madeleine

Think of the One Humanity, and Make that a Rule of Everything You do.” – International Peace Coalition Meeting #47

April 26, 2024by madeleine in International Peace Coalition

The April 26th meeting of the International Peace Coalition

by Daniel Platt

April 24–The 47th consecutive online weekly meeting of the International Peace Coalition began today, with remarks by Schiller Institute Founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche. Zepp-LaRouche identifying the three hot spots which continue to be areas of escalation: the Ukraine war, the Israeli assault on Gaza, and efforts to provoke a China-Taiwan conflict. She pointed to the recently released statistics by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), indicating that military spending reached an all-time high of $2.443 trillion over the past year.

This parallels the rapid arms buildups that took place before each of the two World Wars of the 20th century. European political leaders are blithely saying that war is inevitable. “Nobody talks about diplomacy,” she said. Germany has even established an annual Veterans Day, although the only German veterans are those who served in the war in Afghanistan. She suggested that it were more appropriate to issue an apology to that ruined nation. The danger of a new world war is rapidly increasing, and “any little mistake… any little surprise can trigger a catastrophe.”

Zepp-LaRouche knows China well, having met with political and scientific leaders in many visits to that nation. She critiqued the recent diplomatic deployment by U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken in which he called out China for supplying Russia with “dual-use” technologies. This is a clumsy attempt to drive a wedge between the two powers, and an attempt to suppress China’s spectacular industrial development.

She cited recent comments by seasoned observers Ambassador Chas Freeman, Alistaire Crooke, and Scott Ritter, all of whom assessed that Iran’s retaliatory attack on Israel demonstrated the vulnerabilities in Israel’s air defense systems. On the U.S. domestic front, Zepp-LaRouche charged that authorities in the U.S. are using anti-democratic methods against students who are protesting the genocide in Gaza. “If you are suppressing free speech in this way, it is not a sign of strength,” she said, “it is an admission of guilt.”

George Koo, a retired business consultant specializing in U.S.-China trade, and the Chairman of the Burlingame Foundation, followed Zepp-LaRouche. Koo offered an assessment of US-China relations, in the wake of the Blinken follies: “It seems that the Biden administration is a one-trick pony with respect to international relations: speak very loudly and carry a big stick.” China sent a low-level functionary to meet Blinken when he arrived in the country, demonstrating their lack of enthusiasm for his approach to diplomacy. Koo said that he is skeptical of the possibility of nuclear war, asserting that the people in the Pentagon are very aware of China’s advanced military capabilities. If there were a real fire-fight, Koo continued, he doesn’t believe that the Chinese will fire on civilians. They will target U.S. warships.

Jason Ross, representing the LaRouche Organization, reported on his recent interview with Kevork Almassian on the “Syriana Analysis” program, which focused on the unique conceptions that underlie the “Oasis Plan” for peace between Israel and its neighbors. Ross told the meeting that the chronic problem which leads to conflict in Southwest Asia, is that there is not enough water. To address this problem, water infrastructure and desalination are priorities. Ross described two methods of desalination, one using heat distillation, and the other using reverse osmosis, pumping water through a filter. Since desalination is energy-intensive, potable water is an energy problem in the modern world. Ross indicated the great value of nuclear energy, for heating and pumping water, especially in nations not rich in hydrocarbons.

In the spirit of the Oasis plan, Ross called for Southwest Asia to become a region of integration for humanity. He urged peace demonstrators to incorporate a vision of where the region ought to go: replace the paradigm of conflict, otherwise any temporary victory will not be sustained.

Following Ross’ comments, a short video with excerpts from the Schiller Institute’s April 13-14 conference on the Oasis Plan was shown.

During the discussion period, co-moderator Dennis Speed observed that 35 American college campuses are now experiencing “various levels of revolt and resistance.” In an unprecedented action, U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson went to Columbia University and called for the resignation of the university president. Israeli PM Netanyahu has arrogantly intervened into U.S. politics, calling for the suppression of campus protests. The tactic of accusing protestors of antisemitism is falling flat, however, particularly because the catalytic role of organizations such as Jewish Voices for Peace in the protests, has rendered the anti-Semitic charge ludicrous on its face.

Jacques Cheminade, President of Solidarité & Progrès, reported on the situation in France, where more than 50% of the population thinks that President Macron is talking nonsense. Macron endorsed the German “sky shield” initiative, which would lead to the integration of European air defenses and would mean de facto acceptance of NATO rule over Europe.

A report came in from a participant in the Freedom Flotilla, which is preparing to leave Türkiye with 5,000 tons of food and medical supplies for Gaza. It was scheduled to sail for Gaza today, but there is a delay because its largest vessel sails under the flag of Guinea Bissau, and Israel is pressuring that nation’s government to delay the aid. The organizers have asked peace activists to contact their governments, and Helga Zepp-LaRouche stated that we need a major mobilization to allow the flotilla through. CodePink founder Medea Benjamin, another participant in the Flotilla, has prepared a video with instructions.

Executive Intelligence Review editor Mike Billington reported that Zwelivelile “Mandla” Mandela, grandson of Nelson Mandela, has also joined the flotilla team. Mandela emphasized that his grandfather was always highly engaged with the Palestinians’ struggle, which he called the greatest moral issue of our time. He recounted how San Francisco dockworkers launched an international movement by refusing to load goods for South Africa, and that now we need a similar approach for Israel.

A graduate student in American Economic History participating for the first time in the IPC, asked whether our elected officials are compromised by foreign money, and if so, what can we do? Dennis Small, one of co-moderators, responded, yes, ”but the worst form of colonization of the U.S., is by foreign ideas, by “British liberal empiricism” modes of thinking, spread particularly in academia. Americans have been conditioned to view the world through the lens of geopolitics, the “law of the jungle.” One remedy for that outlook is the Ten Principles for a New Strategic and Development Architecture . The 10th point of Helga Zepp-LaRouche’s “Ten Principles,” the one that asserts that man is essentially good, “drives people crazy” because it contradicts the British Malthusian ideological assertion that you have to gain by destroying somebody else.

In her concluding remarks, Zepp-LaRouche commented with a smile that we must lead the “fight to unify the peace movement,” even though some people “just faint when they hear my name.” She reminded the participants of our historical antecedents, such as the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, where leaders came to realize that no one can enjoy a victory if everyone is dead, and “this is even more true in the age of nuclear weapons.” “Think of the one humanity, and make that a rule of everything you do.”

The Aesthetic Dynamics of Peace – International Peace Coalition Meeting #46

April 20, 2024by madeleine in International Peace Coalition

by Kevin Gribbroek

I think the whole concept of the Oasis Plan is exactly to interrupt forever this cycle of Intifada revenge. The whole point is that if there is no justice in allowing a two-state solution and the full equal rights and right to development for all, then the violence will continue…. You have to switch and leave the past behind you and have a beautiful vision of the future, which gives hope to all the participants in the conflict….
This principle of hope and having a beautiful vision is what has to elevate people out of the pit. And art and music and poetry are absolutely important–we are suffering as a humanity of a terrible flatness—of a two-dimensionality in the thinking—which has come along with the monetarist outlook, and just thinking in terms of profit. All of this is just flattening the Earth to two-dimensions, and we must urgently get to a much more beautiful world.
Helga zepp-larouche

April 19—The 46th consecutive meeting of the International Peace Coalition (IPC) was convened today, less than a week after the historic Schiller Institute “Oasis Plan” conference. Although the main focus of the meeting was the Oasis Plan—as a feature of an overall policy of peace through development—an important theme developed towards the end of the proceedings on the importance of beautiful art to inspire and ennoble people; to lift them “out of the pit.” In fact, what became evident, was that beautiful art and economic development are in reality integral parts of the same whole, with power to bring about true, lasting peace by creating for people the vision of a beautiful, more prosperous future.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder of the Schiller Institute and co-founder of the IPC, began the proceedings with her assessment that “we are experiencing one of the most traumatic shifts in the alignment of the world” driven by the emergence of a new world order. As this process unfolds, one can expect “major seizures, and effects, and dramatic convulsions,” including the danger of global war, until we have reached a more peaceful level of cooperation among nations. The IPC is unique in that it’s not simply against war and for peace, but presents a blueprint of how peace can be achieved—peace through economic development. She highlighted the fact that high-ranking diplomats from four nations, Palestine, South Africa, Russia, and Belarus, at the April 13, Schiller Institute conference, openly endorsed the Oasis Plan. However, that same day, Iran launched a missile and drone attack against Israel in retaliation for Israel’s April 1 bombing of the Iranian consulate in Damascus, demonstrating just how close we are to World War III.

The next speaker, Terry Lodge, lawyer and long-time member of Veterans for Peace, described a recent letter sent to President Biden, the State Department, and the Department of Energy. The letter summarizes the history of Israel’s “very troubling” nuclear weapons program, and details the fact that under U.S. law, financial aid must be denied to any country not in compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. This, of course, would apply to Israel. With no “delusion” that the U.S. will cut aid to Israel, nonetheless he expressed his hope that the IPC will serve as a vehicle for generating international discussion about the Biden administration’s inability to follow its own legal standards. According to Lodge, Benjamin Netanyahu was directly involved in the smuggling operation that resulted in Israel acquiring nuclear weapons technology.

Jack Gilroy, of Pax Christi, gave a report on recent direct-action activities targeting the military-financial complex. On April 15, tax day, Gilroy and his collaborators conducted demonstrations outside three arms manufacturers in the Scranton, Pennsylvania area: General Dynamics, producer of 155mm artillery shells; Lockheed Martin, largest defense corporation in the world, and producer of the laser-guided Paveway bombs; and finally to BAE Systems, producer of the M777 Howitzer.

Jose Vega, independent LaRouche candidate for New York’s 15th District Congressional seat, reported from the Bronx, where he is currently leading a petitioning drive to get his name on the ballot. Vega characterized his campaign as “flooding the Bronx with optimism—spreading a message of hope and peace. Despite the fact that his district in one of the poorest in the nation, with 30% of residents way below the poverty level, his opponent, Congressman Ritchie Torres, is campaigning as a “champion of Israel.” We all must emulate the IPC through a “dialogue and discussion process”:

The residents of the Bronx should be coming together to discuss foreign policy, to discuss international conflicts as well as what’s happening in their own neighborhoods, because it is all one thing. Our foreign policy is our domestic policy, because what’s happening in Gaza, how we treat other countries, is a reflection of how we treat our own country; how we treat our own neighborhoods.
Jose Vega

Ray McGovern, retired CIA analyst and co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, spoke about the April 17 opinion piece by Joe Biden in the Wall Street Journal. Biden made a pitch for billions of dollars in supplemental funding for Ukraine, trumpeting its tremendous benefit for the U.S. economy. McGovern called this the Military Industrial Complex on steroids, which will only benefit the rich.

