on religious violence against medicine

I am now writing as an expatriate in Argentina, as a person who had to get out of the United States because life was just too frustrating for me there, in many different respects. From where I am right now, I can observe major happenings in the States from afar, and not get so caught up in all the drama. There is plenty of drama in the national news here to get caught up in, if I want. From afar, I am not unaware of what is going in in the United States, rather, I have an entirely different viewpoint, filtered through Spanish-speaking news casters in Argentina, Venezuela, Spain, Miami, all further informed by my more familiar news sources on the internet.

And so, on this day, a cool fall day in June, I am compelled to comment on the cold-blooded murder of Dr. George Tiller in Wichita, Kansas, who has been running a women’s health clinic that women from all over the world come to. The trained physicians and psychiatrists at the clinic literally risk their own lives in order to save the lives of women who need late-term abortions, women who are denied these medical services in the places where they come from. This doctor and all of his colleagues are very principled in their commitments to aid women whose lives are truly at stake, who may have discovered that they have cancer, or that some other life-threatening emergency has come up, or that the birth process endangers them, or that the fetus has not developed a brain or has other drastic medical problems that would deny them any kind of meaningful life. All of these reasons are legitimate, complicated reasons why a woman might need a late-term abortion, and there are many others, as well. The doctor, who was shot while he was at church, was simply being a doctor, a person who does not judge the patient and does not ignore what she – her body, her mind, her intuition, her will - is telling her to do, in the face of pressure from others who, because of religious ideology, are dangerously simplifying a complex issue that they are not very well informed about. Religion is a very powerful thing, but it is not medicine.

Dr. Tiller has been harassed in every way possible by single-minded opponents of women’s rights to safe abortions, from intimidation to threats to actual physical violence to the spreading of misinformation to use of the legal system. Citizen groups have forced him into court several times in recent years, and every time, they have lost their cases. They have been accusing Dr. Tiller of providing late-term abortions without any medical justifications, and they have tried to force the patients’ medical records into the public record, and every time, the doctor has prevailed, the medical records kept confidential, and his practices proven to be medically necessary and legal.

Because of all this, I been thinking about the issue of women’s rights to abortion, and have added a few words to my essay on the subject over on the writers’ website, Helium. Also, see the Democracy Now! show on this subject (as well as Amy Goodman’s blog post) for some insight into who Dr. George Tiller was and what his clinic was doing for desperate women in need. Perhaps this slaying of a medical professional by a religious zealot will bring the national discussion about women’s rights to proper health care into the spotlight in a way that brings the real issues forward, instead of just grazing the philosophical ideologies that people hold on the subject, ideologies that can lead to grave consequences when they are allowed to be pushed forward to the extent that this shooter did. Did that man consider the psychological effects that a bloody murder in a church would have on not only the witnesses in the church, but on the entire nation and the world?

"Security?" Really?

The following article is from www.freegaza.com

Gazan coast becoming a 'no-go' zone
16th February, 2009

On Saturday 14th February, 23 year-old Rafiq abu Reala was shot by Israeli naval forces whilst fishing in Gazan territorial waters, approximately two nautical miles out from the port of Gaza city. He was in a simple fishing vessel, not much larger than a rowing boat, with a small outboard engine, known locally as a 'hassaka'. Rafiq, his brother Rajab and another friend were following the course of a shoal of fish. A group of five more hassakas were out at the time, about a kilometre to the west of Rafiq's boat, further out to sea. An Israeli naval gunboat approached the area and began shooting at the other hassakas, which quickly changed course and headed east, back towards shore.

Suddenly Rafiq realised the gunboat was bearing down on their hassaka. As he recounted the events of that day, Rafiq likened the predatory nature of the naval vessel to that of a wolf. It circled their fishing boat and began shooting heavy ammunition in their direction. The three terrified fishermen threw themselves down flat in the bottom of their boat. The Israeli captain ordered them via megaphone to raise their nets and leave the area. At this point the gunboat was less then 20 metres from Rafiq's hassaka. The second time the gunboat came around no attempt was made to communicate with the fishermen. Rafiq was desperately pulling in the nets with his back facing the gunboat. An M-16 assault rifle was fired hitting him twice with explosive 'dum-dum' bullets, which peppered his back with shrapnel from the bullets themselves.

The force of the shots threw him in the water, plunging him down about six or seven metres below the surface. Rajab asked their friend to control the boat while he rescued Rafiq. Being a strong swimmer, he dived in after Rafiq and pulled him out of the water into the hassaka. However, Rafiq was unconscious by this time. The outboard was being slowed down by the weight of the nets so they headed towards another hassaka 300 metres away where they dumped the nets. The fishermen in this vessel had a mobile phone and made an emergency call. The stricken hassaka reached port at the same time as the ambulance arrived and Rafiq was taken to al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza city in a serious condition.

