BARVENNON.COM
AUSTRALIAN DIARY
5th January 2009. Israel & Gaza.
Facts as I know them. Email me otherwise & I will
correct.
- Hamas was the dominant political party in the last elections held
in Gaza.
- Rockets are being fired from Gaza at Israel
- Hamas is not visibly attempting to stop these rockets.
- Israel has been blockading Gaza, only allowing essential food
& medical supplies.
- Hamas declares that all of Israel is rightfully Palestinian
territory.
- Hamas declares it will stop the rockets if Israel stops the
blockade, and vv.
- However it is unlikely that Israel would ever allow unrestricted
trade between Gaza and the world, as Israel probably feels that it has
a vital interest in stopping Gazans from obtaining weapons.
It could be argued that Hamas has committed an act of war by permitting
uncensured firing of missiles from it's territory. Likewise, the
blockade of a sovereign state's trade could also be termed an act of
war.
Prior to the Israeli invasion, an eminent British economist suggested
that the best way to stop the recession was probably to have a
war. The US stock markets (DJI>9k) have improved and the price
of oil has risen since the Israeli action against Hamas.
Points.
- I am impressed by the extremely low civilian casualties in
Gaza. The Israelis are obviously trying to minimize civilian
casualties.
- The Gazan civilians are hardly innocent victims. After all,
they voted for a Hamas government.
- The Israelis have chosen their time well. With oil prices
where they were, the sponsors of Hamas had enough problems of their
own, and probably little time or cash to assist the Palestinians.
- On a personal level, if I were a Gazan, I would take note of my
neighbors, and if they appeared to be Hamas soldiers, then I would
vacate that neighborhood.
7th January Apologies to Nicholson.
25th January 2009 Netnanny, BBC & Israel, Welcome
Obama.
The real danger of the installation of a general netnanny on all Australian
internet services is, as suggested in by a Sydney columnist, that it
could so easily be diverted to the political purposes of whoever reigns
(has the reins). OK, kiddie porn is not something I condone, but
the net nanny will be far less effective at isolating the 0.01 % of
child sex addicts from their images than it would be disinforming the
50% of people who would be horrified to learn of the criminal
wrongdoing of the party members of the government. (The other 50%
either know and don't care, or just wouldn't believe their politician
could so abuse their trust). So expect installation of
netnanny, because it will perform it's intended function with 99%
effectiveness, even though it would be a near total failure at
isolating
pornographic images of children from pederasts.
The thing that I notice most about the BBC's (and our ABC's) policy on
reporting events in Palestine is how biased it is. So when
the
BBC declined to carry advertisements for money to help Gazan victims of
Israel's recent response to Hamas' rockets, I could not help thinking
that "its a bit late for that".
An instance of their biased reporting: Why are the BBC
publishing calls for prosecution of Israel for war crimes, without at
the same time calling for prosecution of Hamas for war crimes
(instanced by it's Hitleresque like V2 bombing of innocent women and
children?) I feel certain that Israel would be prepared to have
stand for trial those who are accused if Hamas leaders could be brought
to book for not even attempting to curtail their V2 like bombs.
Diary welcomes Obama to the Presidency and hopes that he has the
courage to apply the necessary solution to the world recession.
He is in the best position to apply the cure, which cure I see as being
the liberalizing of international trade, the abandonment of
protectionism, and a huge expansion of Hispanic working visas.
He is in the best position to apply that cure, because those policies
are the
antithesis of the policy platforms of the Democrats, and the democrats
are in the best
position to remove those restrictions.
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