we needed support from bigger people. Edgar Mitchell (Apollo 14), with his space colleagues Russell Schweickart (Apollo 9), J-F Clervoy, Umberto Guidoni, came to our rescue in 2005, on our fourth campaign, Against Terror, For Common Sense (« Because we are all human beings »).  We definitely had come to the conclusion that we needed a global view from above, to distanciate ourselves from exclusive, partisan sides. That will be another story.

 

Back to our beginning, we, who had nothing, borrowed combis from second-hand car dealers, obtained food from generous directors in malls, gas-oil from oil field prospectors… The support we needed on a « moral » ground, we fast received from none others than Coretta Scott King (Martin Luther King’s widow), Mother Teresa, the Dalai Lama, Reverend Tutu, Pdts Gorbachev and de Klerk, Arafat, PM Rabin…

Such commanding voices were heard through the battlefields. It worked. The Sarajevo-Zenica Call was aired on the radios, on tv in Bosnia, and through the world.

« ENOUGH ! Enough blood ! Enough speeches ! Enough alibis ! »

As for the young man crouching with his hand on a friendly wild roe, he is our new Thoreau, and has lived seven years in the woods. His name is Geoffroy Delorme, and he has been lecturing to teenagers and adults about saving our environment. Looking at it from the moon, you’d say he is one of the best guardians actually fighting for peace through the true riches, preserving what is left around us.

 

PEACE LINES MESSAGERIES DE LA PAIX www.peacelines.org peacelines@gmail.com

 

Newsletter n°117

July 2023

 

« … the task of diagnosis. To identify, through some sensitive traces, what is happening. To detect the event raging inside of rumours that we cannot hear anymore, inured as we’ve become. To state what there is to be seen in the things we see every day. To shed light, suddenly, upon this grey hour which has befallen us. »  

                                                                 Michel Foucault, Le discours philosophique  (2023)

 

Who will tell the price they pay ?

Speaking of the nameless babushka, in the night of June 5 to June 6, 2023, when she heard the terrifying sound of the flood rushing down from the collapsed dam, and found the dirty water rising above her knees. Who cares that she is « West Ukrainian », « East Ukrainian », or « Russian » ? All that we know is that she was left stranded, likely a widow, with her two terrorized dogs, in a devastated home that she had to leave.

« I cannot forget war. I would like to. I sometimes spend two or three days without thinking about it and all of a sudden, I see it again , I feel it, I am exposed to it again. And I am afraid. »  Jean Giono, Refus d’obéissance   (1937)

I cannot forget the babushka on the wrong side of the dam.

I cannot forget Mary McHugh, lying on John Regan’s grave, in Arlington, Virginia. John was her cherished fiancé. He lost his life in Iraq, in May 2007, from the explosion of a homemade bomb, set by local insurgents against the invasion of American troops. One of the 4,614 who came back home from Iraq in a flagged coffin. Or take a broader view : one of the 655,000 victims of this American war « for freedom » (from 2003 to 2006 ; Lancet survey).

What did John Regan die for ?

The motive was possession by Iraq of Weapons of Mass Destruction that posed a threat to the US and other nations. Weapons that could never be found. Did they die for a lie ?

32,292 Americans were flown back wounded and maimed, that nobody cares about, except the forsaken mothers and wives. The Philadelphia Weekly ran six pages on that in January 2007. THE PRICE THEY PAY Countless Iraqis maimed.

 

How dare we forget ? How dare we look the other way ?

 

I am not afraid like Jean Giono wrote he was. I have worked in war zones in Bosnia, in Kosovo, in Algeria, in Palestine, in Israel. It is not fear that I feel facing the prospects of more wars. It is rage and disgust. Rage at those who send younger men to death and murder. Disgust at those who choose to close their ears and mind. Have they lost every notion of humanity, of belonging to an endangered species, our species ?

How truly happy we could be in this here world, if we could sort of identify the germ of murder and destruction, and spread some vaccine against it.

DEATH OF TERROR MASTERMIND

June 10, 2023

The main problem we have is with memory. Memory in time. Memory going back twenty, thirty, fifty years, and beyond, seventy to a hundred years, providing context. This is the tool we need to delve into the structures, substructures of the dams that may be targeted next.

The dams of understanding and rationality, common sense and coexistence.

Meaning, a quiet daily system of activities as we normally enjoy it, whether in Davos, Belfast, Gaza, Dakar or Montelimar, holds thanks to dams of logics and mutual interest, that protect the fabric of society as a whole. Beyond these invisible dams lay the vast reservoirs of human potential for boundless powers. The powers that be, the hidden powers of togetherness or destruction.

Take it from an expert in global analysis and predictions, Yuval Noah Harari, Artificial Intelligence already has hacked the fabric, the operating system of our civilization.

https://www.ynetnews.com/article/bkszgnrvn

Leave this to further investigation. The point now is the deadly virus that  thrives within the human minds to transform pretty ordinary folks into war criminals, serial killers, terrorists.

Regarding mass murder through warfare, it is altogether obvious that « everything counts in large amounts » as the lyrics go. At which stage, all you have to do is check into the stats of the Arms Industry worldwide, again, and find the US and France positioned as N°1 and 2, with Russia lagging behind. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arms_industry Including the list of the major weapon manufacturers.

