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Friday, November 16, 2012

You/I Say Israel, I/You Say Palestine...

Nothing like a Friday night to show off an example of the power of politics! If you haven't already heard about the renewed fighting in Gaza between the Palestinians and Israeli's than you should really consider buying a TV.

Although, I wouldn't hold it against you if you did hear about the fighting and just continue on with your daily routine protected in a shroud of indifference. Let's face it, Israel and Palestine are a great example of the wrong way to handle a dispute, but unfortunately mistakes are often made in our world.

It sickens me that fighting has to continue between these two people, who if anything, share more of a bond in the idea of a peace between them than they do in their current dispute. I would dive into the reasons why this fighting has continued, but the point form version would require more space than this blogging website could provide in bandwidth.

Essentially, we are witnessing an action in the political community and realm that best represents kindergarten sandbox politics.

You took my toy.

I push you.

You push me back.

I cry, but push you harder.

You cry, push me harder and throw sand in my hair.

The sand feels weird, which makes me cry harder and ultimately kick you.

The toy has been broken into pieces, but both of us have yet to notice due to the continued kicking, pushing and crying that we are engaged in.

What we are left with in this scenario is an escalating situation, where both sides are now deeply disturbed by the actions of the other and are not in the mood to even search for common ground anytime soon, if ever.

The only difference between the scenario above and the current Israeli and Palestinian scuffle is that both sides have military equipment and that original push is a mortar that has killed two people, while my initial push is in the form of military jets bombing city streets. Not to mention the occupation of Gaza, which has created a sense of invasion among Palestinians and has fueled more hatred.

The question I have and I believe most of the world would ask alongside me is...Can you declare yourself a freedom fighter, when you fight on behalf of a people, who occupy land directly beside the very people you are fighting against? Under the traditional definitions of war (Ironic, I know), Palestinians are viewed as violators because they are turning arms against civilians, while Israel is essentially responding with overkill in an attempt to defend itself. This makes Israel seem like the good guy here, but then we have Israel occupying land and not allowing the Palestinians a chance to make peace in order to reclaim it, this mucks up the situation that much more.


In the end, we on the outside look at this situation and shake our heads unfortunately, while muttering..."here we go again". In the name of peace, it may be easier to just declare that Israel and Palestine do not see eye to eye and can agree to disagree, but that usually requires a third party with strength in order to enforce.

To make matters worse...while this is happening, we have our bumfuck of a Prime Minister sitting back and shouting...I support Israel 100% and shut down more embassies in Iran, they must be doing this!

So, thank you Stephen Harper, for further showing that our country is nothing like the peacekeepers we were in the past and also that you have no idea what any form of conflict resolution is...time to hit up some humanities courses at your local university and brush up on something called political science and peace studies.

Until Next Time... Hopefully, before then, both Israel and Palestine are on the road to some form of peace.

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