Yom Kippur 2020

Dear Friends:  It is Yom Kippur once again, and we are all locked down in our homes and unable to move.  Nothing new since the Corona pandemic has continued to be on the rise.  As a reminder of that day, I refer you to what I had written on Yom Kippur last year which was posted on my blog on October 9, 2019.  Israel,  which claims to be the only democratic state in the region,  insists on being a Jewish state, when 21% of its population is non-Jewish, and they do not have the same privileges as the Jewish population.  However  Mr. Netanyahu is always taking pride in quoting  the Bible in Hebrew on various occasions, and sometimes  incomplete quotations, to suit the occasion.  Even during the normalization ceremony with the Gulf states under the auspices of the US in the White House,  he managed a prayer in Hebrew by King David:  'May God give strength to his people, may God bless his people with peace.'

However when it comes to a quotation from  prophet Micah 6:8, Netanyahu fails the test as a good Jew, and especially on Yom Kippur.  “What does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, and to love kindness and walk humbly with God” 

He is certainly not doing justice to the Palestinians, and not even for a large sector of the Israeli citizens,  neither is he treating people with kindness, not even members of his own party or government.  And of course he is not walking humbly with God.  One of the Hebrew papers compared him recently  to a peacock, a very arrogant and proud species.  Where is all this leading to?

If Israel cannot have peace with its adversaries, no normalization with friendly countries will bring about peace to the region.  So I hope Mr. Netanyahu will be honest for a change on this holy day and make the proper vow to bring about justice to the region and to love kindness and walk humbly with God. 

Tony Blair

I am attaching a reflection on Tony Blair which I had written in 2007, to remind my readers why it is not that easy to delete Tony Blair. In his capacity as Prime Minister of the UK (1997-2007) Tony Blair played a crucial role in the Gulf war, a war waged by the US and the UK on Iraq in 2003. A war based on false assumptions that Iraq had nuclear weapons. A war that could have been avoided, sparing so many lives and the devastation of the whole region, which seems to be suffering from its effects up to this day. But then in his capacity as a special envoy to the quartet (2007-2015) to help in implementing the peace process between the Palestinians and Israel, he was a complete failure, and the peace process seemed to be simply a process leading us to no where.

 Yet once again Tony Blair’s name appeared recently in playing a major role in initiating the first steps to the normalization between the Emirates and Israel, in an article written by Ariel Kahana in the Israeli paper “Isarel Hayom.” Is Tony Blair still itching to connect his name with peace in the region? I am sorry Mr. Blair, you lost that opportunity twice. First in your capacity as Prime Minister, when the UK could have atoned for the Balfour Declaration and recognized the State of Palestine. And second as a special envoy to the Quartet to enforce the peace process, when you could have sanctioned Israel for not implementing the United Nations resolutions.

Both Israel and the US are making a big hoopla out of the normalization with the Emirates and Bahrain, and there are already many cartoons on the social media showing a long queue of other Arab countries following suit. Security has always been a priority for Israel. So under the guise of “security”, Israel has violated all human rights according to international law, and refused to abide by United Nations resolutions, or the Oslo accords which were initiated by the PLO, and signed by Israel under the patronage of the USA. That is why any country that has never been at war with Israel will ever be able to guarantee peace or security for Israel as long as it continues to occupy the Palestinian land and deprive the Palestinians of their inalienable rights.

Tony Blair
By Samia Khoury
September 28, 2007

Today I saw my friend who has been urging me to print the collection of my reflections, so I decided not to delay this task any longer, As I started looking through my documents I found a file that read "British Prime Minister Tony Blair". To my surprise when I checked the file it was empty. I must have planned to write something and for one reason or another I did not, or my mood must have changed and the inspiration slipped away. So I decided to delete the file since there was nothing in it. But to my surprise again, I got a flashing sign saying "cannot delete Tony Blair."

How ironic I thought; indeed one cannot delete Tony Blair. When we thought there was a change in the British government he popped up again as the special envoy of the Quartet. Was Tony Blair supposed to resuscitate the body that has not given a sign of breath since its creation? Or was he supposed to give hope to the Palestinians in a hopeless situation? Tony Blair, the Prime Minister was in a much stronger position to enforce a settlement and bring about justice to the people who were victims of the British Mandate policy. It was a golden opportunity for Tony Blair to atone for the policies of his predecessors. Unfortunately he wasted his brilliant career on a futile war that brought so much misery to the region as well as great losses amongst his troops. So I am not deleting Tony Blair because I filled up the file with this reflection.

As an optimist by nature, I want to hope against all odds that next time Blair is in our country his smile will be a genuine one, and a true reflection of moving ahead towards justice, liberation and healing.