"The purely righteous do not complain about evil, rather they add justice.They do not complain about heresy, rather they add faith.They do not complain about ignorance, rather they add wisdom." From the pages of Arpilei Tohar.
Heinrich Heine
"Where books are burned, in the end people will be burned." -- From Almansor: A Tragedy (1823).
Simon Wiesenthal
Remark Made in the Ballroom of the Imperial Hotel, Vienna, Austria on the occasion of His 90th Birthday: "The Nazis are no more, but we are still here, singing and dancing."
Maimonides
"Truth does not become more true if the whole world were to accept it; nor does it become less true if the whole world were to reject it."
Douglas Adams
"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?"
Epigram appearing in the dedication of Richard Dawkins' The GOD Delusion.
Thucydides
"The Nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools."
Milan Kundera
"The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting."
Notes
Care to Read What I Read?
I've embarked on a great reduction in privacy by bookmarking my web-based reading on the "delicious.com" utility. It may tip my hand as to what I have in mind for blogging, but the same may help friends and frenemies alike track my thinking: here is the URL:
Shabbat Shalom. May our arguments be resolved through perceptive words and good deeds only; may we live another week helpful to one another in relative peace.
Photography: Prints & Services
A gentle reminder: I'm in business as a producer of fine art prints and as a provider of shoot-for-fee services, including portraiture and weddings plus assigned photojournalism. My general location: intersection of I-70 and I-81; core camera system: Nikon; transportation: Mustang.
Effort in print-on-demand will not offset the production nor value of signed, limited edition prints made under my own hand. However, for very good convenience, price, and quality, print-on-demand may work out well for many fans and patrons.
Research Services
If you're engaged in funded research in conflict analysis or other areas that may be addressed here and wish to engage my mind in your project, feel welcome to drop me a note at [email protected].
Most knives, inherently, serve "dual use" purposes, and most of that with paring knives, butcher knives, slicers, and such work the domestic side of the line; even so-called "tactical" all purpose knives with their fancy shapes, drilled holes, make for cool camping gadgets, but switchblades and scimitar are seldom the best thing for slicing cantaloupe.
Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) reference page for the above and for additional stills: http://idfspokesperson.com/
Should slingshots and sticks (and smoke bombs) represent a top layer for what's in the holds of these ships ferrying thousands of tons of "humanitarian aid", the IDF will have brought back to Israel the richest of media treasures.
Source: YouTube poster "idfnadesk". "Close-Up Footage of Mavi Marmara Passengers Attacking IDF Soldiers (with Sound)." YouTube, May 31, 2010: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LulDJh4fWI
Fans and sponsors had billed the boat show as an nonviolent humanitarian effort.
Source: YouTube poster "idfnadesk". "Demonstrators Use Violence Against Israeli Navy Soldiers Attempting to Board Ship." YouTube, May 31, 2010: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bU12KW-XyZE
Any, either side, may do this at home: web search term "IHH International Humanitarian Relief Organization".
With this event, whether I blog directly on it or interested parties embark on their own research missions, more will come out about the depth of Israel's commitment to peace with Gaza, its weekly throughputs of material and service aid, its reception of Gaza residents in its medical system as needed. More information too will come to light on the precise makeup of the boat show's sponsors, their motives, and their customary ways of doing business.
I've read numerous op-ed or "news analysis" type predictions of this event as becoming a public relations nightmare for Israel, but I'm going to buck that tide here and suggest that what's coming is a far gone left winger's worst encounter with some truth, finally, about the character and nature of the company indulged, kept, and served.
Last Sunday, eight boats were committed to challenging Israel's sovereignty and its obligation to all of its citizens to forestall shipments of war materiel by sea.
Today, three have abandoned the route, citing "technical difficulties" for cause, leaving five boats floating toward Israel's navy.
