Viva, Viva Palestina

So I am getting more and more upset as this conflict goes on. I'm not sure that this is going to end any time soon either. Check out what the expected winner of next month's election in Israel, Binyamin Netanyahu, said about this issue. He is more radical than Olmert, which is a scary thought. At least Olmert has been holding talks with Syria about returning the Golan heights, which were taken by Israel in the 1973 October war.

I was working all day to organize a panel discussion on the conflict, but it looks like that just isn't happening. Most professors seemed reluctant to speak, some said that they were just too busy despite their vested interest in the subject. One guy said that he spoke at a similar event at his old school and said some things against Israel. He was fired because the President of the university was a zionist, so he doesn't do public lectures anymore. The person that really irked me was a Jewish professor that told me that she didn't want to participate because the panel might be anti-Israel. I said that if she acted like that then the panel was bound to be pro-Palestinian, and she practically kicked me out of her office.

In other news, Bernake is actually asking for more money. Somebody needs to shut that fool up before he steals ALL of the money in the treasury (or not in the treasury). Also, Obama is working to get approval for his $700 billion bailout, which in all fairness is going to be more geared toward tax breaks than anything else, but still isn't going to fix the situation. The fed cut the interest rate to 0-.25% which is astounding. "In a speech in London Tuesday morning, Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke defended the Fed's series of rate cuts since September 2007, saying that inflation was no longer a major concern." No longer a maor concern?! Maybe to his rich ass.

I don't know what to say, you all know the situation. This fed cut is a huge indicator that they are out of options to stall the collapse.

Free, Free Palestine

These are some pictures and videos that I took at the Let Gaza Live march on Washington yesterday. And yes, that is Ralph Nader in the first picture.

Gaza Blockade Legitimizes Hamas

The Christian-Science Monitor reports today that, "Hamas did allow scarce goods to flow into the territory and shown itself capable of forcing an alternative economic lifeline open," due to Israel's border-wall. I don't know how they could have seen that coming... The same article includes a comment from a professor at Hebrew University predicting that as a result, there could be four way negotiations between Egypt, Israel, Hamas, and Fatah; if the Israeli government is set on delegitimizing Hamas' movement and calming some of the extremism of it's followers, then including Hamas in government and official decisions is the way to do it. If Hamas operates with the government, it will have to make sacrifices on some of its extreme positions, with a negotiations compromising its radical agenda, creating watered-down issue stances. This turns away the extremists from the group, but since Hamas is a network form insurgent group (no real heirarchy present, collection of individual cells) the extremist cells will break off to form different groups (which is how Hamas got started after Fatah was legitimized with a truce with Israel-- Lost many dedicated individuals to its suicide missions, mostly less dedicated administrators left, had to hire more legitimate adminstration officials with its negotiations and role in regional government, then it became corrupt and extremists abandoned the group). This would more than likely happen with Hamas, but it just depends if Hamas appears threatening enough to the Israeli dominance of Gaza+West Bank. In a sense it's a gamble, since most insurgent groups are not successful, there is a chance that if Hamas splintered no dominant insurgent group could form, though with the rise of PLO (organization of smaller groups dedicated to the formation of a Palestine state), despite the differing dogma between the allied groups, more minor groups are organizing and becoming more relevant. For the record, I'm quite in favor of a Palestinian state; I am just analyzing the conflict.