In the wake of the controversy of a powerful Rabbi calling for a plague to kill all Palestinians before the start of negotiations between Israel and Palestine, Hamas has found its own way of contributing to the peace process by killing four Israeli settlers, including a pregnant woman. Hamas called the murders an “heroic operation.”
Hamas proudly accepted responsibility for the killings.
In response, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that he had instructed his forces “to pursue the attackers without any diplomatic restraint and to lay hands on the attackers and those who sent them.”
He lost me on the “without any diplomatic restraint” which appears the opposite of an order to “use all lawful means.” That would sound like a carte blanche to violate international law.
What is clear is that radical elements on both sides do not want to see peace and are willing to say or do whatever is necessary to destabilize this process.
Source: New York Times
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/20/middle-east-peace-photo_n_2168227.html?1353454053#slide=1762955
When I Despair
When I despair,
I remember that all through history
the ways of truth and love have always won.
There have been tyrants, and murderers,
and for a time they can seem invincible,
but in the end they always fall.
Think of it – always.
–Mahatma Gandhi
Yes re: winning. Put another way from the Incredible String Band’s Maya:
“All the world is but a play, be now a joyful player.”
Mike S.,
I am honored to have influenced one who has influenced me. Reciprocity is key to cyclic behavior and cyclic behavior is a key to the universe. Or to quote Bad Co., “Life is like/Crazy circles”. One lives to be of service.
As to winning, I submit that Shakespeare was on to something in saying “the play is the thing”. Just like the Irish and the Muslims kept the knowledge and wisdom of the Greeks and Egyptians alive through the Dark Ages, the voices of reason and compassion needs their speakers that persist over the din of fear and hatred until the universe cycles through again.
Buddha,
Has it occurred to you that I’ve moved closer to your world view?
My eternal optimism about humanity blinded me to a reality I always have known, but have wished away. You are right we have made our stands to our credit, I just wish we’d be winning a little more.
Mike,
“Try as I might though I’m simply not smart enough to figure out how we change it. This leaves the need to rail against humanities inhumanity, but tempered by the understanding that we must read between the lines of the mythology and propaganda we are surrounded with.”
I submit that you personally and we collectively have been and are engaged in requisite actions to change humankind’s behavior:
Thoughtful humanist analysis applied through debate and discussion, using said analysis toward the ends of making a better world for all by fearlessly speaking truth to power, and to open what minds that are capable of change (for certainly egoism and stupidity will always keep a certain percentage of minds closed).
To change the civilized world, we must first change the minds of the civilians that compose it. Putting aside economics, all wars are wars for the hearts and minds of We the People. Including the war against war and other self-destructive behavior in our fellow beings.
“Mike, I consider you a friend and news of your possible impending death saddens me.”
Carlyle,
I feel the same towards you. Perhaps I made my situsation seem more gloomy than it is. I was dying because my heart was giving out. Since I am on the Heart Transplant List I am awaiting the possibility of a new heart for me. I was in the hospital for all of August getting a device known as an LVAD implanted and the odds are in my favor that this can keep me alive, with a decent lifestyle until a heart is found. The LVAD is a miraculous device that has given me my life back for now The only downside is that Dick Cheney got the same model two weeks before my operation.
Given all that has occurred since my downward spiral began last October and with the time spent in bed due to the condition, I have had much time to ponder the world its past, present and future. While I hold the same beliefs about the need for justice for all humanity, I’ve become increasingly cynical about the ability of politics and/or economic theories to change anything.
As long as humankind models itself after the hiearchical structure of the Great Apes, we are doomed to repaet our mistakes. I see the corporatist moves to return to feudalism as part of this continuing cycle. Try as I might though I’m simply not smart enough to figure out how we change it. This leaves the need to rail against humanities inhumanity, but tempered by the understanding that we must read between the lines of the mythology andpropaganda we are surroundedwith.
Thank you for your kindness. While accepting my future mortality I’ve got good odds for preserving it.
Mike
Mike S.
I think you are overestimating the influence of the Saudi ruling class. Zionists have far more influence over the USA than does the Saudi oligarchy and the latter needs US help to protect it from its own population.
My instinctive and irrational sympathy is indeed with the Palestinians who I see as the underdogs. Of course their governments, the PLO and Hamas are brutal and corrupt but then most governments world wide are brutal and corrupt including those of the USA and the UK. The only reason I do not see Australia’s political parties as equally brutal and corrupt is that even I have vestiges of irrational warm feelings towards my own nation. I try however to be realistic, as a citizen of a nation based on genocide, human rights abuses of indigines it would be hypocritical of me to do anything other than side with Israel. If Australia and the US have rights to exist based on abuse of the human rights of subhumans then why does not Israel have the right to do these same necessary things.
Siding with the most extreme elements of Israeli Zionism is the only honest thing to do. However I do not censor the underlying unstated assumptions on which Israel’s right to exist depend which probably means that Zionist would not welcome my support.
Mike, I consider you a friend and news of your possible impending death saddens me.