if it's not this it's that...

I swear, if Israel isn't waging war on some Arabs, then it's building settlements on their land, and if it's not that, they're condemning the Turkish PM for having the audacity to condemn the genocide of the Palestinians because of the Armenian genocide. Seriously, if one country makes a mistake almost a century ago, then that totally gives the green light to Israel to do the same thing. For a population that lived through the Holocaust, you think they'd empathize a little more with the Palestinians. But no, Hitler lives on through the Israelis... he must be down there in hell laughing his ass off at the irony of it all.

Of course, right in the middle of peace talks, Israel decides to continue with its settlement activity in the West Bank. So they've finished obliterating Gaza, time to move on to the rest of former Palestine. Do these people seriously want a homeland, cuz they seem to be doing everything in there power to undermine their cause and make as many of their neighbors hate them in the shortest amount of time possible. They must be trying to beat out Turkeys record for the "country most hated by an ethnic group" award or something.

who doesn't love Irony?

It's "Mission Accomplished" all over again as the Israeli government continues to spew its nonsense about the devastating and serious blow that was dealt to Hammas and the achievement of their objectives, even though rocket fire continues. The funny thing is that these bullies are now threatening to use disproportionate force against Hammas, as if they haven't been doing that since the beginning of their inception. What's even more Hilarious is that out of all the candidates running for the prime minister seat is Benjamin Netanyahu, who's position is that the last operation against Hammas wasn't successful and that Israel should have pushed even further with their operation... Are you serious, how much further could you have gone, Israel was already breaking international law and using weapons that are illegal. The Israeli military was throwing everything they had at Hammas short of using their Nuclear armament. Not to mention all the litter from those pamphlets telling the Palestinians that they should leave even though they're surrounded. Psychological warfare being used by a psychological imbalanced and illegitimate country... Not to mention cultural warfare as Israel is also waging war on the cultural heritage of the Arabs in the Middle East. Their continued excavation under the Dome of the Rock injured 14 people as they fell through the floor that collapsed under their feet due to the Israeli excavation weakening the buildings foundations. The funny part is that Israel is playing with so much fire that it's soon going to get burned. If the Dome of the Rock, the religious and cultural center of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, were to fall, that would be the proverbial straw that breaks the camels back. Losing this sacred and holy monument would most likely trigger an all out war. If something as minute as Ariel Sharon stepping foot into this shrine triggered a Jihad, imagine what this monuments destruction would entail... Israel will most likely face the Apocalypse much earlier than the rest of the world...

saved by the red tape...

What I want to know is what is the point of having an international body such as the UN that can't even regulate on its own members (Israel) and what is the point of international laws and treatise if no one (Israel) follows them and you can't use them against anyone (ISRAEL) because they didn't sign the stupid treaty in the first place! For cryin' out loud, there is overwhelming and undeniable evidence of war crimes, through pictures, video recordings, testimonies from people on the ground inside and outside the conflict zone, as well as incriminating statements made by many Israeli officials that were meant to mislead the international community (Livni: "There is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza...").

Nope, all of said evidence is rendered useless in the face of technicalities as frivolous as difficulty in choosing who is responsible and lack of signatures on specific treatise. I though international law applied internationally. A humanitarian crisis transcends laws and red tape, it is a humanistic and moral issue...compassion and empathy for another suffering human being and the need to offer aid... is that something that needs an approval stamp from some governing body? Not surprising since in Israel a Palestinian can hardly visit their neighbor or go to work without being stopped at checkpoints.

Word has it Israel is preparing a legal defense team to fight against the charges being brought against the state of Israel regarding said war crimes. I'd just love to see the kind of crack-pot team they put together... if you need a good lawyer who can make Hitler look like the victim, go to Israel, some of the best liars... I mean lawyers come from there.

*The signs in the picture above read:
Jews<>Israel extreme opposites
The "Israelis" stole the name of Israel
Authentic Jews will never recognize the state of "Israel"
Jews are forbidden to have their own state before coming of the Messiah

I told you there were some sane Jews in Israel, you just need to look hard enough.

dancing with the devil...

The age of Obama is upon us my friends... who knows what is in store for our 44th president and what obstacles he will confront/destroy/avoid/contribute to. The way I see it, there are many directions this presidency could take but three very significant paths stand out to me at this point.

Path number 1: Obama, as demonstrated by his lovely yet cliche inaugural speech, will conform to the script given him as president of the US and will have a fairly non-revolutionary presidency, playing by the book and dealing with the issues that are presented to him in similar fashion to many of our past presidents.