Although Israel Foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor may have said, as quoted by The Times of Earth, "If we let them throw egg at us, we appear stupid with egg on our face. If we try to prevent them by force, we appear as brutes," [1] Israel's defense and security plans belie any appearance as brutes, for they include the following:
Detainee's debriefing camp providing immediate medical support and swift transfer to deportation for most or jail for some, including participating Israeli citizens.
Plans to inspect and then, through United Nations shipping resources, distribute aid to Gaza as intended by donors.
Folks, I hate to tell you, but if an operation involves a state's military, life just doesn't get much friendlier than that.
Composed Monday, May 31, 2010--
More important, Israel's own campaign to get goods into Gaza dwarfs the efforts of those at sea. The state's Ministry of Foreign Affairs claims, "Well over a million tons of humanitarian supplies entered Gaza from Israel over the last 18 months equaling nearly a ton of aid for every man, woman and child in Gaza. Millions of dollars worth of international food aid continually flows through the Israeli humanitarian apparatus, ensuring that there is no food shortage in Gaza. Food and supplies are shipped from Israel to Gaza six days a week. These items were channeled through aid organizations or via Gaza's private sector. [2]
How is that for "Zionist criminality"?
The story only gets better.
No Palestinian is denied medical care in Israel. However, if the Hamas regime does not grant permits for medical care, the Israeli government can do nothing to help the patient. Israel will facilitate all cases of medical treatments from Gaza, unless the patient is a known perpetrator of terror . . . In 2009 alone, 10,544 patients and their companions left the Gaza Strip for medical treatment in Israel. Moreover, there were 382 emergency evacuations from Gaza for medical purposes. [2]
The May 25, 2010 Ministry of Foreign Affairs article covers in brief factoids the distribution of the basic elements of decent living, from the provision of building materials, including tons of concrete for direct use on known projects, to the distribution of electricity and sewage services.
Against that backdrop of Israeli efforts to contribute to the maintenance of a basic and decent quality of living even in its sworn enemy's camp, specifically, the Hamas government that has its hooks deeply set in the lives of Gaza's residents, have come the boat people.
In my fair and recession-battered small town, I too may take a camera into the low-rent districts and show all vacant buildings and structures, commercial and residential, in states of disrepair (truth to tell, given the age of some of neighborhoods here, even decent enough and occupied homes may sport their share of jury-rigged wires, peeling paint, and sagging porches), but I wouldn't claim such images to then represent the whole of a house, town, or region at large.
Running coals to New Castle, as the saying goes, this would seem the way in which well-intentioned people get themselves involved in something that gets them killed. With Israel's cooperation and resources providing essential goods and services (e.g., medical) directly and with donors around the world passing through to its people other than war materiel, Gaza has long been "rescued" despite the lethal agenda, not to mention fratricidal behavior, of Hamas.
In light of the above, we may now catch up with the story. This has been posted on YouTube by AljazeeraEnglish, May 31, 2010:
I have long mantained that a state's military, any of them, are generally "too large"--imprecisely lethal, minimally adjustable once mobilized--for the work at hand and have yet to be proven wrong on that; I've also said, and this in relation to Somalia, the best thing to do in the presence of an army if not directly engaged is to avoid or flee it.
Now you have watched above the flashy part of the story. Let's fill in what happened before that happened.
It's an old ritual, the establishment of political and military policy, fair general warnings at sea, and then a request, followed by the bravado of an invitation: "Negative. Negative. Our destination is Gaza."
The boat show's destination was Gaza.
Israel says the troops returned fire after they were attacked with live rounds, knives and clubs, but the organizers of the Gaza blockade busting bid insist the soldiers started shooting the moment they hit the deck.
"They fired directly into the crowd of civilians asleep," the Free Gaza Movement said. [3]
Let the Tuesday morning quarterbacking begin: I have a feeling Gazans know the sources of their electricity and water, their beef and medicines, their building materials and manufactured goods of all kinds, and not only where they come from but how they're delivered in the main and overwhelming part.
All of this, and this in light of America's Memorial Day Weekend: propaganda, self-aggrandizement, and show business with real blood.