An interesting dialogue emerged as a result of a report given by a leader of the Mexican LaRouche Youth Movement (LYM) during the discussion period. She recounted her experience at a recent pro-Palestine, where a planned showing of the “Oasis Plan” video was preempted by the event organizers in favor of a “horrible, harsh” video showing the gory images of people suffering and dying in Gaza. The event organizers seemed uninterested in discussing solutions, despite their good intentions. The question was asked: How do we get people to understand that these violent, horrific videos do not ennoble and empower, but rather dehumanize and desensitize the population?

Zepp-LaRouche addressed the question by expressing her belief that it is necessary to expose the death and suffering, dwelling on that “breeds hatred and violence and desperation; pessimism” which is counterproductive. What needs to be accomplished is to evoke humanity, “to strengthen that in people which is the divine spark; which makes them reject any such violence forever.” One of the ways to accomplish this is through a truly artistic treatment of the subject. She offered an incredibly moving 3-minute video featuring Dieter Hallervorden, a famous German actor, reciting his poem “GAZA GAZA,” against a video panorama of the destruction of Gaza, and other images, during which he addressed the people of Gaza directly, by turning his back to the audience who thus saw him talking to Gaza, and would turn from time to time back to the audience, invoking compassion and passion for peace.

In her closing remarks, Zepp-LaRouche came back to this theme of aesthetic beauty, tied integrally to the “Westphalian” approach of peace through development–the only way the “cycle of violence” in Southwest Asia can be interrupted. Although this may seem impossible, to survive, people must make an “intellectual jump,” to “leave the past behind, and have a beautiful vision of the future, which gives hope to all participants in the conflict.” She cited Friedrich Schiller’s poem “[[Hope]]”:[[ https://archive.schillerinstitute.com/transl/trans_schil_2poems.html#hope]] “We are born for that which is better!” and concluded by insisting that building the momentum for a development solution is “the dynamic that can move mountains.”

International Peace Coalition Meeting: Overcoming the Tragedy of Geopolitics

April 12, 2024by madeleine in General, International Peace Coalition

by Kevin Gribbroek

If I stopped to think about what is going on in each part of the world, I would only have time to cry. Therefore, I have to do something to act.
Lyndon H. LaROuche Jr.

April 12—One day before the Schiller Institute’s historic Oasis Plan conference, the International Peace Coalition (IPC) convened its 45th consecutive meeting, a remarkable but also crucial accomplishment, given the precarious state of world affairs. A major theme of the meeting was why a new paradigm of peace through development is the only means of resolving major geopolitical flash points, which could very quickly ignite World War III—with a particular focus on the Ukraine war, Southwest Asia, and growing tensions in the South China Sea.

This week’s featured speakers included:

Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Founder Schiller Institute

Dr. George Koo, Retired business consultant specializing in U.S.-China Trade, and Chairman, Burlingame Foundation

Rubén Guzzetti, Argentine Institute for Geopolitical Studies (IADEG)

Coleen Rowley, former FBI special agent and whistleblower

Ray McGovern, former analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)

Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder of the Schiller Institute and co-founder of the IPC, began the proceedings with a strategic briefing on the very dangerous developments concerning the escalating showdown between the U.S./UK and their various satellites on one side, and Russia/China/Iran on the other. The most “acute and urgent” threat is that of war between Israel and Iran, driven by Israel’s April 1 missile attack against the Iranian embassy in Damascus, Syria. This could rapidly escalate to global war.

Zepp-LaRouche called on IPC participants to go all out mobilizing for the Oasis Plan conference, which could not have come at a timelier moment. She said,

Unless we get to what we have been discussing from the very beginning, the new paradigm—where we overcome geopolitics with an architecture for security and development which includes all countries of the planet—the theaters of the potential wars will just shift from one crisis spot to the next…. So that should fuel our efforts to really fight for a peace solution which must be just, for all sides. Because the lesson from the Peace of Westphalia is that unless it is just, and takes into account the interests of all, it cannot work.
Helga Zepp-larouche

The next speaker, Dr. George Koo, focused on developments in the “Pacific arena.” He reported on the very positive development of former Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou, who recently visited mainland China with a youth delegation. After an excellent meeting with President Xi Jinping in Beijing, Xi said, “After all, the future of Taiwan and the mainland will be up to the young generation…. Ma Ying-jeou will be welcome to bring another group anytime.” He contrasted this visit with U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s recent trip to Beijing, where she criticized China for its “overcapacity.” According to Koo, this is an admission by the U.S. that it can no longer compete with China. He warned against the United States using its “loyal lap dogs”—Japan, South Korea and the Philippines—as proxies against China. Like President Putin, President Xi does not bluff and will take active measures to protect China’s national sovereignty.

Rubén Guzzetti began his remarks by expressing the IADEG’s full solidarity with the Schiller Institute, and support for its initiatives against the “onslaught of Western powers, which is leading us into a dead end.” He then proceeded to report on the history of Western efforts to subjugate the peoples of South America, starting with the 1806–07 British invasion and occupation of Buenos Aires. This intensified after World War II with the consolidation of the United States as the “new Western empire.” Today, the estimate is that the U.S. and UK have 77 military bases in South America. The election of Javier Milei as President of Argentina has further opened the door for U.S./NATO subversion of the continent. But the IADEG has a plan to fight this government, and will be holding a national mobilization on May 9.

Coleen Rowley, a former FBI agent, legal expert and whistle blower, reported that she will be participating in the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, in which volunteers will be sailing relief ships laden with 5,500 tons of food and medicine to the shores of Gaza to provide aid for the Palestinians. She asked all IPC participants to do everything possible to spread news of the Freedom Flotilla. Even though relief workers have been killed, in the aftermath of the ICJ’s ruling against Israel, maximum publicity surrounding the Flotilla’s mission may succeed in causing Israel to back off. However, in the past, besides outright murder, Israel had taken people engaged in this type of relief effort prisoner, a risk Rowley and her fellow volunteers are willing to take: “If we can end the siege of Gaza, that could be a first step towards peaceful development in the rest of the world.” Helga Zepp-LaRouche pledged that she would make sure that news of the Flotilla will be circulated every day internationally to focus the eyes of the world on this courageous initiative.

Ray McGovern, following Rowley, asked : Why does President Joe Biden “insist on challenging the rest of the world, including two major nuclear powers?” Biden himself answered that question during a recent 60 Minutes interview: When asked if he thought it would be unwise to get involved in a two-front war, he said, “We’re the United States of America—the most powerful country in the history of the world!”—madness, according to McGovern. He asked that everyone hope and pray that his good friend Coleen Rowley and the Flotilla expedition succeed in getting the food and medicine into Gaza.

Dennis Small of the Schiller Institute opened the discussion with the news flash that the Embassy of South Africa in Mexico had just posted an invitation for the Oasis Plan conference to both their Facebook and X social media accounts. The Ambassador of South Africa to Mexico, H.E. Beryl Rose Sisulu, will be speaking at the conference.

Bolivar Télles, a leader of the Central American and Caribbean Critical Thought organization in Nicaragua, reported on his nation’s case against Germany before the ICJ, accusing Berlin of violating the Genocide Convention by providing Israel with military support. Germany has emphatically denied these charges.

Zepp-LaRouche referring to the report by Télles, characterizing the German government’s harsh rejection of the charges as “tragic.” Germany, she said does not bare sole responsibility for the Holocaust detailing international support for Hitler. “Collective guilt” is being used as a means of manipulating the German people into supporting Israel no matter what. With the growing recognition by the Global South of the genocide against the Palestinians, if Germany, along with the U.S. and EU, continue their support for Israel’s mass murder of civilians, they will be isolated from the rest of the world. This is a tragedy, because a new economic system will not function without the U.S. and Europe: “It creates the seed of a geopolitical catastrophe.”

This can be changed, she concluded, “because we have the overwhelming majority of the people of the world at our side.” In reference to the Oasis Plan conference, she said it is the “starting point of a real revolution” to usher in the new era of “peace through development, because nothing else will solve the problem.”

44th International Peace Coalition Meeting: ‘Create a Vision of How You Want the World to Be’

April 5, 2024by madeleine in International Peace Coalition

I think the one element which is absolutely irreplaceable, is the idea of what we do to put the world together. And I also think that what Prof. Garzon said—how this can only function if you have regional integration. That is something which absolutely needs to be put on the agenda. We need a concrete plan of how to put the world back into order, of which the Oasis Plan is one big part. And as we will discuss next week , this is not a plan just about reconstruction of Palestine, of Gaza, but it is a plan to solve the problem between Israel and Palestine, by taking the entire region, from India to the Mediterranean, from the Caucuses to the Gulf. All of Southwest Asia has to be part of an integrated plan of reconstruction for it to work.
Helga zepp-larouche, founder of the schiller institute

April 5—Helga Zepp-LaRouche offered this example of the “top-down” policy formulation-process that the International Peace Coalition, which held its 44th consecutive weekly meeting today, must engage in. Today’s featured speakers were:

Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Founder of the Schiller Institute;
Prof. Richard Anderson Falk, professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University, Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor’s Chairman of the Board of Trustees, former United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories from 2008 to 2014;
Jens Jørgen Nielsen, historian, author, former Moscow correspondent of the Danish newspaper Politiken, representative of the Russian-Danish Dialogue, Denmark;
Francis Anthony Boyle, American human rights lawyer and professor of international law at University of Illinois, counsel to Bosnia and Herzegovina and to the Provisional Government of the Palestinian Authority;
Prof. Fernando Garzón, architect, urban planner and leader of the Ecuadorian-Palestinian Union, adviser to various UN agencies, the Inter-American Development Bank, and others.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche opened the proceedings with an update on the conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine. She asserted that with all that has transpired in Gaza, the fact that leading nations are still sending weapons to Israel is indicative of “the collapse of the moral order of the world.” She said of the devastation there, that “the only way to stop it would be that the United States puts its foot down, which they could, but they’re not doing it.”

Noting the recent observances of the 75th anniversary of NATO, Zepp-LaRouche remarked, “If you look at the actual history of NATO, it was not a defensive alliance.” She reviewed the history of its illegitimate actions, and said that in particular, the Libyan war was the beginning of the destruction of the UN, noting that her husband, Lyndon LaRouche, said at the time that this was the beginning of the war against Russia and China. Since that time, Zepp-LaRouche concluded, “NATO wars have killed 4 1/2 million people.”

