Your Sunday Thought for the Day

Quote of the day -- on violence and war

On Israel and Palestine, too

The Way to Israeli, Palestinian Peace

I think the only way there could or would be peace between Israel and the Palestinians is if the following things--four rather simple things--could and would happen and as soon as possible.

First, the Palestinians must stop firing mortars on Israel.  They must also stop tunneling the area. Both, immediately and forever.

Second, Hamas and all Palestinians must recognize Israel and must formally recognize Israel's right to exist. Immediately.  Permanently.

Tbird, Israel must withdraw from Gaza. Again, immediately.

Fourth and finally, Israel must stop its attacks on the Palestinians and must allow Palestinians to trade and function, naturally. Again, immediately and permanently.

Simple. Easy.

Not that simple and unfortunately, likely impossible. At least impossible until minds are opened and changed, anyway. Impossible until the desire for peace and intelligence trumps the desire for war, fighting and revenge, as we have now.

Would that this all already took place, a year ago, two years, three, ten.

It would be nice--great, in fact--if it took place today.

It could happen.  It should.  It won't, it seems.

Ah, well, we can dream, can't we?



Link:  Gaza needs the world's help

The Gaza strip is now unlivable. For the sake of humanity, the international community must require Israel to end this disaster

Quote of the day -- on war

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Israeli military: above the law, decency, humanity and international law

An Israeli judge ruled today that their nation's military was in no way responsible for the death of a protester he bulldozed because the Israeli government wanted to destroy homes in the Gaza Strip. The news and headline today:

Israel judge rules Rachel Corrie responsible for her own death

Parents of American activist Rachel Corrie fail in their attempt to place blame on Israel after their daughter was killed by a bulldozer in Gaza at a protest

JERUSALEM — Nine years after their daughter was crushed by an Israeli military bulldozer in the Gaza Strip, the parents of American activist Rachel Corrie lost their legal bid Tuesday to hold Israel responsible for her death and force authorities to reopen the investigation.

A Haifa judge rejected the parent's negligence lawsuit, calling Corrie's death an accident that she brought upon herself by refusing to leave what had been declared a closed military zone. "It was a very regrettable accident and not a deliberate act," said Judge Oded Gershon.

And sure, people will take sides--the driver did see her, he didn't, whatever.

As you can tell here--and as you would guess if you know me--I'm on the side of the protester and her family. I find it at least extremely difficult to believe that the driver of the bulldozer didn't see her or know she was there. She "was wearing a fluorescent orange jacket and standing just a few feet away" from the bulldozer and driver at the time.

In fact, I'll go one step further on this. I feel sure the official order from the Israeli government was to go forward with the destruction of the homes no matter what. It may well have been only spoken but I feel strongly that was their position.
This flies in the face of decency and of humanity, as I said in the title, above, but it also goes against international law. A nation and its government isn't supposed to tear down anyone's home, regardless.

Was the young lady--Rachel Cory, 23--pushing her luck?

Apparently the answer to that is yes.

Did the right thing happen? Should she have been killed so a nation's government could tear down homes they didn't want?

Absolutely not.

Link: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/middleeast/la-fg-israel-corrie-verdict-20120829,0,4476903.story

We--the US--pay for what??

Listening to KCUR/NPR yesterday, I learned we--the US--pays millions of dollars per year (not that much in the ultimate scheme of things) so "Sesame Street" is produced and played in Israel and Palestine. I thought it stunning and rather silly, really. I'm all about education and exposure to the wider world but I don't think it's the US' duty to "save the world" in this respect. But that's me. Link: http://www.npr.org/2012/01/17/145340572/f-is-for-funding-which-palestinian-muppets-lack

On Palestinian Statehood

There seems to be one hugely overlooked issue that needs to be addressed on Palestinian statehood and I don't see it mentioned in the conversations. It seems clear that the Palestinian statehood issue could possibly be considered IF, if they officially recognize Israel's right to exist and follow that up with no longer bombing Israel and Israelis. Then and only then, I think it's obvious, the possibility of a Palestinian state can be evaluated and considered. Link: http://www.google.com/#sclient=psy-ab&hl=en&source=hp&q=new+york+times+palestinian+statehood&pbx=1&oq=new+york+times+palestinian+statehood&aq=f&aqi=g-v1&aql=1&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=3093l10488l0l10708l36l21l0l0l0l1l1075l6006l0.7.7.3.2.7-1l20l0&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=dc9b7cc97129edc0&biw=1440&bih=727

So, the Palestinians want their own state?

