The Story that never ends...

Reading the article below is like a never ending story. I read the article as if it was a novel awaiting the end, but the end never comes. Most are written just like that.
And the battle continues.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/17/magazine/is-this-where-the-third-intifada-will-start.html?pagewanted=11&_r=2&hp

I could find a story that pitted the other side (and there is another side), but I won't bother.

If you are actually reading this and care about the 'other' side, you'll find it for yourself. I doubt it though, and so why should I bother?

People tell their stories not to have a dialogue but to hear themselves tell their stories. Having a dialogue might mean that you have to let go of your narrative, or parts of it. In the middle east, that doesn't happen and hence, the story continues.

Forget the power players, look at the poor Palestinian bastards going to protests every week and the poor Israelis that live like paupers not even considering that there might be another way to do 'business' with their Arab cousins.
Those are the guys going out to work everyday, and trying to make a living, they are the ones that suffer the most of this 'battle'. It's so contrived. It's so false and orchestrated. And somehow we 'all' think we are acting out of consciousness. Bullshit.

Friday afternoon I'm at the Western Wall. Sound grenades go off and it sounds like WWWIII has started on the Temple Mount. The tourists are the only 'normal' acting people. They back away from the wall and leave the Western Wall Plaza area. The religious keep praying at the wall, the military scurry a bit, the camera men (who've been told that there could be trouble on this day) have their cameras aimed at the top of the wall. And it's business as usual.
Except for the 'normal' tourists.

I hope the normal tourists keeping coming here and shedding light on what is not 'normal' to both Palestinians and Israelis. Maybe that's the only sane reference point for this place.

Gaza 2008 to 2012, nothing new under the sun

Four years ago, just before 2008 Gaza war I moved to Israel. I came here because I was looking for an adventure. After all it's not just Israel but it's Jordan and Egypt and close proximity to Europe.
I came here to do a program in tourism and get my license to guide here. I have done that and I am working (more or less) in this profession. This what I did in the Canadian Rockies.
I think I started this blog when I first left Canada. And I really haven't done much with it. So maybe it's time to pick it up again. It's not really for you the reader, if there are readers out there, but for me.

Today a friend posted this article on FB: http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2012/11/16/john-mearsheimer/a-pillar-built-on-sand/

I read it and thought, yep, pretty good description. And then I responded thanking her for post. But I found that I was annoyed. The more I wrote the more I realized that I didn't love the article. I wasn't sure weather to add the notes to the post or not.

The article is worth the read but there is loads that isn't in the article. It's lob-sided. I did add a note to Kiersten's article but this is what I really wanted to say and wasn't sure that her post was the place to do it.

What I wanted to say was:
Thanks for posting. It's a good commentary but somehow lob sided (maybe they all are and maybe you can't talk about it all in one article - I don't know). What seems to be missing is Hamas' motive for bomb lobbing before Ahmad Jabari was assassinated. What was Hamas' aim for this movement? I understand that there is retaliation for his death, but what was happening before hand.

And why is it, even though the Palestinians know that they will be hit really hard by the Israelis, they never put money into bomb shelters and sirens on their side. (If they have money for long range missiles, they have money for that - think of all the tunnels they have there already).    
                                      

Why are their family's lives not as valuable as the Israeli ones (at least on the surface)? Why don't they protect their people? 

Why do they fire from mosques and schools? They know that Israel will fire at the place they lob their bombs from. That ain't brain science. And how come that never gets told. 

One other criticism I have of the article, is would that the Palestinians had access to the same kind of weaponry that Israel had, they would do just the same. There is no respect for life on either side and the media loves to play that up, just like a ping pong game. 

The news agencies counts bodies as if it were a sporting game. 

13 to 3, Israel wins this match, stay tuned to the next round of missile fire. 

Yes, the numbers are staggering and disgusting. When you look at the article in captures the events like a game of chess. Israel moves it's rook and takes out the knight. But Hamas moves it's pawn and puts the king in check. And on and on. 

