I tried. I really did.

I sat and watched President Bush give his farewell address and thought of what I might write which would carry a positive slant. Surely, there was something about the man which I could respect – some shining personality trait which I had somehow missed over these many years.

Nah. There was nothing. I was reminded of Chris Rock commenting that Bush is anything but a president and would be as unqualified to be president of the PTA as he was unqualified to be president of the United States. I agree.

Bush has been an arrogant, lying, simple-minded, uninformed president. And even without Katrina, his handling of the economy, Guantanamo and other disastrous policies marking his presidency, the one issue which will taint him forever is Iraq. It is clear that his administration, led by Dick Cheney, lied and manipulated intelligence in a determined move to invade Iraq no matter what the truth. Bush, lacking the intellectual capability and curiosity to discern truth from lies, allowed the deceit to occur and with that, the death of tens of thousands of innocent people. He gave Islamic fundamentalist terrorists a crying call to recruit – and recruit they did.

So I bid farewell to Mr. Bush and may I say, good riddance forever.

It is hard to imagine how or when the Israeli conflict could be resolved.  On one side we have the Palestinians who in 1948 had their homeland of Palestine partitioned into Arab and Jewish states. For many Palestinians, nothing would be acceptable except the destruction of Israel and a full return of their lands.  This is quite understandable.

On the other side we have people of the Jewish faith who for 4000 years have yearned for their ancestral land of Israel.  Once obtained, there was no possibility of them ever leaving the only Jewish state in the world, the land promised to them by their God.  And this too is understandable.

From the beginning, Arab countries opposed the existence of Israel and wars with Egypt, Syria and Jordan ensued over the years.  Internally, Israel faced Palestinian insurgence in the form of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). Founded in 1964, the PLO vowed for the destruction of Israel. In later years, the PLO agreed to a two state solution but other Palestinian resistance groups evolved, of which one of them was Hamas.

The Current War

On December 27 2008, Israel began a full front assault on Gaza.  Israel was responding to the thousands of rockets fired over the last 8 years into its territory from Gaza.  There is no comparing the military might of the two combatants.  Israel remains the mightiest, best trained, best armed military force in the Middle East while Hamas is an Islamic militia fighting a war with crude rockets and a less than professional fighting force.

Much of the rage heard from around the world has to do with the number of civilian deaths in this war.  Over 1000 Palestinians have been killed since the beginning of the war while 4 Israelis have died during that period.  Hamas claims that Israel has been targeting civilian centres and indiscriminately killing innocent Palestinian women and children.  Israel argues that Hamas is using Palestinians as human shields in an attempt to win over world sympathy.   Conventional wisdom would suggest that there is probably some truth in the claims of both sides.

In the meantime, there is no place for the Palestinian population to hide.  Gaza is a barren land and the only refuge for people trying to escape the ravages of war are the cities.  But it is these populated areas in which Hamas has set up their posts including schools and hospitals.  Israel claims that they are doing their best to avoid civilian casualties and that it is Hamas which is looking to increase the Palestinian death toll.

And as the war of words and bullets continues, the innocent die.

Map courtesy of BBC News

The world is again witness to yet another Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a seemingly never ending series of wars which have taken place over the sixty year history of Israel. Our televisions and newspapers are filled with images of children crying over the dead bodies of mothers and the cries of Palestinians can be heard mourning the death of loved ones . As well we hear of the rage of Israelis who speak of their moral right to protect their own citizens from the continual attacks by Hamas.

Today I begin a two part post on the Gaza war. In this first post I will lay out a brief history of Gaza and Hamas and the circumstances which have led to the current conflict. In a second post, I will write of the current war and its ramifications.