A couple of days later it was possible to visit Rafiq in hospital. He was weak and in a lot of pain, with some difficulty breathing, but was beginning to improve. His x-ray clearly indicated the presence of the bullet shrapnel between his shoulder and his spine. An enquiry regarding the possibility of surgery to remove the fragments was met with a solemn "no" from Rafiq's uncle, present at his bedside, who explained, "The pieces are too many, too small and too widespread. His whole back would have to be opened up." It is not only Rafiq's back which has the metal shards still embedded in it; the shrapnel also penetrated his lungs. They sustained pulmonary contusions, resulting in a haemothorax. The only treatment Rafiq can benefit from at this time is to have blood drained which is collecting in the pleural cavity in the upper left side of his chest. 1.5 litres of blood was initially drained off when he was first admitted but this amount later decreased and stabilised. Medication is limited to painkillers and antibiotics.

It could take Rafiq months to fully recover yet he has a family to support. He married just six months ago and his wife is now expecting their first baby. After five years of working as a fisherman, he has experienced Israeli naval forces firing warning shots on many occasions but this was the first time he has been directly targeted. However, Rajab survived being shot in the chest by the Israeli navy two and a half years ago. It is sobering to note that 14 Gazan fishermen have been killed by the Israeli navy since 2000. Rafiq described the level shooting on Saturday like an open war. Fishermen were attacked from Wadi Gaza, south of Gaza city, all the way to the north of Gaza. A number of hassakas were targeted that day, some vessels sustaining serious damage from the shooting.

Palestinian fishermen have come under daily assaults from Israeli gunboats since Israel announced a unilateral ceasefire which supposedly came into force on 18th January. Reports of heavy gunfire and even missile fire are now becoming the 'norm'. Rafiq is the third Gazan fisherman to be shot by the Israeli navy during this non-existant ceasefire. On 26th January, Alaa al-Habil was shot in the lower leg whilst trawling less than one nautical mile off the coast of Gaza. On 6th February, Mahmoud al-Nadar was shot in both legs whilst 1.5 nautical miles off the coast of Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip. Nowadays it is unthinkable for fishermen to venture beyond three nautical miles from the Gazan coast, with many vessels staying just metres from the beach. However, Gazan territorial waters reach 12 nautical miles offshore – indeed, the Oslo Accords grant a fishing zone extending as far as 20 nautical miles.

Israel is attempting to create arbitrary 'no-go' zones in the sea – enforced solely by the gun. They might succeed if it weren't for the resilience of the fishermen. All this is akin to what is happening on land. The Israeli Occupation Force has declared an area of Palestinian land a kilometre in from the Green Line a 'closed military zone', affecting an audacious land grab which threatens to swallow a vast swathe of rich agricultural land all the way along the eastern length of the Gaza strip.

International human rights observers are currently accompanying farmers determined to harvest their crops in one such area. In the months prior to Israel's war on Gaza, members of ISM Gaza Strip were accompanying Palestinian fishermen on a regular basis and witnessed countless acts of Israeli military aggression against them whilst in Gazan territorial waters, despite a six-month ceasefire agreement holding at the time.
The international community remains silent about these daily violations of international human rights law. One cannot help wondering what an outcry there would inevitably be if the tables were turned and an Israeli civilian received similar injuries. Such an incident would scupper current negotiations attempting to broker a more genuine long-term ceasefire. Yet whilst it is Palestinian civilians who suffer such atrocities, the world gazes on, indifferent.

Wir Sind Alle Deutschlander

We here in the United States have our new president, and the days of "No Drama Obama" are long gone, as he deals with all the Drama Queens in the congress to get a kid to stick his finger in the dike that is just barely holding back the economic mayhem to come. Meanwhile, not too many people are paying attention to the storm that is brewing in the Middle East over Israel's recent unconscionable actions in Gaza, and yet more Trouble with a capital "T" to come.

These upcoming elections have married the worst of militaristic nationalism with politics, and the combination is none other than explosive on a massive scale. The worst aspect of it all is the colossal cynicism. The horrendous attack on the citizens and basic infrastructure of Gaza just before the new U.S. president was to be sworn in, with his very swearing-in day as a deadline for withdrawal, in conjunction with the initiation of hostilities having occurred on the historic event that was election day in the United States, when Israeli troops went into Gaza and riled things up while the rest of the world had their eyes on our Big Day... it is an insult to the Humanity of every peace-loving person on the planet.

Chemical weapons; attacks on known U.N. safe havens, hospitals, and schools; ongoing attacks on farmers; illegal confiscations and detentions of humanitarian aid workers trying to come in by ship through open international waters - the list of atrocities committed in respect to Gaza goes on. And now, it appears that the whole exercise was simply the precursor for an Israeli attack on Iran, a laying down of groundwork, a psychological preparation for the citizens of Israel, a systems test run. For if the enraged Gazans do not stop lobbing what sad little rockets they still have over their imprisonment wall, their only weapons, sad in comparison to Israel's massive military might (only 13 Israelis were killed in the recent violence, compared to 1300 Gazans), well, then, Israel must attack their sad-little-rocket supplier.

Who will stop Israel from continuing down this path? No one has any weight to throw at them, except for the United States of America. Does our special peace envoy, or the State Department, or the Vice President, or even the President have the cojones to stand up to their militaristic momentum? Will any of them do what is necessary to convince Israel that it is they who must take the lead to end this cycle of violence, not any of their perceived or real adversaries? Will the newly elected leaders of Israel, after playing on the emotions of their citizens in the worst way humanly possible, for political gain, find any reason not to escalate the violence?

