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Friday, January 30, 2015

My letter to the NYTimes RE A New Level of Refugee Suffering: Angelina Jolie on the Syrians and Iraqis Who Can’t Go Home

VOA NEWS: UN Relief Agency Halts Gaza Aid
RE: A New Level of Refugee Suffering: Angelina Jolie on the Syrians and Iraqis Who Can’t Go Home
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/28/opinion/angelina-jolie-on-the-syrians-and-iraqis-who-cant-go-home.html?ref=opinion

Dear Editor,

Thank you for headlining Angelina Jolie's heartfelt plea for the refugees of Syria and Iraq and important insights such as the fact that  "When the United Nations refugee agency was created after World War II, it was intended to help people return to their homes after conflict. It wasn’t created to feed, year after year, people who may never go home, whose children will be born stateless, and whose countries may never see peace. "

Jolie did not mention the Palestinian refugees- the longest running refugee crisis in the world today: The plight of the Palestinians is also dangerously dire and getting worse with donor fatigue growing as the Israel-Palestine conflict continues on day after day, decade after decade.  Israel is not to blame for all the world's woes, but the Israel-Palestine conflict does play a key role in exasperating rage, bigotry, and terrorism. 

Life saving funding for the Syrian, Iraqi, and Palestinian refugees is crucial, and so is diplomacy:  Auschwitz's Never Again warning to humanity needs to be more inclusive and universal.  Ending the Israel-Palestine conflict with a carefully negotiated just and lasting peace- a fully secular, compassionate, and enlightened peace based on two fully sovereign states, Israel and Palestine, both fully respecting universal human rights and international law, would go a long way towards laying the groundwork to end the war in Syria, and the sectarian strife in Iraq.

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

NOTES
Ziad Asali

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 “Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens.” Khalil Gibran (1883-1931), born in Lebanon, immigrated to the United States in 1895 where he grew up to become a beloved poet and respected writer.

"There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies" Martin Luther King Jr. (1929 – 1968) American minister, humanitarian and social activist- a cherished leader of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States, whose inspiring words continue to influence and empower diplomatic efforts to bring more justice, more security, more peace and more jobs to more people, every one and every where.

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