Who gives peace a chance?

Who gives peace a chance?

The scope of the votes on peace issues last year during the 111th Congress as recorded by Peace Action is quite broad, and includes Gaza, Iran, Afghanistan, Pentagon Pork and Torture and Human Rights.

It is therefore not too surprising (although still dismaying) that our two area congressmen, Reps. Tim Ryan and Charles Wilson, scored far below the 100 percent ideal envisioned by the group, 50 and 54 percent, respectively.

Those for whom peace is a paramount cause could dispute negative votes by Ryan and Wilson on a number of issues, but for me the bellwether of personal integrity is the vote on No. 10, “Condemning the Goldstone Report on Gaza.”

The report for the United Nations by Judge Richard Goldstone of South Africa (a Jew and an avowed Zionist who led previous investigations on Rwanda, Bosnia and South Africa) documented war crimes in the Gaza conflict by both Israel and Hamas. However, only 13 Israelis were killed compared with about 1,400 Palestinians and the war resulted in wide international condemnation of Israel.

The Goldstone report was called thorough and even-handed, but the Congress measure called it “irredeemably biased and unworthy of further consideration” and it passed 344-36, with our two Congress stalwarts casting their lot in favor of savage aggression. One wonders how the House would have voted if it were transported in time back to the 1930s and had to take a stand on the assault on Guernica by the German Luftwaffe during the Spanish Civil War.

To me, it was indeed shocking to see such a tide of Capitol Hill negativity toward such a well-received report, and it certainly makes one wonder if there is much hope for a just settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

There is some (but not much) comfort to me that one Ohio House member, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (whose peace index voting was 92 percent) opposed the condemnation of the Goldstone Report. The votes as “present” by Toledo’s Marcy Kaptur and Erie’s Kathy Dahlkemper may indicate a need for more women in Congress.

Robert R. Stanger, Boardman