World Food

[Tedriii]

:mad: The problems compound: some 160,000 Gazans, half of them widows, the disabled and blind, are dependent on the United Nations World Food Program for food, which comes in rations of chick peas, flour, oil and salt.
But Kirstie Campbell, a spokeswoman for the World Food Program, said the concern was that people would not be able to cook without adequate water and fuel."You can't eat flour," she said. "You can't eat dry chick peas."The new United Nations Human Rights Council pass resolution 2912, calling on U.N. investigators to report at each council session “on the Israeli human rights violations in occupied Palestine.”
But the U.S. hasn’t been against Israeli terrorists. In fact, the U.S. supports the government of Israel with billions of dollars of direct foreign aid every year, and billions more of indirect and often invisible military and economic aid.
Ted Rudow III,MA

[Roscoe_Beedle]

What about the Palestinians leaders such as Arafat et. al. that stole hundreds of millions of dollars from the Palestinian people leaving them impovershed and hungry? Murderous regimes hardly care about their people.

[cynthialstern]

The U.S. has always supported countries--for good or for ill--that benefited our perceived political needs. Sometimes, the U.S. has supported vicious dictators who happened to be at war with others whom our country considered to be our enemy, under the theory that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." People on "the other side" have always suffered when our country has done this.

Yet Israel has always been perceived to be a "special case" when our government has supported their government.

Why? People tend to assume that it has something to do with "Jewish money," an influence of the U.S. Jewish population that is disproportionate to their numbers, guilt over The Holocaust, the (fictional) "Zionist Occupation Government," etc. But U.S. support of Israel has nothing to do with ANY of those old, tired, Jew-baiting/Zionist-baiting assumptions. (Yes, Israel has PACs and lobbyists--just like any other political interest group--but it is no more and no less "corrupting" than any other PACs or lobbyists.) The ONLY reason that the U.S. government has supported Israel is/was because Israel was perceived to be the one country in the area that could be counted-on to be our ally and to support our interests in the region. (Yes, in recent years, Israel has been a somewhat-less-reliable ally than in the past--in that they haven't as-readily knuckled under and done our bidding; and yes, Mossad did spy on our own government [in an effort to protect their own interests], but they are STILL the "best friend" in the region that we've got.)

I just read, in one of today's local papers, that radical Islamists in Iraq are literally blaming their own sectarian violence on Jews. Their extraordinary claim is that Muslims would never commit such atrocities against their fellow Muslims; therefore, it must be Jews, disguised as Muslims, who are committing the violence in Iraq. And this is nothing new! Immediately after 9/11, disinformation was being spread, world-wide, that it was the Israelis who had hijacked the planes that had created so much destruction--this solely in an effort to discredit poor, innocent, unfairly-disparaged, Muslim fundamentalists everywhere. [sarcasm] And people believe this nonsense! Why? Because they are pre-disposed to believe any extraordinary claim about Jewish people. Why are they so pre-disposed? Honestly, I don't know. But I'd guess that it has something to do with 1-force of habit (historical scapegoating), 2-non-examination of ones assumptions and prejudices, based on #1, 3-envy of prominent high-achievers (this is currently happening in the US with Asians, as well), coupled with an assumption that these achievements were due to something other than people's own hard work.

As for the Palestinian people:
Yes, they need assistance. Giving them some empathy and assistance is not equivalent to presuming that they are righteous in their cause in every particular. What has happened, historically, in the Middle East--as well as what continues to happen--is very complex, and there is NO ONE SIDE that has been either entirely pure or entirely evil in its actions. Most Arabs would like to believe that the Middle East would be an entirely peaceful place if it were not for the presence of Israel--but this presumption conveniently ignores the history of the region entirely. The only thing that the presence of Israel seems to have done is to give the Arabs in the region the one thing that they can all agree upon--namely, that Israel must wiped off the face of the Earth.

In the meantime, those who are starving and without shelter need immediate aid. Maybe there is a way to get them something like a Halal/Kosher version of the military-issue MRE (meal, ready to eat)? I'd like to see something being done for those folks (as long as the aid workers don't get attacked while attempting to help the Palestinians).

As an aside, I would like to point out that the U.S. government has historically used blockading, starvation, and destruction of infrastructure to put pressure to bear on "enemy governments," including, recently, Iraq, and--for many decades, now--Cuba. And we have continued to do this even when the tactic failed, and it caused mass misery and many deaths. Why is it "OK" when our own government does it but unequivocally evil when Israel does it? (That's a rhetorical question: I've never agreed with U.S. government policy re blockading.)

[Roscoe_Beedle]

I really like your analysis. I thought it was right-on. I would only beg to differ on the blockade thing. I for one think it has worked well in certain cases such as Cuba. Cuba would have been a great exporter of revolutionary non-sense if not contained. There pathetic and weak incursions were always tharwted by their limited resources. Better to keep that rat in his cage.
But good stuff.

[efto1]

What about the Palestinians leaders such as Arafat et. al. that stole hundreds of millions of dollars from the Palestinian people leaving them impovershed and hungry? Murderous regimes hardly care about their people.

If and only if Palistinians are viewed as modern day Philistines, who according to the Holy Bible did do battle with Israel because they did not worship God: then when Palestinians who worship God are drugged, given AIDS, blown into a million of bits, and sent to Allah as myrtars, is it all a pack of hyped religion?

[Sarah Alaoui]

"I just read, in one of today's local papers, that radical Islamists in Iraq.."

I'd just like to point out that there's no such thing as an "Islamist".

Thank you.