On Wednesday, June 26, 2002 nine
journalists from the Arab, Israeli, and Western press were honored with the
Search for Common Ground Awards for Middle East Journalism.
The ceremony for their outstanding, often-courageous
contributions to better understanding among people and nations in the Middle
East was at the European Parliament in Brussels.
A report of all Awards is at http://searchforcommonground.org/News/meawards2002.pdf
. All the honored articles can be read at http://www.sfcg.org/cgnews/middle-east.cfm
.
One Awardee, Helen Schary Motro, is a U.S. attorney
living and writing exquisitely in Jerusalem. She publishes in the
Jerusalem Post, Baltimore Sun, Christian Science Monitor, San Francisco
Chronicle and many others of the finest newspapers and magazines.
More and more, Helen has been able to discover stories
about Palestinians and Israelis learning to care about one another as they meet
and realize their equal humanitiy -- shared pains , fears, visions, and highest
qualities.
Helen's acceptance talk is about new kinds of unsung
heroes of our times! She recounts how representatives of our two fine
peoples continue to come together for the good of all, demonstrating that it's
always the right time for Dialogue and collaboration.
---------------
At the same time, in North America Marcia Kannry in
Brooklyn is shepherding The Dialogue Project that is rapidly birthing new
Dialogue groups in New York, New Jersey, and beyond. It's on the Web at http://thedialogueproject.org
.
You can hear the most recent in a series of WNYC-Radio
interviews of her and Dialogue participants -- a Jew, Eddie, and a Palestinian,
Bassam -- modeling what Dialogue is an isn't. This June 25, 2002
broadcast of Bassam, Eddie, and Marcia is on the Web at http://www.wnyc.org/shows/bl/episodes/06252002
.
--L&L
--------------
Acceptance talk upon receiving the Middle East Journalism Award of "Search
for Common Ground"
June 26, 2002 -- Brussels
By Helen Schary Motro
During the last black week in Israel five babies
arrived at the pediatric intensive care unit in Wolfson Hospital near Tel-Aviv,
all of them close to death. But none were the children you read about in
the headlines. All these babies were born with heart defects so severe
that without surgery none would survive. This week each is going through
a complicated operation. All five are Palestinian three from Gaza and two
from the West Bank. Some of them have already been to this hospital
before, diagnosed in the clinic which treats Palestinian children every
Tuesday. Their parents or grandparents came too, and will stay with them
throughout their months in the hospital.
They are among the 150 Palestinian children who have
undergone cardiac surgery performed since 1995 by the Israeli organization Save
a Child's Heart. The staff comprises both Jews and Arabs, and the babies
lie in the cardiac unit among Jewish babies who, like they, are fighting for
their lives.
Neither these babies nor those who treat them ever
reach the limelight. Last Tuesday morning when three of them arrived in
the hospital and were rushed to be connected to oxygen, the headlines screamed
of other children not too far away, children who seemed luckier because they
were born with healthy hearts. But, on a simple bus ride to school, they
met a brutal untimely death.
Like many other people, I often feel overwhelmed by
the endless calamities. Twenty months ago I wrote about the first child
victim of this Intifada, whose Palestinian father it was my privilege to
know. Now, after so much bloodletting, who can keep all the tragedies
straight? But I want to impress upon you that in Israel now there are people who,
when they talk of building walls, the walls they mean are walls between the
leaking chambers of a baby's heart. The knives they wield are
scalpels. Their battle plans are recovery.
Physicians for Human Rights is another Israeli
organization engaged in health care with Palestinians. The Jewish and
Arab doctors in Physicians for Human Rights maintain ties with their colleagues
in Palestinian hospitals. Every Saturday on their day off a volunteer
team of doctors sets up a mobile clinic in West Bank villages, bringing
medicines and treatment. Ten days ago, for example, six Israeli
physicians an internist, two family doctors, a surgeon, an orthopedist and a
pediatrician arrived in the village of Deir Balout near Nablus. On that
day they gave care to 370 patients and arranged follow-up treatment within
Israel for nine with severe problems.
Physicians for Human Rights and Save a Child's Heart
are not alone. Despite the understandable breakdown of cooperation
budding in so many fields just a few years ago, other Israelis and Palestinians
continue to bravely work together.
For doctors it is perhaps easier because what they do
is concrete. Contacts built on words are more fragile. For people
no longer believe in words.
Still there are those of incredible courage, like the
hundreds of Palestinian and Israeli parents who belong to the Bereaved Families
Forum. All of them have had their own children killed by the other
side. Now when they meet they must travel all the way to London, because
face-to-face encounters in the Middle East are not possible today. For
the rest of their lives these parents will suffer from wounded hearts no
surgeon can heal. But instead of crying in dark rooms or joining the
ranks of hatred, they, like the doctors, are hoping to give other children a
future.
Sometimes people even do things that in other
circumstances would be considered normal. A week ago today in between the
bombings a group of 18 Palestinian and Jewish teenagers in Jerusalem put on the
circus performance they had trained together for all year. After their
enthusiastic show before a mixed audience, a 16 year old trapeze artist was
asked if she could suggest any solutions to the Palestinian and Israeli
leaders. Her quick and simple response: "Maybe they should join the
circus." In my work I try to expose through examples like these that in
the midst of horror and hate there is still contact and caring.
A lot has been said about courage here tonight.
Believe me, I am far from courageous. I write what I do because I am
afraid, afraid for all of us. I see trying to reach common ground as the
only way out. We don't hear much about hope these days. But if
there is any hope left, these real unsung people are at its vanguard.
Poet Jay Ladin has written: "Wherever there is a
chasm there will also be a bridge". We must resist despairing from
the darkness of our chasm. Instead we must dedicate ourselves to the
building of that bridge. If we will it, it is no dream.