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OpEdNews Op Eds    H3'ed 10/24/24

It's when things seem worst that you must not quit

By Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh  Posted by Peter Barus (about the submitter)   1 comment, In Series: Reports from Palestine
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Peter Barus
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Urgent Appeal: Israel's Genocidal Policy to Destroy North Gaza Hospitals Proceeds Unchecked Amid International Inaction. All rescue medical and civil defense workers in North Gaza have been killed, injured, arrested or forced out. Not a single trained person remains to take care of 100-200,000 trapped civilians. Please look at this rescue of a little girl (sole survivor of her entire family), Jabalia in 2012 (now completely wiped out)..this did not start in 2023.

Omar wrote from Gaza: 'The last breath of Northern Gaza The final cry from Northern Gaza. The last night of Northern Gaza. Northern Gaza is being exterminated. Being killed. Being executed. Dying. Being ethnically cleansed. Oh, the anguish and sorrow I feel for my homeland.'

New UN report: Impacts of war have set back development in Gaza by as much as 69 years. United Nations Development Programme

They film their own crime of ethnic cleansing and genocide: Nicola Perugini, Italian international lawyer, calls this 'self indictment' [Israel/USA hope that dumping ten times the amount of bombs on Gaza and Lebanon as done in Dresden, Berlin, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and all her cities in WWII will result in surrender. This is delusional because they are dealing with resistance forces and like in Vietnam or Algeria, no matter the destruction, resistance will not give up.]

Destruction of olive groves (in West Bank).

Ecocide in Gaza.

History of the Israeli army.

But genocide is costly: IMF says Israeli economy will contract in 2025 as war cost balloons past $130M per day.

I wrote on social media six years ago (even more relevant today):

We face unprecedented challenges that require unprecedented human responses. Here are some now well characterized challenges that require not so-well discussed solutions:

  1. human population shooting up from 7 billion to 10 billion soon,
  2. consumption of non-renewable resources at an all time high,
  3. climate change accelerating thanks to human activities,
  4. water shortage in most of the planet,
  5. politicians and other greedy individuals pushing wars and arms-deals that ends-up in genocides like what is happening in Gaza and Yemen.
  6. We witness the mass of refugees walking north towards the US border or those refugees in Gaza being shot at the border as they try to return to their homes and lands taken from them by force in Palestine in 1948.

These and others resulted from a combination of these factors (though mostly politics driven factors) but they are only a harbinger of much worse things to come. Estimates range from 100 to 500 million "climate refugees" in the next two decades. The violent/repressive response of those in political power will only exacerbate the problems. Borders, racism, and repressive politics as usual will no longer contain hundreds of millions (nay billions) of people who have no or scarce access to clean water, food, healthcare or education. How do we address this? First we must understand what faces us honestly. Killing and dismembering one journalist or using white phosphorus and one ton bombs on civilian populations of Yemen and Gaza are symptoms of something far deeper and far more troubling. Second, we must rebel against the status quo while in parallel work to create innovative alternatives. Each of us can and must start to address these challenges. It is hard work and it is not easy. Burying our head in the proverbial sand will no longer be feasible: We can't be neutral on a moving train. The work we are doing locally (e.g. at palestinenature.org) needs to go to a much higher level and far more urgently than most people think. We must at least start a more serious conversation and apply more serious work towards solutions. It is perhaps the last test of our humanity. The choices are stark. We can continue down this unsustainable path that could destroy us and our planet. Or we can push hard to get our act together quickly as fellow human beings to care for each other and for this planet. The stakes were never more stark. Mahatma Gandhi correctly identified seven blunders of the world: wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, politics without principle." And it is good to remember this (Edgar A. Guest):

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you're trudging seems all uphill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit-
Rest if you must, but don't you quit.
Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As every one of us sometimes learns,
And many a fellow turns about
When he might have won had he stuck it out.
Don't give up though the pace seems slow -
You may succeed with another blow.
Often the goal is nearer than
It seems to a faint and faltering man;
Often the struggler has given up
When he might have captured the victor's cup;
And he learned too late when the night came down,
How close he was to the golden crown.
Success is failure turned inside out -
The silver tint in the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell how close you are,
It might be near when it seems afar;
So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit -
It's when things seem worst that you must not quit.

Stay Human and keep Palestine alive

Mazin Qumsiyeh
A bedouin in cyberspace, a villager at home
Professor, Founder, and (volunteer) Director Palestine Museum of Natural History
Palestine Institute of Biodiversity and Sustainability Bethlehem University Occupied Palestine
facebook pages Personal Institute
French

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I'm an old Pogo fan. For some unknown reason I persist in outrage at Feudalism, as if human beings can do much better than this. Our old ways of life are obsolete and are killing us. Will the human race wake up in time? Stay (more...)
 

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With deep sorrow and pain: Gaza - just a drop in the bucket.

It's absurdly, ridiculously simple: nuclear holocaust.

That is, a vote for Jill Stein, taking votes away from Harris, and allowing Trump a fresh four years...(can ya dig it?) = his out-of-control rage and demonic entitlement = Trump -------

(who actually is doing everything he can to lose the race, getting more and more extreme and vicious, becuz at some level he knows what he would do and knows the job is too much for him, and doesn't want the work, anyway)

------- in office getting more and more threatened and enraged by the accurate but humiliating "criticism" (which he would see as attacks that are absolutely unacceptable). Sooner or later (probably sooner, given the reality of his increasing emotional decompensation, grandiosity ,AND dementia) he would either be removed from office (or get "sick," so Vance and neocons and other cronies can have their way with the country and world") --- or more likely --- simply provoke or initiate a nuclear conflict - thereby simply throwing the checkers game on the floor - pieces flying in all directions. Donald's Revenge. (Your line, famous last words: "PishPoshneverhappen")

Too Bad, Earth. TB Humanity, TB animals. Plants etc, etc.

Absurd that voting one's conscience (i.e. for Jill Stein) naturally leads to megadeath and the next great extinction. But as Cronkite, used to say: "And that's the way it is." (or was).

So, Stein voters, if your goal is to "do the right thing," ("I'd never vote for genocide!") knock yourselves out...please by all means have fun, indulge and enjoy! (Certainly, there's something to be said for a quick vaporizing end...no more dishes or laundry to do). Well yeah, too bad about those who will linger.....we do feel bad about this.

But at least you'll feel good about yourselves.

Submitted on Thursday, Oct 24, 2024 at 10:00:09 PM

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