This week, the Palestinians said they are going to take the possibility of their own statehood to the UN. Okay, sure. No problem. Let's just all tell them there are only two provisions for it, though. First, they have to recognize Israel's right to exist (which very likely isn't going to happen) and second, that they have to stop attacking Israel in any and all ways, including lobbing mortars at them and all other ways. Deal? Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/17/world/middleeast/Abbas-Security-Council-United-Nations-Vote.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha2

Middle East peace?

I virtually always have two feelings or opinions about any mention of Middle East peace between the Israelis and Palestinians. My first thought is that I'm hopeful. My second is that I doubt the talk of the moment will come to anything. I got proof of the second thought this morning when I saw the following two headlines, apparently released almost simultaneously: 1) Clinton says Israel and Palestinians are serious about peace. And the frustrating, pessimistic, second one?: Israeli aircraft strike Gaza as leaders convene. It seems "Militants launched mortar shells into Israel and Israeli jets bombed targets in Gaza on Wednesday, just as Israeli and Palestinian leaders held peace talks in Jerusalem with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton." Nice. Right at the beginning of "peace talks." Mind you, there are bound to be people on both sides of the negotiations who don't want these peace talks to even go forward, let alone be fruitful, I recognize that, but it's just, as I said, frustrating that they'll go to these lengths, at the beginning of the talks, to spoil and short-circuit them. Hope for peace, y'all. Links to original stories: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100915/ap_on_re_mi_ea/mideast_talks

Republicans (and a lotta honkies) aren't gonna' like this

Don't look now but President Obama got some "wins" this week, folks. The oil spill in the Gulf is stopped (we're pretty sure) and BP is still handing out money and trying to clean up its image, at the same time--and that's all good for this President. Added to that, we're getting the last of our combat troops out of Iraq just now (well, except for the 50,000 Dick Cheney always wanted over there indefinitely, to secure our oil supply). And then, finally today, as if that weren't enough, as if there weren't enough things going right for this President, it's been announced this morning that Israel and the Palestinians are close to resuming peace talks, thanks to Secretary of State Clinton, this White House and administration, along with, no doubt, a lot of other people. Sure, we're still going to heck in a handbasket in a lot of ways--economically, above most all others it seems--but for a week of news, that's pretty good stuff for a President. Maybe he can even enjoy his weekend and his 10 days of "r and r" out at Martha's Vineyard. Have a great weekend, y'all. Links to posts: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_obama; http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_us_mideast

Will we ever learn?

It seems the answer is "no".

The question is, will the American people ever learn that the answer to all questions and needs is not, in fact, to throw money at the problem.

Two examples come to mind recently.

One headline I saw this week points out the President Obama is requesting $634 billion over the next 10 years for a "health care overhaul".

What a mistake.

We don't need to throw even MORE money at our health care system. Doctors and hospitals and insurance companies have taken too much money from the system already.

Money INTO the system isn't the issue. Too much of our home incomes and national wealth is already spent on health care. (And defense, too, but that's another article).

What we need to do with our health care system is what the rest of the world has already successfully done--and that is, take the profit--the ugly, fat, oversized, bloated, killing profit--out of health care in the United States.

But it won't happen.

We don't have the will or the understanding to make this happen.

We’ll never get the health care system we need because the American answer to health care is to throw more money at it when what we really need to do is take the profit out of health care, the way the rest of the world has done. Everywhere but here in the US. We love profits. We love corporations. We’re greedy.

And stupid.

The other news note I saw this week was that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton just got back from the Middle East and is asking for--did you see this?--900 million dollars to rebuild the Gaza Strip.

Are you effin' kidding me?

In the first place, continuing to support the madness that continues to go on in the Middle East just makes us ridiculous enablers. Shooting, killing and blowing each other up in the Middle East should stop, period. Everyone would agree to that. Throwing money at rebuilding that mess again and again just allows for it to go on.

Years ago, when we used to have money in the United States, this wouldn't have made sense, either. But now that we're either near-broke or financially bankrupt (and it's hard to argue we're not), it's beyond our capacity. We can't afford it any longer, clearly.

We're broke, folks.

We can't any longer afford to throw money--big, small or whatever--at our problems.

We can't be the drunken sailor with our money--and our future--any longer.



Link to stories described above:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/obama_budget
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090224/ap_on_re_mi_ea/israel_us