Guns in the Housing Projects?

While we were graduate students we and a few other students were invited to live in the General Grant Housing Project on 125th in lower West Harlem. The aim was to initiate some desegregation there where virtually all residents were either African American or Latino/a. It worked well for us and our neighbors for a few years until ended off by protests that we were being given special admission advantages.

While we were there we became active in correcting some of the failings in the system such as no weekend elevator repairs which was disastrous when both went out in a 21 story building. Another major problem was crime or at least the use of our stairwells by outsiders to deal or use drugs. Again we were able to get locks put on our entrances which kept out these strangers. Now the project has an effective community leadership. But one cannot help but worry about the prospects of guns in projects. Some residents have relatives with criminal records and I would hate to imagine the anxiety that would be caused by the prospect that some mean character who entered one's elevator was also armed.

We had a murder committed near the project by teens who lived there -- but with knives, not guns. It is teens who are fascinated with weapons and who are most likely to use guns to rob and kill. They are always the most dangerous perps because they are likely to panic and lash out. All of our family's personal encounters with crime have been with such kids -- but they were not armed with guns.

I cannot imagine how the Supreme Court could have opened this door which will endanger not only residents but also those who protect them from crimes -- police, security guards, etc. How stupid can this court get. When I began teaching philosophy of law we had a Supreme Court of which we could be proud. Those of us in legal fields have watched the decline with a string of politicized appointments from the right who seem to operate according to some sick ideology rather that the grand tradition of the rule of law.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
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http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Guns as an Individual Right?

The week after Texas authorized concealed weapons a few years ago, an old dude pulled out his handgun and blew away a Philippino American during the course of a fender bender argument. No charges filed.

Adlai Stevenson, Democratic presidential candidate, blew away a childhood playmate while playing with a gun.

The last stats that I saw on deaths by guns in America was a total of around 30,000 with half of those either suicides or family killings or accidental deaths in the home. One has to stretch far for a self-defense use of guns in the home. One such happening that was telling was the killing by a wife of an husband with whom she had been battling for some time. Her story -- "We heard a noise outside and he handed me his handgun and told me to shoot anyone suspicious while he went out to investigate." She did -- it was her husband. Classified as accidental death. One need only use one's imagination to figure variations on such where the only witness is the one who did the shooting.

The bottom line here is that the Supreme Court has put all of us who live in major cities and elsewhere at needless risk by translating an ancient amendment framed to protect new Americans should the British return to attack -- not to license frontier justice. The justices who voted this should be ashamed of themselves. I can't believe that they are not aware of the facts above or that this was not just another right wing in your face decision. What next?

Needless to say civilized demoracies do not allow private rights to guns and the murder rates in such as the European countries are a small fraction of those in the U.S. They see this move as just another American barbarity -- which it is.

And think of the additional risks to our law enforcement agencies!

............................

Lock and Load

The Supreme Court’s ruling on gun rights is a decision that will cause immeasurable pain and suffering and turn America into a more dangerous country.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/27/opinion/27fri1.html?ref=opinion
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
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Communism Was Never a Monolithic System -- Nor Is Islam!

One of the most useful lessons I learned resulted from my high school history teachers allowing me in successive years back in the early 1950s to do studies respectively of Stalin and Mao. There was not much written in book or journalistic sources then, but I drew upon the Encyclopedia Britannica materials that could be ordered by mail and found much useful information. Possibly the most important things were that Soviet and Chinese Communism were both brutal towards individuals. Such is enough to turn any advocate off institutional communism which tends to go the way of all totalitarian regimes with gross corruption by those in control and cruel abuse of those who try to resist.

However, maybe even more important was the fact that no two communist states were working in synch with each other and particularly the Soviets and Chinese despised each other. Mao had set out to establish an agricultural base for his regime which meant a brutal battle against industrial communists in China which he won. And the differences between regimes were manifest in the histories of attempts prior to communism of major states to dominate and incorporate lesser ones around their borders, The Vietnamese, thus, would ally themselves with the Soviets to stave off traditional Chinese expansionist impulses against their neighbors and the Soviets would never be able to establish a stable empire in the face of the resistance of dominated lesser peoples. Tito in fact managed to keep Yugoslavia free of direct Soviet controls. We saw the failed attempt of Hungary's 1956 rebellion, etc.