Not only did the peaceful of the world not need the Gaza Boat Show, it's doubtful whether the people of Gaza needed at all.
"The goal is to use the international law on our side to enter Gaza. If Israel wants to resist, like a pirate state, it can resist. If we are detained, more ships will come in a month or two."
Perhaps I'm having a little fun here, not really writing or searching (although I searched and waited for the Cyprus story to break after reading a short note on it elsewhere on the web), but reading where a timely curiosity takes me, grabbing a zinger, and pasting it up for readers to chase back to the journalism from whence it came.
In the inverse mirror that becomes the internationalist's cause, the still handful of boats with crews intent on running Israel's blockade of Gaza ports, a sort faux blockade because Israel, after inspection of cargoes for war materials and supplies, trucks tons of aid through to Gaza weekly, has given itself the banner "Freedom Flotilla".
I'm calling it the "Gaza Boat Show."
Other boats (and submarines) have been floating into the neighborhood, and if not so close, close enough given moving landing strips and guided missiles.
The Gaza Boat Show makes a pretty ribbon for fastening to an explosive package that includes recently targeted missiles in Syria (for a more up-to-the-minute brief in a Janes-like wrapper, head to www.debka.com).
The belief in some kind of sadistic Israeli siege or Gaza has had its own zany religious mysticism for decades.
What started with profitable Arab land sales to Jewish interests and the tedious draining of swamps, not to mention successful efforts to reduce the incidence of malaria in the neighborhood, and has gotten to the point of sharing electrical grid and water system infrastructure, not to mention provisioning an as yet politically angry and incoherent neighboring population (well, probably not really, but at least several of those, including Hamas, who claim to speak for it) has been flipped through the dark mirror of language and come out as a display of naked "Zionazi" aggression: shame on the Jewish state for opening more border crossings this year, improving the transit of tourists into Bethlehem to facilitate their spending their money there, and hosting a slew of political and religious organizations critical of the state in its own capital!
The carte blanche given to Israel by the United States has been dangerous for Israel's national security as well as for the national security of the United States.
Wright, Ann. "The Audacity of the Free Gaza Flotilla: Breaking the Israeli Siege of Gaza May Lead to an Attack at Sea, Detention Camps and Deportation." Common Dreams.org, May 27, 2010: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/05/27-1
I believe "depotation" in this context refers to the return of foreign nationals, including several Americans, to their native countries.
Sounds scary.
Wright's article goes on to note, "Those passengers include Hedy Epstein, an 85 year old holocaust survivor, Parliamentarians from Germany and Ireland, two former diplomats from the United States, a retired U.S. Army Colonel, authors, journalists, activists, businesspersons and clergy."
My suggestion: after diverting the Gaza Boat Show and sorting through its coterie of passionate attention seekers, Israel should refrain from sending any home, but rather release them into Gaza with the mission of providing its 1.5 million souls with an accountable, fair, inclusive, responsible, responsive, tolerant, and transparent democratic government.
Given all that the boat show's good hearts have done so far for Gaza, I should think that Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria's President al-Assad, and Iran's President Ahmadinejad will be ever so happy, no Christian need doubt this, to receive them and provide the imprimatur for 700 experienced western activists, bureaucrats, businesspersons, clergy, diplomats, former military, politicians, and so on to takeover and show the world how much better they can do with the same community and its associated social, political, and religious legacies, loyalties, and resources.