It may be more interesting, on another level, to look into the making of one particular serial killer. Taking the case of Ted K., who passed from cancer/suicide in an American jail, on June 10, 2023, at the age of 81, after 27 years in prison.

He was sentenced to eight life sentences without parole, for killing three and wounding 23 (professors, computer store owners mostly). A mathematics prodigy in his early twenties, the man had become an assistant professor at U.C.L.A . Berkeley at the age of 26, before he resigned in 1969 and went out to live in a shack in the woods, in Montana, from 1971 until his arrest in 1996. Without electricity or running water. The man had a vision, and is best known for his Manifesto, Industrial  Revolution and its Future, partly based on Ellul’s works.

As you can see, when you read his stance and lines, the man makes quite a few points about land and the survival of the human species in a friendly environment. So why did the FBI have to spend 50 million dollars in its longest quest (17 years), delegate 130 to 150 agents to his capture,  with a million-dollar reward for any information leading to him ?

Simply because of the means he used to « make a change ». Killing and maiming.

Admittedly, he was a very small level Handwerker, artisan, managing to hurt twenty people and kill three « only » with sixteen bombs in all his wild years. Reminding us of how ineffective the operators of Islamic Jihad have been lately, in Gaza, launching some 150 rockets, and only able to target an old woman to death, and a Palestinian worker.

Not discussing the rationale here, behind the acts, all the Whys. The line is loud and clear. As long as you disregard reverence for life, Ehrfurcht vor dem Leben, there is no difference between the large-scale industrial killer and the small scale one. Let Inga Avramyan remind us.

 

Making it pretty hard to grasp how on Earth the Tehran Islamic Jihad-backing régime could ever « congratulate » their protégés over their « historic triumph », « firing over 1,000 rockets » – in which process  33 Palestinians were killed and 150 wounded.

 

« Lies and deception, and in the end you lose. It’s always the same.» (J.J. Burnel)

Not entering into rhetorics and winding recesses of theology, but doesn’t the Quran say that « Whoever kills an innocent person it is as if he has killed all of humankind. »  Surah 5, 32.

Actually, the translation « innocent » is quite questionable, since the real wording for « innocent » is something like « someone who has not committed murder or done mischief in the land ». Mischief in the land leaving much room to interpretation for the hangmen.

The surface case made here against small scale operators being their pathetic lack of success in their endeavours, we may recall another bomber, by the name of Timothy McV, who was much more effective, in

Oklahoma City, five days after Ted K.’s last bomb (which managed to take Gilbert Brent Murray’s life – Gilbert Murray, president of California Forestry Association). In Oklahoma the toll was of 168 killed and 680 wounded, on April 19, 1995. A brilliant recruit of the Infantry corps at the age of twenty, Sergeant McV was known as a top-scoring gunner, became an expert in firearms and explosives, and then he was sent to Iraq for « Operation Desert Storm » in early 1991 (estimated toll of 40,000 killed among Iraqis & Kuwaitis, 75,000 wounded in action ; 113 US troops were K.I.A.)

 

Sergeant McV was greeted as a hero once back home, rewarded for his gunning scores of 998/1000 and 1000/1000 and actions in Iraq with six medals.

The Big Red One    The Combat Infantryman Badge 

The Bronze Star    The Commendation Medal 

The National Defense Service Medal    The Achievement Medal 

On April 19, 1995, he packed a rented truck with over three tons of explosives and parked it before a Federal building at 9 a.m. Arrested shortly afterwards, he was strapped to a death bed in an Indiana prison, on June 11, 2001, and injected with pentobarbital, pancuronium bromide, and potassium chloride.

Like Ted K. Timothy McV left his weltangschauung in writing, published by Media Bypass.

https://web.archive.org/web/19990429110745/http://www.4bypass.com/stories/mcveigh.html

A short 956-word text, it is titled An Essay on Hypocrisy.

Here is part of the Iraq hero’s testimony, his rationale :

« When a U.S. plane or cruise missile is used to bring destruction to a foreign people, this nation rewards the bombers with applause and praise.

[…] The truth is, the use of a truck, a plane, or a missile for the delivery of a weapon of mass destruction does not alter the nature of the act itself.

These are weapons of mass destruction – and the method of delivery matters little to those on the receiving end of such weapons. 

Whether you wish to admit it or not, when you approve, morally, of the bombing of foreign targets by the U.S. military, you are approving of acts morally equivalent to the bombing in Oklahoma City.»

From the Whys and the rationales – with a clear realization that there is no difference in nature between jet bomber pilots and wanton terrorists, only a difference in degree – to the Hows, we’re back to the bottom line : there are no two ways about reverence for life.

Either you stand for it whole-heartedly and make sense in all your acts and involvements, or you don’t, and then it is one long and winding highway to the bloody destruction of dozens or hundreds, thousands, depending only on how high you rank in a hierarchy of murder, inc. (be it national, religious, commercial, or private). As for the concept of reverence for life, Ehrfurcht vor dem Leben, it came to Albert Schweitzer, during a boat trip on the Ogooué river in Gabon.

