Peace
May 3rd, 2008Why can’t we all just get along? Why not peace instead of war? For Israel these two songs give the main reason. Here is a popular Israeli song, with a common theme. Other songs are about life and love, like most other people’s songs. You won’t find Israeli songs about murder and suicide and the joy of killing Arabs. Listen to the Palestinian song. It’s very typical, you can find many samples like this among popular Arab songs, and many are more violent than this one.
Do you want peace? First, define peace. There are many kinds of peace…the peace of the grave, the peace of complete victory, the peace of having nothing left to lose, the peace of living together in unity. Unless both sides in a conflict want the same kind of peace, peace will only come with victory. For that to change, the Palestinians will have to change their goal. Listen and consider.
The Boundaries of the State of Israel
December 24th, 2007The Arab League and the anti-Israel left wing activists in the US, Europe and Israel commonly claim that any Jewish building outside of the 1949 Armistice lines is illegal and contravenes international law. They fail to point out what provision of which international law is violated, but they point out that most of the members of the United Nations are against Israeli building. Evidently they consider majority opinion to be international law. However, that isn’t actually international law. Then what is international law? Aren’t UN resolutions international law, and so can’t it be said that majority opinion and political pressure is international law?
General Assembly resolutions are commonly cited as international law, but in practice, they are not treated as and international law, but only international suggestions. UN Security Council resolutions carry much more weight, but they are frequently ignored by nations around the world and are only partially enforceable. Membership in the UN is voluntary, as is acceptance of UN decisions. Any nation may withdraw from the UN, and any nation may reject UN determinations and resolutions, as the Islamic nations aligned against Israel and some African nations regularly do, for example, or as Germany, Italy, Great Britain, China, North …
Utopian views don’t fit Gaza
April 13th, 2007Read the original Lobo article
Rachel Fredman Editorial in the UNM Lobo
On March 26, the Daily Lobo published an article by Bryan Gibel discussing the campus visit of Hisham Jabi, a contractor for the U.S. Agency for International Development. Presenting a hackneyed, utopian view of the impasse between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA), Gibel fails to discuss any of the political complexities of the situation. Jabi’s comments are particularly absurd, claiming the conflict stems from a lack of “mutual respect and direct human interaction” between Israelis and Palestinians. These rosy-tinged scenarios prove ludicrous when analyzing the regional political situation.
Jabi claims that traveling the distance from Albuquerque to Santa Fe, a one-hour trek, takes 3 1/2 to eight hours in the West Bank or the Gaza Strip, depending on how much inspection the government imposes. First, what government is Jabi referring to? Since he mentioned Gaza, he must be referring to the PA. Since August 2005, when Israel unilaterally withdrew from this piece of land, Gaza has been under the sole jurisdiction of the PA. Rather than use this land to build infrastructure and create jobs, the PA has done nothing to develop a viable state since Israel’s …
