Sunday, July 27, 2014

Malala Yousafzai for the girls of Nigeria



Brave Malala Yousafzai is in Nigeria this time.  They may have accorded the Nobel Prize to someone else, but she won in my book.  And she is now an ambassador for education, particularly that of girls who are still considered chattel,  salable goods, or at best feeble minded second rate citizens in a lot of corner of the world even today.  She is reaching out to girls in problem areas where war or social conditions stand in the way of embettering girls' schooling.  

On July 14 Malala started a petition directed at the Nigerian government to let them know that girls in Nigeria would like access all around the country to adequate educationa facilities.  She need your help in this.  To achieve this goal she wouuld like you to sign her petition at Change.org. Please, do so!

Friday, July 18, 2014

Letter to the pro-Gaza protesters

This is an open letter to those who are out in the streets in support of the Gazans, condemning Israel. I would like to ask you a few questions.

Where were your over the years while the rockets kept flying into Israel?  Since the beginning of this year alone already over 1300 rockets were launched from Gaza.  Oh, but the Israelis have that Iron Dome thingy that can shoot down most of those rockets.  Is that a good reason for you to demand that Israel sit with their hands in their laps and just take the beating?

Each anti-missile device costs $15,000 dollars.  Israel is not the richest country in the Middle East.  Yet, do you think that if the Emirates or Qatar got under attack for some reason, they would just purchase a bunch of those Iron Dome devices from Israel and with a peaceful nod ignore the attackers?  Think about it!  What about if your own country, your city suddenly was bombarded by rockets and you had to scurry to bomb shelters two, three or more times a day?  And some of you when you came out would find your house in ruins because the shield missed a rocket.  Sure, nobody actually would have died.  But would you sit still good naturedly? 

Alright, let us go beyond this particular conflict.  Where were you during Black September in Jordan?  Where were you when the Lebanese army attacked the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp in 2007, killing some 450 people?  Where were you this past year when Palestinians got killed in the thousands in Syria? Less than four months ago close to 130 people were reported to have starved to death in the Yarmuk refugee camp in Damascus.  Where were you then?

Where are you now when reports are coming in about the newly proclaimed caliphate in Iraq that hundreds of people have been and are methodically executed there? Or the slaughtering of Muslims by Buddhists in Burma, or the situation in South Sudan where entire villages are eradicated now, as we speak?  Or Pakistan, where Jihadists are killing people by the hundreds in terrorist attacks weekly, if not daily? Now!

So what is so different about this Gaza conflict?  Please, stop and ask yourself why is it that you are so easily incensed by a cat that had enough of having its tail being pulled and it decided to scratch back?

Gazans, the Underdogs

This is a quote from a Comment submitted to a Canadian newspaper regarding the Jewish-Palestinian issue:
"Not that long ago, political leaders in Canada and the Western world rallied to eventually force an end to apartheid in South Africa. That nation had become a pariah state due to the insidious form of governance that saw descendants of European settlers having every advantage, while indigenous citizens with different skin colours, cultural and religious beliefs had very few rights or privileges, and were forced out of their historical homelands.

South Africa has long since abandoned apartheid, but the same cannot be said of Israel. What else could you really call a regime where descendants of European Jews have every advantage, while indigenous people who are darker skinned and have different cultural and religious beliefs have very few rights or privileges, and were forced out of their historical homelands.

There is no move by Western leaders to force an end to this version of apartheid, even when the oppressed erupt in anguish and desperation from time to time. That’s happening right now, with plenty of blame to go around on all sides, but Canada’s Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister have pledged to support Israel in everything it does to further tighten its stranglehold on the Palestinian population. Let’s hope the rest of the world will realize that only a quarter of our eligible electorate actually voted for the Tories, and many of us are thoroughly disgusted by the degree of punishment being meted out on the Palestinians.
Bernie Smith, Parksville, B.C."

