Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Evidence of our small world!
Found this video via a friend in India: This is a Japanese man, Chiba San, singing at Toyota's 10-years in India anniversary celebration. He's not just singing anything, he's singing in Kannada, the language of the southern state of Karnataka!
I don't think I've ever heard an Indian language spoken (or in this case, sung) with a Japanese accent before... quite amusing.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Comment on "Gaza Divides Students"
BU's Daily Free Press ran this article today: "Gaza Divides Students"
I posted this as a comment on the article, but with the assumption that the moderator won't allow it, I am also posting it here:
A quote I very much disagree with: “[Israel is] fighting a war with people who don’t play by the rules of the game,” she said. “It’s very scary knowing that they’re fighting in a war right now with people who do not respect life.”
First, there is no such thing as proper "rules of war." The style of warfare is constantly changing, as we've seen in the last decade alone.
Second, this is a completely hypocritical statement. Clearly Israelis, as the colonial force in the region, have no respect for the 1000 Palestinians, the near majority of whom are civilians, they've killed amongst the other 1.5 million they have trapped in Gaza. They control their borders, their access to water, their electricity, their roads, the goods that can come in and out of their territory, the flow of people in and out of their territory - and the PALESTINIANS are the problem? God-given land or not, Israelis need to acknowledge what they are: white colonialists.
Does Hama's 800+ rocket attacks, which have caused minimal civilian deaths in comparison, warrant this savage attack on innocent Palestinian civilians? And I've heard countless Israelis claim that what the Palestinians are doing to them is "genocide." When one looks at the 13 Israelis killed in this current situation vs. the 1000 Palestinians killed, it's clear who is committing the genocide.
Hamas does not fire rockets indiscriminately. They fire rockets because they have been so marginalized, so suppressed, that they've had no other choice but to radicalize and fight back. The Israelis have written the script of this ordeal with their politics in the region, their blatant disregard for attempts at peace treaties, and their illegal settlements on designated Palestinian lands. The Palestinians are just acting out their part.
I posted this as a comment on the article, but with the assumption that the moderator won't allow it, I am also posting it here:
A quote I very much disagree with: “[Israel is] fighting a war with people who don’t play by the rules of the game,” she said. “It’s very scary knowing that they’re fighting in a war right now with people who do not respect life.”
First, there is no such thing as proper "rules of war." The style of warfare is constantly changing, as we've seen in the last decade alone.
Second, this is a completely hypocritical statement. Clearly Israelis, as the colonial force in the region, have no respect for the 1000 Palestinians, the near majority of whom are civilians, they've killed amongst the other 1.5 million they have trapped in Gaza. They control their borders, their access to water, their electricity, their roads, the goods that can come in and out of their territory, the flow of people in and out of their territory - and the PALESTINIANS are the problem? God-given land or not, Israelis need to acknowledge what they are: white colonialists.
Does Hama's 800+ rocket attacks, which have caused minimal civilian deaths in comparison, warrant this savage attack on innocent Palestinian civilians? And I've heard countless Israelis claim that what the Palestinians are doing to them is "genocide." When one looks at the 13 Israelis killed in this current situation vs. the 1000 Palestinians killed, it's clear who is committing the genocide.
Hamas does not fire rockets indiscriminately. They fire rockets because they have been so marginalized, so suppressed, that they've had no other choice but to radicalize and fight back. The Israelis have written the script of this ordeal with their politics in the region, their blatant disregard for attempts at peace treaties, and their illegal settlements on designated Palestinian lands. The Palestinians are just acting out their part.
Sunday, January 4, 2009
The True Story Behind this War is Not the One Israel is Telling
To preface, being anti-Israel is NOT the same as being anti-Semitic. And if you disagree with that statement, well, I once dated a Jew.
READ THIS. Via the Huffington Post.
Choice quotes:
"To understand how frightening it is to be a Gazan this morning, you need to have stood in that small slab of concrete by the Mediterranean and smelled the claustrophobia. The Gaza Strip is smaller than the Isle of Wight, but it is crammed with 1.5 million people who can never leave. They live out their lives on top of each other in vast sagging tower blocks, jobless and hungry. From the top floor, you can often see the borders of their world: the Mediterranean Sea, and the Israeli barbed wire. When bombs begin to fall -- as they are doing now with more deadly force than on any day since 1967 -- there is nowhere to hide."
"European and American governments are responding with a lop-sidedness that ignores these realities. They say that Israel cannot be expected to negotiate under rocket-fire, but they demand the Palestinians do so under siege in Gaza and violent military occupation in the West Bank."
"Israeli writer Larry Derfner... says: 'Israel's war with Gaza has to be the most one-sided on earth.... If the point is to end it, or at least begin to end it, the ball is not in Hamas' court - it's in ours.'"
"This morning, and tomorrow morning, and every morning until this punishment-beating ends, the young people of the Gaza Strip are going to be more filled with hate, and more determined to fight back, with stones or suicide-vests or rockets."
Read more about the conflict in Gaza:
Here
Here (pdf)
and
Here
READ THIS. Via the Huffington Post.
Choice quotes:
"To understand how frightening it is to be a Gazan this morning, you need to have stood in that small slab of concrete by the Mediterranean and smelled the claustrophobia. The Gaza Strip is smaller than the Isle of Wight, but it is crammed with 1.5 million people who can never leave. They live out their lives on top of each other in vast sagging tower blocks, jobless and hungry. From the top floor, you can often see the borders of their world: the Mediterranean Sea, and the Israeli barbed wire. When bombs begin to fall -- as they are doing now with more deadly force than on any day since 1967 -- there is nowhere to hide."
"European and American governments are responding with a lop-sidedness that ignores these realities. They say that Israel cannot be expected to negotiate under rocket-fire, but they demand the Palestinians do so under siege in Gaza and violent military occupation in the West Bank."
"Israeli writer Larry Derfner... says: 'Israel's war with Gaza has to be the most one-sided on earth.... If the point is to end it, or at least begin to end it, the ball is not in Hamas' court - it's in ours.'"
"This morning, and tomorrow morning, and every morning until this punishment-beating ends, the young people of the Gaza Strip are going to be more filled with hate, and more determined to fight back, with stones or suicide-vests or rockets."
Read more about the conflict in Gaza:
Here
Here (pdf)
and
Here
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