A short and succinct letter to the editor in today’s Sydney Morning Herald from Zaid Khan puts things into perspective:

Nearly 70 years ago, in a small eastern European city, an oppressed and occupied people were under siege, living under atrocious and brutal conditions, lacking food, medicine, electricity, water, and slowly being strangled in the hope they would just disappear.

Warsaw Ghetto 1941 - Gaza 2008. Israel, you are a disgrace.

Zaid Khan

What is to be done? Chances are that if you reading this, you already have a good grasp of what is happening. Also avail yourself to first hand accounts from residents in Gaza, such as Tabula Gaza, Raising Yousef–A Mother From Gaza and Dr Mona El Farra’s blog. Spread the word and discuss it with people who may not even know all this is happening or who may uncritically accept the Israeli neocon worldview propagated in some of the major media outlets. Israel is committing slow genocide and ethnic cleansing. A simple yet powerful letter like the one above can ricochet around the world.

Here are some other ways you can help: Read the rest of this entry »

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL)
Whose Mission is it fulfilling?

Franklin Lamb
UN Headquarters
Naquora, Lebanon
peoplesgeography.com

Ever since one of this student’s favorite Professors, Dr. Ruth Widmeyer, an accomplished and rare beauty still, who was the first woman to receive a PhD in Soviet Studies from Harvard nearly a half century ago, announced to our Political Science class at Portland State University that our class would be representing France at the Model United Nations Session in San Diego, Lamb was smitten: both with Professor Widmeyer and with the United Nations.

Straight out of high school, rarely having taken a step out of Clackamas County, Oregon, and never having been on an airplane or stayed in a hotel, the prospect of traveling more than 1,300 miles south to compete against the likes of Stanford and UCLA was exciting. Especially for a hayseed (city kids called us hicks in those days) whose main life achievements were a record-demolishing 6 years of perfect attendance at St. John’s Episcopal Church Sunday school and another record (at that time) at Milwaukie Union High School for a basketball free throw percentage of 89%. (I will never understand why Shaquille O’Neal can’t do better than he does at the foul line! Shaq! Habibee! Wear a blindfold for goodness sake and your percentage will surely improve!)

Responding to Professor Widmeyer’s Germanic discipline, our delegation took our work seriously. Between trips to the San Diego Zoo, the swimming pool at our El Cortez Hotel, and side trips to San Diego’s nearby sister city, Tijuana, Mexico, “to buy fresh street made Tacos”, PSU prevailed and we won the award for outstanding Model UN Delegation that year.

When we returned to Campus some of us were surprised by the reaction of the Dean of Students who graciously invited us to his office. We thought perhaps some sort of accolade might be waiting for us but all the Dean cared about was the fact that three of our delegation returned to Portland from the Model UN Session and Tijuana with gonorrhea! Read the rest of this entry »

Swedish diplomat, international human rights lawyer, weapons inspector and disarmament campaigner Dr Hans Blix is the 2007 recipient of the Sydney Peace Prize. He delivered the Sydney Peace Prize lecture this evening, Sydney time. You can also listen to the lecture’s podcast:

[audio http://www.spf.arts.usyd.edu.au/sound/Blix-sydney-peace-prize.mp3]

Read his UN biography here. Read previous Sydney Peace Prize addresses posted at Reclaiming Space: 2003 — Dr Hanan Ashrawi; 2004 — Arundhati Roy; 2005 — Olara Otunnu; 2006 — Irene Khan. The following address is also available as a .pdf here (opens in a new window; 13pp)

The Globalization of Peace, by Dr Hans Blix

7 November 2007 | Sydney Town Hall

It is a great honour to be awarded the Sydney Peace Prize and to be invited to lecture.

The subject of this lecture is globalization of peace. I shall tell you from the outset what my main messages are.

First, I believe that long term the interdependence of nations that has already led to peace in a growing number of areas in the world, will lead to a globalization of peace, to a continued growth of international law and of common global institutions.

Second, we must wake up to the troublesome current reality of new great power tensions, and incipient arms races. We must revive disarmament and further develop the multilateral system of co-operation, including the United Nations.

Third, there are short, medium and long term threats both to life and peace if we do not husband the use of the earth’s resources, restrain our use of fossil fuels and restrain the growth of the human population. Read the rest of this entry »