Sunday, July 18, 2010

WHY NO PEACE - YET?

The advocacy of b'tselem's solutions, and those of similar advocate groups, to the Israeli Palestinian/Arab-World conflict that began in 1948 when five Arab states attacked the Jewish community in Palestine to overthrow the United Nations' decision to divide the lands of the British Mandate between indigenous Jews and Arabs, is a cancer on the body of any peace agreement.

Any "solution" that leads to the destruction of the State of Israel is, on its face, not viable. From the first Armistice that ended the conflict in 1949 and through the years of "peace" negotiations, the Arab world has required - and continues to demand - that a stick of dynamite be inserted into any "peace" agreement that would ensure the destruction of the State of Israel. That stick of dynamite is called, "The Right of Return."

The establishment of a democratic state with political equality for all its inhabitants would immediately wipe out the State of Israel with the admission into the country of Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war. The very existence of this down-trodden group of people is the result of the Arab World's intent to destroy Israel by holding those refugees hostage rather than absorbing them into the societies of the countries that placed them and has held them for sixty years in "refugee" camps (including the Gaza Strip.)

The balancing act required to enable the continued existence of Israel and finding a future for the refugees of 1948 requires a willingness on the part of the host countries to absorb those millions of exploited people. Absent that, there is no hope for peace in the region.

The land can be divided. Jerusalem can be divided. The water and natural resouces can be shared. Health care, education, economic growth, and political equality can come into fruition with a peace agreement. But not with the "Law of Return" that would lead to the destruction of the State of Israel by vote.

Saturday, July 17, 2010

WHITHER IRAN

Iran's ruling classes are part and parcel of Islamic terrorist anti-Western networks. Their support of these networks is part of the united enterprises designed to undermine western civilization. Iran, through it's fascist/religious leadershp, sees itself as the leader of a new world order.

The proof of this analysis lies in Iran's manipulation of the United Nations and the major Western powers in protecting its acquisition of a nuclear capability in a way that is remeniscent of Hitler's conning and bluffing the West in his rise to militaru power. That war, World War II, until the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, will seem like a child's playground

Israel's conflict with the billion-strong oligarchic Arab world is evidence of the unity achieved thus far by this huge cabal. The whole world seems to be moving in the direction of delegitimizing and destroying Israel. The missionary goal of Islam through atomic destruction of Israel first, pro-Western backward societies next, and finally, Weatern nations and civilizations, is apparent, however sick and psychotic this thinking is. Suicide bombing will not then be limited to fanatic individuals. States will engsge in it. It will become the means whereby whole populations and nations will achieve martydom through atomic immolation of "The Other." whether they wish it or not.

The long history of wars is the story of ever-increasing destructive and killing capacity. We are now in the atomic age of war. Wake up or die, World.

Friday, July 16, 2010

PATRIOTIC FERVOR

How many people on earth die for their country and their love for their country every day? How many of them die for the benefit of their country? How many of them die for the benefit of arms makers, politicians, dictators, oil companies, religious belief and religious leaders? How many die for the pay of a soldier? How many die for their love of the military? How many die for their love and excitement of war and killing?

How are those who die taught to die? Was it the flag and the national anthem? Was it the father or older brother who taught them the glories of war, patriotism, and obedience to authority? Was it the clergymen, priests, rabbis, ayatollahs, voodoo-men, who taught that a rock or place where long-dead bones lie merits their deaths to protect those inanimate shrines. Moses, who died on Mount Nebo, buried himself in an unmarked and unknown grave for the just purpose of preventing the deaths of those who are taught that his grave was worth dying for because he was a "holy man."

Friends, Romans, Countrymen,

Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind…And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded with patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader, and gladly so.

How do I know? For this is what I have done.

And I am Caesar. (Or Mao, or Arafat, or MacArthur, or the pope, or deGaulle, or Komeini - or Genral Motors, Boeing, or Krupp?)

William Shakespeare


The true sorrow of humanity lies in this; not that the mind of man fails, but that the course and demands of action and of life so rarely correspond with the dignity and intensity of human desire.

Saturday, July 10, 2010

TURKEY IS NOT THANKSGIVING

YEAST IN THE MIDDLE EAST

Ferment is being fomented in the Middle East. Yeast creates gasses that enlarge dough and, what is fermenting in the Middle East bodes ill for Israel. Turkey is leading the latest charge. It wasn’t enough to have a billion Arabs and Muslims in over twenty countries bent on destroying Israel, Turkey now sees its bright path in alignment with those forces. After all, where’s the market?

Turkey is edging away from the democracy introduced by Attaturk and rolling over to join the world of Islam. The Turkish citizens killed by Israeli forces on board a blockade-running vessel were unwisely attacking Israeli commandos. However unwise the Israeli attempt to halt the ship by boarding it, not knowing what awaited them, the attack by Turkish activists intent on killing the Israelis was equally unwise.

It is interesting to watch the world pile-up of condemnation of Israel for engaging in defensive measures for the safety of its citizenry. It seems unlikely that any sovereign state would act otherwise. The pile-up is more than moral outrage if one looks at the immorality of many of the accusers. To an older segment of the Israeli population it sounds remarkably similar to the screams of truncheon-bearing anti-Semites in myriad countries in the 1930s and ‘40s.

No doubt that Israel is in danger. No doubt that whatever is offered to the Palestinians in exchange for real peace will be insufficient in the eyes of the Arab world and thus of the Palestinians. Without the “Return” of refugees from the Arab initiated 1948 war, there will be no peace. Such a return would be the end of Israel. And if half the Palestinians agree to some sort of settlement, the terrorist groups in Gaza and Lebanon will see to it that it will not last. Israel’s mild response or major attacks will lead to the same result; it will be found guilty of over-protecting its people.