She asserted that the UN Security Council is effectively defunct due to the abuse of the veto, followed by the statement of White House National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby that UNSC resolutions are not binding. “We are in a lawless situation,” she said. “We have entered the world of jungle already.”

Zepp-LaRouche concluded by encouraging all to participate in the Schiller Institute’s [[Oasis Plan conference]] [[https://schillerinstitute.nationbuilder.com/oasis_conference_20240413]] next week.

Former UN special rapporteur, Prof. Richard Falk, presented an impassioned defense of his colleague, special rapporteur for occupied Palestine Francesca Albanese, who recently issued a formal report titled, “Anatomy of a Genocide.” Falk described her report as being ”… in my judgment, the most objective and meticulously researched and analyzed assessment of the genocidal dimensions of what Israel has been doing in Gaza.” Falk recalled his own prior experience as Special Rapporteur for Occupied Palestine, during which he also endured “a series of smears, death threats and unpleasantness… and in my case, additionally compounded by being called a ‘self-hating Jew.’”

Falk called what is happening in Gaza “the most original, transparent genocide in all of history…. This is a case where the perceptions of people around the world are taking place in real time, with overwhelming evidence that is supplied by the imagery shown nightly on TV and by the self-justifying language used by Israeli leadership to dehumanize the Palestinian people.”

Jens Jørgen Nielsen offered his assessment of the strategic crisis, saying that leading politicians “regard the present situation as a sort of computer game.” “People wind up hating their counterparts so much that they are willing to hurt themselves to inflict harm on the other….We are trapped in our own toxic narratives and psychological distortions.” Nielsen called for a return to diplomacy, like that which saved the world at the time of the Cuban missile crisis. Instead, he lamented, “it seems that Western politicians have a race to see who can use the most derogatory terms about Putin.”

Prof. Francis Boyle proposed five measures that can be taken to resolve the crisis in Gaza:

Suspend Israel’s participation in the activities of the UN General Assembly, along the lines of what the General Assembly did in response to apartheid in South Africa;
Convene a war crimes tribunal against Israel, similar to the one against Yugoslavia to which he was a party;
Sever diplomatic relations with Israel;
Issue economic sanctions against Israel;
Have the UN general assembly admit Palestine as a full-fledged member.

This was followed by a dialogue with Helga Zepp-LaRouche, who endorsed Boyle’s proposal to give Palestine full membership in the UN. She asked him to comment about her statement that the UN is defunct if the United States says resolutions are non-binding, to which he responded, “The statement that UN Security Council resolutions are non-binding is a bald-faced lie…under article 25 of the UN charter, all Security Council resolutions are binding.”

Professor Fernando Garzon described the conflict in Palestine as “…consequences of a scorched Earth strategy… to destroy any vestige of infrastructure,” following “75 years of continuous expulsion and elimination of its original population.” He emphasized the importance of creating a viable economy: “The Oslo agreements included a special chapter on development…. There never was implementation of this component.”

During the discussion period, a German participant proposed a “friendship concert” in Kaliningrad; preceded by a motorcade through European countries. Jack Gilroy of Veterans for Peace and Pax Christi, U.S.A. presented reports of anti-war actions around the country, including protests at weapons plants. Another participant described peace marches and related activity being held in Ibero-America.

To a question on how to avoid war with Russia, Zepp-LaRouche said, “You have to make the effort to understand the complexity of the whole world and put the one humanity first…. Treat other cultures as if they were your sons and daughters and grandparents.”

A video was shown of Kynan Thistlethwaite’s intervention against reporters and editors from the New York Times, Politico and the Guardian. Moderator Dennis Speed reported that “they basically froze and took an adjournment for five minutes.”

A final question was posed: “What does it mean to be optimistic under today’s circumstances?” Zepp-LaRouche turned to great thinkers, including astronomer Johannes Kepler, who said that the more you study the laws of the universe, the more you recognize the beauty of the plan of the Creator, and Gottfried Leibniz, who said that every evil will cause an even greater good to emerge. She concluded, “You must create within yourself a vision of how you want the world to be… If you do it, you will be happy.”

IPC Meeting, Friday April 5: How close are we to world war?

April 4, 2024by madeleine in General, International Peace Coalition

International Peace Coalition General Meeting
Join us Friday April 5, at 11am EDT/5pm CET
Send an email to questions@schillerinstitute.org to get the Zoom details for the meeting of the International Peace Coalition.
Please share this invitation with your organizations and friends. Come with full organizing reports.

Today, responding to the first question on her weekly webcast, “How close are we to world war?” International Schiller institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche said:

“Well, I’m not in a position to say how close we are, but we are very close. Because both of these so-called regional crises, in Southwest Asia and Ukraine, have the immediate potential of escalation—intentional or not, by escalation or not….

“But I think what is most worrisome, something which has appeared, both with respect to the United States and Israel…is the apparent and obvious disregard for international law… I think the most ominous and most glaring example is the U.S. responding to the resolutions and decisions by the UN Security Council, with the argument that they regard them as non-binding…. Now that means that is the UN Security Council, which is the only existing , and actually the highest institution of international lawfulness, of the rules-based order, if you want—if this is regarded as non-binding, then we are really in for trouble—because that means that there is no international institution that can be appealed to, and we are entering a compete state of jungle lawlessness.”

The ongoing de-population of Gaza is not “collateral damage.” It is intentional, and has a policy precedent, under Kissinger, Brzezinski and Huntington, since the days of Vietnam, that was never rescinded. The policy, as stated by the United States State Department Office of Population Affairs representative Thomas Ferguson in the 1980s, was this:

“There is a single theme behind all our work —we must reduce population levels. Either governments do it our way, through nice clean methods, or they will get the kinds of mess that we have in El Salvador, or in Iran or in Beirut. Population is a political problem. Once population is out of control, it requires authoritarian government, even fascism, to reduce it.”

The 2023 order delivered by Boris Johnson to Ukraine’s Zelensky to reject negotiations with Vladimir Putin, depopulated Ukraine by millions. Now, especially after the insane terrorist attack on the Crocus center, thermonuclear war is our next, and final stop.

Sane heads must prevail, and quickly. The April 13 Schiller Institute conference, The Oasis Plan: The LaRouche Solution for Peace Through Development Between Israel and Palestine and for All of Southwest Asia must assemble a worldwide anti-Malthusian resistance, to ensure that every life in Palestine, and in the world, is sacred, that international law must prevail to prevent genocide, and that economic development must be the engine for peace.

We will be joined this week by:
–Prof. Fernando Garzón (Ecuador): “The Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Phase of the War-Torn Areas of Gaza.” Architect and urban planner, leader of the Ecuadorian-Palestinian Union. He has taught in various universities in Ecuador, and has been an adviser to various UN agencies, the Inter-American Development Bank, and others.

-Prof. Richard Anderson Falk (United States): professor emeritus of international law Princeton University, Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor’s Chairman of the Board of Trustees. Former United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories from 2008 to 2014.

Please share this invite with your organizations and friends. Come with full organizing reports. More speakers will be revealed tomorrow.

International Peace Coalition Meeting: We Must Not Lose Our Humanity

March 30, 2024by madeleine in General, Global Diplomacy, International Peace Coalition

by Daniel Platt

March 29, 2024 (EIRNS)–The 43rd consecutive weekly online meeting of the International Peace Coalition began today with an acknowledgment of the importance of the recent memo issued by Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), titled “The French Road to Nuclear War”, and it was noted that some of the authors of that report were participating in this IPC meeting, including Scott Ritter, former UN Weapons Inspector in Iraq; Ray McGovern, former analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA); and Coleen Rowley, former FBI special agent and whistleblower.

Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche opened the proceedings by recalling the film, “Storm Over Asia”, released by her late husband, Lyndon LaRouche, in 1999. During its first ten minutes, this film describes the ongoing “Great Game” of conflict between the Anglosphere and the Asian powers, why it is happening, and who is doing it. At that time, the active conflicts were in the North Caucasus region, but we see the same dynamic going on in Ukraine now. French President Macron’s threat to deploy 20,000 troops to Ukraine is, said Zepp-LaRouche, “a very tricky situation,” and added that she thought it was of great importance to have members of the VIPS on the call to dialogue with important speakers from France and elsewhere. The recent terrorist attack on the Crocus City Hall music venue, located in Krasnogorsk, Moscow Oblast, adds another dimension of danger: Russia has compiled substantive evidence that the attack came from Ukraine, including large amounts of money in cryptocurrency deployed to sponsor it.

Zepp-LaRouche reported a number of positive developments, including the decision of the Irish government to join South Africa in its action against Israel before the International Court of Justice; the resignation of Annelle Sheline from her State Department position in protest against U.S. support for the Likud coalition’s genocidal policy in Gaza; and the momentum to free Palestinian political prisoner Marwan Barghouti, the one figure who could unify all Palestinians.

Following Zepp-LaRouche’s remarks, a special statement from Dennis Kucinich was read, who was a U.S. Congressman from Ohio from 1997 to 2013, Mayor of Cleveland, and is now an independent candidate for Congress. Kucinich stressed his support for non-violent conflict resolution through diplomacy.

Scott Ritter, a signer of the VIPS memo on Macron’s threat to deploy French troops to Ukraine, said that such a move “would begin a ladder of escalation” that would lead inevitably to a nuclear confrontation. He described the mind-set of NATO leaders as a “Casino-based addiction,” which leads the afflicted party to follow up on the stupidity of his initial bet by mortgaging his house and spending his kids’ college fund. Russia does not intend to move on to Poland or the Baltics, Ritter said; Russia’s security is threatened by NATO’s “irresponsible expansion.” Russia proposed a new European security framework in 2021–Ritter advised Western leaders to go back and study it now.

Col. (ret.) Alain Corvez, former advisor to the French Defense and Interior Ministries, described himself as “totally aligned” with the views of Zepp-LaRouche and Ritter, and elaborated on his reading of French President Macron’s insane proposal to send French troops to Ukraine. Leader of France’s Solidarité et Progrès party, Jacques Cheminade, described President Macron as “puerile and dangerous at the same time,” noting that he has displayed photos of himself on social media showing his biceps, as well as hugging Brazilian President Lula da Silva: behavior that is “full of contradictions.” Cheminade asserted that the economic and financial collapse of France “explains the flight forward.”