Gaza – History

• The Gaza strip was created in 1948 at the time of Israel’s formation.
• The strip is a flat sparse land measuring 25 miles long and 5 miles wide.
• It is bordered by Israel in the East, Egypt in the south and the Mediterranean in the west.
• Until 1967, Gaza was administered by Egypt but Israel took over control after it captured the strip in the 1967 Arab-Israel conflict
• Israel created Jewish settlements within Gaza which was a major point of contention to Palestinians who viewed the settlements as a further violation of Israeli oppression and an intrusion on their homeland.
• In 2005, Israel pulled out of Gaza and forced the Jewish population to abandon their homes within the borders of Gaza.
• Despite the pullout, Israel retained firm control of Gaza’s borders and air space
• Gaza is populated by 1.5 million Palestinians which gives it a population density which ranks as one or the highest in the world.
• The population is distributed across a few densely packed cities and a number of refugee camps administered in part by the UN.
• The area is ravaged by poverty and unemployment due in part to the tight controls Israel imposes on Gaza’s borders.  Only humanitarian goods are allowed in with no exports allowed.  Gaza has virtually no economy.
• Sadly, half of Gaza’s population is made up of children under the age of 16.

Hamas

• Hamas is an Islamic resistance movement which has both a military and political wing.
• Formed in 1987, it has vowed to defeat Israel and to replace it with an Islamic Palestinian country.
• Canada, Israel, the European Union, Japan and the US have designated Hamas as a terrorist organization while Australia and the UK have declared its military wing as a terrorist group.
• In 2006 Hamas won elections and in June 2007 became the ruling authority in Gaza.
• The non-military wing of Hamas has provided, to the limited extent it can, social relief to Palestinians. It has constructed schools and hospitals and has provided welfare to its impoverished population in the form of food and housing.
• Since it’s formation, Hamas has conducted a number of attacks on Israel in the form of rockets and suicide bombers.  In the last 8 years, Hamas has fired thousands of rockets into Israel.

Photo from Reuters Pictures

Robert Gates / Barack Obama

“I’m a uniter, not a divider.”

Those words were spoken by George W. Bush back in 1999.  He campaigned in the 2000 elections on a platform which emphasized his record as Texas Governor in uniting Democrats and Republicans in a bipartisan fashion.  Then of course, came the next eight years.  If George Bush’s performance as President could be aptly described in a single phrase, well that phrase might very well be the great divider.

Barack Obama made similar claims to Bush’s in the 2008 campaign.  A fixture of Obama’s stump speech was his desire to change the way Washington operated and to truly unite Democrats and Republicans in working together to find solutions to the big problems facing the nation.  If the last two months say anything about the man, it would be that Obama was dead down serious about wanting to be a uniter.

With his appointment of Republicans Robert Gates and Ray LaHood as secretaries of defence and transportation respectively, he is being true to his word.  Furthermore, Obama has gone out of his way to embrace conservatives and to repeatedly state that Republicans are not always wrong nor are Democrats always right.  He has made it clear that he is willing to hear all sides of an argument regardless of political affiliation.  Last night Obama attended a dinner with an A-list of conservative writers; George Will, Bill Kristol, David Brooks and Charles Krauthammer among others.

It’s early in the game still but if Obama’s efforts so far in opening up the channels of communication are any indication of what we’ll see over the next four years, maybe, just maybe, true change in Washington might become more than stale campaign rhetoric.

Amazing, this woman simply doesn’t give up. Was she not humiliated enough during the presidential campaign? When a staunch conservative like Kathleen Parker wrote in National Review Online of Palin, “If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself.”, what else does one need to understand?

She’s now running around promoting an upcoming propaganda documentary by conservative filmmaker John Ziegler in a futile attempt to undo the serious damage to her image.  Her main contention is that the blame for her tarnished image belongs to the liberal media.  In Palin’s twisted view of herself, it’s Katie Couric’s fault.  It’s Charlie Gibson’s fault.  It’s the liberal media’s fault.  It’s just not her fault.  OK.

She somehow is unable to understand that she comes across as an empty headed buffoon for the simple reason that she is an empty headed buffoon.  The only crime committed by the media was to actually quote her.  But don’t get me wrong, I love Sarah Palin.  I love her in the same way I love watching Seinfeld.  One can sit back, turn off their brain and simply laugh.

I am praying she runs for the presidency in 2012.  I can’t imagine anything more entertaining than watching Sarah Palin debating Barack Obama.

Palin 2012…Go Sarah Go!