Mars has his own logic, Douglas. It's an insane logic, the logic of
vendetta, but it's logical all the same.
And the fact remains that these explosions of violence are symptoms of
deeper endemic violence, in which we all participate, whether we like
it or not. And which is largely invisible. Clear sightedness is the
thing I value most of all.
For those interested, the best place to get current information on the
Palestine/Israel situation is, as ever, the website of the Israeli
human rights group, B'TSelem, which gives even-handed nuts and bolts
facts and is very careful about verification. And it also gives some
kind of picture of the legall/political context and its continuing
impacts. http://www.btselem.org/English/
xA
On Tue, Jan 6, 2009 at 9:24 AM, Douglas Barbour
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I read it in The Independent, Max.
>
> What's terribly fascinating (in all sense of the word, terrible) is the way
> those offering 'defenses' of both sides can manage to sound so 'reasonable'
> as they portray the necessity of violence. So, in our paper on Saturday, we
> had Robert J Lieber (special to The Washington Post) saying that 'Lasting
> peace will only be possible once Palestinians accept that they cannot
> prevail ober Israel by use of force,' & arguing that the land attack is
> 'necessary.' Daud Kuttab (also special to The Washington Post) says that
> 'support for Islamist movement was waning before Israel's heavy-handed
> action in Gaza.' both took sides. The most interesting piece was by Gershom
> Gorenberg (special to the Los Angeles Times), titled 'Shortsighted leaders
> have released a flood of fury,' in which he blames the leaders of both Hamas
> & Israel for their foolish belief that violence will win the day, force the
> other side to do what they want. He also points out that the 'victims' on
> both sides simply do not know (he says that Israelis can see more of what is
> happening on the other side of the world than what is happening in Gaza) how
> bad it is for their Others (more so for the Israelis' sense of how it is in
> Gaza).
>
> The bitter truth seems to be nothing will change, but many will have died to
> achieve this terrible status quo.
>
> Doug
> On 3-Jan-09, at 5:02 PM, Max Richards wrote:
>
>> WHY BOMBING ASHKELON IS THE MOST TRAGIC IRONY
>>
>> By Robert Fisk
>
> Douglas Barbour
> [log in to unmask]
>
> http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/
>
> Latest books:
> Continuations (with Sheila E Murphy)
> http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=664
> Wednesdays'
> http://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/2008/03/new-from-aboveground-press_10.html
>
> Holy hath beris
> As rede as any rose
>
--
Editor, Masthead: http://www.masthead.net.au
Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
Home page: http://www.alisoncroggon.com
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