Coleen Rowley, another signer of the VIPS memo, recalled that there have been 70-80 such memos, and they have all been correct. She said that it has been sad to witness continual lies that have led to unnecessary wars, noting that when leaders become desperate to maintain power, they become reckless, and lose their ability to reason. They start believing their own propaganda. Unlike Russians, Americans have not experienced the costs of war on their own soil.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche strongly agreed on this point; the present generation has no idea what war does. For them, war has been reduced to a video game in which you can simply re-start the game when you lose.

Ray McGovern began his remarks by reminding the participants that he has served in uniform, and he knows a bit about war. On the other hand, Joe Biden, Tony Blinken, Jake Sullivan know nothing about war. Biden had “as many deferments as Dick Cheney–five, count them.” Because of the media, Americans have no idea how close we are to a three-front war. McGovern recalled, “I was alive during the genocide of Jews” during WWII. Was there anyone of moral standing who spoke out against it? Very few. He shared the story of Albrecht Haushofer, a German active in the anti-Nazi resistance, and quoted from Haushofer’s sonnet (https://www.prosperosisle.org/spip.php?article985) titled “Schuld”(“Guilt”) which was found after he was executed in prison. He concluded by saying, “It’s Good Friday… I would just remind you that we are not to be discouraged…There are enough of us.”

During the discussion period, people shared problems and successes they had encountered in their efforts to organize. A high point was a report on the previous night’s intervention by Senate candidate Diane Sare at the $25 million fundraiser for Joe Biden in New York, with guest stars Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Sare had devised an ingenious banner of super-thin material, which she was able to smuggle into the event under her clothing. It read “WAR PIGS ALL,” and she unfurled it directly in front of the podium. As she was dragged out, Sare was videoed shouting, “You’re all out of your minds, you’re going to take us to nuclear war with Russia.” This video has gone viral. Sare’s intervention was quickly followed by others, including by members of Jewish Voice for Peace.

Cliff Kiracofe, former Senior Professional Staff Member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, made an interesting observation about the Crocus City Hall attack, concerning the Tajik ethnicity of the perpetrators. Russia has suggested that Britain may have played a role in organizing the attacks. During the 19th century, the British were recruiting and manipulating Central Asians for their Great Game. The Islamic Renaissance Party, illegal in Tajikistan, has its headquarters in London.

A Connecticut peace activist, new to the IPC, said that many people she works with want to know if there is the possibility of sending UN Peacekeeping troops to Gaza if Israel continues to disregard the ceasefire resolution. Ray McGovern responded by insisting that contrary to statements by U.S. Government officials, the resolution is binding de jure. He said that the Israelis now admit that the 1967 war was launched without provocation, and UN Resolution 242 is also binding, though no one has enforced it. Things may be different now. It is certainly unconscionable to allow 90 Palestinian children to die every day. Coleen Rowley added that there are options and avenues for further enforcement of UN and ICJ measures. The strongest would be peacekeepers; before that, economic sanctions would be an option.

In closing, Helga Zepp-LaRouche reminded the participants that Easter marches are an old tradition in Europe. She urged everyone to go out and leaflet them. In the U.S., activists can go to churches with leaflets. As an official in Bavaria recently reminded us, you can’t have both guns and butter, so there will be increasing austerity demands which will make people more desperate. We must not lose our humanity, the right to develop and become beautiful souls.

IPC Meeting Friday, March 29: Organizing Works! Do More of It

March 29, 2024by madeleine in General, International Peace Coalition

Even as the March 22 terror attack in Russia, the sharply escalating Russia-Ukraine war, and ongoing NATO plans to put boots on the ground in Ukraine threaten to push the planet over the edge into thermonuclear war, those who would stop such insanity should take careful note of two developments over the last 48 hours.

First, the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), who represent a growing current among American military and intelligence circles, issued a March 24 urgent open letter to President Joe Biden, “VIPS MEMO: The French Road to Nuclear War” (“Subject: On the Brink of Nuclear War”) in which they warn that French President Emmanuel Macron’s repeated calls to put NATO troops on the ground in Ukraine “would be leading the American people down a path toward a nuclear conflict decidedly not in the interests of the American people—or of humanity itself.”

Second, a UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza was finally approved on March 25—because the United States didn’t veto it, like it had every previous such resolution, but this time only abstained. This is a far cry from what is needed to actually stop the genocide underway and provide humanitarian life support to Gaza’s 2.3 million people—let alone to implement a full development program, such as LaRouche’s Oasis Plan—but it does show that the Biden administration is feeling the political heat.

The heat is coming from a shocked American population, many of whom have taken to the streets to make their opposition to the genocide known—and threaten Biden’s reelection. And the heat is also coming from a rapidly growing majority of what is already the Global Majority of nations and peoples, who have made it clear that they will no longer submit to 500 years of colonial rule and more modern looting of their economies by the speculative policies of the bankrupt City of London and Wall Street financial system.

Allies in the International Peace Coalition, have been intensely involved in organizing the forces to make that political heat grow, both in the U.S. and Europe, as well as the nations of the South. From that we draw a simple conclusion: Organizing works! But a lot more needs to be done, and quickly.

Join us this Friday at 12pm EDT/5pm CET. We will be joined by leaders from Veterans Intelligence Professionals for Sanity including:

– Ray McGovern, former analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
– Coleen Rowley, former FBI special agent and whistleblower
– Scott Ritter, former UN Weapons Inspector in Iraq
and other experts.

Please share this invite with your organizations and friends. Come with full organizing reports.

Send an email to questions@schillerinstitute.org to get the zoom details for the meeting of the International Peace Coalition.

Our Outcry Must Not Come Too Late!This statement was presented at the March 22, 2024 meeting of the International Peace Coalition, where its immediate distribution internationally was a central topic of discussion.Read the Statement

Online ConferenceThe Oasis Plan: The LaRouche Solution for Peace Through Development RSVP Today

WATCH: Mexican Congressman Robles Calls for New International Security and Development Architecture
READ: Mexican Congressman Robles Issues Open Letter:

Leading Palestinian Doctor and Peace Activist Gives Interview to Schiller Institute: ‘I Shall Not Hate’

March 26, 2024by madeleine in Global Diplomacy

COPENHAGEN, March 19, 2024 (EIRNS)—Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish, the Gaza Palestinian author of the book I Shall Not Hate: A Gaza Doctor’s Journey, who has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize five times, granted the Schiller Institute an hour-long interview yesterday. Dr. Abuelaish gave a very moving video interview to Vice President of the Schiller Institute in Denmark Michelle Rasmussen.

Interview transcript

MICHELLE RASMUSSEN: Hello, I am Michelle Rasmussen, the Vice President of the Schiller Institute in Denmark. Thank you very much, Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish, for granting us this interview. You are here in Copenhagen on the occasion of the premiere of a documentary film based on your book, {I Shall Not Hate; A Gaza Doctor’s Journey}.

You are a Palestinian gynecologist/obstetrician and infertility expert from Gaza, now living in Canada. You chose that field because you want to bring life into the world. You have experienced deep tragedy in the Israel-Hamas war of 2009, and now, also, in 2024. Yet, you are travelling around the world with a message of hope and reconciliation, and have even been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize several times.

What is your personal tragedy, and what is the tragedy of the Palestinians?

DR. IZZELDIN ABUELAISH: Thank you so much. I’m coming to Copenhagen for the premiere of the film, {I Shall Not Hate}, which is my life story. The stories are not something to read in the book, the stories are about the living experience, in order for people to learn from it, and to live it. There are lessons behind it, and to know, who are the Palestinian people. As a Palestinian people, for me, and as a Palestinian refugee, and that’s important, if we want to know, we need to dig deeper and to ask what is going on, what is happening. To learn, to connect, and then to act. Because most of the challenges in our world stem from ignorance, arrogance, and greed. So, as a Palestinian refugee, we need to ask, and that’s what I learned, what is the meaning of being a refugee? Someone who has a home, who has a country, has dignity, and is suddenly kicked out by force, to be naked in the world, deprived of dignity, of privacy. Home is not for wars, home is culture, is life. It means a lot. The only thing I don’t want to accept in this world, is to see someone homeless, because when someone is homeless, he becomes disclosed to the world. There is no privacy, there is no life. As Palestinians, we have experienced that; during the Nakba [“The catastrophe”: the violent ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 1948 after Israel declared independence], and even now the Palestinians are experiencing it in the Gaza Strip. No nation has been tested as we have been tested as Palestinians.

My life was war. We, as Palestinians, are fighting on a daily basis. Not because we want to fight, but in order to survive, to be recognized in this world. We love life, and we want to live and to give life to others, even in times of disaster, during the war, the current war, the Palestinians are smiling. They got married, there have been marriages, because they want to continue their lives. This is a message to the world to know who the Palestinians are. That’s why I came here, for this message, from where I came as a refugee.

And nothing stopped me from achieving my plans and dreams. From Jabalia refugee camp when I was a child, I dreamed of becoming a medical doctor. But the dreams are not just dreams and then they will happen. You need to have confidence. You need to have hope. When you speak about hope, hope is not just a word. Hope, you need to believe in it, and you need to work hard to achieve it. Nothing is going to change spontaneously; you need to take action to make the change. So, I dreamed of becoming a medical doctor, and I worked very hard for it.

Life taught me that nothing is impossible in life—nothing. I don’t believe in impossible things. The word impossible is not in my dictionary. The only impossible thing in life I believe in, is to return my daughters back to life. But they are living with me; they are moving with me everywhere.

As I said, from Jabalia camp to Cairo University to get my MD [certification], to specialize in obstetrics and gynecology at the University of London, to come back, to work in Saudi Arabia and in many countries. To be the first Palestinian doctor to practice medicine in an Israeli hospital. That message is important. When I worked in Israel, I worked there because I believed in the mission I have. Medicine and health are human equalizers, stabilizers, socializers, harmonizers, and sustainizers. When I deliver a baby, no one can discriminate or differentiate between the cry of the newborn baby—Palestinian, Israeli, Muslim, Jewish, or Christian. The only cry in life, which means life, is the cry of the baby; it’s a cry of hope, and we are happy when we hear the baby crying. It means the baby is alive and doing well. They are born free and equal. Why don’t we take this message to equalize between people outside the borders of the hospitals? Even the woman in labor — no one knows who is in labor, from the labor pains; if she is Palestinian, if she is Israeli, if she is Danish, American, Canadian. That’s what I learned, and that’s what I continued.

