Gaza wreckage included school text on Jackie Robinson and 'meaning of prejudice'

[grassfed]

Run time: 51:42 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74boaFtZvCA   Posted on YouTube: March 09, 2009 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: March 09, 2009 By DU Member: grassfed Views on DU: 627

 
Video of Congressional trip to Gaza begins at about 2:00 (audio kicks in a few moments later)... Very enlightening.


http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/03/this-is-exciting-and-riveting-its-a-video-from-a-jammed-event-last-week-held-by-the-new-america-foundation-at-the-raybur.html

Report from U.S. Capitol: Gaza wreckage included school text on Jackie Robinson and 'meaning of prejudice'

This is a video from a jammed event on Gaza at the Capitol last Thursday sponsored by the New America Foundation and featuring Congressmen Brian Baird, Rush Holt, and Keith Ellison, all of whom have visited the wartorn strip. The hall was overflow for this event, people clustered at the doors, and congressional staffers were sitting on the floor. A couple other congressmen showed up. Sally Quinn of the Washington Post was there. So was Dan Levy (whose speech is here but inaudible).

Some highlights:
Ellison (Minnesota): "I personally was expecting to see bare shelves ... But what you'll hear is that were it not for the tunnels being open, they would have nothing on the shelves... We're not advocating for the tunnels to be open. We're advocating for the crossings to be open... I have only one message to you today, the crossings must open!"
Holt (New Jersey): "I talked to the Prime Minister of Israel, he said there is no limitation on supplies." But the UN has had an X-ray machine sitting outside the border for a year. "There clearly is a role for outside help... The United States is not helping enough."
Olmert also told Holt, "If we let them rebuild, the sacks of concrete and rebar will only go to make launching pads for rockets." But they're getting the material anyway, thru tunnels, Holt said, so it's not about materials, it's about hearts and minds.
At the destroyed American school, Holt, a scientist, said: "I found a science textbook, shredded. Shredded, blown apart." He noted that the school has taken down the American flag because it was subject to attack by Muslim extremists.
At the same school, Baird found a baseball book with a teacher's notes in it. There was a section about Jackie Robinson. The teacher wrote, "What about this paragraph tells you about the meaning of the word prejudice?"
Baird: "How quintessentially American can you get, than to try to use baseball to teach tolerance and compassion?"
Good question. What's the answer, congressmen?
Ellison spoke of the Israel lobby. "Where you find a devoted constituency" in a democracy, you will find action. There is a "strong, active group willing to lobby for Israeli security... In my opinion what we lack, is a constituency for peace." That, he said, is what we have to develop.
Then Baird said that many of his colleagues privately complain about how imbalanced the legislation they sign is. And Ellison said: "Let's just say this, folks, in Israel it's OK to talk about this stuff. Only here does a politician have to fear derision and attack from speaking what is obvious."