This blog and the WomensMedicineBowl website are dedicated to health, but our personal and collective health are greatly impacted by many factors beyond personal choices.

I’m reminded of one parent’s comment during heightened tensions in the Cold War: What difference does it make what toothpaste our kids are using when we’re in danger of nuclear annihilation? Many Boomers who waited until their thirties to have children questioned the wisdom of bringing children into this world due to the Cold War between the US and Russia.

At the beginning of the 21st century, with random acts of terrorism occuring in many nations the Cold War seems almost simple. The adversaries were known, specific, and contained. Now any individual can and does wreck havoc and horror.

Economic stranglehold on Palestine
The front pages of my local newspaper this week have been large photos of the carnage in Gaza. Earlier in December I was working in the West Bank. Over breakfast I listened to development consultants from around the globe talk about their travels around Israel. The Israelis have set up so many checkpoints that the effect is an economic stranglehold on the Palestinian territories. “International intervention is needed to end this (excluding the US),” was the consensus.

This was two weeks before Israel effectively declared war on Gaza—with armaments supplied by the US. Always, in my many years living abroad, American ex-pats have been told in foreign locales, “We hate the American government—but not the American people.”

Hatred abroad extends to American people
In Ramallah in 2008, a colleague told me she’s now hearing people say they hate the American people. This is, indeed, a very sad state of affairs, but for how many decades can a population not be held accountable for the actions of its government? (Just as the Gazans are now being killed for the occasional rocket lobbed into Israel by their leaders—death toll this week: 400 Gazans, 4 Israelis.)

When visiting the US I’m always stunned by the slant of the news regarding Israel—it’s way off the mark from what I know from living and working in the Middle East. When I was a child I remember my dad making the comment, “Israel is our 49th state.” Dad, a Minnesota farmer and no politico, died in 1961. Two books by eminent scholars were published in 2006 on how the Jewish lobby influences and directs our foreign policy; still, nothing changes.

Support of Israel threatens US national security
The US reigning in Israel is a matter of US national security. The fury many Muslims feel over the injustices toward Palestine is directed towards the US. Will it take a dirty bomb in an American city to get the public’s attention? US support of Palestine would defuse Al Qaeda and most Muslim fury globally.

Here’s an alternative, more peaceful scenario:

US support of Israel is recognized as a threat to national security, and support is dramatically reduced.
The US develops its first national energy policy—and converts 18-wheelers and mass transit to natural gas, making the US fairly independent of Mideast oil.
Palestine is recognized as an independent state, and Israeli interference ends.
Palestine and Israel cooperate and live in peace.
The Arab nations do business with Israel as with everyone else. Iran is left alone, puzzled, that everyone else’s fury has dissipated and peace reigns in the Holy Land. The ayatollahs decide to focus on economic development, too.

Creating peace with collective consciousness
Last night celebrations of the New Year were canceled in Dubai. No extravaganzas in hotels, fireworks put away. More than 1,000 gathered on a beach in a peace vigil. This is how peace will be created in the Holy Land—by the prayers and intervention of those outside the conflict holding a consciousness of peace. The hatred and fury has gone on too long and runs too deep for those engaged in Israel and Palestine to create peace by themselves.

As individuals and collectively we experience whatever we prepare for. We have a Secretary of War, and so we find or start wars to engage in. What the US needs is a Secretary of Peace—let’s prepare for peace in 2009!

Salud!
Beverly A. Jensen, Ph.D.
President, www.WomensMedicineBowl.com