So, I specialized in infertility and IVF [in vitro fertilisation], and then, another sub-specialty, fetal medicine and genetics. I always want to achieve things that match the needs of the people. With genetics, because of co-sanguinity [blood relationships/ relationships between close relatives] among the Palestinian people — I wanted to do something that helps the community. That’s medicine; that’s academic education. The academic education should have a human, social, healthy, peaceful impact on the community. It’s not just that we teach math and science. We teach people to be human and to behave as human.

The last thing is that of which I am proud, because I wasn’t born with a golden spoon. My parents are simple farmers; they were kicked out of their homeland, but they believed that their children are the hope. They invested everything in their lives for education. So, you see the Palestinian people are one of the most literate people in the Middle East, and even in the world. And we are determined, because someone can take anything from you, but no one can take the education away from us, or prevent us from being educated. The last thing is, for a Palestinian refugee, how I got to go to Harvard? I was lucky to get a scholarship to go to Harvard. The only thing which was consoling me when I graduated from Harvard, when I saw my colleagues, their families at the commencement, all of them were there, but my family couldn’t join me, but what consoled me was the Palestinian flag, which was raised among other flags. It said, “I am here. I am Izzeldin Abuelaish. I am the Palestinian; proud of being a Palestinian among those who are there.”

And what I achieved now. I am at the University of Toronto, a full professor, teaching graduate students, doing a lot of research, writing, with a mission in life. That is what we need the people to have; to ask themselves “Why are we here?” We need to have a sense of purpose. By the end of day, we have to leave this world, but we want to leave a legacy behind. That’s my main goal; to have an impact and do my part as a human to think of others in a positive way. Because I suffered, and I will never accept the suffering of any human being. Humanity should prevail. We should humanize, not politicize. I don’t have an agenda; the agenda that I have is a human one, not a political agenda, economic or any personal agenda.

In order, also, to send a message to my loved ones, to my daughters, that your holy souls and noble blood wasn’t wasted. It made a difference in others’ lives, because in my life as a Palestinian, as a faithful person, I am accountable only, and just only, to God and to my daughters, who live with me. As you see, I see them. They ask me all the time, “What did you do for us?” I am determined to inject their holy souls and noble blood into a vein of hope and humanity in this world, which is corrupt humanely, morally, and ethically.

RASMUSSEN: What happened to your daughters?

DR. ABUELAISH: My daughters — it’s happening now, for the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. The same as in 2009, the [Israeli army’s] Cast Lead Operation. I don’t accept calling it as an “operation,” because the medical term for surgical operation, we use to heal and to help the patients; not to kill, or destroy, or damage. Operations, ethically and morally in medicine, must be to improve and heal the wounds of the people; not to damage and destroy. So, the 16th of January 2009, at 4:45pm, an Israeli tank shelled my house, and killed three of my daughters and one niece, and severely wounded others. I didn’t believe it; they were innocent people. I told them, my daughters, to be peace activists. I sent them to peace camps, to the States, everywhere. And the propaganda and the myth …

RASMUSSEN: They went together with Israeli children.

DR. ABUELAISH: With Israelis, Palestinians, Jordanians. I believed in the role of young women and the importance of their efforts and activities. They were not human shields; they were innocent, studying. If I have 100 of my daughters, I am proud of them. They were focused on their education; the teachers were fighting to have them in their classes. They never succeeded in getting grades of less than 97 percent in their school. They had their plans, they had dreams. They planned and worked hard for them. Bessan, who was 21 years old, was about to graduate from university with her undergraduate degree. I promised to send her to the London School of Economics. Mayar, who was 15, was number one in math in the Gaza Strip; who planned to follow my path to be a medical doctor. Aya, who was 14, who planned to be a journalist; to be the voice of the voiceless, to speak to others. My niece Noor, who was 17, who planned to be a teacher.

I don’t want anyone on Earth to see what I saw. I wanted to see Bessan, because I was there with them seconds after I left my daughters’ room, the first bomb came. “Where is Bessan, where is Mayar, where is Aya, where is Noor?” They were drowning in their blood. As the scenes you are seeing now, disfigured, their brains spreading everywhere. Mayar was decapitated. I can’t recognize them.

So, what can I do at that moment? When you see the loved ones are killed in front of you? They are the life, they are the hope. I am a family person; I delivered them. I delivered them with my hands. I gave them names. I wanted always to give them the best names, to be proud of them.

So, at that moment, I lost faith in humanity.

That is what is happening now in the Gaza Strip. The Palestinians, on a daily basis, are killed; starved; deprived of everything. And the world is watching. It’s a shame. When, as a medical doctor, when I see a bleeding woman, I rush to stop the bleeding, not to watch what is happening. The world is ashamed of what is happening. If they come to stop the bloodshed, what can they do? Waiting for what? Waiting for what; to have more? Do we bleed as Palestinians? Is our blood different from others? We all bleed the same color; we all love life.

It’s time for the world, for one time, to stand for humanity, and to zoom in and take a positive action. To inspire the world that there is hope; that we are changing. We don’t discriminate based on color, ethnicity, religion, background, or the color of the eyes, or the color of the skin. That’s the test for the international community. Gaza Strip is their test. What are they doing? They are watching it in silence. In terms of injustice, it’s injustice. This is unjust.

At that moment, I directed my face only, and just only, to God as a faithful person, to God to give me the strength, the wisdom to manage the tragedy. And I am blessed to be a medical doctor, to manage emergency situations. So, those who were killed, I couldn’t do anything for them; so, I focused on managing those who were wounded.

And the first message which came to give me support was from my son, Mohammed, who was 12 years old. Why? He saw me screaming, crying, in pain. He said, “Why are you crying? Why are you screaming? You must be happy.” I thought, “What is he talking about? He wants me to be happy? Maybe he doesn’t know.” I said, “How can you want me to be happy? Bessan, Mayar, Aya and Noor are killed.” He said, “I know they are killed, but I know that they are happy there. They are with their mom. She asked for them.”

Because their mother passed away exactly four months before they were killed. I said, “If this Palestinian child, who is 12 years old, believes in that, he can teach these political leaders who are watching what is happening. I don’t need to worry about him. I have to continue my life, because life, as Einstein said, is like riding a bicycle. To keep balance, you must keep moving.” I kept moving faster, stronger, more determined not to give up at all, and not to forget my lovely daughters. And the oath I gave it to them: “I will never rest. I will never relax. I will never give up.” That’s why I am here, until I meet them one day. To meet them one day with a big gift, that their holy souls and noble blood weren’t wasted. It made a difference in others’ lives; not with the bullet, not with the missile. It’s with wisdom; with courageous, kind words and good deeds. These are the means. Because you as a journalist, what are you doing? Words are stronger than bullets. The bullet kills once, but words are more influential. That’s what I’m doing with my life; that’s why I am here.

RASMUSSEN: As you say, the tragic irony is that you had been an agent for peace between Israel and Palestine for many years before your daughters and your niece were killed. As a young man, you worked on an Israeli farm, and you found out that the family was as loving as your own family. Your daughters participated in the peace camps with Israeli children. You were the first Palestinian doctor on staff in an Israeli hospital. You were involved in bringing Israelis to your home in Gaza one weekend a month to break down the prejudices that we have for each other. You even wrote that you hoped that the death of your daughters would be the last. You said “Now I have to choose. Do I choose the path of darkness, or do I choose the path of light? The darkness is poisonous hate and revenge, or the light of taking care of my other five children and the future?” You hoped that out of this terrible tragedy that there would come a way of bridging the divide to find the light of truth that could enable Palestinians and Israelis to live together.

Can you say more about what your mission is now?

DR. ABUELAISH: My mission now, and when I sent my daughters to peace camp, and even when I worked at the age of 14 on the farm, it was the first time, because as I said, my life was the war. War is not the soldier who is going to kill and to be killed. War is far beyond the soldier who is killing or is killed. War is about the human beings; about the women and children. Women and children pay the major price of any war. War is not what we see on the screen. You see what is happening in Gaza; it’s not that that’s war. The invisible cost is far beyond what we see. The wounds in the hearts and minds and spirits which will be trans-generational, continuing; it’s permanent. I am always thinking, what can we do with the consequence of war that the children will carry with them for their whole lives? Until now, for the latest war, more than 32,000 Palestinians were killed. More than 74,000 are severely wounded. The Gaza Strip is the most beautiful for me; Palestine for me is paradise. The Gaza Strip before the war was a Hell, described by the international community. Before the war, four out of five children in the Gaza Strip were mentally ill. Now, the Gaza Strip is a ghost town. You cannot recognize the neighborhoods, the streets. The people are not the people that I know.

A few weeks ago, they sent me a photo of my nephew. He’s 24. I was shocked to see him. He looked 45; he looked 45, 50. The Gaza Strip now is hopeless, helpless, lifeless, foodless, waterless, childless, parentless. The most densely populated area in terms of the population, and the most densely populated area with disabled people, with orphans; 17,000 orphans. Families were erased.

What can we say? How can we send a message that we are in the 21st Century? That we live in a human world? That we want the world to be consistent with human values? To prove that they lived by these values, but this doesn’t prevent me from speaking out. That is what I urge people to do; to speak out. What is happening in Gaza, and the war there. It’s not there; it’s across barriers. The war crosses barriers; you see the impact worldwide. It’s not Palestinian-Israeli—it’s universal. We need the universal, the international community to stand, for once, for their own values, that they believe in them—the justice, the equality, the freedom, the dignity, and the human rights. Who wrote the Human Rights Conventions? They were written in Europe. Do they believe in it or not? If they believe in it, they have to live by it—not by selective double standards. What is white is white; what is black is black. And that is what we need. We want to resume a trust in our international community. That’s the guarantee for a stable, sustainable world.

That’s what I am trying to do, and will continue to do. I believe that nothing is permanent in life. Nothing is permanent, and nothing is impossible. Everything is dynamic, and life is a cycle. We go up, and then we go down. It’s time for the change.

I urge political leaders who are there representing their people, they are servants and serving the people themselves. They should listen to the people. You see what is happening everywhere in the world? There is a divide between the public opinion and the political leaders. They are there politicizing for their own limited political interests or agenda. So, it’s time for them to have the moral courage to be risk takers. To say, “We are joining the public to achieve the goals of the public.” Because in this way, they will save the Palestinians, and the Israelis, and their people. They will save the Israelis from their extreme destructive leadership of the Israelis. And, also, because any harm — the extreme political Israeli leadership is destructive to their people, and to us as Palestinians. So, we need someone who can say, “This is not good for anyone. We have to intervene immediately; now, not tomorrow.”