Unfortunately this is very much the view shared by most pro-Palestinian Canadians.  But let us have a look at the problems of this view, point by point:
The first two paragraphs parallel Israel with the old apartheid system in South Africa. Yet in this case
a. Israelis are not "white settlers" in a foreign land.  The area, in particular Jerusalem proper, was considered their Holy Land for thousands of years, not only by them, this was considered an accepted fact internationally.  During the two millenia of foreign occupation they kept returning from exile, there was always "Jewish presence" in the land they always considered their homeland.
b. Israelis are not "white Europeans".  More than half of today's Israeli population are refugees from Muslim lands, some of them, like those from Iraq, were Iraquis for over three thousand years before they had to flee for their lives and find refuge in the Jewish homeland.  And what about the Ethiopian Jews, or the Yemenites?  White Europeans indeed...  But even if we take the European Jews, DNA tests prove that most of them are of direct Middle Eastern descent.  Ironically, during Nazi persecution it was constantly pointed out how their skin colour was different, how much darker they were than true Europeans.
c.  I would even go as far as to say that the truly indigenous(!) Palestinians are descendents of the Jews who did not go into exile but were converted either to Christianity or Islam over the ages.  
d. Palestinians were not "forced out of their homeland", at least not the majority of them. A lot of the refugees fled because of the wars that followed the establishment of the Jewish state, some villages being truly cleared out, but most of the Arabs stayed put.  Israel proper has a large number of citizens of Palestinian descent, some christian, some Muslim. They have all the rights accorded to any other Israeli citizen. Please, check the statistics in Wikipedia. Surely there is a lot of animosity between them and some segments of Israeli society due to the ongoing situation, but before the law they are accorded full equality.  No apartheid!!!

The third paragraph voices the largely held belief that all the warring between Israel and the Palestinians is caused by the Israeli opression in the West Bank and Gaza, "when the oppressed erupt in anguish and desperation from time to time".  The writer of this comment obviously does not follow the situation close enough.  First of all the "eruptions" do not occur "from time to time".  Terrorist activities were waged against Israelis from day one of its existence.  The PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) was created way before The Six Day War.  Rockets have been launched from Gaza NON-STOP, day after day, ever since the Israelis withdrew from there and Hamas grabbed hold of the area.  The official mandate of Hamas is the complete annihilation of Israel, and they swear not to stop until they achive this goal. 

Make no mistake, the rockets sent into Israel with the openly admitted goal to harm civilians, are not the home made puny mini-rockets of the early days.  We are talking about expensive, sophisticated, far reaching rockets nowadays.  These rockets were brought into Gaza during the the time of the "freely elected" Islamist government. Why do you think the Egyptian military saw it fit to take over and tighten the grip around Gaza on their side of Gaza's borders?  Do you think it is out of brotherly love towards the Jews?  Hardly!  They understand that the blockade of Gaza is absolutely necessary, otherwise Al-Qaida, Hezbollah, and all the other such organization would use Gaza as their "playground".  And that is exactly what the bleeding-heart peace activist ships would have achieved, had they been successful in their quest to end the blockade.

No!  The population of Gaza is held hostage by Hamas, the organization bent on using them for their political goals and purposes. Of course they do not, can not see it because they have been indoctrinated from birth.  Don't tell me you never saw videos of children being taught to say that "Jews are dogs and pigs", or the para-military summer camps where they are taught to become "great warriors". That you did not see the mothers expressing their delight when their sons, sometimes daughters, became shahids in the process of attacking and killing Israelis.  Don't tell me that you are not aware of the fact that the Gaza rocket launchers are deliberately positioned in civilian areas, that the Hamas government spent most of the international aid, the highest per capita anywhere in the world, on weaponry rather than building protective infrastructures, shelters, since they do expect to continue waging war with Israel.  Don't tell me that you did not see the parading of the dead through the streets with the express purpose of whipping up emotions, including those of the Western TV audiences, yours! 

I had enough of the righteus indignation of the self proclaimed pro-Palestinians.  I have not posted much for a long time now because it often seems futile.  People do not do their home-work, do not check actual facts, they just like to make themselves feel good for "siding with the underdog".  And this time, for quite a while now, it is the poor innocent Gazan Palestinian who is perceived as the underdog against the mighty, blood-thirsty Jewish nation. Well, think again, and this time do take a good look!!!  Yes, they are victims but who is their true victimizer?

Read what Hamas leader Khaled Meshal, who chooses to weather out the Israeli operation from sunny Doha in Qatar, said today when asked about the unprovoked barrage of rockets sent into Israel which was the trigger for what is happening today: "“It’s the Palestinian’s right to resist against Israeli, be it soldier or settler, as long as he lives on occupied land.” Fact is, there is not a single Israeli living in Gaza, civilian or soldier.  When he talks about "occupied land" he means all of present day Israel.  They do not even try to hide this fact.  It is in their emblem, it is in their constitution.  It is time to open your eyes, it is time to take a really good look!!!