Ben Laden and the Pope

Today, to my surprise, two personalities I generally disagree with, issued interesting statements.

The first was Osama Bin Laden

The second was the Pope Benedict.

1. Here is the first: "Osama bin Laden released a new message on Sunday that accused Arab leaders of sacrificing the Palestinians and called on Muslim militants in Egypt to help break the blockade of Gaza"

Well, we have to agree. There are about 50 jobs that a Palestinian CANNOT apply to in Lebanon. Official discrimination is in place in most of the Middle Eastern countries where Palestinians live. Since there is a policy of maintaining Palestinians under a refugee status, many Palestinians are born in exile and will never be given the citizenship of their country of birth, which goes against my belief in jus soli.

Unofficial discrimination is also a reality: ask a father from Lebanon or Egypt if he would give his daughter to a Palestinian husband.

Human Rights organizations issued many reports on Palestinian discrimination in the Middle East. Here is Amnesty International

Plenty of testimonies are available, like this one :"Being a refugee in Lebanon since my birth, I have witnessed and lived through all kinds of prejudices practiced against my people.Palestinians are not allowed to work in many jobs".

After so many statements that Egypt was supporting its "Palestinian brothers", why did Egypt close its border with Gaza ?

2. I had so many objections against the election of Pope Benedict XVI, especially considering his misguided youth when at the same age, young men aged 17 died in the resistance. Today Mr Ratzinger is using his position of moral authority and his ministry for a good cause: the ban on cluster bombs.

He unexpectedly took on to speak against the production of these bombs. A cluster bomb is a bomb that subdivides into many smaller bombs scattered indiscriminately on the ground, many of which do not explode after impact. These smaller bombs just lay there for months or years, until a civilian, usually a child, picks up this funny-looking piece of plastic, and gets maimed or killed.

The largest producers of cluster bombs, of course, do not support this ban. That would be China, Russia, Israel, and of course the US.

It's a bit sad that these statements come from people I dislike (the Pope) or despise (Bin Laden). The statements stand out because of the personalities of their authors, being who they are. It would be more comforting if they came more often from people that we do support.