1. We have organized a daily, multiple vitamin distribution to all children who attend either the Pre School or our elementary school. All that is required of the children is that they attend school and their classroom teachers “administer” one vitamin to everyone in attendance.  We’re providing two cases of vitamins, which is enough for 15 months, unless attendance improves dramatically.

2. Dr. Saul Cruz (remember the “exile”?) has begun providing a monthly clinic in La Borgoña. Where up to 60 clients will be scheduled for appointments. The first clinic was scheduled for Sept. 6.  Adults will pay 10 Cordobas (77 cents, 3 hours wages) and children will pay 5 Cordobas.  We are supplementing these payments and necessary prescription medications as well.

It is a time to ponder many questions. When we discover who is responsible for this heinous attack, is war the proper response, or should we bring the perpetrators as mass-murderers to a court of justice? “As we act, let us not become the evil that we deplore.” And how do we protect ourselves from future atrocities? Who hates us so profoundly that 19 were willing to sacrifice their lives together to strike at us? It may help to hear other voices in this bewildering time.

From Rev. Sandra Olewine, United Methodist Liaison – Jerusalem: “Yes, there were some gatherings of people, particularly in Nablus, who were shown in the very early hours of the horrible attacks in the US on the street, dancing and cheering, and passing out chocolate. But, these expressions were few and certainly did not represent the feelings or mood of the general population. The deep shock and horror of the Palestinian people, the real sorrow for all the dead and wounded, was, and continues to be, unseen by the world, particularly in the USA. It is the story unheard.”

President Bush, speaking to Congress, September 20: “Americans are asking, why do they hate us? They hate what we see right here in this chamber -- a democratically elected government. Their leaders are self-appointed. They hate our freedoms -- our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other.”

From Pervez Hoodbhoy, a professor of physics at Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan: “Only a fool can believe that the services of a suicidal terrorist can be purchased, or that they can be bred at will anywhere. Instead, their breeding grounds are in refugee camps and in other rubbish dumps of humanity, abandoned by civilization and left to rot. A global superpower, indifferent to their plight, and manifestly on the side of their tormentors, has bred boundless hatred for its policies. In supreme arrogance, indifferent to world opinion, the US openly sanctions daily dispossession and torture of the Palestinians by Israeli occupation forces. The deafening silence over the massacres in Qana, Sabra, and Shatila refugee camps, and the video-gamed slaughter by the Pentagon of 70,000 people in Iraq, has brought out the worst that humans are capable of.”

From Francis Boyle, an American specialist in international law: “The United States is under an absolute obligation to resolve this dispute with Afghanistan in a peaceful manner as required by UN Charter Article 2(3) and Article 33 as well as by the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928, as well as in accordance with the requirements of the Montreal Sabotage Convention—all of which treaties bind most of the States of the World. In addition, the United States should offer to submit this entire dispute to the International Court of Justice in The Hague on the basis of the Montreal Sabotage Convention, and should ask the Government of Afghanistan to withdraw its Reservation to World Court jurisdiction as permitted by article 14(3) of the Montreal Sabotage Convention. Furthermore, all other contracting parties must invoke the Montreal Sabotage Convention against both the United States and Afghanistan in order to produce a peaceful resolution of this dispute."