Loads of stories are sold. Loads of airtime is committed to the event here and abroad (that's what it is - entertainment and the ad companies must love it.) A friend pointed out THAT 20 EUROPEAN COUNTRIES WENT ON STRIKE IN ONE DAY and in Israel, they hardly mentioned. 

In the mean time, lives of just regular people who want to live out their lives are deeply disrupted (and not just today and the up coming days but for their lives) and sometimes lost. 

            

This won't make me popular, but that was never my aim anyway: 

I think the Israelis and Hamas are in bed together. I would even say that it's kind of orchestrated. Isn't it interesting that exactly at the time that Hamas (or whomever in Gaza) has long range missiles that Tel Aviv has an iron dome? Just in the nick of time? What the hell do I know?  I've become a bit of a conspiracy theorist. It's hard to believe anything I read. 

Yep, there was a lot I wanted to say about that article, about this place, but it wasn't the time or the space. 

If you are interested in interesting stories from Israel, Kiersten has a blog of her own. She is an excellent writer and articulates her experiences with care and feeling. She and Richard, her partner live in E Jerusalem. Richard works for the Canadian consulate in Ramallah and Kiersten at an NGO. Heck if I can find her blog, I'll add it next time. 

Where is the voice of Moderate Islam?

The video below does have a smacking of propaganda, but the woman presenting her personal experience has a lot to say that is worthwhile listening to. What is most disturbing is thinking about the amount of Muslims in this world 1.3 billion, and not hearing the majority moderate voice. We only hear or pay attention to the extremists. Even if extremist Muslims number at 20% (which I doubt) where are the 80% moderates? Are they scared to speak up? 

http://vitalperspective.typepad.com/vital_perspective_clarity/2006/12/video_brigitte_.html

Comments are welcome.

Hope Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hds3jvjZY-Y

Un Watch Briefing: Speech of the Year

Israelis are as angelic as the next guy trying to survive in the Middle East, but quite frankly the lob sided reporting is annoying. This is quite an interesting twist to the Middle East story as British Col Richard Kemp puts himself out there defending the IDF. In case you have trouble reading the speech, please click here: http://www.unwatch.org/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=bdKKISNqEmG&b=1313923&ct=7536409 UN Watch Briefing: "Speech of the Year" News and Analysis from UN Watch in Geneva Vol. 208 | October 16, 2009