Path number 2: Obama, being the wild card that he is, inspite of his cliche inagural speech, will stand out like a sore thumb, and take radically different and unorthodox stances on issues relevant to Israel and Palestine, towards Iran, China and Tibet, the economy and military industrial complex, not to mention the environment, human rights and torture, among a torrent of other issues that have been accumulating past presidencies. He will attack these issues and approach them in ways that will not make his task masters very happy, those who traditionally have held special relations with the president and have had much influence over the course of history due to their sway, oil corporations, the CIA, the Israel Lobby etc. Obama's actions and stances will make many people with special interests unhappy and he will either be assassinated (an extreme but not unheard of; JFK as he attempted to reform the CIA from the inside out), or his presidency will be brought under a cloud and will take a turn for the worse (like Jimmy Carter's presidency).

Path number 3: Obama, having the touch of genius that I believe he may possess (as demonstrated by how he handled his campaign) will publicly play the part of the president as the role has been already written for him, but will subtly be pushing forward with progressive and revolutionary change, unbeknownst to the public. The key word here being SUBTLE. He will address these issues indirectly, under the cover of being a role-model president. He will play the game of the politician to the fullest, by approaching these issues from the back door. For instance, if Obama were to propose a bill that would only promise international aid to countries who's borders were recognized by the US and the UN, this would make foreign aid to countries like... oh I don't know... Israel would be ineligible for the receipt of aid from the US (due to it's lack of definitive borders)... without the US, that boat would sink pretty quickly. Now, this is a fairly obvious political maneuver that wouldn't work at all (I just thought it up) but demonstrates the kind of political angling I'm talking about. Obama is going to have to be shady if he wants to support the causes that wouldn't float with the special interests in the higher tiers of the US government. This path supposes that Obama is legitimately for progressive change and knows how to play the game as well. While Obama has voiced his support for Israel time and again, let's not forget that his former pastor (Reverend Wright) is pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli... who knows what could be going through Obama's head. To sum it up, this path will require Obama to play the political game, all the while, his real motives are concealed.

Now, these are by no means the only paths available to Obama, but they are overarching directions and trends his presidency may take on. Some may say I'm overanalyzing, others may say I'm not giving Obama enough credit while others still, will say I'm giving the man too much credit.

Well I say that it doesn't matter what you say cuz regardless of what anyone says, the final say can only be said after the fact.

where's the love...

Aren't Arab Summits great? When you don't want something accomplished, you have an Arab Summit. How can any Arab Summit agree on something when you have some countries who are purely attending out of self-interest, and others attending for the interests of the United States and Israel, all undermining any progress that is attempted at by the few countries that are actually there for Arab Unity. Take Egypt for instance... with their "democratically" elected president/dictator who's been in office for over 25 years. If there was one good reason cloning of humans should be banned, it would be because this guy is probably funding research for it in order to extend his presidency. And if there a country ever in need of a coup de tat, it's Egypt, I hope it happens soon but who knows... it's Egypt.

Egypt's role during Operation Cast Lead seemed harmless enough with their seemingly sincere calls for a truce, attempting to bring both Hamas and Israel to the negotiating table. But the big question is why the Rafah border crossing opened to allow the flow of casualties out of Gaza and aid supplies in? Egypt is on a tight leash being held by the US and Israel. The only reason the Rafah crossing was opened the last time is because the Palestinians were able to blow it up. Everything Egypt does is under the approval of both Israel and the US. Their calls for a ceasefire were no different from what other countries were also doing... making lots of noise but taking no action. In the end, the calls for a ceasefire were merely a diversion, a song and dance to appease the world community with an alleged effort at peace while Israel hammered away at Gaza. The failures of the meetings along with their repeated reinitialization were just stalling tactics that Egypt was put up to by the US and Israel in order to allow more time to devastate Gaza while it looked like a conscious effort was being made to solve the conflict. What did you expect, Egypt is one of the rare breed of Arab countries that has ties with Israel.

Let's not forget Saudi Arabia's ties to Israel and the US as well. Kudos to them for donating one billion dollars to rebuild Gaza as they did for Lebanon as well after the war with Lebanon and Israel. All I can say is, did it really have to take 13oo deaths for you oil rich bedouin decadents to get off your bling and actually do something constructive with it? I mean, the Palestinians have been suffering just as much before this latest onslaught as they are now.

Wait!...this just in... the politicians at the Arab Summit have... just agreed that... there IS indeed a problem in Gaza. That they actually were able to agree on that is a feat in itself...

now they've done it...