Had our political leaders seen these realities, they never would have come up with the rationale for going to war with Vietnam on the false assumption that as Vietnam went, so would go all of South East Asia. In effect we fought a pointless and destructive war there for no good reason. The Soviets were protecting North Vietnam from the Chinese and the Chinese simply were giving their warning along the same lines as in the Korean war -- keep your troops away from our borders or we will counter attack.

I am going on at length here because I think the Bush administration neocons have been applying the same stupidly erroneous thinking to the Middle East and they have really blown it. Obviously there is no single monolithic Muslim super state there nor will there ever be one. They have launched yet another war against a ghost enemy which exists only in their narrow propaganda ridden mentalities. The damage being done both to people and the world economy is yet to be fully calculated. If only these guys had had good teachers in high school who had let them learn on their own before they had been brain washed by a superficial culture.

Hopefully an Obama administration will recognize the differences and negotiate accordingly. McCain could only be more of the same. He is still fighting the war in Vietnam.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
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Is Columbia Ready for Our Recession/Depression?

CAUGHT OFF GUARD -- BUT WHY?
Economic downturns are part of a painful and predictable
reality for universities, but -- perhaps purposely -- few have
long term strategic plans to deal with budget cuts.
http://insidehighered.com/news/2008/06/24/statecuts

..............................

None but the most optimistic of stock brokers (paid to buy or sell regardless) are not deeply worried about the state of the economy -- U.S. and also global. The stock markets have been dropping rather precariously this month and the job picture -- particularly for college grads trying to get launched -- is grim.

Where in this picture does Columbia stand? Yale and Harvard have been putting great efforts into planning for their undergrads -- now tuition blind admissions for them allow the choice of the best, regardless of family incomes. It can make a vast difference for students, particularly when families are being hit by economic hardships induced by health, death, job emergencies.

Is Columbia revising its plans in light of the obvious? To date it has been laying out astounding funds for administrative salaries and perks. I don't know where its faculty are in this picture, but they presumably will be feeling the pinch with inflation and increased living costs. One has to wonder how Columbia is going to manage its ambitious expansion plans into Manhattanville? It has sunk considerable monies there with high expectations for fund raising and NY State loans. But will both of these sources be able to meet this high risk project's demands? NY State, itself, is not in the best of shape -- one of the states with the largest debt pictures and its own public universities to maintain. My department of philosophy at Brooklyn College alone was matching Columbia's students with awards of prestigious grants and fellowships -- quite a bargain for the expenditures for a college education which increasing numbers were taking on with our special CUNY honors programs designed for gifted students.

The bottom line here -- will Columbia be driven into even higher tuitions for undergrads to keep its heat and light bills paid. I would hate to be a parent of a Columbia student with such possible prospects entering the picture during the grim financial years to come.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
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http://www.bloggernews.net

Then It Was the Axis -- Now Us!

[Those of us who were children during WW2 were horrified by the terror, torture, and murders of civilians being carried out by Germany and Japan and to a lesser extent by Italy prior to and during the war -- which for us lasted only 4 years. My great regret back then was that the war ended too soon for me to join in and only long after did we begin to take seriously our own atrocities committed at Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki -- and Tokyo also where fire bombings killed more that the two nuclear attacks.

It is hard to believe the reportage below in which it becomes evident that U.S. lawyers and political officials played games around instituting the same horrors that millions had died to end off for all time back then when decent human standards were supposed to be operating in at least some parts of the democratic portion of the world. This is not to say that there were not covert operations running against undeveloped peoples here, there, and elsewhere. The rebellion against the U.S. in Latin America and against the European and U.S. corporations in the Middle East are well understandable in terms of the historic atrocities we committed against government struggling to become democratic in both these regions -- Chile's and Iran's which we brutally sabotaged in order to maintain our controls over same:

Chile - Allende ---> Pinochet

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_Allende

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augusto_Pinochet

Mossadegh ---> Shah

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammed_Mossadegh

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Reza_Pahlavi

As they say, those who do not know history are condemned to repeat it!