RASMUSSEN: You had hoped that the death of your daughters would be the last deaths in this struggle. Now, 15 years later, it continues even on a much larger scale. You said in an interview last month, that 20 members of your extended family had died. What is the cause of this spiral of violence?

DR. ABUELAISH: As a medical doctor, of course, and as you mentioned, I said it: If I could know that my daughters were the last sacrifice to be killed on the way to peace between Palestinians and Israelis, then I would accept it. But they were not; they were just numbers. And I will never accept that any human being is just a number, or what they call “collateral damage.” Human beings are humans; they have names, they have plans, they have hopes. They have parents, they have a future, they have lives. It’s time to speak about the human as a human. Each human being, for their loved ones, is the world. Saving one, as if you saved the world. Killing one, as if you killed the world. That’s why I will never accept it, and will continue to advocate strongly for human life, for equality.

You speak about what are the problems. I learned as a medical doctor, in order to treat a patient, I have to have an accurate diagnosis. The accurate diagnosis is the truth, is the light which guides us in times of darkness. Because once I have the diagnosis, I can set up the right treatment.

So, what do I do in order to have an accurate diagnosis when a patient comes to me? I take the history—not to blame the patient—the history to know what happened, and what’s going on. Then I will do an examination and some investigation. Once I have a clear idea about the diagnosis, I can set up the right treatment.

As I said, it’s the truth, because Jesus said, “Seek the truth, and the truth will set you free.” We want to be free in this world. So, what happened? We, as Palestinian people, we are the Palestinian nation. We are the Palestinian people. Not to deal with it in a fragmented way. When a patient comes to me suffering in his hand, I look at the hand, but this hand is attached to the human body. The failed doctor is treating disease. We don’t treat diseases; we treat human beings, the whole human being. So, I don’t focus on the hand; the hand is attached. Maybe the symptom is here, but the pain or the disease is in the body itself. So, we need to deal in a collective, comprehensive, holistic approach.

There is a Palestinian nation, and there are Israeli people there. One is occupier, one is occupied. One is oppressor, the other is oppressed. One has nuclear [weapon] power, and the Palestinians don’t have that nuclear power. The Heritage Minister [Amihai Eliyahu, from the Otzma Yehudit party, he tried, and he said it, even [Israeli Knesset member for Likud Revital “Tally”] Gotliv said, “Nuking the Palestinians with the nuclear weapon.” And the Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant said, “Palestinians aren’t human, they’re animals.” These are incitements. I encourage the people, if they don’t have a good word, don’t say a bad one. Words hurt; they hurt more than anything else. That’s the diagnosis. We want the Palestinians to be free; and the Israelis to be free. Even the occupier is not free.

RASMUSSEN: But you spoke about the need to break the cycle of violence in terms of revenge —

DR. ABUELAISH: Revenge will never work.

RASMUSSEN: Counter revenge —

DR. ABUELAISH: Action and reaction is not going to help.

RASMUSSEN: And that there is no military solution.

DR. ABUELAISH: I said it clearly, and that’s what my daughter Bessan, God bless her soul, at the age of 14, said to me, “Answering violence with violence doesn’t solve any problem.” Action and reaction, this vicious circle is not going to help at all. We have a negative, we need something positive. We need to equalize between Palestinians and Israelis, not occupier and occupied, but free and free, based on equality, justice, freedom for all, and dignity for all. I said that clearly. We both, as Palestinians and Israelis, are like conjoined twins. No one can turn his back. Any harm to one will affect the other. We live and ride in one boat, and we must not allow anyone to do harm to another; we have to reach the shore peacefully, equally. So, I said it; the future, the security, the safety, the independence, the freedom, the dignity, the life of the Israelis is linked, intertwined, inseparable, and interdependent with Palestinian safety, security, freedom, rights, dignity, and life. That’s the only way, which is a guarantee for a long-lasting, stable, sustainable relationship.

Even the word “peace,” we are talking about it sometimes. Peace is not a word; it’s not a word which we are talking about. We want peace, but no one is asking to dig deeper. What is the peace we are talking about? The people have lost faith in it, because they don’t see it. Peace is a relationship. It’s a relationship between two parts. I have a peaceful relationship with you based on respect, listening to each other.

We need to have peace between us and the environment. Do we have peace with our environment, with the Earth? We do harm to our Earth, we do harm to our environment. We don’t even have peace with the environment in which we live, so we need this peace. There are certain needs. Peace is the goal, but we need the means to achieve this peace.

What are the means? Number one, respect; equality; justice for all; dignity for all; life for all. Once we have these means, peace will be a consequence. And that’s what we need to shift the way, not to start from pieces. Start with the basic requirements, the main foundation for peace, then you build. The building will be peace, but you need to set up the means.

RASMUSSEN: Just to follow up on that, you said in your book, “Whereas the international community, I am against rockets and suicide bombs, but also against shutting the door against the people who are suffering. I ask for a decent life for Palestinians. Instead of building a wall, we need to build a bridge.”

But as a legacy for your daughters, Bessan, Mayar, and Aya, you founded the Daughters of Life Foundation. And on your home page it states, “Hate is not a response to war. Rather, open communication, understanding, and compassion are the tools needed to bridge the divide between Israeli and Palestinian interests. All can live in harmony, and all can reach their full potentials spiritually, emotionally, physically, and intellectually.”

Why did you call your book {I Shall Not Hate}?

DR. ABUELAISH: I called my book {I Shall Not Hate}, because after the tragedy, people used to ask me, and they asked my daughter Shatha — Christiane Amanpour, in an interview, asked her, “Do you hate?” My daughter, Shatha, who is 17 years old, who also I sent to peace camp, she said, the answer was, “Who to hate?” The people were asking me, “Do you hate?” I said, “Why do they ask me this question?” So, I started to learn about hatred; to do a lot of literature review. I came to the conclusion, based on the definition of hatred by the textbooks, they considered it an emotion, or feeling, or a behavior. The reaction to anything, by someone who is exposed to harm, is to hate the perpetrator. So, I said, “As a medical doctor, hate is not a feeling. Hatred is not an emotion or a behavior. Hatred is far behind that. And that is what I published. I did a lot of research about it. Hatred is a self or community contagious destructive disease. It’s the result of exposure.” So, I use my medical education. The public health approach, the immunological approach, to implement it about hatred. So, why do people want me to be afflicted or sick with this disease called hatred?

Hatred is a poison; it’s a poison, which is toxic to the human body. It’s a fire which burns the body; it’s a cancer inside. If we are sitting here, and someone who did you real harm, an existential threat, passes by, how do you feel? Immediately, you become blind; you can’t function, you don’t see. So, I said, “Hatred disturbs the balance of the human body. You are not functioning well; you are heavy, you can’t move. Your mind is always occupied with that. So instead of that, life is still in front of you.” So, I am a victim of the tragedy, and the killing of my daughters, but I will never accept to be a victim of this disease called hatred.

I say to people, “Don’t accept to be a victim more than once.” Instead of staying being a victim—being a victim is a stigma. Bring all of your energy to transform the tragedy, or the challenge you are facing, to an opportunity. To move from being a victim to a survivor; to be a leader in this world. That’s the message you send to the perpetrator, the antidote of revenge and hatred is success and leading, and moving forward. That’s what I am determined to do. Because my daughters — I also believe, my faith taught me that even this tragedy was for the good. I asked myself why my daughters were selected; why was I saved? Because if I had stayed a few seconds longer with them, I would be gone. There is a mission; God knows, and we don’t know.

That’s why on the second day, once it [the tragedy] was broadcast live, the Israeli Prime Minister [Ehud Olmert] announced a unilateral ceasefire. It saved other lives. This helped me; this satisfied me. It symbolized the war, and that’s the other positive thing that came out of that; the establishment of the Daughters for Life Foundation. Because life is what we make it—always has been, always will be. It’s in our hands. You can shape your life the way you want it. Don’t let others shape it for you. Be yourself; don’t underestimate yourself. Without blaming or shaming, take responsibility and keep moving forward.

So, I established Daughters for Life because in my life as a Palestinian, I am in debt to my mother, my wife, and my daughters. A Palestinian mother is the hero, is the one behind the survival story of the Palestinian nation. Women are the ones who give life; women are the ones who nurture life. Women are the ones who sacrifice everything for their children. Imagine this world without women. Women are the ones who wage and spread love, compassion, and life. They can breastfeed the children. The have the compassion, the love, the determination, the kindness. That’s why I believe in women. Name me five women in the history of the world who were behind war. You can’t find five, but how many men can you find? We, in this world, women and men; they were created to complement each other, to support each other. Women are the beauty of the world.

That’s why I established Daughters for Life, for education of girls and young women from the Middle East and North Africa, without any discrimination. If politics discriminates based on race, ethnicity, color, or religion, Daughters for Life includes all. It’s inclusive for all, without any discrimination based on ethnicity, or religion: Palestinians, Israelis, Jordanians, Syrians, Lebanese, North Africans, Muslims, Jews, and Christians without any discrimination. If politics divides, Daughters for Life brings together. That’s the message we want in this world, because achieving a stable, sustainable world is the function and the duty of women, women’s education, and to give women the opportunity, and the ability to practice the role they deserve. I am sure if they don’t succeed, they will never make it worse as it is now. It’s time to try. The more we see women sitting at the table, this is the hopeful thing.

RASMUSSEN: Back to breaking the cycle of violence, your daughter Aya said, “When I grow up and I’m a mother, I want my children to live in a reality with where the word ‘rocket’ is just another name for a space shuttle.” And your daughter Bessan said in a documentary about the peace camp, “We think as enemies. We live on opposite sides, and never meet. But I feel that we are all the same, we are all human beings.” You have also stressed that the Palestinians and the Israelis are more similar than different.

Back to this question about hate, a very extraordinary woman, Amelia Boynton Robinson, who was the Vice President of the Schiller Institute for many years, who was in the American civil rights movement, said that “Hate not only destroys the hated, but it destroys the hater.” As you say, this poison. When you moved to Canada, you spoke in front of a synagogue. You were asked, “OK, Dr. Abuelaish, but what do you teach your children about the Israelis?” Then, what happened?

