Letter To President Obama, Use Peace Prize Cash to Help Palestinian Children October 10th, 2009

Letter To President Obama, Use Peace Prize Cash to Help Palestinian Children
October 10th, 2009

To: The President of the United States:
From: journalist Dori Smith

Re: The Nobel Prize for Peace and the 10 million kronor (1.4 million dollar) cash prize. Please consider donating some of it to help Palestinian children who were victims of the Gaza War and who still need medical treatment for their wounds.

Dear Mr. President:

I was touched by the tone and humility expressed in your statement upon receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize. You mentioned your children and the home life you treasure. That was a fitting context for your statement about waging world peace. Many of us were encouraged by your call to end nuclear weapons.

The Nobel Committee is convinced that you have changed the global climate in support of negotiated solutions in general to intractable conflicts. This would indeed be an opening for peace, a way forward in solving a wide variety of problems including climate change. So I hope with all of my heart that you can walk through this opening you have created in order to help broker peace between Israelis and Palestinians, Iraqis and Afghanis, offering hope as well to the people of Iran, Pakistan, Burma, Sudan, Darfur, Somalia, Columbia, and other countries.

Populations in these countries have moved from desperate to critical stages in terms of their short and long term survival. Americans too are suffering as their loved ones are deployed into combat in the Middle East or other region. We all need peace.

You mentioned other recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize in your statement and I suppose you already have a favorite. Mine is IPPNW, a physicians group based in Massachusetts. At his acceptance speech December 10th, 1985, Dr. Bernard Lown told the Nobel Committee: “We physicians who shepherd human life from birth to death have a moral imperative to resist with all our being the drift toward the brink. The threatened inhabitants on this fragile planet must speak out for those yet unborn for prosperity has no lobby with politicians”.

Dr. Lown’s fellow recipient at IPPNW, the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, noted in his speech on the same day: “As adults we are obliged to avert transformation of the Earth from a flourishing planet into a heap of smoking ruins. Our duty is to hand it over to our successors in a better state than it was inherited by us. Therefore, it is not for fame, but for the happiness and for the future of all mothers and children that we- the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War- have worked, are working and will work”.

This physician’s organization working on behalf of the survival of everyone on the planet, focusing on their equal rights, makes a great deal of sense to me. Our mutual security is our mutual survival.

Given that you are committed to presenting the $1.4 million in US dollars that comes with your award to charitable organizations I hope you will consider donating some or all of it to IPPNW. Their efforts to prevent nuclear war and its horrific consequences are to be commended and rewarded. Beyond that idea, however, is another one that occurred to me immediately after I heard that you had won.

I’d like to humbly ask that you ear mark this money for Palestinian war victims, especially the children. Perhaps IPPNW would agree to serve their needs in conjunction with other organizations working in the region.

Palestinians, especially kids, have suffered without medical care in the wake of the Gaza War in late 2008 and early 2009. These innocent victims are not able to benefit from the world’s offerings to humanitarian aid organizations because much of the aid is curtailed by Israel’s blockade of Gaza.

I realize that there are many wonderful aid organizations in the world but I’ve recently seen a slide show presented by Ridgely Fuller, a social worker from Massachusetts who traveled to Gaza earlier this year. She is creating a CD/DVD of her slide show to present to members of Congress. I’ve agreed to help her in this effort.

One of her photos is of a three year old girl injured by white phosphorus fired by Israeli troops. I will make certain that you receive it somehow. The child is still without proper medical care.

Ridgely’s photo reminded me of the portrait of Phan Th? Kim Phúc as she ran away from the Napalm dropped on her village by US forces. The picture won a Pulitzer Prize for AP photographer Nick Ut. And for many of us, the burning shame and pain we felt at seeing this photo remains. I as seven years old at the time, but knew in my heart that no one, no nation, and no military should use such horrific weapons that hurt children like that.

In cases where these horrific weapons are used, all of us must take a stand that we should help prevent their further use.

If you were to offer Palestinians aid from your Nobel Peace Prize, you would send a strong message of hope to children affected by war in the entire region that they are what matter, not politics or money, just that they never be made to feel such terrible pain.

Thank you very much for accepting my letter and congratulations on your award. May peace on all continents be the reward we share in our lifetimes as the result.

Sincerely,

Dori Smith
Producer, Talk Nation Radio
Syndicated with Pacifica Network