Help For a Speech

its okay if you are in 8th grade. we’ll still like you. 🙂

joseph->strong>stop biting As far as the was we could all learn a great lesson.If you’re doing something right don’t stop! Even if the world is against you in the end the consequences will be worse.

qwertyuiop: there’s a great youtube video from the idf, that gives a clear picture of how the events unfolded to operation cast lead!!! the clip is titled Background: Gaza and Cast Lead 6 Jan. 2009!!! good luck qwertyuiop!!!!

Qwerty: Someone sent me this on-line, it was a letter from a David harris, who wrote an article “In the Trenches.” I don’t knwo if it will help, but you might be able to find something in it, to write about for the report.

Dear Ms. Trine Lilleng,

You were an unknown Norwegian diplomat till this month.

No longer.

As first secretary in the Norwegian Embassy in Saudi Arabia, you recently sent out an email on your office account in which you declared: “The grandchildren of Holocaust survivors from World War II are doing to the Palestinians exactly what was done to them by Nazi Germany.”

Accompanying your text were photos, with an emphasis on children, seeking to juxtapose the Holocaust with the recent Israeli military operation in Gaza.

Clearly, you are miscast in your role as a diplomat, all the more so of a nation that has sought to play a mediating role in the Arab-Israeli conflict.

In fact, you’re desperately in need of some education.

Let’s begin with your current posting. You’ve been in Riyadh since 2007.

If you’re so anguished by human rights violations, perhaps you could have begun by devoting some of your attention – and email blasts – to what surrounds you.

Or were your eyes diplomatically shut?

Have you failed to notice the many legal executions, including beheadings, going on in your assigned country?

Have you ignored the often abysmal treatment of foreign workers, many from Asia, who also happen to be disproportionately counted among the victims of Saudi capital punishment?

Have you neglected the gender apartheid that surrounds you? Did you ever look out of your car to notice that Saudi women are proscribed from driving, and that’s hardly the worst of it?

Have you checked the skyline of Riyadh or Jeddah lately to count the number of church spires or other non-Muslim houses of worship?

Have you bothered to inquire about the fate of homosexuals?

Okay, you were AWOL on those issues. Maybe you just didn’t want to offend your hosts by speaking the truth, or maybe you’re suffering from that diplomatic disease known as “localitis” or “clientitis.”

But surely a woman like you, with such capacity for empathy for those in far-away places, and especially for children in danger, couldn’t remain silent about other human rights transgressions, could she?

After all, could an individual so deeply moved by the plight of Palestinians in Gaza remain silent about what a New York Times columnist earlier this month described as “hell on earth” – Zimbabwe? Could a person so anguished by the fate of Palestinian children stay mum about a country where a girl’s life expectancy at birth is 34, much less than half that of her Norwegian counterpart, and where the health care sector has vaporized, all thanks to the one-man rule of Robert Mugabe?

Could such a dedicated humanist possibly avert her eyes from the deadliest conflict since the Second World War, which has killed over five million people, many of them children, in the Congo in the past decade – not to mention the documented and widespread use of torture, rape, and arbitrary detention?

An observer of such acute sensitivity could hardly hold her tongue while Afghan girls attempting to go to school have been doused with acid by those who wish to deny young women access to education, reminiscent of the five years of Taliban rule, could she?

In neighboring Pakistan, where you served in the Norwegian embassy for three years, the beleaguered human rights community must have been fortunate to have such an impassioned voice for all that’s wrong in this failing state. Or was that voice, perhaps, on mute?

The children of Sderot, the Israeli town near the Gaza border, have been in desperate need of just such a spokesperson as you for the past eight years.

After all, their town has been in the crosshairs of literally thousands of missiles and mortars fired from Gaza. Those Israeli children live with all the signs of trauma, knowing that, with only 15 seconds warning, they could be hit at any time in their schools, their parks, or their beds. Yet, during my visit there last week, for some reason, those children and their parents had yet to hear you speak out for them. What a pity!

And the children of Iran could use your help as well. According to human rights groups, Iran has no compunction about executing children or those who were children when their crimes were allegedly committed.

Oh, and by the way, your compassionate help would also undoubtedly be welcomed by others under the gun in Iran, including women’s rights activists, union organizers, student protesters, independent journalists, reformist politicians, and religious minorities. And let’s not forget, once again, the children of Israel, who, according to the Iranian president, don’t have a right to live.

But wait! A Google search about you reveals nothing, not a single word, regarding your views on Zimbabwe, Congo, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sderot, or Iran. Or, for that matter, Burma, Darfur, Syria. Shall I go on?

Only Israel, faced with those who wish to destroy it, manages to prompt your impassioned correspondence and righteous indignation. Why?

No less, your stunning lack of education extends beyond the contemporary world to 20th century history, specifically the Holocaust.

Your invocation of the Holocaust to describe what’s taken place in Gaza is, frankly, nothing short of obscene.

Your claim that the grandchildren of the survivors are doing to the Palestinians exactly what was done to them goes beyond any norm of decency, much less honesty.

Approve or disapprove of the Israeli military operation, but there is no basis whatsoever for such a comparison.