Ed Kent]

Notes Show Confusion on Interrogation Methods
By MARK MAZZETTI and SCOTT SHANE
The minutes of an October 2002 meeting give an
extraordinary glimpse of the confusion among government
lawyers about both the legal limits and the effectiveness
of interrogation methods.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/18/washington/18detain.html?th&emc=th
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
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http://www.bloggernews.net

Sabotaging American Public Education

[I started teaching in the nearest private college where I could function as a full time faculty member while I finished my dissertation under Ernest Nagel at Columbia (our chairman at that time advised against taking a part-time job at Columbia as exploitation and not worth the time and effort put in). I had already become intrigued with the City University of NY where I had been frustrated in attempts to gain entrance for Harlem kids who I was able to recommend to Yale which was beginning to open its doors to minorities.

When I decided to make the jump back to a CUNY college, Nagel, Columbia's highly respected University Professor, warned that he had seen too many good people enter CUNY teaching only to be ground down by low salaries and heavy teaching loads. But I was fortunate in that precisely at that time CUNY was being widely expanded with good salaries and reasonable teaching loads. One was spared part-time teaching and could enter tenure track positions which I did. I was extremely fortunate in that I was able to do the teaching that I desired in a context that was adequately supported by public funding. Tuition was free then.

Unhappily as my career was winding down, the public funding for us was being reduced and the powers that ran things had discovered that they could get the teaching done cheaply with well qualified part-timers -- we had generally used these only for specialized courses that we wanted our students to experience with part-timers called in at the last minute to take on extra courses that we had had to open to meet heavy demand in our introductory courses. The new wave of part timers generally had to teach at several places and cut corners in their teaching, e.g. few written assignments requiring student research.

So the sad thing was that during the last decade or so our pay scales have been dropping, delayed with pitifully grudging rewards for faculty. Had I not had a TIAA pension growing during the years of prosperity, I would have faced a hard put retirement.

Now the fine faculty that we all worked to be our takeover department are being hard pressed beyond fair limits. Our union struggles even to get a contract in place as the note below indicates. And we are not alone. Higher education in America generally is being sabotaged at precisely the time when our nation is losing its competitive edge with the rest of the world. Our NYC mayor is typical of things -- a cheap X with funding public education at any level while himself a multiple billionaire. He makes Giuliani, a public horror, look like a pussy cat when one looks past his words to his deeds.

And so the U.S. goes down the tubes.

Ed Kent]

............................

June 16, 2008 [PSC, CUNY teachers' union report]

Bargaining Talks Intensify

Talks have intensified in the last week as negotiators from the PSC and CUNY continued to meet almost daily. PSC members, meanwhile, worked to keep the pressure on and to drive home the importance of a crucial set of gains in this round of bargaining. The PSC is seeking to make progress toward more competitive salaries and to introduce other enhancements that would begin to put conditions at CUNY on par with those at other comparable universities. Meanwhile, the union continues to hold strong against concessionary demands made by management. As part of the union's campaign to reform the abusive adjunct system, PSC President Barbara Bowen delivered over 1,000 petition signatures to
CUNY on Friday, calling for job protections for long serving adjuncts and inclusion of eligible part-timers in the City health plan.

What the union's bargaining team can achieve at the table depends on the
strength of a unified and mobilized membership behind it. If you have not already signed up to be part of the union’s “rapid response” team over the summer – members who are ready to make phone calls at a crucial moment and those on campus able to respond to developments – please do so today on the PSC website .
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
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http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

No More War Profiteers!

During WW2 we paid taxes -- proportional to income (i.e. far more by the wealthy) to support the war and after it excess profits made in the rush of awarding contracts were 'renegotiated'. I was particularly aware of this latter phenomenon because my Republican father felt it an obligation to continue his citizen contribution by running this renegotiation process in our state -- Connecticut.

In contrast both the Iraqis and U.S. companies have been stealing our taxpayers' funds by huge amounts -- one group has documented some $26 billion so far with many more billions yet to be disclosed. All this stuff will undoubtedly continue to emerge and particularly so if we can elect a Democratic administration to do the investigating. I hope someone will pick up on the Renegotiation program here which can restore to us the excess profits of today's wars, too. Halliburton and others have stolen far too much to the benefit of such as Cheney.

