VIOLENCE BEGETS VIOLENCE

 "Violence begets violence; hate begets hate; and toughness begets a greater toughness. It is all a descending spiral, and the end is destruction — for everybody. Along the way of life, someone must have enough sense and morality to cut off the chain of hate." 

-Martin Luther King Jr.

This is going to get bad fast. 

Israel has cut off all food, water, and electricity to Gaza and just bombed a refugee center. 

In response, Hamas threatened to televise live executions of the hostages. 

This is spiraling out of control. 

NFL WEEK 5 2023 WAR EDITION

 War has broken out (again) in the Middle East (again) between Israel and Hamas in Gaza (again) and it doesn't feel right to engage in much football talk. Jax +5 over Bill and San Fran -4.5 over Cowpokes. And the survivor pool picks are up, with one loss over an improvident pick of the Commanders Thursday night. 

You're not going to like what we are going to say about the current war, so just close your browser and never come back. It's your choice. 

When you dominate and subjugate a people for over fifty years, you breed hate that is generational. We subscribe to the notion that people are generally good, and no particular group of people are -by their genetics- murderous thugs that kill women and children for sport. So when Hamas terrorists invade Israel and kidnap and kill innocent civilians, slaughter elderly people and drag a holocaust survivor in a wheelchair over the boarder, there are reasons behind the horrific criminal acts beyond just calling Hamas criminals and terrorists -which they are. 

So Israel will invade Gaza and kills Hamas fighters, and along the way kill innocent civilians-including children- which they have been doing for decades- and that will breed a new generation of terrorists- children now- whose anger will grow over seeing their brothers and sisters and parents needlessly killed. 

And ardent defenders of Israel will scream in response that all Israel wants is peace, and Hamas started it. And Hamas will scream in response that all Palestinians want is their own homeland and to exist without living under the thumb of Israel. And Israel will respond that Hamas is a terrorist organization and Palestinians could choose to be represented by a government that is not a sponsor of terrorism. And Hamas will respond that Israel was founded by terrorists fighting the British (including former Israel Prime Minister Menachem Begin) and that terrorism has been a valid way of an impoverished people fighting foreign imperialism ever since a band of people in Massachusetts threw tea into the Boston harbor. And Israel will say Hamas started it and they want peace. And Hamas will show pictures of dead Palestinian children killed in Israeli air raids and ask for the world to condemn Israel. And Israel will respond with videos of teenagers being dragged from a music festival at a Kibbutz and taken hostage in the last two days. And Hamas has its own horrible videos. And Israel will say it is surrounded by terrorists and Hezbollah to the North (and the Hezbollah terrorists do not like the Hamas because of the whole Sunni/Shite split) and that behind both Hezbollah and Hamas is Iran and they are correct. So is the solution to nuke Iran? Because to stop Iran funding terrorism you're going to either have to wipe out Iran or make peace with the terrorists - so which poison do you choose? 

And we say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. So when Israel invades Gaza, all it is doing is creating the groundwork for another attack circa 2038- when the five-year-old Palestinian children are teenagers and young men and women. Because it is a truism of history that old men send young men to fight their wars. 

Israel will retaliate. How has that worked out for you in the past, considering where we are today? And Hamas will rebuild and get more rockets from Iran and plan another Intifada and we ask how has that worked out for you in the past 25 years? 

So either we repeat the cycle of violence, or we put aside all the past injustices with an eye to the future children of Palestine and Israel and ask what can we do to allow them to grow up safely and live their lives in peace? 

So all Israeli supporters who want to flood our emails with nasty blasts and trash us in the  comments section because we are not condemning the criminal acts of a terrorist group killing innocent people (but we did, read above)- have at it.  Wrap yourself blindly in the indignation of being attacked and choose to blind yourself to the cause of the attack. It's like taking Tylenol for cancer. It won't solve your problems- unless you as Jews want to wipe a people off the face of the earth- and we need not remind you why of all people, you cannot engage in genocide. 

And all Palestinian supporters can email us pictures of the aftermath of Israeli airstrikes and the video of a 12-year-old girl being beaten by Israeli police last year in Jerusalem (we've seen the video dozens of times on X) and scream for justice. 

And you can both go on killing each other and burying your dead children and soldiers for the next fifty years.

