This morning when I heard of Israel’s attack on humanitarian aid ships to Gaza I was stunned. Images of water hose and dog attacks on civil rights persons in Birmingham flashed in my mind. However, this attack was much worse. People were killed, others were wounded and imprisoned, and needed aid for the suffering people of Gaza was stopped. I turned on the TV to follow this news story, but could only find slanted information from Israel on Fox News. Tonight there was more news and information on this violence. Now I feel once more that I have Too Much Information (TMI) about the oppression of the people of Palestine and need to act.
I keep thinking about Martin Luther King and his letter from the Birmingham jail. I hope and pray that this act of violence will for once and all expose the militaristic plans and oppression of the USA and Israel on the people of Palestine and the Middle East. To paraphrase Martin Luther King Jr., in his letter, I pray that the disciplined nonviolence of the peace persons on the flotilla totally confused the rulers of the Israel. They did not know what to do. When they finally reached for guns, clubs, weapons they found the world was watching, and then the power of nonviolent direct action became manifest.
What to do? How to respond, not react. Like Martin Luther King “I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate” or as I would say “peace liberals”. They are the sort of person “who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action.’”
Fortunately today I had time to work in the garden and forget this heaviness of heart that I feel. But I cannot forget. I wait for the call for direct action from those in the peace community who are willing to “break the silence” and say No to USA and Israeli aggression and violence.
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