Antarctic Peace Climb

January 20, 2004 6:37 AM

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.
posted by liam (12 comments total)

That probably came out too snarky. Congratulations to the whole team.
posted by liam at 6:41 AM on January 20, 2004

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.
posted by languagehat at 7:25 AM on January 20, 2004

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.
posted by troutfishing at 8:12 AM on January 20, 2004

The Tectonic Upthrust of Islamic-Judaic goodwill

Hey, I like that!
MetaFilter: The Tectonic Upthrust of Islamic-Judaic goodwill.
posted by languagehat at 8:38 AM on January 20, 2004

I wonder if they will plant little flags on the summit?
posted by thomcatspike at 8:56 AM on January 20, 2004

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."
posted by Ryvar at 9:25 AM on January 20, 2004

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.
posted by cell divide at 9:47 AM on January 20, 2004

"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."
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 10:20 AM on January 20, 2004

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...
posted by namespan at 10:33 AM on January 20, 2004

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?
posted by knapah at 11:16 AM on January 20, 2004

Good news; thanks, liam.
posted by carter at 11:31 AM on January 20, 2004

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.
posted by troutfishing at 9:17 PM on January 20, 2004