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Clooney To Gaza
I don't know about actor George Clooney. I challenged him once to take up arms and go fight in the Darfur region of Sudan, but it seems he just wants to make speeches about it. Obviously, he would prefer that some minimum-wage soldiers be sent there to do the fighting.
Well, if he really wants to end suffering, I know where there is intense suffering, but suffering that is endable. He wouldn't even have to carry a gun. I'm talking about the Gaza Strip, where the United Nations says there is a humanitarian crisis of almost unendurable proportions.
Most, though not all, of the suffering is directly caused by the actions of the Israeli government. The Israeli government is hardhearted and immune to pressure from all but one source - the United States, which not only pumps in billions of dollars every year but also protects Israel from international sanctions at the United Nations.
Therefore, if Clooney would gather some of his big-name celebrity pals and lead a tour of the Gaza Strip, showing the American people the extent and injustice of the suffering, then the American people might pressure the U.S. government to pressure Israel to stop it.
I bet 5-to-1 he won't do it. Such a trip would be seen as criticism of Israel, and I don't think Clooney has the guts. It's OK to be against big oil and the CIA; liberals don't like either. It's OK to damn a long-dead demagogue most Americans today only vaguely recall, if at all, and liberals have always despised. It's OK to urge other people to go to Sudan. None of that costs Clooney a penny - not even a raised eyebrow from anyone he cares about.
But if Clooney wants to show the stuff he's made of, he should go to Gaza. That would require real courage. It would be like Errol Flynn going through the lines during the Spanish Civil War - real hero stuff, not the make-believe kind.
He would get the Mel Gibson treatment, drunk or sober. He'd be putting his career at risk, but I think the parents of the 37 Palestinian children killed in recent weeks would say it was worth it. He wouldn't even be alone. B'Tselem, an honorable and courageous Israeli human-rights organization, recently condemned the Israeli bombing of Gaza's power plant as a crime against international humanitarian law.
John Dugard, special rapporteur for the United Nations Human Rights Commission, said recently that Israel has turned Gaza into a prison where the conditions are intolerable, appalling and tragic. He said Israel's actions are a violation of international humanitarian law. He said Israel's so-called collateral damage amounts to indiscriminate killing. It is true that Israelis seem to shoot more Palestinians than Dick Cheney shoots doves or quail, and just about as casually.
After touring Gaza, Clooney could see more misery in the West Bank and in the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. Israel and the United States have been trying to pressure the Palestinian Authority to renounce the refugees' right of return for years, but to its everlasting honor, it has steadfastly refused to do so. Such a trip would give Clooney a chance to meet some real men and some real women who know what courage is.
He'll never do it, though, even if he ever sees this. Clooney has been making safe bets his whole life. He would never, under any circumstances, want to go head to head with the Israeli lobby.
Well, so be it. But then he ought to drop the pretense of being a great crusader for human rights and just confine himself to making movies - which I enjoy, by the way. Make-believe has its place in the world, but it should be kept on the stage, the set and the theater screen. Otherwise, it becomes just another cheap con job.