There are often politics connected with such efforts. My father was eventually urged to go elsewhere by Chester Bowles, a Democrat planning to run for governor of Connecticut. He did leave, figuring the job had been more or less done by then. Not all the excess profits were crooked, but some were and a fair reward was my father's goal in each case.

As I look at the two presidential candidates, McCain looks to be totally naive on financial matters. He does not get it that 'tax and spend' is a slogan devised to sow distrust in the very governmental agencies essential to keep us alive (supervision of drugs and food quality) and to keep things going (bridges, highways, water supplies, schools etc., etc.). Every other developed nation is aware that there is no free lunch so far as keeping things globally competitive, let alone functioning. So he is appealing to the hot button issue of the 1970s where he seems to reside mentally. I don't know whether Obama is on to such things, but he looks to be a quick learner. We don't have much time to put things back together as we have been spending far too much on military things and have already lost our competitive edge thereby except for selling arms to repressive regimes.

Let us hope some will take us back to those WW2 days now all but forgotten except for people of my age who vividly experienced them as kids.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
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http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Truce with Hamas Is the Only Way to Go?

[If this report is accurate, it looks as though peace-making with Hamas, i.e. trying to bring it into the world of civilized behavior rather than violent striking out is the only possible way for both the U.S. and Israel to get on with serious peace-making. This may be a difficult or even impossible effort, but does anyone see any alternatives? Ed Kent]

........................

A Year Reshapes Hamas and Gaza
By ETHAN BRONNER
In power for a year, Hamas has spread its authority across
all aspects of life, and Gazans have not, as Israel and the
United States hoped, risen up against it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/15/world/middleeast/15gaza.html?th&emc=th
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AcademicFreedom
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PrivacyRights
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Israel_Palestine
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FindingHumaneJobs
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http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

A Dirty Campaign in Prospect?

Stuck in with the heat wave this week, I could scarcely avoid ugly stuff issuing forth from our pols. There is the usual ad hominem attack on persons -- wives, perhaps children next, of candidates. The lies per report are really extraordinary in number and general madness. I won't repeat them here so as not to give them further mileage. But I have been surprised that people who expect to be taken seriously are willing to lie to our faces. And more distressing is that our cheap, if overpaid, media types perpetuate the garbage in chorus in more instances than not. One gets to recognize such stuff coming up through the smirking preparation for delivery of the latest -- as often by attractive young women as seasoned men who know exactly what they are going. The ability to read a script with a smile, no matter how grim the subject matter, seems to be about the only requirement for a prosperous TV report/commentator job.

Fortunately there are a few exceptions along the way and those of us who want to get to substance have alternatives in npr, the BBC, and a wide variety of internet sources. But one can see why the busy and uninformed voters can be misled by the big lie as utilized by the Nazis and recognized by the ancient Greeks for what it is. Formulate a catchy misrepresentation and repeat it endlessly and eventually it sinks in subliminally to even the most informed minds of us trying to do the right thing.

I can think of no more critical time either for our country or for the countless millions out there at risk. To hear that Americans and Israelis are contemplating an attack on Iran -- nearly 70 million people or three times those of Iraq -- leaves one gasping for air. I suppose our pols -- or some of them -- don't get the fact that such an attack would unify Islam in reaction -- Shiites mow as well as Sunnis.

Time to pray or whatever. Help!
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
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Obama -- An Echo from My College Days

Barack Obama's selection as our Democratic presidential nominee echoes my own experience with another student with direct African roots who, as Obama, came to complete his studies in his junior year in an Ivy university.

My brilliant new roommate was even in his junior year engaging in original medical research. He went on to a distinguished career as a professor of medicine in NYC before he moved south to teach and practice in one of our African American institutions. He was for a time the pediatrician for one of my children -- his fields of expertise were pediatrics and nutrition. He tried for a time to return to his native Nigeria, but could not stomach the military dictatorship there and so returned to practice in the States. His father was also a Muslim and his mother had been the first of several wives -- his, the senior, had her own household and ran a trading business out of it, bringing crafts works from central Nigeria to be exported abroad.