I am deeply deeply saddened that my paranoia that violence toward Iran would be used as a political play for power seems to be coming true, even as my amazement that the neocons in my own nation's government did not activate this kind of evil ploy before our elections, has been making me wonder if I have been too cynical, after all. But no, I had it right all along, except that it was Israel, the proxy of the United States in the Middle East, who took action, in the form of the horrible attack on Gaza as stepping stone toward Iran, instead of us.

In the name of all of the innocent people of Gaza, who have suffered long and hard under Israel's policies of treating them as other than human beings, I call on all citizens of the United States to at the very least pay attention to Israel in the days that follow, and if the rumblings of war with Iran or more violence toward Gaza prove to amplify instead of diminish, in a world where waves from this kind of mayham come around the globe and affect us in the form of military aid that will be sent to Israel removing funding from our government coffers for availability to help us through our own financial crisis, and the price of gas going up, and any number of other degrees of separation that link us to such world issues, but above all, as caring citizens of the world we live in, we must stand up and stop the madness! There is no excuse for allowing Israel to commit atrocities, or to get away with those that they have committed already in Gaza, and no excuse for remaining silent, like so many Germans did while the Nazi hate machine built itself up and became the monster that it did. Wir sind alle deutschlander.

For reports from inside Gaza and more information on Israel's prevention of aid to Gaza, go to http://www.freegaza.com/

PEOPLE OF ISRAEL – STOP THIS MADNESS!

STOP, LOOK, and LISTEN
Understand - You have become your own worst enemy.
STOP, LOOK, and LISTEN

STOP the killing and destruction of families.
LOOK at the people of Gaza - in the eyes,
see their pain and their suffering.
LISTEN to their stories, their needs, their desires -
actually listen to the words that come out of their own mouths,
about how they feel about having their lives destroyed
by your military,
by your nation's immoral blockade,
by the unacknowledged and unconscionable occupation,
by your government's propaganda against them,
and do not be surprised if they express anger.

STOP! Do not answer their anger with your own.
LOOK at Gaza,
look at the abject poverty there.
LISTEN some more
for what is behind their anger and frustration -
the deprivation,
the lack of basic human necessities,
the sadness.

STOP and take some deep breaths.
LOOK at your own nation,
your own government,
the propaganda of your own government,
the playing upon your historic victimization

by your own government,
the politics of the current situation

for the sake of government power,
the colonialism for the sake of politics.
LISTEN to your neighbors,
and the voices coming from different perspectives,

from others in the region,

from the international community.

STOP supporting state aggression.
LOOK at the reasons behind that aggression.
LISTEN to the voices coming from within the Jewish community,
voices that refuse to deal with the pain of aggression against Jews

by turning it on others.

STOP allowing your emotions of sadness and anger and fear

to consume you.
LOOK for ways to move beyond those emotions,
to express them in ways that are constructive,
that help you to grow,
to become better persons,
to move forward with your lives in peace.
LISTEN to your heart and its call for compassion and empathy.

STOP the violence.
STOP the siege.
STOP the misery and death in Gaza.

ISRAEL must stop, not Hamas.
ISRAEL must accept the responsibilities

of being the strong and powerful state that it is.
ISRAEL must stop playing the victim when it is not,

and stop exaggerating its victimhood when it is.

ISRAEL wants to be perceived as strong,
so be strong, from the inside out.
ISRAEL wants to be safe,
so make yourself safe

by working with your neighbors to achieve peace.
ISRAEL wants to impose its own narrative

on the history of the region,
but Israel is only a small country in that region,
a young country in a region with a long, long history,
a modern nation, with a modern military,

and strong alliances with the modern world powers.

ISRAEL must consider the historical narratives

of all of its neighbors in the region.
ISRAEL must accept the reality

that they have wronged the people of Palestine.
ISRAEL must apologize

for what has happened to the Palestinian people

because of their actions.
ISRAEL must find a way to live in the Middle East

that respects the other governments of the region

as legitimate governments,

as entities not to be ignored,

or punished,

at the cost of innocent people's lives,

but with which to negotiate peace.

Only then will Israel in turn gain the respect, the legitimacy,

and the security that it desires

The people of Israel cannot blame anyone but themselves,
cannot change anyone but themselves,
cannot expect anyone to react to them

in any way other than how they have,
until they prove themselves worthy of trust and respect.

PEOPLE OF ISRAEL -
Take the lead.
Do the right thing.
Show your strength and your leadership.
Begin with compassion.
Create the peace that everyone longs for.
Be the change.
Love thy neighbor as thyself.
Love thy neighbor.
Love thyself.

other posts on the Israeli-Gaza conflict:

http://julierbutler.blogspot.com/2008/09/letter-from-gaza-friends.html

http://julierbutler.blogspot.com/2008/12/blog-post.html

see also:

http://www.freegaza.org

http://www.othervoice.org/welcome-eng.htm