New Catholic Times

I have recently sent this letter to the local Kitchener newspaper. I don't know if they will accept to publish it. My mind is swirling around as I view the situation in Israel and the Gaza strip. I have this image coming back to me of the Warsaw Ghetto and millions of people through no fault of their own who were herded into this small enclave in order to control them and ultimately annihilate them. Would we say the freedom fighters of Warsaw were terrorists? The Jews of Warsaw had been there for centuries and this was their home. I find it difficult to watch what is happening in Gaza and the West Bank and not feel for the Palestinians. Much as the Jews of Warsaw who were confronted by the juggernaut of Nazism, the Palestinians haven’t a snowball’s chance of overturning the Israeli government and its policies. If the Polish Jews of World War II had had the chance to discuss their plight with the Nazis as to a solution, what would they have said? It would certainly have been, “Let us be and have our way of life. We are Poles and this is our country.” Such was not the case. It was another empire which chased the Jews out of Palestine in 66-70 C.E., another empire and strong voices from post World War I that divided up the Ottoman empire, Palestine being part of it. It is such a convoluted problem that simply will not go away by pushing the Palestinians out of their original country into the Mediterranean. Having read “Blood Brothers” by Elias Chacour, I got a glimpse of what was happening and had happened in Israel since 1948 and previous to that. Having heard him speak and seeing what he has tried to do, I see his non-violent approach to peace the way to go. The resolution of the stalemate in Gaza and Israel will not be achieved by putting all the Palestinians in that miserable little piece of land called Gaza or building a Warsaw-wall around the West Bank. Can the hatred of the Israelis and Palestinians ever be appeased? Israel and Palestine need leaders who see solutions outside of arms. Everyone knows who will win the war of arms in this conflict but it will not solve the situation. My ideal solution would be an Israeli leader who has married a Palestinian and a Palestinian leader who has married an Israeli and those two would lead these two nations to peaceful coexistence by showing that these two nations are people before they are governments, owners of territory or followers of a specific religion. Ah, could such a thing ever happen?

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