For our first several months as roommates our relations were formal and correct, but it was obvious that he was homesick and feeling lonely as only one of three fellow Yalies with African roots (the other two were Americans) in those days before the university opened its doors to minorities other than the prosperous and/or sons of foreign political officials. Festus was also one of these -- he had been a 'king' during the British occupation.

When feeling down, Festus would put on a record from home which consisted primarily of the heavy beat of native drums. It was driving me bats while comforting him. So one night I burst out with "Will you turn off those damned drums!" This event broke the ice for us and we became the best of friends for life, although we have not seen each other much since -- a dinner together two decades back while Festus was still teaching and practicing in NYC.

Festus was quite fed up with the white liberals of those days whom he felt (rightly) still unconsciously manifested their underlying racism, e.g. discomfort at shaking hands and touching a 'dirty' person. We had quite some times together. Festus had an old car and we would drive here and there for events. I recall one day his heading into a gas station and when the attendant was slow getting up from his chair, Festus sped out again, disclaiming, "damned racists!" Festus was my first experience with Africans who were not intimidated and cautious -- in those days when lynching and murders by cops and others were still being carried out with impunity.

FYI here is his current bio with picture:

http://comweb1.etsu.edu/default.asp?V_DOC_ID=1269
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
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http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood
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http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

A Startling First

[As our family has been one of those sharply divided on the Clinton/Obama competition, I know how sensitive one must be in sounding support for either. It would have been a first for a woman to run for our presidency, too. But given our history of slavery and continuing racism, the Obama victory is an extraordinary event. I am truly amazed and proud. From a current report it looks as though the polls have Obama slightly ahead in likely numbers of electors to be captured. And I imagine much nonsense will transpire as the Republicans try to defeat his candidacy. But whatever the outcome, this is a rare new day in America! Ed Kent]

.........................

Obama Claims Nomination; First Black Candidate to Lead a
Major Party Ticket
By JEFF ZELENY
Senator Barack Obama secured the Democratic presidential
nomination on Tuesday evening after a primary campaign that
inspired millions of voters.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/04/us/politics/04elect.html?th&emc=th
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AcademicFreedom
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PrivacyRights
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Israel_Palestine
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FindingHumaneJobs
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OurStupidEconomy
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

The World Council of Churches and the Zionist Catastrophe

[We Americans live in an illusory world devoid of awareness that criticism is mounting of Israel's treatment of the occupied Palestinians. Neither our American pols nor media are telling things straight about things over there. Not even some of the basic articles published in the Jerusalem Post and Haaretz, let alone the Israeli peace supporters efforts, trickle through to American awareness. Things are as bad as the filtered information from Iraq. I personally worry also about distress with Israel spilling over into general anti-Semitism. Anti-Semites are obviously out there and ready and willing to exploit whatever they can. Silence in this instance is not golden. Ed Kent]

...........................................

http://frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=0C98663E-C5D0-49F7-8BE1-C26013915555

The World Council of Churches and the Zionist Catastrophe
By Mark D. Tooley
FrontPageMagazine.com | Monday, June 02, 2008

The Geneva-based World Council of Churches (WCC), seemingly having preferred not to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Israel, is instead in June convening a global week-long commemoration of the 1967 war. This remembrance will mournfully lament Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, without specifically recalling that the occupation only began after Israel defeated several Arab armies poised for attack. “It’s Time for Palestine!” is the theme for the joint advocacy initiative involving church events around the world.

But from the WCC’s perspective, is it ever a Time for Israel? Apparently not, as the WCC mostly echoes Palestinian verbiage about the Jewish nation’s founding as a “catastrophe.” In a brief news release earlier this month, the WCC frowningly noted that “just as 2008 marks 60 years of aspirations dedicated to securing a homeland for Israelis, 2008 also marks 60 years of the disintegration of Palestinian society and dispersal of some 750,000 Palestinians as refugees.” In other words, not much to celebrate!

The WCC evidently was reserving its strength for “It’s Time for Palestine” gala celebration next month. In Bethlehem, a “human clock” will mark six decades of “Palestinians living as refugees and uprooted people.” Jerusalem churches will publicly decry the 1948 “Nakba” (catastrophe). There will also be an international conference there to protest against the Israeli security barrier. The left-wing Catholic order Pax Christi will organize protest events in France, Belgium and Holland. A demonstration with signs declaring “Stop the Occupation” in Hebrew, Arabic English and Norwegian may march in Oslo. Filipino children who are victims of political killings in the Philippines will send letters of solidarity to Palestinian children. A “full-sized section of the Wall” will be erected by a church in Scotland in a city center. Such global excitement!

