Feb. 12, 2025 (EIRNS)—Like it or not, the world is confronted today with a situation every bit as morally unequivocal, in the case of Gaza, as that of the May 1939 pre-World War Two MS St. Louis incident. Over 900 Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany, passengers on that doomed ocean liner, sought asylum and sanctuary from Cuba, the United States, and Canada, but were denied. They were forced to return to Europe. Though some found refuge in Belgium, France, etc., about a quarter of the people aboard were later killed in the concentration camps. It was called “the Voyage of the Damned”—but by whom were they damned? And what was their crime? Why were their lives not saved?
Now, as tragedy unfolds for thousands of Palestinians, at least half of whom are children who were born after 2007, when Hamas militarily ousted the Palestinian Authority from power, they are damned, and are the children of the damned, of the condemned 2 million, who are now all simply referred to as “Hamas.” “Born into damnation,” these children, and others, are “predestined” to suffer and die, the world seems to say, every day, because they were born at the wrong time and in the wrong place. Since the declaration of the ceasefire, at least six Palestinians have been killed every day, and scores more wounded and otherwise injured. “Nothing personal, of course; it’s just your fate.”
While the world talks, and governments argue, hundreds more Palestinians are condemned to die through lack of medicine, food and water. By this Saturday, Feb. 15, the war may begin again, and thousands more will die, “until Hamas is wiped out.” Reasons are given, blame is cast, but who takes responsibility for saving the lives of the people?
Ukrainians ask the same question about the no-win war into which they were led. The cause, they were told, was freedom. Really? “Fact is, the Ukrainian military is selling a huge percentage, up to half of the arms that we send them, half!” contends journalist Tucker Carlson, in a just-released interview with retired Col. Daniel Davis. “And I’m not guessing about this. I know that for a fact … not speculation. And they’re selling it, and a lot of it is winding up with the drug cartels on our border. So this is a crime … our intel agencies are fully aware of this. You tell me they’re not profiting from this? Of course [they are]. You think the CIA is not profiting from this? Yes, they are. I can’t prove that, but I believe that. … We’re sending these arms to Ukraine, billions, hundreds of billions of dollars, and it’s being stolen and sold to our actual enemies.” That is only part of the ugly truth about the NATO war against Russia called “the Russia-Ukraine conflict.”
Trump’s special envoy Steven Witkoff arrived in Moscow on Feb. 11. While it is said that the topic of that visit was working on negotiations to release two Russian citizens who are held hostage by Hamas, other matters are certainly under discussion. “Signals, however important, can fluctuate, and in practice we see no changes in the course Washington has been pursuing recently,” Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told reporters on Feb. 10. “The use of ultimatums, manipulation, and efforts to convince us that we will be granted a big favor in exchange for agreeing to unreasonable demands—all this will not succeed in relations and talks with Russia.”
Prince Turki Al-Faisal, 80-year-old grandson of the founder of Saudi Arabia, King Abdulaziz Al Saud, yesterday keynoted an online forum held by the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations, celebrating the 80 years of dialogue. He reminded the world of the conversation that his grandfather held with President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, as that President was returning from Yalta, on Feb. 14, 1945. The following is excerpted from the official record of that meeting, the "Memorandum of Conversation Between the King of Saudi Arabia (Abdul Aziz Al Saud) and President Roosevelt, February 14, 1945, Aboard the USS Quincy:
“The President asked His Majesty for his advice regarding the problem of Jewish refugees driven from their homes in Europe. His Majesty replied that in his opinion the Jews should return to live in the lands from which they were driven…. The President remarked that Poland might be considered a case in point. The Germans appear to have killed 3 million Polish Jews, by which count there should be space in Poland for the resettlement of many homeless Jews…. His Majesty further stated that the Arabs would choose to die rather than yield their lands to the Jews.
“His Majesty stated that the hope of the Arabs is based upon the word of honor of the Allies and upon the well-known love of justice of the United States, and upon the expectation that the United States will support them.
“The President replied that he wished to assure His Majesty that he would do nothing to assist the Jews against the Arabs and would make no move hostile to the Arab people…. The President spoke of his great interest in farming, stating that he himself was a farmer. He emphasized the need for developing water resources, to increase the land under cultivation as well as to turn the wheels which do the country’s work. He expressed special interest in irrigation, tree planting and water power which he hoped would be developed after the war in many countries, including the Arab lands…. [H]e reminded His Majesty that to increase land under cultivation would decrease the desert and provide living for a larger population of Arabs.”
One can see, even in these limited excerpts, how the mind of Franklin Roosevelt worked to find a solution, understanding that it was water, not war, that would provide a pathway toward a durable solution. Later, it would be FDR’s World War Two Gen. Dwight Eisenhower who in 1967 would pose the construction of three dual-purpose nuclear desalination electric power stations, referred to as “atomic desalting” plants, one each to be built in Jordan, Israel, and Egypt, as the seed-crystal of a solution, based in his Presidential “Atoms For Peace” policy of the 1950s, to, in his words, “promote peace in a deeply troubled area of the world through a new cooperative venture among nations.” What would happen if the United States, instead of “owning Gaza,” invited China, Russia and other nations to work in “a new cooperative venture among nations” there? “We could have a Marshall Plan. We can rebuild the region without driving out the Palestinians. That is something (Trump) should consider going forward,” said Prince Turki Al-Faisal.
The draft principles for such a collaboration were already written by Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp- LaRouche, the “Ten Principles for a New International Security and Development Architecture.” In the following weeks, the Schiller Institute will hold, not a conference, but a system of conferences, to catalyze the creative thought-processes necessary to force humanity above its present level of “St. Louis-like” moral paralysis, as in the case of Palestine, onto the stage of the truly human history that President John F. Kennedy addressed at American University, June 10, 1963:
“Too many of us think (peace) is impossible. Too many think it unreal. But that is a dangerous, defeatist belief. It leads to the conclusion that war is inevitable—that mankind is doomed—that we are gripped by forces we cannot control.
We need not accept that view. Our problems are manmade—therefore, they can be solved by man."