Perhaps a century from now, when and if the Arab world catches up to civilization, there may be hope for peace - unless Israel lies in shattered ruins on boundless and bare desert sands, like Ozymandias..

Monday, July 5, 2010

ISRAEL PALESTINE -WAR AND PEACE

TOP TO BOTTOM - INSIDE & OUTSIDE

Going on the Marxian presumption that all wars have an economic base that I believe to be true, trying to analyze the ongoing struggle between the Palestinians and the Israelis, mandates a look at the economic forces at work over the years from 1948 to the present.

The purpose of this effort is to ascertain the chance for peace between these two Peoples and what it will take to get there.

Top to Bottom is a shortcut description of the forces at work in the economic hierarchies that have influenced the chances of war and peace between the antagonists. Similarly, Inside and Outside delves into those economic forces at work that have influenced and affected peace efforts and continuing war between the two peoples.

It is a given that political leadership is tied to economic or financial powers. The influence over government policy by the public at large, even in open democratic and transparent societies, is minimal and always fragmented by economic status, religion, patriotism, and educational levels. This nurtured lack of cohesiveness saps the “power of the people” and leads to powerlessness. The people, the masses, are the “Bottom” of those who affect war and peace. A primary function of this group is to provide the soldiery for the wars determined by others. This group never gains from war, yet is manipulated to believe that they are doing the right thing, that they are doing good by supporting war and by going to war.

On the other hand, the Top makes money from war. They increase their wealth and control over masses of people who are the cannon fodder. The Top consists of armaments and munitions makers, planes, tanks, and trucks makers, suppliers of clothing, food and all commodities to armies. Suppliers of medical supplies and equipment are the Top. Land beneficiaries are Top. Communications developers and suppliers are Top. Warships and commercial ships are top. Fuel suppliers are Top. Think of all the machinery-makers who make all these elements that go to war. They are also Top. And most important, war destroys all this “stuff,” so the wealth keeps rolling in so long as war continues. The Israeli Palestinian conflict is an ideal educational model for the Top.

Now, for the Bottom. Let’s start with the makers of caskets and the growers of flowers. They benefit from war - but not on the scale of the Top. But they are the Top of the Bottom. The Bottom are the soldiers who march off to death with patriotism in their bellies. The Bottom are the parents, wives and children the soldiers left behind, many glorious in their patriotism and belief in God and country to support the pain and anxiety. Whether the Bottom stays behind or marches forward, they never benefit from war. They only benefit from peace yet have no power to bring peace nor enforce it. “Theirs not to question, “Why?” Theirs, but to do and die.” This powerless mass of people simply forms the mix from which gold is mined- nothing more. They may vote. Yet their vote is meaningless given the choices on their ballots. Convinced that ownership of guns gives them might and rights, the guns they use are to create wealth for the makers of guns, in armies or in pools of slobs. They are the bottom. God guides them as He is wielded by power elites.

What meaning does “Inside” have on the issue of war and peace? "Inside” refers to the entities directly on the front lines; the countries or groups cited in news reports, the nations, countries, rebel groups and the like, shooting at each other. So, for the Israel Palestine conflict, the Inside are Israel and the Palestinian people located in the West Bank and Gaza - and to some degree, within Israel proper. Additional Inside entities are all the terrorist groups shooting at Israel and the supposedly non-terrorist religious groups, like Hezbolla in Lebanon and spin-offs in Gaza who have declared war on Israel and are determined to wipe it off the face of the earth.

“Outside” are all the political and geographic entities that are affected positively and negatively by this ongoing conflict. Indeed, many of the Outside have fomented and contributed to the ongoing conflict believing it to be beneficial to their internal political interests, the maintenance of the status quo. Yasser Arafat, the “George Washington” of the Palestinian People, ran around to the capitols of the Arab world, collecting money and arms in exchange for Palestinian blood to continue the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Arafat scuttled every peace effort that may have halted the slaughter.

The Outside is not to be confused with the Top despite the similarities between the two groups. The accumulation of wealth drives the Top. Most of the Muslim Outside is directly surreptitiously involved in the conflict so as to maintain stability in their homelands. The conflict is pointed to as the reason for the sad condition of the masses in these generally oligarchic countries. The twenty Outside Arab countries have closed their borders to Palestinian refugees from the wars that these Outside countries have initiated, funded, and educated their citizenry to decry. To this day, funding for the continuation of the conflict pours in from Iran, the Gulf States, the Osama bin Laden congregation of terrorist entities, charitable Muslim groups in the Western World, and sadly, also from many left-wing groups deploring Israel’s military tactics in the face of homeless, poverty-stricken Palestinians who have provided most of the blood for the wars fomented by the Top and Outside against Israel.

The Outside are all the countries that dip their toes into the raging waters. The Outside is the United Nations and the United States of America. The outside are all the countries doing business with the oligarchies and their billions of barrels of oil. There is a balance in the status quo of on again off again conflict. This situation provides a laboratory for the testing of future weaponry.

Israel and its “allies” and supporters - and indeed - the hapless Palestinians, have yet to find the way out of this constantly changing maze created to continue the war and destruction so beneficial to the controlling money-making Top and Inside and Outside forces, so useful to their cause and so detrimental to peace. Major wars in other places do not seem to interfere with the ongoing perpetual attempt to wipe Israel off the map.