Tuesday, November 11, 2014

And They're Off (Again)

A Palestinian man has been shot dead by the Israel Defense Forces in the West Bank. The Israeli Army says the clashes erupted after a group of around 150 Palestinians started throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails at Israeli soldiers.

The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) say they tried to break-up the crowd by firing rubber bullets and using tear gas, but were forced to use live ammunition after the gathering of Palestinians failed to disperse.

  RT
Forced to.

The New Yorker has an interesting article about the situation and seemingly impossibility of resolution to it between Israel and Palestine. While the office of president there is no more politically powerful than that of Queen in England, the article devotes considerable space to the new president, Reuven (Ruvi) Rivlin. I was especially impressed by at least his realistic vision.
“The extremists are talking too loudly, and everyone is convinced that only he is on the right side,” Rivlin told me in one of our conversations. “It’s not just Jews against Arabs. It’s the Orthodox versus those who don’t think they can keep all six hundred and thirteen commandments of the Bible. It’s rich people versus poor people. At some point, something came over Israel so that everyone has his own ideas—and everyone else is an enemy. It’s a dialogue among deaf people and it is getting more and more serious.

[...]

“I’m not asking if we’ve forgotten how to be Jewish,” he said, “but if we’ve forgotten how to be human.”

  New Yorker
I think that about sums up our own country’s situation.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

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