Sherman, Martin. "The Israel-Palestine Conflict: One Hundred Years of War." Review of James L. Gelvin's book bearing the same title (New York, Cambridge University Press, 2007). The Middle East Quarterly, Winter 2007: http://www.meforum.org/2609/the-israel-palestine-conflict
The slogan of the "International Jewish anti-Zionist Network" is "Confront Zionism - Divest from Israel." MSU students at UC San Diego who rioted in support of a BDS resolution screamed, "Palestine is Free, from the River to the Sea." The ISM (International Solidarity Movement), the MSU (Muslim Students Union), the MSA (Muslim Students Association) the PACBI, Al-Awda ("the Return") and similar groups are behind the BDS movement. They are all out to destroy Israel as the state of the Jewish people. They all support "right" of return of Palestinian refugees, or a "one state solution" or both. [1]
The Carleton Pension Fund currently lacks any ethical guidelines, with its only mandate being the maximization of profit. SAIA has discovered that the Pension Fund, which provides retirement income for Carleton staff and faculty, currently has some $2,762,535 invested in five companies that are complicit in the oppression of the Palestinian people. [2]
Neofascist and white supremacist groups also reproduced antisemitic cartoons taken from Arab websites; they issued a call for White Nationalist Party members to phone the Malaysian embassy in London and express their support for Mahathir Mohamad after he claiemd that "Jews rule the world"; they reproduced boycott lists from Islamist or anti-Zionist websites of "Jewish controlled companies, used to prop up Zionism around the world," as one White Nationalist Party supporter put it; and they made frequent use of the logo of the Boycott Israeli Goods campaign, an Israeli flag in a red circle with a line through it.
These ultranationalist, racist and anti-Jewish groups saw in the Islamists something beyond their wildest dreams: a global force, armed and trained, committed to the destruction of both Jews and the Western political order. [3]
The formation of the Yozma Program, with its mission to create a viable venture capital industry, resulted in a dramatically positive change in the perception of foreign VC investors and their attitude towards investing in Israel. Under the Yozma Program 10 new venture capital funds were formed managing $20 million each, of which Yozma's share was 40% and the foreign investors' 60%. In the years since 1993, the Israeli VC industry has flourished and gained a leading position in the world, second only to the U.S. with the total capital raised to date in excess of $10 billion. [4]
While Israel continues to truck tens of thousands of tons of aid monthly to Gaza and the West Bank, leaving the left fringe--I like to call it the "New Old Now Old Left"--with a Potemkin-like cause whose potency derives from the confused hatred of the Jews and the establishment of open and yet ordered societies around the world founded on Judeo-Christian principles or with their influence integrated elsewhere, including in Islam, the Jewish state continues to grow, and not only for itself but for investors worldwide.
The success of capital in Israel has not been without regional consequences. Through Qualified Industrial Zone (QIZ) programs involving Egypt, Jordan, Israel, and the United States, cooperating enclaves in both Egypt and Jordan have experienced dramatic economic growth in export income and job creation. [5] Brands associated with the programs, which involve around 20 designated industrial sites in Egypt and Jordan, include Calvin Klein, Victoria's Secret, Nike, and Reebok. [6]
From search string "trade China Israel":
"The average annual growth rate of bilateral trade in the past 14 years is 40 percent. Last year, bilateral trade volume reached 3 billion U.S. dollars," she said, noting that "we expect the volume to reach 5 billion dollars by 2008." [7]
From search string "trade India Israel":
“The bilateral trade is evenly matched at about $2 billion. As per estimates, this trade volume will go up to $6 billion once the FTA is signed. Apart from engagement between the two Governments in various projects, the trade growth would be expanded through public-private participation projects and business to business ties,” he said. [8]
From search string "trade Russia Israel":
Russia and Israel are going to expand trade cooperation, particularly in agriculture and high technologies, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said during the meeting with his counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu. “Israel is our long-time partner in the Middle East, and we hold regular talks on the Mideast settlement”, Putin said. The Russian premier added that although in 2009 the trade turnover between the two countries decreased, there are still very good prospects for productive economic cooperation. Mr. Netanyahu confirmed Israel’s intention to deepen ties with Russia. Mutual trade turnover between Russia and Israel increased from $12 million in 1991 to $2.8 billion in 2008. [9]
In any one of the areas I've commented on in this post or in the blog overall, I could spend days to weeks to years (my time's for sale for doing so, that' is for sure), but you get the drift, and no pun intended in light of the Gaza Boat Show: Israel not only has friends too, it has firm obligations to them in two most telling dimensions: 1) as a trading partner -- from Japan to Jordan, there is no question about that, and 2) as a representative of the overarching international community engaged in economic development, free market capitalism, and, in its totality, a cooperative and environmentally and socially productive and responsible stewardship of the earth and her inhabitants.