DR. ABUELAISH: Thank you so much for this question, because this is the perception, and the ignorance. When we don’t know people, we have our own ideas. So, after what I faced, I was invited to that synagogue where there were about 1200 people —Muslims, Jews, Christians, from everywhere. They even moved the venue from one to the other, because of the numbers; they couldn’t accommodate all. And it was the first time in my life I took my children to an event. After the questions, they asked “What do I teach my children after?” So, my answer to them — which is on the video — I said, “I practice medicine with evidence, so my children are here.” I called my daughter Raffah who was nine years old. “Habibi Rafah, my darling, come here. Tell them, what did I teach you during the war, when the bombardments were from everywhere, the house was shaking, and under fire.” She was shy, and then she started to speak. What she said was, “My dad taught us Hebrew words. The translation for ‘I love you’; ‘How are you?’ ” That’s the answer. That’s the perception. Why this prejudice to think the Palestinians teach their children to hate, or to be angry. We don’t hate anyone, even our Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish said, “We don’t hate anyone; we don’t steal anyone; and we don’t want to delete anyone.” We want to be recognized; we want to have our dignity, our freedom. Because the most holy thing in the universe is a human being and freedom, and we are deprived of the freedom. So, I urge the world—the world is not the free, by the way, as long as the Palestinians are not. They have to zoom in to understand that the world’s freedom is based on the Palestinians’ freedom.

RASMUSSEN: Our partner, the LaRouche Organization, has recently released a video, “The Oasis Plan: LaRouche’s Solution to the Middle East.” It described what the American economist and statesman Lyndon LaRouche has proposed and developed since 1975. The idea of peace through development between Israel and an independent Palestine, through cooperation to develop water resources, and other infrastructure, because we think that we need to have a vision of a future common interest in mutually beneficial economic development to bridge the divide. A vision where Israelis and Palestinians could live peacefully together, as a way of paving a path to peace. What do you think of this Oasis Plan proposal, and how could a vision of economic development help create peace?

DR. ABUELAISH: It’s an important element, because you speak about economics and development. Economic development is one aspect of the needs of a human life. But we need development in the different sectors, and different aspects. Like a building, I say. The building needs a strong foundation, and the economy and the capital is covered. They, [the international investors] are afraid. You need stability and sustainability, safety and security. Anyone who is going to invest in an economy in the Gaza Strip — can anyone now to go to invest in Ukraine? Can anyone go to invest in Ukraine now? No; no one will invest in Ukraine, because it’s not safe, it’s not secure. If the world were to say, “We will go invest in the Gaza Strip,” what are they going to say? “No, I want safety, I want security.” So, economic development is supportive and strengthens the conditions that we need to prepare. It leads to stability, sustainability, and building trust. Trust is vital in a relationship. So, the first thing you need are the means I was talking about, in order for economic development to thrive. Number one, equality; because if we are not sitting [equally at the same table] at the same time we say development, I am doubting. We need to fill the gap in the equity.

There is a gap; so you need to fill the gap in equity. Then we move together equally towards the goal of economic development that leads to stability, sustainability. To turn the page, the dark page in their relationship, to turn it into a brighter one with the following values: equal, just, free, dignity, and developing. That is, without leaving anyone behind, not to leave anyone behind. And in a collaborative way, and inclusive, not exclusive. That is what I believe can lead to a long-lasting [collaborative relationship], and the people will say, that’s the right, the shortest cut which can help us to move forward.

To turn the page of military means, as I said many times, military means and wars will never put an end [to violence]; it only leads to more bloodshed, more pain, more suffering, more hatred, more violence, and more extremism than any time before. Can we turn the page and understand? Because we say, “Never again, never again, never again.” We have to learn, we make mistakes in life, but mistakes are to learn from. A mistake is a mistake if we learn from it and not repeat it. If it’s repeated, it’s not a mistake. It means we do it deliberately, and we didn’t learn the lessons.

I hope October 7th will be the last that we experience; to learn from it and to use it as an opportunity. We have a moral, ethical, and human responsibility; Palestinians and Israelis and the international community. Those who paid the price: the Palestinian children, the women, the wounded, the destruction, and the Israelis. Our moral responsibility to keep them alive through spreading hope, sending a message to them that you paved the way for this development based on the means that we are talking about, that they shed the light for all of us. They were candles burned for the future generations, not to be burned for political interests. Because in life we have a priority; the priority in life is not the past. The past is to learn from. The priority in life is the present and the future. Who are the present and the future? Our children and the future generations. We are accountable; what legacy do we want to leave them? If we love them, we have to learn the lessons. To allow them to inherit a safe, secure, healthy, peaceful, free future. That’s what we need to work together for. It’s not only Palestinians and Israelis. The international community should step in, because there is an interest for the whole world. Because what is happening there is universal. Solving it, putting an end to it, gives hope to the world. Trust in the international community and the whole world will benefit from it.

RASMUSSEN: There’s also this idea you just spoke of, of having an image of the future. And determining what we do now to reach that future. We have an image — this is our idea of the Oasis Plan — but also, our international chairman Helga Zepp-LaRouche has often used the idea of a Catholic bishop from the Renaissance period, Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa. He called it the Coincidence of Opposites; that you can never solve the conflict on the level of the conflict. That you have to rise above to find that common interest in which then the people can see why they should work together. He even wrote a piece called {De Pace Fidei}, the {Peace of Faith}, to find a unity among the multiplicity of religions.

At the end, you spoke about in your book, that just as Martin Luther King did, you have a dream. What is your dream? And do you have any parting words for our viewers. And just before that, you spoke about your mission, also professionally, to bring life into the world. The Jewish people, when they want to say “Cheers!” Actually say “L’chaim!” — to life. If we could make that into a common principle to bring unity and peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians; to have that as a slogan — “To life!” But what is your dream, and do you have any concluding words for our viewers?

DR. ABUELAISH: My dream, and my hope that I am working for, is to see an end to the suffering of the Palestinians and to be free, side-by-side with the Israelis. I see it in a dynamic world, as I said. Nothing is impossible. No one was expecting one day in 1994, to have a positive agreement between Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin, for them to shake hands. So, nothing is impossible. The world is full of surprises, but surprises are not just words. Surprises and hopes are values that we need to act for; and to see the truth, and to understand without bias. The world will benefit from it.

As I said, we have a lot of commonalities between both. The only guarantee, my hope is to see my next-door neighbor an Israeli Jew; to live side-by-side as equals, as free. To turn the page of anger, of ignorance, of arrogance, occupation, oppression, dehumanization, and to come together jointly. Believe me, I see it, if we put our hands together, Palestinians and Israelis. You see it in Israel, the health system in Israel, it’s built on the Palestinian Israelis; 30%, 40% of the nurses, the doctors when I worked there. How can my dream to see Palestinian children and Israeli children at the same school, at the same university, as equal as any other nations. Believe me, both nations are waiting for this moment. They are resilient; they can turn the page. I am waiting to see this happen. And, personally, when the people say, “It’s complicated,” I say, “Nothing is complicated.” If there is a good will, there is a way. And we have to find our way with the support of the international community. And because it’s the hope and it’s the goal, and the dream of the international community, without being indifferent, biased, selective, or complicit. But to be fair and to work for the rights, equality, and justice for Palestinians and Israelis. I say to you, the Israelis, the Israeli interest is more for and with the Palestinians. They have American Jewish, you are an American Jew. Their close neighbor who is the Palestinian there to be closer to them and connected to them more than the Jews in the States. I live in Canada and my neighbors are Jewish, so when I am in need of help, the first thing I call my neighbor. So, they have to build and to strengthen their relationship as equal, free, dignified neighbors. That’s the guarantee for a good life for all, where I value life, and the Israelis to say “L’chaim!”

RASMUSSEN: Thank you so much. I encourage our viewers to read Dr. Abuelaish’s book, and to see the movie when that is available for you. We will see it this afternoon. I also encourage you to register for the Schiller Institute’s April 13 free online conference, “The Oasis Plan: LaRouche’s Solution for Peace through Development between Israel and Palestine, and all of Southwest Asia.”

Thank you so much.

DR. ABUELAISH: My pleasure, thank you.

RASMUSSEN: Thank you for speaking to us, and we wish you all the best to carry out your mission of peace and reconciliation. We hope that many people will join you in this mission.

DR. ABUELAISH: I need your institute to join us.

RASMUSSEN: Yes.

DR. ABUELAISH: Thank you so much.

Epilogue: On Compassion:

After this interviewer saw the documentary film “I Shall Not Hate,” she asked Dr. Abuelaish a question:

RASMUSSEN: The Schiller Institute in named after Friedrich Schiller, the poet of Freedom. He, as well as Mahatma Gandhi, stressed, that you need to evoke compassion, in order to open the hearts of the people.

DR. ABUELAISH:

I agree with you. Compassion means responsibility, being authentic, sincere, and do it with courage. Don’t wait for someone to tell you to be compassionate. Be the initiator. I am on the advisory board of the Coalition for Compassion. Compassion is vital.

RASMUSSEN: Your story, first in the book, the play about you, and now the film, will open people’s hearts. Friedrich Schiller used drama to evoke compassion. Mahatma Gandhi said, “We cannot commit violence against others…”

DR. ABUELAISH: Violence against violence.

RASMUSSEN: But your suffering will open the hearts of the people.

DR. ABUELAISH: I agree with you, and that’s important.

RASMUSSEN: Now, we must act to stop the suffering.

The book, from 2010, tells the story of Dr. Abuelaish’s life and mission. Despite being born in the Jabalia, Gaza refugee camp, he became a physician of obstetrics/gynecology specializing in infertility, because he wanted to bring life into the world. He became the first Palestinian doctor on staff at an Israeli hospital. Although he and his family were long-term advocates of peace and dialogue with the Israelis, three of his daughters and a niece were killed in an Israeli artillery attack on their home in northern Gaza in 2009 during a previous Hamas-Israel war. His anguished cries for help, made to an Israeli TV newscaster friend, were sent live on Israeli TV. They led directly to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert calling a unilateral ceasefire two days later.

Afterwards, he refused to submit to the poison of hate and the darkness of despair, but chose the light, and chose hope. He was determined that his daughters would not be “numbers,” but that the world would know their faces and dreams, and hoped that they would be the last ones to die. He redoubled his efforts to achieve freedom and equality for the Palestinians and a future in which Israelis and Palestinians can live peacefully, side by side.

Dr. Abuelaish continued his efforts after moving to Canada, where he is a professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health of the University of Toronto.

He was in Copenhagen because a documentary film with the same title as his book premiered at the Copenhagen film festival CPH:Dox. In both the documentary film and our interview, Dr. Abuelaish emotionally appeals to world political leaders to intervene to stop the ongoing killing in Gaza and help build a bridge to peace. LaRouche´s Oasis Plan Solution for Southwest Asia is discussed in the interview as an important element of the peace process.

