A Bench to encourage democratic debate

[Ty Van Brown]

Background:

• To fully appreciate the significance of my proposal please go to http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2451908450811690589 and watch the documentary Occupation 101.

• Then read the below extract from an article by Professor of International Relations at the University of Oxford, Avi Shlaim (full article available at: http://users.ox.ac.uk/~ssfc0005/The%20Balfour%20Declaration%20and%20its%20consequences.html )

On November 2, 1917, Arthur Balfour, Britain’s Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, addressed a letter to Lord Rothschild, one of the leaders of the British Jews, as follows:

I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty’s Government, the following declaration of sympathy which has been submitted to and approved by the Cabinet: His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.

Proposal:

Use the money to import a large, appropriately shaped piece of rubble from the recently bombed hospitals or schools in Gaza. Before shipping it out, get local Gazan children to write their wishes for peace and international intervention on it in Arabic. English translations can be added later if deemed appropriate, perhaps by local English school children.

Place this bench-like piece of rubble, a symbol of the Gazan destruction that Britain set in motion with its 1917 Balfour Declaration, in the park next to a plinth and plaque with the original wording of the declaration inscribed into it.

Let the real debate begin.