That children may be intellectually seduced by academic brigands and a propaganda focused to demonize 13 million souls and their legacy worldwide while denying the crimes of those associated with their indulgence in a political adventure as romantic as it has been tawdry comes as no surprise. However, the global establishment's lack of direct response to that propaganda and the quarters that harbor it as part of their inverted channel to power -- and it has been just that: a pursuit of raw intimidating power on the soapbox of a false cause -- has been abysmal and probably will result in some increase in the intensity and tempo of ersatz low-intensity armed conflict with heightened potential, especially this week with many military exercises and systems ready-alerts on deck in the region, for the onset of open state-to-state warfare.
Wikipedia. "Disinvestment from Israel": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disinvestment_from_Israel. Includes overview and summaries of activity involving the Presbyterian Church (USA), World Council of Churches, United Church of Christ, New England Conference of the United Methodist Church, and others.
During the past month alone, five Gazans have been executed with formal sanction from the Strip’s Hamas rulers, three of them shot to death in front of the families of their victims just last Tuesday. Their bloodied bodies were then unceremoniously dumped at the local Shifa Hospital.
These executions are not to be confused with the official free-for-all declared against anyone even remotely suspected of collaboration with Israel. Mere innuendo suffices in such cases without even the façade of due-process.
But those who truly deserve the greatest credit for this historic achievement are the citizens of Israel. We are an ancient people who established what is still a young country little more than six decades ago.
We possess hardly any natural resources. Our greatest assets are the brains, drive, ingenuity, and entrepreneurial spirit of our people. They are the reason why Israel is today a global leader in technology and why the world’s leading firms conduct advanced research and development in Israel.
Make it Mudbricks [1], the monicker for an Australian manufactury, beautifully promotes the material on which the Great Wall of China has stood for centuries. This page especially charms: http://www.makeitmudbricks.com.au/properties.html
A new project by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) aims to build around 120 mud brick houses for dozens of homeless families in the next few months. Each house costs about US$10,000 and takes three months to build. [2]
Among issues touted in this week's "Gaza Boat Show" has been that of delivering supplies of concrete to the war battered strip. Israel claims the material will be used to build or reinforce Hamas bunkers.
Jihad Al-Shaer got tired of waiting for Israel to allow cement and steel into the Hamas-run Gaza Strip and took matters into his own hands, building a house of clay bricks. [3]
The Reuters-to-Haaretz article (yes, we are all sitting in the second row seats to history today, so double triple thanks to those journos out there eating dust for breakfast) from which I've listed the above lead goes on to note, "Homes of red, fired brick, tile roof and timber, of the sort common in the West and China, are rare in the Middle East and the Palestinian territories."
The building material need not imply technology deficit. Our cognitive or linguistic association of "mud brick" construction with primitive living rests with temporal associations, for it is an admittedly ancient technology. However, and all the more remarkable for how very well it competes with materials costing much more in energy and labor, it evidently lends itself to the support of thoroughly modern technology complements.
Whether contemplative on this subject, active in architecture and constructure, full of it politically, our human ability to produce a positive outlook on life and become resourceful and innovative would seem universal. Egotism, impotence, and vanity may call for concrete construction, but aesthetics, practicality, and technology do not.
In fact, as implied by the leftward movement toward organic, energy efficient, and environmentally sound solutions to challenges in living, it's quite possible that instead of "going back to mudbrick construction", much of humanity may actually be moving forward with it, albeit with the mixed motivation of limitations in choice, whether determined by immediate environmental resources, economics, or politics, as well as advantages discovered in the options available.
