If you thought the gun registry was a huge expense to the Canadian Government, consider the fact that the Israeli government is building a 600 kilometre concrete wall to separate the Palestinian and Israeli people to the tune of 1.6 million dollars US per kilometre.
The plan is to build the barrier around the perimeter of a Palestinian state (as promised by the United Nations in 1948) in the hope that it will stop the passage of suicide bombers from entering Israel.
Instead of building it on the boarder between these two proposed states, the government of Israel is building it inside the land promised to Palestinians, sometimes by a margin of twenty kilometers, creating no end of problems. Moreover, the concrete structure will have a huge impact on the freedom, mobility and psychology of the Palestinian people.
Tad Mitsui spent three months in a Palestinian Village called Jayyous in the Fall of 2003. His first-hand experience with this long-standing struggle for peace in the ‘promised land’ is powerful, eye opening, and riveting. It is his contention, after having lived in the West Bank, that the building of this concrete wall is not just about the protection of the Israeli people from Palestinian terrorists, but something even more sinister.
Come and learn more about a nation struggling with issues just now facing North America. 9/11 put us in touch with the reality of terrorism and forces us to think about our own borders and national security. If erecting a wall isn’t the answer to hostility between people, what is? What can we learn from the struggle in Israel and from Tad’s first hand experiences? A lot. Don’t miss this session.
Speaker:
Tad Mitsui was born in Japan and trained in Theology in Tokyo and Vancouver earning his BA, BD, STM. He completed his doctorate in Montreal. Tad spent time as a United Church Minister in Vancouver, teaching at the University of Lesotho, South Africa, working in Geneva, Switzerland on Development and Human Rights Issues for the World Council of Churches, and working for the Canadian Council of Churches in Toronto. Tad Mitsui moved to Lethbridge in 2000 with his wife, who teaches Sociology at the University of Lethbridge, and is currently traveling the country as a consultant on Middle East Issues.