Palestinian population rising, settlements declining

     For the hell of it, I decided to look up "Israel Palestine statistics" because I felt like writing a small article on the happenings in Israel and my own take on them. Well, I found a graph showing the rise in population of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and it made me question how in the hell this graph even works compared to a map of Israel that I found illustrating how both areas are becoming smaller and smaller in recent years.

     If both figures are true, then we can see how easy allegations of genocide would be. Think about it: if the settlements of Palestinians are falling while the population is rising, how would anyone ever keep track of a hypothetical mass disappearance? Now, I'm not saying I believe the Israeli military is exactly that hypocritical, but with Palestinian populations rising as drastically as the respective loss of land, it is hard to imagine these people not living in a shoulder to shoulder environment. Furthermore, if living conditions are forced to be as bad as concentration camps or low budget military housing, then it is equally as hard to imagine how these people find the opportunity to make a living.

     If I haven't committed "anti-Semitism" (as it seems lately to loosely be thrown around by Israeli government officials) in this article, then I will no doubt offend politically conservative Jews twofold by addressing the ultimate hypocrisy in this whole issue. When asked what Israel's problem is— economically, politically, religiously— the answer that is typically given is "the Palestinians". The sentiment among conservative leaning Jewish Israelis is that Palestinians are deserving of death, of being driven off "land that isn't theirs" (note: this land was settled by non-Jews, the same people who resided there until this past century. Also note: the people who settled this land weren't even Muslims when they originally settled it); they tend to believe that Palestinians are completely below them and that it's an Israeli's duty not to be merciful, but relentless in removing these people. I know it's quite cliche at this point to ask it, but I will ask it anyway: doesn't this sound all too familiar? Can we recall a place in recent history that we were forced, as a globe, to address such an issue? I'll let the reader read between the lines, there. 

     A more subtle similarity is to the former apartheid regime in South Africa that was overcome by Nelson Mandela, the African National Congress, and other African socio-political revolutionaries. From 1948 to 1994, the National Party ruled and enforced laws that gave priority to the Caucasian majority and subjected the Afrikaner minority to a second class status. 

     To mark the process of Palestinian voting opportunity as being a "difficult" and "sensitive" issue is quite the understatement. Besides making a trip to the voting booth next to impossible for the average Palestinian, walls have been built not only around Palestinian settlements, but through more and more which is why we see the West Bank breaking apart like ice sheets in the Arctic Sea. In addition to all the unfortunate living conditions being imposed upon the Palestinians, they are also subjected to a version of racism comparable not even to racism of the 1960's in the United States.

     So I will ask the most obvious question there can be: if the numbers of Arab-Israelis and Palestinians are going up, then why have the living conditions gotten worse only for these people? Why have elections not favored a growing minority even in the slightest (proportionately)? Furthermore, why is everyone standing by for this?
~Joe

On the Boston Marathon Massacre

     In the twenty-first century, evil hath no face. The general prejudice of Americans— particularly white Americans— causes us to picture brown skinned, turban wearing individuals who believe in Allah (simply Arabic for Yahweh, which is Hebrew for God). 

     Prejudice aside, we have absolutely no idea who is guilty of the terror at the Boston Marathon. Earlier today, I saw a picture of the child who was killed on Boylston Street and I found myself haunted not by the death of a child holding a sign that says "No more hurting people; peace", but by the apathy toward this tragedy and my own struggle with a severe disconnect to the violence. For the sake of brevity, in the case this act of terror is found to come from an individual who is domestic, American born, and perhaps even white, what I propose is that we as Americans are to blame for we have become entirely unmoved by violence and the horror violence creates. 

     It will be easy to condemn a foreign entity with foreign agents of terror, but what are we going to say if it happens to be an American? Furthermore, what are we going to say when we are forced to ask ourselves how different this is from the Colorado Shooting or other atrocities especially if those involved do not suffer from mental health issues, but from indoctrination? 

     A second set of questions: "who do we blame?" and "who do we kill?" The killing cannot stop at Boylston Street if we seek justice as we understand it in the law books  But in a spiritual sense, are we willing to send these individuals to their virgins? Or, if that was not the case, how many should be sent to their deaths to obtain justice for those who have been murdered? The pursuit of justice, in this case, should be inflection and change in our hearts, to stop violence when we see it, and to put a stop to the ever increasing sociopathic tendencies toward violence. We should confront ourselves with these things in the attempt to dissolve them completely. 

     President Obama referred to this attack as a tragedy and he has been hounded by news syndicates to condemn it further, to upgrade it from "tragedy" to something else— an "act of terror" or some such over used, over glorified phrase. That is the problem. We are already so disconnected from the tragedy, we seek to call it something else and to defend it to the end simply because we are becoming less and less able to empathize with the victims. This is a tragedy and people need to get upset over it and grieve for humanity as a whole rather than letting it fuel their prejudices and serve as entertainment to their boredom. 

     In the twenty-first century, evil begets apathy, thus evil reigns with a swift dominance of the globe. It coasts effortlessly like a feather in a vacuum gives way to Earth's gravity. The compassion we once had as a species, though still present in certain circumstances, was once a friction to violence and the evil born from it.

~ Joe