British Hero Tells U.N. Council: 'IDF Most Moral Army in History of Warfare' Today's emergency UN Human Rights Council debate on the Goldstone Report predictably saw a line-up of the world's worst abusers condemn democratic Israel for human rights violations. In a heated lynch mob atmosphere, Kuwait slammed Israel for “intentional killing, intentional destruction of civilian objects, intentional scorched-earth policy,” saying Israel “embodied the Agatha Christie novel, 'Escaped with Murder'.” Pakistan said the “horrors of Israeli occupation continue to haunt the international community’s conscience.” The Arab League said, “We must condemn Israel and force Israel to accept international legitimacy." Ahmadinejad’s Iran said “the atrocities committed against Palestinians during the aggressions on Gaza should be taken seriously” and followed up by the international community “to put an end to absolute impunity and defiance of the law.” What the world's assembled representatives did not expect, however, was the speech that followed (see video and text below), organized by UN Watch. We invited as our speaker a man who repeatedly put his life on the line to defend the democratic world from the murderous Saddam Hussein, Al Qaeda, and the Taleban. The moment he began his first sentence, the room simply fell silent. Judge Goldstone, author of the biased report that prompted today's one-sided condemnation, had refused to hear Col. Kemp's testimony during his "fact-finding" hearings. But UN Watch made sure today that this hero's voice would be heard -- at the U.N., and around the world. _________ UN Human Rights Council, 12th Special Session Debate on Goldstone Report Geneva, 16 October 2009 IDF Did More to Safeguard Civilians Than Any Army in History of Warfare Delivered by Col. Richard Kemp Click for must-see video Thank you, Mr. President. I am the former commander of the British forces in Afghanistan. I served with NATO and the United Nations; commanded troops in Northern Ireland, Bosnia and Macedonia; and participated in the Gulf War. I spent considerable time in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, and worked on international terrorism for the UK Government’s Joint Intelligence Committee. Mr. President, based on my knowledge and experience, I can say this: During Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli Defense Forces did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare. Israel did so while facing an enemy that deliberately positioned its military capability behind the human shield of the civilian population. Hamas, like Hizballah, are expert at driving the media agenda. Both will always have people ready to give interviews condemning Israeli forces for war crimes. They are adept at staging and distorting incidents. The IDF faces a challenge that we British do not have to face to the same extent. It is the automatic, Pavlovian presumption by many in the international media, and international human rights groups, that the IDF are in the wrong, that they are abusing human rights. The truth is that the IDF took extraordinary measures to give Gaza civilians notice of targeted areas, dropping over 2 million leaflets, and making over 100,000 phone calls. Many missions that could have taken out Hamas military capability were aborted to prevent civilian casualties. During the conflict, the IDF allowed huge amounts of humanitarian aid into Gaza. To deliver aid virtually into your enemy's hands is, to the military tactician, normally quite unthinkable. But the IDF took on those risks. Despite all of this, of course innocent civilians were killed. War is chaos and full of mistakes. There have been mistakes by the British, American and other forces in Afghanistan and in Iraq, many of which can be put down to human error. But mistakes are not war crimes. More than anything, the civilian casualties were a consequence of Hamas’ way of fighting. Hamas deliberately tried to sacrifice their own civilians. Mr. President, Israel had no choice apart from defending its people, to stop Hamas from attacking them with rockets. And I say this again: the IDF did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare. Thank you, Mr. President.

January 9, 2009

Jan 9, 2009

Reading the news, watching and listening to the people who live in Israel is interesting and disturbing all at the same time. It's facinating to talk with people who are so passionate about their existence. Maybe Canadians are just as passionate but because we are not challenged to the same degree, we don't have the opportunity to express it in the same way.

To say that I'm interested in what is going on around me is just stating the obvious, but saying that I'm disturbed needs some explaination. On the one hand I have a basic understanding about self defense - I say 'basic' because as I Canadian we don't 'need' to defend ourselves in a physical way. (Sometimes we need to defend ourselves in a pyscological way and so we go on the offensive and proclaim our non- american-ness but really, when was the last time we needed to physically defend 'our home and native land'?)

On the other hand I find all of what I see on the news, around me from people involved to the person on the street, very foriegn. It's surreal to think that just 50km away there is a war being waged. People are loosing their fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters etc... The are loosing their homes. It rained heavily last night, where did everyone sleep?

Large warehouses of equipment being used to make bombs and missles are being discovered and destroyed. Making arms is the largest industry in Gaza. Arms created for the purpose of being sent into Israel. With the destruction of these store houses of arms and factories to make this stuff, the livilihood of these people who make this stuff is also going up in smoke. Yet, Israel's security (the protection of it's citizens) is dependant on this mission.

More than 1000 bombs, missiles and other munitions are sent from Gaza into towns close enough to Gaza every year. These strikes have a 40 km firing range from Gaza. They are purposely aimed at schools, old folks home and other civilian institutes. The last 8 years have petrified children and adults alike that live in cities like Sedrot. Israelis live in fear and terror. Israel has asked and threatened Hamas to stop, but Hamas has laughed at Israel taunting them with accusations that they are cowards and other unpleasentries. The Israelis have said 'enough is enough'. Endora's box has been opened and who knows what will come out and who will be able to close the box up.

Interesting - maybe fascinating is more apporpriate - and disturbing, really disturbing. Can't we all just get along? - Oh, how Canadian of me.