Mehta, Deepa. "On Conservation and Development : The Role of Traditional Mud Brick Firms in Southern Yemen." Graduate School of Architecture, Planning & Preservation, Columbia University in the City of New York: http://globelics2009dakar.merit.unu.edu/papers/1237859320_DM.pdf
Bi-directional compassion, empathy, and obligation are all that's wanting for peace and prosperity between Israel and it's still dependent and hostile protectorate and neighbor that will one day be a more independent, better functioning, more responsible, and productive Palestine.
That vision may not be well understood for hatred of the Jews and the perpetuation of hateful speech in education and politics sustained yet in the camps of Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, and Jordan, and in the societies of Gaza and the West Bank. Those who most wish for peace face a pervasive education, information, and language challenge as regards separating the "fiery" talk of some clerics, some leaders (like Nasrallah), and some "reporters" like Yvonne Ridley, and venues like the "electronic intifada" from the true immediate practical and spiritual needs of people who yearn for an improved quality in every aspect of living.
This is not about throwing facts back and forth -- and you look too young yet for worry about legacy, :) -- but it is in substantial part about ideation that for expression seems inseperable from language acquisition, expressive behavior, and our understanding of language, psychology, and spirituality.
I've improved it a little bit while posting it here with a dollop of judicious clarification.
It's understood that combatants, whether with words or weapons, have their constituents and fans, some of whom, perhaps most, I don't know, become or remain blindly loyal, enthralled with an ideological or rhetorical line of thought, and beyond reason.
Here is a note from a piece on a recent Israeli Defense Force transfer or shipment of goods xxx
According to the statement, the shipments consisted of hundreds of thousands of liters of fuel; 21 truckloads of milk formula and baby food; 897 tons of cooking gas, 66 truckloads of fruits and vegetables; 51 truckloads of wheat, 27 truckloads of meat, poultry and fish; 40 truckloads of dairy products; 117 truckloads of animal food; 37 truckloads of hygiene products; 22 truckloads of sugar; and 38 truckloads of clothing and shoes.
Still, partisan grandstanders insist on breaking a blockade of some kind:
A 'Freedom Flotilla', consisting of nine ships, is currently assembling in the Mediterranean Sea prior to attempting to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza in the final week of May. Among the ships heading towards Gaza is the 1,200 tonne Irish cargo ship, the MV Rachel Corrie, which is owned by the Free Gaza Movement.
Whatever one may think -- more importantly, however one may think, i.e., with what manner of thinking passes for thinking -- all will be able to watch this drama unfold in the press.
Here is another juxtaposition:
On board the ships are 10,000 tonnes of cargo and about 700-800 activists and politicians from more than 40 countries. The cargo includes building materials, medical supplies and paper for schools. One boat is carrying a complete dental surgery including drills. Crayons and chocolate are also on board for Gazan children. The cargo has been paid for by donations.
It was difficult to get an accurate read of all of the possible intersections between the tunnel economy and Hamas. While direct extortion by local Hamas elements appears to be very rare, it has become good business practice to invite a Hamas cadre into the operation as a silent partner, thus providing a degree of political protection. Hamas sometimes requires the commercial tunnel operators to carry through special shipments-not weapons or cadres, but usually cement or construction materials. Indeed, I was told that the one commodity that most commercial tunnel operators dare not import these days is weapons: Hamas has tried to assert a monopoly over these, and views any entrepreneurial weapons smuggling as possibly benefiting its Fatah enemies. Hamas operates its own tunnels for this purpose, bringing in guns, ammunition, personnel, and money. These are deeper, longer, much more covert, and better built and equipped.
Life in Israel, no less than in Gaza, the West Bank, and in the neighborhood generally, remains life in a war zone, but a peculiar one in which a comparative handful of actors -- Hamas and Hezbollah militants working to build up their war making resources and vocal partisans around the world -- commandeer the lives and override the voices of other interests in situ, and to the extent that the old counterculture signal in the term "solidarity" permits within the mentality no media or otherwise voiced breach of unspoken compacts.
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