Dear Editor,
As members of the human family we must be concerned with events in the Middle East, particularly the Israeli Palestinian conflict
The Editorial in Friday’s Stabroek News and Statement by my friend Clement Rohee are all interesting but I believe the intractable problem resides in the religious history and beliefs of that region exacerbated by radical leadership over several generations.
Some two odd decades ago, I was part of a group who visited Israel which included Rev. Ron McGarrel and Dr. Thomas Walsh. Even as barricades were being constructed we met with the leadership of both sides to deliver a message favoring peace as against warfare.
The Israeli authorities were suspicious of our motives but we persuaded them and ultimately they gave permission for a rally and meeting at which we tried to send a message of love pointing out mankind’s innate quest and belief that there is only one God. That one God, however, led us down many roads we call religion; pathways to Apostasy, Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Shinto and Taoism.
A few seemed impressed where as we moved around in buses and spoke with citizens, there was a deep distrust for the other people with beliefs that seemed inflexible and unchanging.
We visited Bethlehem at the site where Mary gave birth to Jesus the Christ but as we disembarked to visit a site in Jerusalem, an American delegate did not disembark because she was wearing a cross on her chain around her neck and knew that that cross would have upset our host and since she did not want to conceal the cross she was wearing, remained on the bus.
Today I write dear Editor because fifty years ago, in spite of international intervention the Middle East remains the staging post for conflict, unhappily supported by the superpowers who instead of manufacturing implements to produce more food, produce implements to destroy property and kill fellow human beings.
Today marks the 50th anniversary of these events of
– Syria, Israel launches counterattack
– Israeli troops push six miles across Syria border
– US supplying Israel to offset Soviet arms to Arabs
– The heaviest fighting since 1967 erupted in the Middle East and
– US put military on world alert in Mideast conflict
You see dear Editor, what is happening in the Middle East and even our Guyana defies logic so long as you have leaders devoid of reasons, devoid of love and lacking any sense of justice. Leaders are convinced that they are always right, they can never be wrong and the other side is always wrong and could never be right.
Dear Citizens, dear Editor, at another time we can discuss the critical question of identity. During our visit to Israel, we met a group of black and brown folks who claimed that their forebearers migrated from Africa and North America to Israel and that they are authentic Jews.
May I add this irony, the world sympathizes with the Jews for the holocaust committed by the Germans in the 1940s but today a Jewish State is inflicting brutality on the other people seemingly forgetful of their own suffering just three odd generations ago.
Wednesday at the end of African Holocaust (Maafa) Day celebrations at the Georgetown Seawalls Bandstand, we observed the greatest holocaust, which lasted for centuries severing the roots of slaves and robbing them of what I describe of an authentic identity.
I reminded a group of concerned youngsters who spoke with me after the event that we must learn all of our history to avoid the mistakes of our ancestors and therefore prepare us for a better life today and tomorrow.
Let us persuade all and sundry to live the sentiments expressed in the song written by Jill Jackson Miller and Sy Miller “Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me.”
Yours truly,
Hamilton Green
Elder
