[PAA-Discuss] Anna Baltzer's Report

[BART BOYCE]

dear PAA'ers ...
   in case you missed Anna Baltzer's journal on the other sites ..
        here it is .....

Sophie's Choice  
  Posted by: "travelinganna" anna.baltzer at gmail.com   travelinganna  
  Sat Jan 24, 2009 2:08 pm (PST)  
  
  I am sitting in an internet cafe in
 Beirut trying to concentrate, but

  I just can't. There are hundreds of heartbreaking emails to read

  through, each one worse than the last. The carnage did not stop with

  the so-called "ceasefire" (I use quotations because the slow
  massacre

  of starving an entire population of basic human necessities --

  sufficient food, water, medical supplies, heat -- continues). Everyday

  on television we watch new bodies being dug out of the rubble. And now

  that a few international reporters and humanitarian workers have been

  allowed into Gaza ,
  we hear more of the

  stories that had previously been left untold. 

  

  I received the following letter written by my friend Barbara Lubin, a

  Jewish American woman who founded the Middle East Children's
 Alliance ,

  a great organization to contribute to if you can

  (www.mecaforpeace. org). Her account turned my stomach:

  

  ------------ --------- --------- -

  

  January 23, 2009

  Dear Aamir,

  I entered the Gaza Strip on Wednesday night with my friend and fellow

  activist Sharon Wallace after waiting ten hours at the Egypt/Gaza

  border. The destruction and trauma is even greater than I expected.

  ...

  Out of all the devastation I have seen so far, there is one story in

  particular that I think the world needs to hear. I met a mother who

  was at home with her ten children when Israeli soldiers entered the

  house. The soldiers told her she had to choose five of her children to

  "give as a gift to Israel ."
  As she screamed in horror they repeated

  the demand and told her she could choose or they would choose for her.

  Then these soldiers murdered five of her children in front of her. The

  concept of "Jewish morality" is truly dead. We can be fascists,

  terrorists, and Nazis just like everybody else.

  ...

  In Zaytoun, I saw families gathering wood from charred trees. The

  almost two-year blockade of Gaza 
  has deprived people cooking gas, so

  these terrified families build fires to keep warm and cook the little

  food they can get. I talked to people on the street who told stories

  of wild dogs coming to eat their dead neighbors, relatives bleeding to

  death because Israel 
  would not allow emergency workers into the area,

  and Israeli soldiers entering homes to beat and kill.

  

  But despite the immense mourning and devastation, people are starting

  to put their lives back together. Sabreen, a young woman from Rafah,

  told me, "We are a strong people. No matter how many times
 Israel

  bombs us we are not leaving. We will keep trying to live as normal a

  life as possible."

  

  Sincerely,

  

  Barbara Lubin

 Gaza City ,
  Gaza , Palestine 
  

  

  ------------ --------- --------- -

  

  I was invited for dinner tonight by the president of a theological

  school here in Beirut ,
  who offered me a place to stay. She didn't seem

  to want to talk about politics, but when I showed her my book she

  looked at me and said "As a person of the scriptures, I was convinced

  that the Jewish state must have some ethical grounding, for all its

  faults... Until 2006. Until that summer when
 Israel bombed everything

  in sight, and dropped 1,200,000 cluster bombs (authorized by

  Condoleezza Rice) after -- AFTER! -- the ceasefire agreement. Just

  yesterday a young man's leg was blown off by one of them, one of

  millions that remain. And after watching the massacres in
 Gaza , I have

  no more faith in the morality I so closely tied with Judaism."

  

  I came to Syria and
 Lebanon 
  worried that anyone I told I was Jewish

  would be resentful, or even violent. But each person I tell seems

  almost relieved to meet a Jewish person opposed to what
 Israel is

  doing, wanting to revive their hope that Jews, Muslims, and Christians

  can coexist. The problem is not that people here hate Jews; the

  problem is the army of fighter jets bearing Jewish stars, claiming it

  represents Judaism, repeatedly devastating children, families, an

  entire nation, decade after decade, while most Jews (and others) in

  the world let it happen without a peep. The problem is that I myself

  am starting to wonder what it even means to be Jewish if the morality

  and memory ("Never again") that tied me to it is now gone. 

  

  Something has happened since my last trip less than two years ago. In

  the West Bank last month, formerly active
  friends told me to go home,

  get a new job, start a family, forget about
 Palestine because there's

  no hope. People seemed so tired, at the end of their rope, and this

  was before the Gaza 
  bombing started. People in Gaza 
  were at the end of

  their rope 18 months before, when their most basic needs were cut off

  and they were encaged, left to waste away and fight amongst

  themselves. How much can a person take? 

  

  I do not have the resilience to even bear one more month here. I am so

  drained, so pained, and of course I have the luxury of being able to

  buy a ticket and leave whenever I want. It's fitting that
 Beirut will

  be one of my last stops. Here a city, devastated by war after war,

  continues to rebuild itself, like the rest of Lebanon 
  and like Gaza .

 Beirut 
  nightlife buzzes around me as I write, and I have to believe

  that if the millions of Lebanese and Palestinian people repeatedly

  traumatized in this war-torn land have pulled themselves together to

  rebuild and look to a better future, then I'll manage to as well. 

  

  In solidarity with those who have lost their homes and families,

  

  Anna Baltzer

 Beirut ,
 Lebanon 
  
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