Comments on: Antarctic Peace Climb

Antarctic Peace Climb

liam — Tue, 20 Jan 2004 06:37:35 -0800

Palestinian-Israeli expedition scales Antarctic peak. The "Breaking The Ice" team of four Palestinians and four Israelis, having not shied away from picking the obvious metaphor for the title of their adventure, reached the summit of a previously unclimbed and unnamed mountain last friday, and named it "The Mountain of Israeli-Palestinian Friendship". Apparently, the mountain didn't collapse under the weight of all this symbolism. There was blogging, too.

By: liam

liam — Tue, 20 Jan 2004 06:41:15 -0800

That probably came out too snarky. Congratulations to the whole team.

By: languagehat

languagehat — Tue, 20 Jan 2004 07:25:56 -0800

and named it "The Mountain of Israeli-Palestinian Friendship" I was feeling all warm and fuzzy up till that point. Now I hope they all get frostbite. That's the worst name I've heard since the heyday of Soviet nomenclature (Communism Peak, Rivulet of the Friendship of Peoples of All Nations, Mudhole of the Solidarity of the International Proletariat, that sort of thing). Feh.

By: troutfishing

troutfishing — Tue, 20 Jan 2004 08:12:16 -0800

languagehat - Well at least they didn't call it "The Pinnacle of Israeli-Palestinian Pals", "The Tectonic Upthrust of Islamic-Judaic goodwill", or "The Big Boulder of Brotherhood". I wonder if they will plant little flags on the summit? : Suicide bomber victims for the Israelis, Victims of the IDF for the Palestinians. They could just, together, dump a bucket of blood on the peak. That might get some sober attention. Still, I commend them.

By: languagehat

languagehat — Tue, 20 Jan 2004 08:38:59 -0800

The Tectonic Upthrust of Islamic-Judaic goodwill Hey, I like that! MetaFilter: The Tectonic Upthrust of Islamic-Judaic goodwill.

By: XQUZYPHYR

XQUZYPHYR — Tue, 20 Jan 2004 08:54:45 -0800

and named it "The Mountain of Israeli-Palestinian Friendship". Fort Awesome.

By: thomcatspike

thomcatspike — Tue, 20 Jan 2004 08:56:47 -0800

I wonder if they will plant little flags on the summit?

By: Ryvar

Ryvar — Tue, 20 Jan 2004 09:25:34 -0800

Thanks to the subject matter, when I first saw that pic linked in the above comment I thought the stuff in the foreground were dead bodies . . . ". . . oh. It's just their gear. Nevermind."

By: cell divide

cell divide — Tue, 20 Jan 2004 09:47:51 -0800

cool. I really admire the people who take part in things like this, and organize them. It takes a lot of strength to do this kind of thing.

By: Civil_Disobedient

Civil_Disobedient — Tue, 20 Jan 2004 10:20:43 -0800

"EXTREME PEACE MISSIONS" Now what in the hell does an extreme peace mission entail? Do they have extreme bake-sales to raise money? Do discourteous participants get kicked in the nuts? "It's cooperation and mutual respect, to the extreme."

By: namespan

namespan — Tue, 20 Jan 2004 10:33:20 -0800

Extreme peace missions do tend to get you killed. We celebrated a holiday for one guy who did it yesterday. Rabin arguably got killed for a peace mission, though you could counterargue his wasn't extreme. Gandhi got killed. Not to mention Christ...

By: knapah

knapah — Tue, 20 Jan 2004 11:16:58 -0800

another middle east summit, now we just need some western government leader out there to adjudicate. oh and one more question needs to be asked, who got to the top first?

By: carter

carter — Tue, 20 Jan 2004 11:31:22 -0800

Good news; thanks, liam.

By: troutfishing

troutfishing — Tue, 20 Jan 2004 21:17:53 -0800

Cynicism aside, I do think this is an important symbolic event. I hope people on both sides of the I/P conflict get it. carter - well spoken. For some of us here, an excess of words gets in the way.