 

« Ethics is nothing other than Reverence for Life. Reverence for Life affords me my fundamental principle of morality, namely, that good consists in maintaining, assisting and enhancing life, and to destroy, to harm or to hinder life is evil. »         Civilization and Ethics

 

END OF JUNE 2023… FUBAR…

Look at them. Elisha, 17. Nachman, 17. Ofer, 60. Harel, 21. Mohand, 25.

Something’s dead wrong there. They’re all dead now. It happened at a service station, in Eli, half way between Ramallah and Nablus. On an ordinary morning of June 2023. Just any old day in Samaria, Palestine. They were all happy, good-looking human beings, weren’t they. The kind you would relate to, without a doubt or defiance. Good eyes, the five of them.

But then the man on the far right came with a gun and sprayed the others with bullets, until he himself was cut down, by a guard, whom he wounded before dying.

Pogroms, random killings, riots.

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/why-these-pogroms-continue/?

FUBAR. Fouled Up Beyond All Repair, I call it. Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition.

And then you have France, where seven hundred police, i.e. peacekeepers, were wounded in five days of urban rioting, and some five thousand vehicles were burnt down, five hundred police stations and banks attacked, destroyed.

The speeches of justification are many, in both cases. Revenge being the key word. You even get an old man in a white beard and black turban, an ayatollah, from Tehran, who admonishes the French authorities for their « violence » – but then in his homeland, they hang people for being « gay » or « deviant », don’t they.

 

In the name of « response », of « goals [to be] achieved in freedom and independence », what we find before our eyes is chaos, death and destruction, the maiming of human bodies and minds. Always more retaliation. Enough with speeches and morals now. We only need to cut through it, to the core of the action, the gesture itself.

It is an easy thing to throw stones, molotov cocktails, fireworks.

It is an easy thing to hit and run, shriek and call for mayhem.

It doesn’t take much brains to pull a trigger, does it.

 

Be it in Strasbourg, one of the two capitals of the European Union, or in Turmus Aya, a couple of miles from Eli in the West Bank, the rationale behind burning and looting has to be questioned. Is this what we were born for ?

Speeches and rhetorics are all « very fine » in their short-lived while, but they get sickening so fast. It takes an American general in service, by the name of Milley, to break the news, put it as it is.

"War on paper and real war are different. In real war, real people die. Real people are on those front lines and real people are in those vehicles. Real bodies are being shredded by high explosives."

He was relating to the war in Ukraine, warning, « It’s going to be very, very bloody. And no one should have any illusions about any of that. » When a US chief of staff speaks his truth, we had better listen. After Viet-Nam, Iraq, and Syria, they know what they talk about.

Leaving us all, whether we live in Gaza, Eli, Nablus, Strasbourg, or Bakhmut, Kherson, with the red thread choice of where we do stand, each of us. What kind of motion, of acts, of attitude, we want to take daily, live up to, deep down.

At the end of the fiery day, it is never a matter of morals, of good and evil, really.

More a divide between beauty and ugliness. Between harmony and foulness.

Admittedly, flames and fire may be exciting, especially in the mind of a young male in his early teens. The result, though, is ashes and blackness, the foulest smells. Likewise with the destruction of a human body. From a distance, for a sharpshooter, it may look simple and clear, as Prince Harry put it in his autobiography, almost boasting of his death count as a chopper gunner in Afghanistan. From up close, though, for the nurse, the doctor, it is a cause of added high-level stress and concern, the deepest disgust.

When General Milley speaks of « real bodies being shredded » he is as close to the truth as can be. Born in 1958 and close to retirement, I guess this is his final statement before resigning.

The trouble with any kind of violence is that it triggers counter-violence in predictably growing proportions.

The trouble with all forms of terror and attacks on physical integrity is that they not only backfire, but they aggravate the general condition of humankind.

There is a lot of talk about the German-made Leopard tanks they are selling to the Kiev régime these days. Such a vehicle runs with 340 liters of fuel for 100 km. How about that for CO2 taxes ? The Germans have built 3,600 of them. How do the Green partisans fare with that ?

At the end of this atrociously bloody day, Sergeant McV was right, in his Essay on Hipocrisy, the use of a weapon [be it of random mass destruction or of limited scope] does not alter the nature of the act itself.

The question lingers on, how do you cross the line, into a serial killer’s mind.

Either submission, or the masculine urge to emulate Spartan heroes. To become one.

Unaware that the hero syndrome is way over-rated. As the blues songs go, What was it you wanted ? Tell me, great hero, but please make it brief, Is there a hole for me to get sick in ?

Where you see an opportunity for glory and the picture of the heroic deed, I see only the aftermath of the act. The overflowing pain and misery. The women’s tears, and the horror that will remain. I see the mother, stranded in the smoky night, holding her little daughter’s hand against her ribs, dragging the boy’s arm, and hurrying to some dubious haven, the way Inga Avramyan was pushing her handicapped husband’s wheelchair towards a shelter, when the missile struck. This is all I see, for this is all there is to be seen, when all is said and done.