Insignificant Israeli Decision

You have a clear view on the issue, don't you?

I don't know if you have picked up this story. It is likely you have not, since merely one day after having been posted as news on the BBC website, it already became quite burried down into the bowels of the BBC's archive. Their search engine does need improvement - that's for sure.

I looked for it - that's only one day after having read it and (eventually) found it: Likud allow settlement expansion.

Gah! I am biased... :/

Some background starting from the end of the ceasefire may be in place. -> Hamas declares a ceasefire on January 18th, 2009. They hardly have another option maybe, since the overmight of Israel is just too much. Israel accepts, follows and withdraws its troops before the US presidential inauguration January 20th (which is still a mystery to me as to why that was such a necessity).

Then, on day 26/01/2009 one week, one day after Hamas's declaration of a ceasefire, Israel announces the above decision: Likud - the leading party in Israel and poised to renew its term come the pending elections - announce that they allow settlement expansion. According to the peace treaty made up between the Palestinians, Israel and the US, settlement expansion is not part of the peace deal. Yet, when the fire's still hot on Gazan soil, Israel announces settlement expansion, while shaking hands with the special envoy to the Middle East: Sir Tony Blair.

That strikes odd to me. Settlement expansion, or rather the freeze of which was part of the original "Roadmap for Peace" enacted by the former President of the United States, Mr. George W. Bush. This link proves it (last bullet under phase 1) and so has this link and this (quite why they have been removed is a mystery, but the first link works as of now, so grab it while it's hot!).

That link unambiguously mentions as part of the actions Israel needs to "freeze all settlement activity". Kind of strange they are not doing this now, no?

Their decision to allow for settlement expansion, almost seems like a provocation to me...

But I am just the Sapient Citizen... are you?

Obama's Lobby

I was pleasantly surprised last week hearing about Obama's decision that lobbying has been constraint. I already mentioned so about a year and a half ago through another place on the web I used to frequent more than I do now.

That was in a post about reducing poverty, since I am convinced that lobbying indeed does not make society a nice place to live in; makes us more poor, unless you are rich (yet not necessarily famous). See, lobbying allows all these big corporations influence on decision making which eventually affects us all, and that just is not ok. Big corporations should be tuned to democratical laws and not the other way around, where laws are tuned to the big corporations disregarding the demographic!

See, we elect our representatives to take a stance for us, the people, instead of for a "legal entity". But lobbying has the exact opposite goal and I can't believe it has not been outlawed earlier.

Ahmadinejad: The Evil has Landed!

That is quite a line there, isn't it?! "Evil has landed". It will no doubt sell journals like hotcakes and it will entice readers into not accepting Iran's elected president. Strange, right? To be broadcasting a title like that? Being from outside of New York and being an outsider from the US itself, I can not really jugde the paper, but to me that is plain sensationalism and as subjective as can be.

Ahmadinejad equals Evil.

Let me look at that again. It means that in this foreign person all what we do not want is collected. One word: LOL.

To me he is a person having a very different view on life, on valour of life. He is, isn't he? I do not know him personally, chances are I will never, the possibility remains that I will. In any case, I'll give him the benefit of doubt before judging him, like I do with all.

So, let him be. Hear him out, give the guy a chance and listen. Who knows? We might find common ground and use that a the basis for negotiation.

Sapient Citizen

Diligently reading through news each day I have a growing anxiety towards where we are heading as a civilization. Learning more and more about how we not speak to eachother instead of having an open communication makes me weary, tired, sometimes even exhausted. How is it possible we do not even discuss anymore? How are we able to judge people from thousands of miles accross the planet without ever having learned how they grew up and what their thoughts are? Are we different between eachother like the masses believe? Do you think they - wherever you as a reader are - feel the same about us? Can you convey the imagination that maybe they feel, need, hunger and long for the same we actually do? Do you believe that they want the worst to happen to your family? Do you think "they" only want to end our freedom? That they are happy with seeing us to the end? That deep down, they do not feel the need for freedom, peace and liberty? Do you think we are that different them and us? Are we? Are they different animals?

Hah. It sounds like a joke to me, even taking the time to write this down. Yet I feel I need to. I have to communicate in some way to you, the masses. I need to have this heard. Because we are on that highway to hell a lot of us chant about if you ask me. We are creating a self-fullfilling prophecy, where, at the end, we are indeed able to look in the mirror and say: "look, our world has come to an end. Evil has overtaken." The funny thing is, we need only to ask some question. But well... who am I?

I am the sapient citizen.

Then again...

We all should be... and are. Look for it!