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Getting Biblical
Author: BobR
Date: 01/09/2009 13:31:10
The escalation of violence and brutality in the Middle East is threatening to make an unstable region implode completely into an all-out shooting match. Jesus's footprints have become blast holes. In an area of the world that brought us the first civilizations and 3 major religions, the stupid brutality is hinting at an impending armageddon. We're at the point where it doesn't really matter who started what - it just needs to stop.
Despite the U.S. abstaining from a UN vote for a cease-fire, the UN has still voted for a resolution demanding Israel withdraw from Gaza immediately:
The fact that it required 3 days of intense bargaining for a resolution shows just how hard it will be to get anything done at all. Israel has always played the victim, a small country surrounded by hostile governments. Yet they make it very hard to feel sorry for them by their actions, when they've treated the Palestinian people like animals for years.
Perhaps it's because of the intensity of Israel's retribution. Perhaps its the demographics of the dead, one third of which are Palestinian children. Perhaps it's actions from Israel like shelling a building where Israeli soldiers put refugees just 24 hours earlier:
Adding to this deadly mix, Lebanon has fired rockets into Israel:
Iran has banned volunteers from joining in the fight - at least for now. But the potential still exists for fire to rain from the skies until the entire sub-continent is reduced to a smoldering relic. The terms "getting Biblical" and "bombing them back to the stone age" get tossed about by armchair generals, but it cheapens the reality on the ground where death and destruction affect mostly the families that just want to live life.
Jimmy Carter - despite his over-hyped failings as a president - was able to broker a peace between Egypt and Israel. Can we expect the same from Bush? Of course not. What about Obama? He said he'll talk to Hamas, which is a lot more than Bush would do.
It's impossible to help stop two factions from fighting if you choose to take sides. The only way to end the fight is to talk to both sides and try to help them find common ground. We can only hope that Obama possesses Carter's ability to to do this.
That's assuming the area doesn't meltdown in the next 12 days...
Despite the U.S. abstaining from a UN vote for a cease-fire, the UN has still voted for a resolution demanding Israel withdraw from Gaza immediately:
The UN Security Council voted to call for an "immediate, durable" ceasefire in the Gaza Strip leading to the "full withdrawal" of Israeli forces, but the United States abstained.
Fourteen of the council's 15 members voted in favor of the compromise resolution worked out in three days of intense bargaining involving several Arab foreign ministers, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband and French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner.
The text "stresses the urgency of and calls for an immediate, durable and fully respected ceasefire, leading to the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza."
The fact that it required 3 days of intense bargaining for a resolution shows just how hard it will be to get anything done at all. Israel has always played the victim, a small country surrounded by hostile governments. Yet they make it very hard to feel sorry for them by their actions, when they've treated the Palestinian people like animals for years.
Perhaps it's because of the intensity of Israel's retribution. Perhaps its the demographics of the dead, one third of which are Palestinian children. Perhaps it's actions from Israel like shelling a building where Israeli soldiers put refugees just 24 hours earlier:
Israeli troops evacuated Palestinian civilians to a house in Gaza City and then shelled the building 24 hours later, killing 30 people inside, according to a U.N. agency report based on witness testimony.
The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs report released Thursday added details to an incident previously reported by The Associated Press and an Israeli human rights group.
The Israeli military had no comment on the report Friday.
There were 110 people in the house when it was shelled, the agency said. The 30 people reported killed is a far higher figure than in other accounts.
The U.N. agency said a Red Cross medical team was blocked from reaching the area until three days later. Rescuers were allowed in on foot, without ambulances.
Adding to this deadly mix, Lebanon has fired rockets into Israel:
NAHARIYA, Israel – Residents of this northern Israeli town awoke Thursday to one of their country's worst nightmares: Rockets from Lebanon, and the possibility of a second front in a battle that has raged for two weeks in Gaza.
No armed group claimed responsibility for the two Katyusha rockets that lightly injured two Israelis. But the most likely suspects were small Palestinian factions operating in south Lebanon and known to possess Katyushas.
The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, which fought a 34-day war with Israel in 2006, denied it was behind the attack. But Hezbollah has been suspected in the past by Israel and its opponents in Lebanon of using allied radical groups to irritate Israel with a lower risk of retaliation.
Iran has banned volunteers from joining in the fight - at least for now. But the potential still exists for fire to rain from the skies until the entire sub-continent is reduced to a smoldering relic. The terms "getting Biblical" and "bombing them back to the stone age" get tossed about by armchair generals, but it cheapens the reality on the ground where death and destruction affect mostly the families that just want to live life.
Jimmy Carter - despite his over-hyped failings as a president - was able to broker a peace between Egypt and Israel. Can we expect the same from Bush? Of course not. What about Obama? He said he'll talk to Hamas, which is a lot more than Bush would do.
The incoming Obama administration is prepared to abandon George Bush's doctrine of isolating Hamas by establishing a channel to the Islamist organisation, sources close to the transition team say.
[...]
The Guardian has spoken to three people with knowledge of the discussions in the Obama camp. There is no talk of Obama approving direct diplomatic negotiations with Hamas early on, but he is being urged by advisers to initiate low-level or clandestine approaches, and there is growing recognition in Washington that the policy of ostracising Hamas is counter-productive.
It's impossible to help stop two factions from fighting if you choose to take sides. The only way to end the fight is to talk to both sides and try to help them find common ground. We can only hope that Obama possesses Carter's ability to to do this.
That's assuming the area doesn't meltdown in the next 12 days...
