Mads Gilbert: Eyes in Gaza -- Wed at press club

Mads Gilbert: Eyes in Gaza: What Did I See, What Can You Do? 

Press Conference, National Press Club, Murrow Room
Wednesday, April 11th, 2012, 8:00am to 11:00am

The Carol Chomsky Memorial Fund, in conjunction with Georgetown University's Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, are proud to present: "Eyes in Gaza: What Did I See, What Can You do?" featuring Dr. Mads Gilbert Dr. Gilbert will address the US role in Israel's "Operation Cast Lead," the use of illegal weapons on a civilian population; the ethics of weapons' sales to countries that have used or tested weapons illegally; the aftermath of Cast Lead and the continuing siege and blockade of the Gaza Strip 3 years on. It will include details of Dr. Gilbert's January 2012 visit to Gaza 3 this past January, and information on the recent International Criminal Court's (ICC's) decision not to prosecute the Israeli government or military for war crimes carried out against thousands of Gazans, their homes, businesses and land during the three week illegal assault on the Gaza Strip. Dr. Mads Gilbert will also look at the broader, regional context of the Israeli-Palestinian struggle within the "Arab Spring."

Mads Gilbert is a renowned Norwegian Physician long known for his studies on children and infants in time of war. He received his PhD at the University of Iowa, is a specialist in anesthesiology and a leader of the Emergency Medicine Department at the University of Tromso in Norway since 1995. In addition to his research and practice at Tromso hospital in Norway, Dr. Gilbert co-founded NORWAC, a Norwegian-Palestinian humanitarian aid organization. He worked in an underground Palestinian refugee camp hospital in Beirut during the 1982 Israeli invasion and bombardment of Lebanon and again in Beirut during the Summer 2006 Israeli war against Lebanon. He and his colleague, Dr. Erik Fosse, were two of only a small handful of westerners in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead from Dec. 27th 2008 to January 18th, 2009. Both testified as expert witnesses at subsequent Human Rights Committee Sessions held at the United Nations in Geneva after the attack.The press conference is open to world media. A Lecture will take place from 3:00-5:00pm in the ICC Auditorium, at Georgetown University followed by a reception and book signing in the CCAS Boardroom on Wednesday afternoon.

Contact Jennifer Loewenstein: amadea311 at earthlink.net;
or Sam Husseini: samhusseini at gmail.com 

"What Must Be Said" -- German poet banned from Israel for writing about nuclear program

By Gunter Grass


Why have I kept silent, silent for too long
over what is openly played out
in war games at the end of which we
the survivors are at best footnotes.

It’s that claim of a right to first strike
against those who under a loudmouth’s thumb
are pushed into organized cheering—
a strike to snuff out the Iranian people
on suspicion that under his influence
an atom bomb’s being built.

But why do I forbid myself
to name that other land in which
for years—although kept secret—
a usable nuclear capability has grown
beyond all control, because
no scrutiny is allowed.

The universal silence around this fact,
under which my own silence lay,
I feel now as a heavy lie,
a strong constraint, which to dismiss
courts forceful punishment:
the verdict of “Antisemitism” is well known.

But now, when my own country,
guilty of primal and unequalled crimes
for which time and again it must be tasked—
once again, in pure commerce,
though with quick lips we declare it
reparations, wants to send
Israel yet another submarine—
one whose speciality is to deliver
warheads capable of ending all life
where the existence of even one
nuclear weapon remains unproven,
but where suspicion serves for proof—
now I say what must be said.

But why was I silent for so long?
Because I thought my origin,
marked with an ineradicable stain,
forbade mention of this fact
as definite truth about Israel, a country
to which I am and will remain attached.

Why is it only now I say,
in old age, with my last drop of ink,
that Israel’s nuclear power endangers
an already fragile world peace?
Because what by tomorrow might be
too late, must be spoken now,
and because we—as Germans, already
burdened enough—could become
enablers of a crime, foreseeable and therefore
not to be eradicated
with any of the usual excuses.

And admittedly: I’m silent no more
because I’ve had it with the West’s hypocrisy
—and one can hope that many others too
may free themselves from silence,
challenge the instigator of known danger
to abstain from violence,
and at the same time demand
a permanent and unrestrained control
of Israel’s atomic power
and Iranian nuclear plants
by an international authority
accepted by both governments.

Only thus can one give help
to Israelis and Palestinians—still more,
all the peoples, neighbour-enemies
living in this region occupied by madness
—and finally, to ourselves as well.