Here is an excerpt from his book:

“I want this book to inspire people who have lost sight of hope to take positive action to regain that hope and to have the courage to endure that sometimes long and painful journey to peace and a peaceful life. I learned from the Quran that the whole world is one human family. We were created from a man and woman and made into nations and tribes so that we may know one another and appreciate the diversity that enriches our lives. This world must embrace much more justice and honesty in order to make this a better place for all people. I hope my story will help open your mind, your heart, and your eyes to the human condition in Gaza and help you avoid making sweeping generalizations and false judgments. I hope to inspire people in this world, afflicted with violence, to work hard at saving human lives from destructive hostilities. It’s time for politicians to take positive actions to build, not destroy. Leaders cannot be leaders if they are not risk takers; the risk they must take is not sending in the soldiers, but finding the moral courage to do the right thing to improve the world’s human face in spite of criticism from the haters.

“We must work diligently on this journey to peace. Hatred and darkness can only be driven out with love and light. Let us build a new generation, one that believes that advancing human civilization is a shared project among all peoples and that the holiest things in the universe are freedom and justice. If we want to spread peace throughout this planet, we should start in the holy lands of Palestine and Israel. Instead of building walls, let us build bridges of peace. I believe that the disease affecting our relationships—our enemy—is ignorance of one another. Judging others without knowing anything about them is what causes tension, apprehension, distrust, and prejudice. This is a big mistake.”

More about Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish, in his biography at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto; and about his Daughters of Life Foundation—Empowering girls and young women through education

Register for the Schiller Institute free online conference Saturday April 13, 2024 at 11am EDT; 5pm CET: The Oasis Plan: The LaRouche Solution for Peace Through Development Between Israel and Palestine and for All of Southwest Asia:

The Oasis Plan

Online Conference for the LaRouche Solution for Peace Through Development Between Israel and Palestine and for All of Southwest Asia

Saturday April 13, 2024 at 11am EDT; 5pm CET → RSVP Today!

Our Outcry Must Not Come Too Late!

March 23, 2024by madeleine in General, International Peace Coalition

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This statement was presented at the March 22, 2024 meeting of the International Peace Coalition, where its immediate distribution internationally was a central topic of discussion.

We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late.
—Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Let us mince no words. The world is now on a direct, short path to thermonuclear war. Don’t blame Russia, or China. We, in the trans-Atlantic world, are the problem, and with us lies the solution. If we continue to wait to “see what happens,” if we want for those in the “military-monetary power structure” to come to their senses, we will be too late to stop humanity’s last war. The time to act, is now.

On Sunday, March 17, at the conclusion of the Russian Presidential elections, Vladimir Putin, responding to a reporter’s question regarding French President Macron’s Feb. 26 comments that deployment of NATO ground troops to Ukraine could not be ruled out, said: “It is clear to everyone that this will be one step away from a full-scale World War III. I think hardly anyone is interested in this.” However, as the late Israeli politician Abba Eban, once said, “never underestimate the factor of insanity in politics.”

The Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights lists 110 armed conflicts in the world today. This is the result of today’s imperial “rules-based order.” The obscenity of the war in Gaza, which rationalizes tens of thousands of children being mass-murdered for crimes and causes of which they are entirely innocent, requires us to stand up and act. We must disrupt the plans of the merchants and missionaries of death, that assure us that “they must destroy Gaza (or, for that matter, Ukraine) in order to save it.”

International Peace Coalition founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche has said:

A new world economic order is emerging, involving the vast majority of the countries of the Global South. They have declared: Colonialism is over! The European nations and the U.S. must not fight this effort, but, by joining hands with the developing countries, must cooperate to shape the next epoch of the development of the human species to become a renaissance of the highest and most noble expressions of creativity!

This cannot be done in a world dominated by war. We need the greatest outcry against war that the world has ever seen. Therefore, the International Peace Coalition declares a red alert mobilization. The war for humanity must be won now before the final war—the war against humanity itself—is ever fought. Demonstrations, boycotts and exposés of the death merchants, letters and statements from and to institutions, vigils, and every imaginable creative, non-violent direct action to disrupt the world’s rendezvous with doomsday is needed now.

Choose Humanity Over War!
Oasis Plan for Gaza, Not Genocide!
Stop NATO’s War With Russia!

Cracks in the Facade of Western Hegemony – 41st. International Peace Coalition Meeting

March 17, 2024by madeleine in Activity of the Schiller Institute, General, Global Diplomacy, International Peace Coalition, Our initiatives (petitions, etc)

by Kevin Gribbroek

While we should not pay less attention to the danger—which is increasing daily, one can say—it is also clear that if there is a decisive action, there is hope that we can turn the situation around.
Helga Zepp-LaRouche

March 15—The 41st meeting of the International Peace Coalition (IPC) convened today, and provided a very interesting contrast—one could call it a “dissonance”—between despair and hope. On one hand, several participants conveyed a sense of despondency due to the impression that the IPC and the peace movement more generally are trapped in an “echo chamber,” with few people in the general population “getting the message.” On the other hand, many participants reported on exciting initiatives designed precisely to break out of the “echo chamber” and build a bigger base of support for the IPC process. Based on remarks from several speakers, it is also evident that there is a growing revolt in the Global South against the arrogance of Western hegemony and the centuries of colonial policies that have impoverished their nations and destroyed the hopes and dreams of their people.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche began the proceedings with a strategic overview that indeed demonstrated this growing revolt by the Global South and the effects it is having on political layers in the West. Of great importance was Pope Francis’ recent demand that Ukraine have the courage to negotiate a peace settlement with Russia. In the United States, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on March 14 spoke from the Senate floor, demanding that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu resign and that Israel hold new elections, saying that Netanyahu does not serve Israeli security by making Israel a pariah state. In Berlin, during a joint press conference between German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, Ibrahim blasted Scholz in regard to the Palestinian genocide, essentially accusing him of racism. In Denmark, the Ambassador of the Palestinian Authority, Prof. Dr. Manuel Hassassian, in an interview with the Schiller Institute, endorsed the LaRouche Oasis Plan for economic development throughout the region.

Zepp-LaRouche emphasized throughout her opening remarks that in no way has the threat of nuclear war diminished. She made it clear that only by changing the underlying axioms that continuously lead to failed geopolitical solutions to the war danger, and adopting a new paradigm of development exemplified by the Oasis Plan, is there any hope for peace.

The next speaker, Colonel Richard Black (ret.), former chief of the Pentagon’s Criminal Law Division, characterized the current historical dynamic as “moving closer to our 1914 moment,” referring to the events which triggered World War I, leading to the deaths of 14 million people. Based on various political moves being made in Europe and the U.S., he sees the emergence of a “war consensus” with the potential of NATO troops entering into direct conflict with Russia. “This is World War III,” he said. Despite the impossibility of Ukraine winning the war, the Western “elites” are determined to “snatch victory from the jaws of defeat … which will inevitably lead to a nuclear exchange.”

Terry Lodge, an attorney from Ohio and long-time member of Veterans for Peace, discussed the open letter he authored warning State Department officials that they are engaged in criminal activity by providing Israel weapons to carry out its genocide against the Palestinians. He aptly expressed the “dissonance” of the current period with his opening statement:

“As dark and difficult as the last couple of years have become from an international human rights and war-making perspective, what has happened is that planetary citizens are coming together in gatherings like this, to talk sanely and talk rationally, and kind of reawaken awareness to the fact that humanity is struggling and trying to provide guardrails for the conduct of human behavior at a societal and national level.“

He called the Biden administration’s arming of Israel a “ghastly, dark comedy,” but believes that “there are cracks that are occurring in this facade; that people like the numbers of you on this Zoom meeting can take some credit” for having caused those cracks.

Richard Sakwa, Professor Emeritus of Russian and European Politics at the University of Kent in the UK, began his remarks with an analysis of the now-ongoing Russian elections. Prof. Sakwa recounted an interview by well known Russian media figure Dmitry Kiselyov with Russian President Vladimir Putin, in which Putin expressed his belief that the “Western vampire ball” is ending and that 500 years of Western dominance is over. Putin believes that a new epoch has started and that Russia—as in the Soviet days—is the leader of the new, anti-colonial era. In regard to Ukraine, Putin stated:

“For us, the Ukraine conflict is a matter of life or death. For them [the U.S. and NATO], it’s a matter of improving their tactical position globally and in Europe…. If the U.S. tries to play chicken, Moscow is prepared to use nuclear weapons and considers its arsenal more advanced than anyone else’s.”

Sakwa’s assessment is that the current strategic situation is far more dangerous than the first Cold War. Essentially, the West is playing nuclear chicken and as Putin made clear, the Russians don’t play that game.

Zepp-LaRouche asked Prof. Sakwa, given the gravity of the situation, What must be done to “penetrate the mainstream brainwashed population”? Sakwa, although not having a definitive answer, pointed to the peace movement of Sahra Wagenknecht in Germany and the election of George Galloway in the UK as a sign of hope.

Zaher Wahab, a prominent Afghan-American and Professor Emeritus of Education at Lewis and Clark College in the United States, began by thanking the Schiller Institute for its relentless efforts on behalf of humanity to promote peace and development everywhere. Prof. Wahab expressed his belief that because of the “deep economic, political-diplomatic, moral and social crises” in the West, while the Global South continues to rise, this heightens the danger of nuclear war. He endorsed the Oasis Plan, and enthusiastically called for its extension into Central and South Asia.

Jack Gilroy, a member of Veterans for Peace and Pax Christi, announced a very important initiative: On March 18, Pax Christi, in collaboration with a coalition called “Christians for a Free Palestine,” are spearheading a national day of action to deliver letters to all U.S. Senators and Representatives on the failure of Christian churches to speak out on the atrocities in Gaza.

In her closing remarks, Helga Zepp-LaRouche stated that the enemy of humanity is not nation states, but what she called “super-national structures”; structures of the neoliberal financial system which rely on war to maintain their existence. She fully endorsed the March 18 day of action and suggested the IPC mobilize for May Day demonstrations in Europe and elsewhere. She also urged everybody to encourage parliamentarians everywhere to endorse Mexican Congressman Robles’ letter against nuclear war.

Zepp-LaRouche concluded by stressing the urgent necessity of implementing the new international security and development architecture, “because it throws out the idea of geopolitics, by putting the idea of One Humanity first, and that the new architecture has to take into account the interest of every single country on the planet.”

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