Contributors

Showing posts with label Israel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Israel. Show all posts

Monday, March 05, 2018

How To Buy A Gun in Israel

 Israel 1Join a shooting club, or prove that you live or work in a dangerous area authorized for gun ownership, including certain settlements.2Get a doctor’s note saying you have no mental illness or history of drug abuse. 3Install a gun safe. 4Release your criminal and mental health history to the authorities. 5Buy a gun and a limited supply of bullets, usually around 50. 6Demonstrate that you can use your gun or a similar gun at a firing range before taking it home.

Many countries, including Israel, also allow people with certain jobs to more easily obtain guns, including security, research and pest control.

Sunday, July 27, 2014

Ukraine and Gaza: A Brief Analysis

I've had several thoughts I've wanted to get out about the situations in Israel and Ukraine but I thought it prudent to wait a bit for events to unfold. AP News has two great pieces up which summarize the ongoing issues with Russia over the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 and the Israeli operation in Gaza as of this morning.

My first reaction when I heard that the airline was shot down by pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine was anger. We know what these guys are doing and they are bragging about it as Nikto noted the other day. Shouldn't we work with Ukraine to target these anti-aircraft missiles and take them out? Obviously, the answer is no and it's because we really need the buy in from Europe. This is a regional problem and the EU, in particular, Germany, haven't really shown much of an interest in escalation due to the Russian natural gas supply they need. This sentiment was recently echoed by Germany's finance minister, Wolfgang Schaeuble.

"Economic interests are not the top priority. The top priority is ensuring stability and peace," Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble was quoted by the newspaper as saying.

Classic double speak. The Germans are more interested in making sure they stay on the Russian energy teat and are hoping that somehow all of this just works itself out. Until they and other EU leaders change their mind and are willing to make sacrifices, we will be largely powerless to do anything. Honestly, they are being tremendously naive

Israel's efforts in Gaza are the exact opposite of naive. They recognize the problem and are moving to eliminate the threat with best possible speed. I make no bones about being fervently pro-Israel and completely support their mission to end the rocket launches by Hamas. No doubt I feel tremendous sadness over the loss of Palestinian children but the blame for that is largely on Hamas who purposefully place their base of operations near innocent civilians to score PR points with anti-Semitic press outlets.

At the very core of Hamas's ideology is the destruction of Israel. They are no different than Nazi Germany and if they are serious about helping their people, they will stop being violent and start advocating within the political process peacefully. That is the one area where Israel needs to be flexible. I've written about this previously but the only way I see out of this mess is a one state solution. There will never be a country of Palestine. Tareq Abbas is right

In the long run, Israel is going to come out much better as a result of this conflict. Vladamir Putin, however, will not. The EU may be dragging their feat but the writing is already on the wall. This was Putin's massive failure and miscalculation and the Russian economy is going to pay dearly for it.

Thursday, March 20, 2014

One State Solution

I'm very impressed with this recent piece in the Times regarding the gradual loss of a two state solution in Israel. Tareq Abbas is right. The time is now for a one state solution and for civil rights/political power to be given to the Palestinian people. If Israel is truly a democracy, they should allow it. I think they will find that much of their problems with extremist violence will go away if the Palestinian people have a voice.


Saturday, September 21, 2013

Alternate Dimension?

Being a comic book and scifi fan, I often wonder how many other dimensions and realities exists that are parallel to our own. Are there alternate versions of myself or my family and friends? Today, I feel like I have slipped into an alternate dimension with these two headlines.

Pope Says Church Is ‘Obsessed’ With Gays, Abortion and Birth Control

Iranian New Year greetings leave Israelis perplexed, pleased

Seriously, WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON? Don't get me wrong...I'm happy but it's jarring after so much bull crap every day to see something as positive as both of these stories.

I supposed I could be a cynic and say the latter headline is just Iran trying to smooth over diplomatic relations with the United States and is representative of recent back channel communications over their nuclear weapons program. Still, though, even with that caveat it's quite shocking to hear something like that from an Iranian leader.

The Pope's comments certainly jibe with his overall philosophy of placing more importance on helping the poor and sick of the world rather than being inordinately preoccupied with sex. Certainly caring for the needy of the world is mentioned far more often in the Bible than homosexuality, abortion, and birth control so it's clear which is more important.

Sadly, I'm sure it won't be long now before the Pope is accused of not being a Christian.

Thursday, September 06, 2012

Perplexed

I don't understand why the Right is up in arms over the disagreement over whether or not the word "God" should be included in the Democratic Party Platform. Or the disagreement over whether or not Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. Huh?

It's a surprise that there are people in the Democratic party who believe God is a fairy tale for infant minded people? Heck, there are people in my comments section that think that.

It's a surprise that the Democratic party has Muslims in it that feel that the Palestinians have been treated unfairly by the Israelis? Perhaps here there is a hope that some undecided voters will be scared off by the Moose-lems!

Or is it a surprise that Democrats don't march in lockstep on an issue?

I guess my initial thought is that it's none of those things and the Right is simply doing what they always do...not taking responsibility for something (their own truly awful platform) and bloviating, "Well, their's is worser and stuff!!!!" in typical juvenile fashion.

I really don't get it. What's the dig supposed to be?

Friday, August 05, 2011

Pre-1967?

Remember all that hoopla a while back about President Obama throwing Israel under the bus?

TV: Israel agrees to negotiate over pre-'67 lines

Oh, really?

In a dramatic policy shift, Israel's prime minister has agreed to negotiate the borders of a Palestinian state based on the cease-fire line that marks off the West Bank.

Up to now, Benjamin Netanyahu has refused to spell out his plan for negotiating the border. A senior Israeli official would not confirm outright that the prime minister was now willing to adopt the cease-fire line as a starting point, but said Israel was willing to try new formulas to restart peace talks based on a proposal made by President Barack Obama.

As I suspected a couple of months back, there was (and still is) a lot of local Israeli politics involved in this and not the "throwing to the wolves" that was inaccurately relayed by the faux outrage machine of the right.

As much of an Israeli supporter as I am, they need to budge a little on these issues and they are the ones right now that are holding up serious movement towards peace in the region.

Saturday, May 21, 2011

Thoughts On The Speech?

President Obama certainly stirred up a shit storm this week with his "Arab Spring" speech. Israel denounced his call to return to the pre 1967 borders for land swaps as detrimental to its security even though Netanyahu (currently heavily engaged in the finest example of the two level game I have seen in a while) said the same thing himself earlier this week in a speech to the Knesset. Both Hamas and the PLO denounced it as "throwing dust in the eyes of Palestinians" and a slap in the face to their people.

All of this tells me he's basically on the right track:)