Selected Editorials - The Sikh Bulletin

over flow crowds in Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver. We are told that during a three day program at one
Gurdwara, the Gurdwara’s take was $90,000.00. What would be the ‘Sant’s’ take When are we going to
learn a better way to spend our community’s resources Would we live to see that day
Hardev Singh Shergill
1. mskIn jI dw igAwnI Bwg isMG nwl DoKw p25
2.
mskIn jI dw kOm nUM AwKrI snyhw p24
3 Giani Sant Singh Maskeen 15
4. Sikhism, a Universal World Faith p.5
5. SB March 2004 Guest Editorial by Gurpal Singh Khaira
6. p.4
*****
EDITORIAL
THE ROOT CAUSE
[Editorial from September-October 2006 Sikh Bulletin]
This writer is beholden to two nations, one that gave him birth, the Sikh Nation and the other that he now
calls home, the United States of America. In case of the former the Creator made the choice for him, in
case of the latter the choice was his. There is a lot to be admired about both of these nations yet at this
juncture in their histories both are saddled with most despicable leadership. For a long time the reason for
this state of affairs was a puzzle. Then suddenly, during Israeli destruction of Lebanon, blessed by
President Bush, a clear picture of the reasons began to emerge. It is a complex combination of leaders’
arrogance, absence of humility and intense desire to control others with whatever means possible
regardless of common human decency or national or international laws coupled with total gullibility and
stupidity of the masses, comfort of status quo and ‘why should I stick my neck out’ attitude of the
intellectuals and naked unbridled greed of the media.
Time and again while speaking on the issue of Israeli invasion of Lebanon President Bush, and the US
media, including CNN, for that matter, spoke of the capture of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah as the
root cause of the latest conflict. Unfortunately it is not that simple. Without going into too many details,
most people would agree that if there is a single root cause it would be the abandonment by European
powers of the European Jewish people made refugees by Hitler’s Germany. Europeans simply washed
their hands off by dumping hapless homeless at the door step of the Palestinians whose lands they had
already forcibly occupied. At the same time while referring to the UN resolutions governing Lebanon and
Israel, repeated references were made to the disarming of Hezbollah according to UN Resolution 1559
that had not happened. The President and the media, at least the US media, never mentioned the other key
provisions of the same resolution that Israel had failed to implement i.e. release of thousands of Lebanese
prisoners held by Israel and the vacating of its occupation of Lebanese territory known as Sheba farms
while at the same time there was no mention of the UN resolutions that both the Israelis and the
Americans have ignored for decades vis-à-vis the Israelis and the Palestinians. Only people to bring up
those resolutions were the Syrian officials who pointed out that both the Israelis and Americans while
harping on Resolution 1559 have completely ignored Resolution 242 from 1967 and Resolution 338 from
1973, both mandating Israel return occupied land, including the Golan Heights to Syria. Every time this
happened the CNN anchor simply ignored the point raised by the Syrians and either cut them off without
comment or changed the subject. While engaging in this rhetoric both Bush and Israelis conveniently
forgot the fact that Hezbollah was born out of desperation about two decades ago as a resistance
movement when Israel, with the US blessing, was occupying Lebanon in order to destroy PLO. While
loudly accusing Syria and Iran of supporting Hezbollah they also conveniently forgot that the tanks,
bullets and bombs that Israel was using against the civilians in Lebanon were US made and paid for with
US tax payers’ dollars. What is good for the goose should be good for the gander.
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