There’s even an official liturgical litany for the “It’s time for Palestine” celebration. Each of its sad lines begins with an imprecatory “It’s time for…” followed by a demand usually focused on Israel. No change of behavior by Palestinians is apparently needed for nirvana to be achieved in “Palestine.”

It's time for freedom from occupation.

It's time for equal rights.

It's time to stop discrimination, segregation and restrictions on movement.

It's time for those who put up walls and fences to build them on their own property.

It's time to stop bulldozing one community's homes and building homes for the other community on land that is not theirs.

It's time to do away with double standards.

It's time for Israeli citizens to have security and secure borders agreed with their neighbours.

It's time for the international community to implement 60 years of United Nations resolutions.

It's time for Israel's government to complete the bargain offered in the Arab Peace Initiative.

It's time for those who represent the Palestinian people to all be involved in making peace.

It's time for people who have been refugees for 60 years to regain their rights and a permanent home.

It's time to assist settlers in the Occupied Palestinian Territories to make their home in Israel.

It's time for self-determination.

It's time for foreigners to visit Bethlehem and other towns imprisoned by the wall.

It's time to see settlements in their comfort and refugee camps in their despair.

It's time for people living 41 years under occupation to feel new solidarity from a watching world.

It's time to name the shame of collective punishment and to end it in all its forms.

Very moving. Of course, none of the litany really addresses any of the suffering by Israelis over 60 years except for a vague reference: “It's time to be revolted by violence against civilians and for civilians on both sides to be safe.” And, even more needless to observe, the litany omits any reference to ways that Arab governments and Palestinian chieftains have themselves exploited the Palestinians for their own geopolitical goals.

The litany might have a little more punch if it had included an “It’s time” for Palestinians to accept Israel’s existence while disavowing both the incendiary anti-Israel propaganda of the moderate “Fatah” party and the overt terrorism of Hamas. The WCC stands against all “violence,” of course. But it’s not clear where it stands on acidic anti-Israel Palestinian propaganda. And given the WCC’s emphasis on an unlimited “right of return” for the descendants of Palestinians who fled in 1947, it’s not even clear that the WCC fully affirms Israel as a refuge for Jews.

A blog on the WCC website constructed by the WCC’s “ecumenical accompaniers” provides some further provocative insights into the WCC perspective on Middle-East “peace.” The ecumenical accompaniers, who are Western church activists on the West Bank on the hunt for Israeli transgressions, gleefully chronicle the protests of angry Palestinians. At a refugee camp outside Bethlehem, Palestinian artisans have constructed the “world's biggest 10 meter long iron key” that is accompanied by a giant keyhole. The key is inscribed: "This is not for sale,” which signifies that “Palestinians should not give up the fight to return to their homes one day.”

Even more creatively, another WCC blogger describes a Palestinian artist who has illustrated the Palestinian “catastrophe” of 60 years ago with silk-screened chocolate illustrations of Palestinian suffering on sixty sheets of glass, “one for each year of since the people's displacement.” The chocolate extravaganza shows a “grieving women, a toddler looking up at the barrel of a gun, an Israeli soldier weeping as he holds a dead child, a youth with a catapult, naked Palestinian youths held at gunpoint, a child standing in the ruins of her home.” Who knew that chocolate could evoke such pathos?

In preparing for “It’s Time for Palestine” during June 4-10, the WCC seems torn about focusing on 1967, or 1947. It’s politically more practical to focus on 1967, so as to purportedly insist only on Israel’s full withdrawal to pre-1967 borders. But clearly the WCC would like also to mourn Israel’s birth in 1947 without specifically declaring the WCC’s opposition to Israel’s existence.

Fortunately, most of global Christianity will ignore the WCC during the “It’s time for Palestine’ commemoration, just as most Christians, even within WCC member denominations, ignore the WCC almost all the time any way.
Mark D. Tooley directs the United Methodist committee at the Institute on Religion and Democracy.
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