It's finally happened, Israel has declared war on THE WHOLE WORLD. How else can its actions be explained, after the bombing of a UN shelter in the Gaza strip, setting aflame 10 million dollars worth of humanitarian aid, with white phosphorous no less (can't put those fires out with water). Not only that, Israel is considering a unilateral ceasefire, reserving the right to attack again whenever it chooses, all this while it is still continuing to bomb the Gaza Strip.

But I think I figured out what the Israeli's logic is behind this operation. In their minds they are not killing innocent civilians, contrary to popular opinion (the rest of the world minus the US). To them, every Palestinian is a valid target! All Palestinians that get caught in an Israeli cross-hair are militants so of course you're not killing Palestinian civilians, right? How else can you validate all the woman, children and elderly dying? Not to mention UN workers who are also coming under fire as well as hospitals and paramedics. Everyone in Gaza is a militant...paranoia anyone?

But since Israel is so busy trying to achieve something (nothing as of yet) before their elections and Bush leaves office, they're not noticing the hangman's noose that the Israeli government is putting around its own neck. The international community is getting angrier every day that goes by, as countries like Mauritania and Qatar, Venezuela and Bolivia are cutting ties with Israel. People are starting to see the truth behind all the lies that Israel has been spinning all these years. Israel can never portray itself as the perpetual victim again, not with all the civilian blood it has on it's hands, between Palestine, Lebanon and all the other Arab countries it has molested in its 60 years of existence. These crimes against humanity will be remembered as they are fresh in the minds of the youth of the region who have lived through it as well as the youth abroad who have witnessed it. Israel will never know peace because of it's actions. The victims of a Holocaust have become the victimizers of another Holocaust. I'd even go so far as to say... Hitler won World War II, as he seems to live on through the Zionists who seem to be living by his ideals and are condone ethnic cleansing and the oppression of an indigenous people.

I wonder if Obama will set the Israeli's straight or allow them free reign as usual... we'll see.

On a different note, the relations between Israel and the US have escalated to the next level as a forbidden romance has entered the picture...

Joe the Plumber Reporter!!??

Truthfully, I haven't posted because I become engrossed in reading the news about what's going on in Gaza as well as worldwide reactions to the conflict. The sheer amount of info and footage and activism is amazing, but the most amazing thing is Israel's complete and utter ignorance of it all. Not to mention the US's limited coverage from only the Israeli side. FOR GOD'S SAKE they've got JOE THE PLUMBER over there reporting for the American people. I'm telling you, if this isn't an indicator of how utterly ridiculous the US media is, than I don't know what is. On top of it all, practically the whole world is condemning and protesting Israel's attacks and but the the Israeli leaders keeps announcing "we've almost achieved our goals!" They've been almost achieving their goals the whole 18 days of the conflict but they haven't quite gotten there yet. It's another play of the Lebanon Israel War of 2006 where Israel was bombing and raiding until the last hours before the ceasefire was supposed to go into effect, hoping Hezbollah would have dropped their guard. Of course, Israel didn't achieve any of it's objectives in that war either. Like I said before, the Israeli's who condone the use of violence and this aggressive move are the same people who don't seem to be able to learn from their mistakes.

It's hilarious cuz this current conflict is unfolding the same way it did in '06. Israel's glory days from the 1967 war are gone. Rather than criticizing Israel, I should dedicate this blog to what the post Israel world is going to look like, because there's no way in hell that a country with Israel's criminal record is going to survive much longer. What's even funnier is that they put on the semblance of being in control of the operation in Gaza, named Cast Lead. I bet they named it that cuz if the white phosphorous they're dumping on the heads of the Gazans doesn't work, they're going to bust out their secret weapon...MOLTEN LEAD. No wonder these people can't learn from their mistakes, they're brain damaged from the fumes of their molten lead bombs. Even more ridiculous, they keep saying they're moving into the next phase of their operations, HOW MANY PHASES DO YOU GUYS HAVE!? I think they're just making up the phases as they go along, no one's quite sure what phase they're on. They're just going to keep creating phases to stay in Gaza indefinitely or until it is destroyed... unless they can listen over their gun and missile fire for one damn second to hear how the rest of the world is telling them to stop.

I'm taking bets on when Israel will be dismantled... I'm betting sooner than later. Any takers...?

ps check out these JOE THE PLUMBER links, the man is in a reporting/plumbing league of his own:

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/01/11/joe-plumber-media/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/12/joe-the-plumber-fights-wi_n_157239.html