When Israel entered Gaza in a war of self-defense in 1967, the population was 360,000. After Israel withdrew totally from Gaza in 2005, it was estimated at 1.4 million.

Would that the Jewish population under Nazi rule had quadrupled!

When Israel entered Gaza in 1967, life expectancy for women was 46. When it left Gaza, it was 73.

Shall we even bother to discuss life expectancy for Jews under Nazi occupation?

The Second World War in Europe lasted from September 1, 1939 to May 8, 1945 – 68 months in all. That means an average monthly extermination rate of nearly 90,000 Jews.

Compare that to the total number of victims in Gaza over three weeks – roughly guesstimated at more or less 1,000 – and recall that the majority were armed fighters committed to Israel’s destruction, who used civilians, including children, as human shields, mosques as arms depots, and hospitals as sanctuaries.

Believe me, Ms. Lilleng, if the “grandchildren of the Holocaust survivors” had wanted to do exactly what the Nazis did to their grandparents, they would have unleashed their full air, land, and sea power. They would have thrown the Israel Defense Forces’ ethical guidelines to the wind, kicked out the UN and Red Cross personnel on the ground, stopped humanitarian transports of food, fuel, and medicine, prevented media reporting, and left absolutely nothing – and no one – standing.

Unless, of course, they needed slave labor, in which case they would have carted off the able-bodied to work in Auschwitz replicas until they dropped. Or material for ghoulish medical experimentation, in which case, in the spirit of Mengele, they would have kept Palestinian twins alive temporarily.

But Israel didn’t do any of these things. It’s a peace-seeking democracy dedicated to the rule of law – unlike so many of the countries whose horrific sins you blithely choose to overlook.

What are we to make of your selective moral outrage and rank hypocrisy?

You ought to take a look in the mirror and ask yourself why Israel, and only Israel, makes your blood boil and leads you to speak out, even at the risk of grossly distorting both reality and history.

The answer, Ms. Lilleng, should be painfully obvious.

Don’t forget to add this quote, to show that the US supported Israel’s stance:

<clockquote>

Hillary Clinton

Secretary of State

We support Israel’s right to self-defense. The [Palestinian] rocket barrages which are getting closer and closer to populated areas [in Israel] cannot go unanswered

dont go commenting on how “pro israel” hillary is…. or do you have such a short-term memory? Did she not kiss Arafat’s wife a few years ago?!?!?

Explain that without the Romans, we would now be facing “Judean Terrorists” and not “Palestinian”. How about that for ironic?

qwertyuiop: i found something that might help ya:

Gilad Shalit, now 22 years old, was born to Aviva and Noam Shalit on August 28, 1986. Together with his brother Yoel, 25, and sister Hadas, 18, Gilad grew up in Mitzpe Hilla in the Western Galilee.

The eight terrorists, who were heavily armed, divided into three different groups to maximize the impact of their terrorist assault. The first group fired into an armored car, but thankfully the car was unoccupied and no one was injured. The second group attacked an army post manned by soldiers from the Israel Defense Forces. Three Israeli soldiers were wounded in the attack. Simultaneously, the terrorists fired a rocket and hurled grenades at an Israeli tank that was nearby. The rocket struck the tank, killing the tank commander and another Israeli soldier. A third soldier was injured in the attack. Gilad Shalit, the fourth soldier in the tank, was wounded in the shoulder. It was at that point that Gilad was taken by the Palestinian terrorists to Gaza.

The terrorists who took Gilad Shalit captive were members of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades (which is the military arm of Hamas), the Popular Resistance Committees (which include members of the Fatah, Islamic Jihad, and Hamas), and the Army of Islam.

Almost immediately after Gilad Shalit was abducted, the Palestinians began using this young man as a bargaining chip in an effort to achieve their terrorist goals. The day after Gilad was captured, the Palestinians stated that they were willing to give Israel information about Gilad if Israel released all female and under-eighteen year old security prisoners that were being held in Israeli jails. Several days later, the terrorists demanded that Israel release an additional 1,000 prisoners.

It has been more than two-and-a-half years since Gilad Shalit was captured. For two-and-a-half long years, this quiet, well-mannered young man, whose smile almost always lit up his face, has been separated from his friends and family. For two-and-a-half years, the Shalit family has been deprived of their dear son and has been forced into the unimaginable position of not knowing exactly where their son is or how he is faring. For two-and-a-half years, the people of the State of Israel, as well as Jews around the world have been praying for the safe return of Gilad Shalit. For two-and-a-half years, the Palestinians have held themselves out as victims in order to generate the sympathy of the international community, while Gilad Shalit languishes in captivity on their watch.

good luck!! hope this helps!!!!

syriansephardi: ha thanx-i found it on a site to bring Gilad Shalit home!!!

syriansephardi: good morning to ya too-someone was up bright & shinny-real early!!!!!

syriansephardi: oh funny!!!!

To all those people sending in articles: you’ll help qwerty if you give the sources. Otherwise it probably shouldn’t be used for the speech.

qwertyuiop: great news!!! thanx for the update buddy!!!