Letter to the Editor

Letter to the editor-in-chief from the Middle East editor Carl Sandburg says in his poem “Horses” that there is only one child in all the world and that child’s name is all children.  Today our Palest-inian children are suffering and dying as a result of U.S. foreign policy and U.S. weapons supplied to the Israeli military. 
At a March 4th press conference in London, the renowned British public health journal Lancet launched a study examining long-term Palest-inian health issues.  According to Lancet editor-in-chief, Richard Horton:  “The single most important message of this report is the devastating impact of occupation on the lives of the 1.8 million men, women and children who live in the Palestinian territories.”  (That is, the country of Palestine, now occupied by the Israeli military.)

Due to malnutrition 10 percent of Palestinian children—nearly 30 percent in some parts of Gaza—now have stunted growth, which affects cognitive development and physical health.  More than 60 Palestinian women have given birth at Israeli checkpoints, and 36 of their babies have died as a result.  In Gaza, experts estimated there were about 27 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2006 (compared with Israel, where there are four deaths per 1,000 live births.)

According to the studies completed even before the recent attack on Gaza, the traumatic effects that witnessing brutally violent acts can have on children result in “behavioral problems, fears, speech difficulties, anxiety, anger, sleeping difficulties, lack of concentration at school, and difficulties in completing homework.”

The Lancet series calls for a just political and economic solution, urging that if international laws were respected and enforced they could “protect Palestinians from insecurity.” International law, indeed, calls for much more in the way of equality for the Palestinians in the land of their birth, but this would be a beginning.
Polly Mann