Or you can try something different.  Erase all blame and prior criminal acts and move forward from this day forward with a plan to live together in peace and recognize the right of Palestine and Israel to exist independent and dependent on each other.  Each side will never run out of victims to parade before the other until each side renounces violence as a means to an end. Violence has not worked and it will not work. And once again, supporters of Israel can save the emails to us, based on this last paragraph, screaming that they want to renounce violence and live in peace- and ignore the hopelessness that Palestinian children are born into.  Like it or not, this was caused by the conditions in Gaza, and yes we know the conditions in Gaza are because of the prior missile attacks, and yes we know the prior missile attacks are because of how Israel treats the citizens of Gaza. 

And on and on the blame goes until two people- one Israeli and one Palestinian decide to sit down and say "enough!".  But we doubt that is going to happen today or anytime soon. 

Survivor: 

Aaa2023 Regjb Survivor Pool Week Five by Anonymous PbHV4H on Scribd

WHY ISRAEL IS WRONG

 "Hate begets hate; violence begets violence; toughness begets a greater toughness. We must meet the forces of hate with love." Dr. Martin King, 1958. 

First, if we are going to have this discussion, lets do away with the basic facts which you dear readers can refrain from emailing us in outrage. The latest round of violence began with Hamas shooting rockets into Israel targeting and killing innocent civilians, including children. Hamas is a terrorist organization. 

Those are the facts and they do not excuse Israel's actions. This conflict did not just begin now. It has a long history. There are two peoples that were Stateless in the first half of the 20th century- the Jews and the Palestinians. Both laid historical claim to the land known as Palestinian. When the political and diplomatic dust settled Israel was formed. Several wars later, Israel has survived and thrived. Peace has been achieved with Egypt. Earlier this year several Arab states opened diplomatic relations with Israel. 

Meanwhile, Palestinians remained packed into tiny refugee camps. Children were born to the second and third generation of parents who were born and grew up in the refugee camps. The ability to survive and thrive and for Palestinians to create for their children the simple goal of every parent-  a better life for their children, died in the hopelessness of the refugee camps.  For example, in the Al-Shati refugee camp in Gaza, known as "The Beach Camp" there are almost 100,000 people crammed into a half square kilometer. 

Along the way in this tortured history both sides committed acts of violence. Each side can point to tragedies- innocent children killed or left orphans by the acts of the other side. "Violence begets violence."  The circle must be broken. Israel has the power to kill every single occupant in the Gaza strip where many Palestinians live. They can destroy every building, one at a time, missile by missile. They can destroy the power plants and water plants and plunge the citizens into darkness without food or water. They can, as they appear to be doing, ratchet up the violence until Hamas and the other Palestinian organizations give up. For now. The memory of this defeat, along with their dead, burned into their memories, where it will fester for years until the next Intifada erupts. "Hate begets hate."

The current conflict has several causes; the same way a fire needs several starters. There is a court case to evict six Palestinian families from homes they own in East Jerusalem based on an Israeli law that allows families to reclaim property lost during the division of Jerusalem at the end of the war of 1948 with Jordan.  The Israeli police restricted access at the Damascus Gate of Palestinians to the Old City just as the Muslim Holy month of Ramadan was beginning.  These were the cinders among others that began to burn. 

Israel has the power to break the cycle of violence. Just because they can utterly defeat and destroy their enemies doesn't mean they should. We have seen the horrors of the last century when one group of people set forth  to wipe another off the face of the earth. 

Israel has two choices. They can continue on the same path, responding to attacks with greater attacks until they "win" and the violence ebbs for now. How is that strategy working out? Israel did the exact same thing in the first Intifada that ended in the early 1980s and the second Intifada that began in 2000 and slowly ended in 2005 with over 1000 Israelis and over 3500 Palestinians dead.  If this is the Third Intifada, the death tolls will be worse. The axiom that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result comes to mind. 

So we are at a tipping point. Israel has been attacked again. It has responded with overwhelming force. It can continue to do so. Hamas can continue to shoot off more rockets terrorizing and killing innocent people, or they can try a third way. And to do that, someone has to make the first move. 

Perhaps Israel will say "why should we make the first move? They started it." 

And the simple answer is "because you can." Otherwise when this cycle of violence ends, the dead and the destruction will merely serve as fertilizer for the next round which will surely come. 

Well, the blog has been a bit too quiet. This should liven things up.