Opinions
Obama deserves credit for careful assessment of the alternatives and acceptance of the final choice to use the SEALS.
Speaking on the Middle East he asserted that resumption of the Palestine peace process required Israel to revert to pre-1967 boundaries, emphasised America's "unshakeable" support of Israel and maintained the condemnation of Hamas despite its choice by democratic election, which should have triggered a change in US policy to persuade it to a more moderate stance, as now suggested by its alliance with Abbas.
Few were prepared for the boorish and arrogant response of Israel's Prime Minister Netanyahu condemning Obama's position and Palestinian hopes incredibly made in the US Congress where he was a guest. Even more astonishing was the applause from Congressmen, suggesting that none of them has any idea of the history of Mid-East conflict.
It is sad that truth and justice must take second place to self-seeking. Israel has been for the last 40 years one of the most domineering regimes among nations basking in United States' support yet flouting the wishes of successive American administrations and of the United Nations as it rampaged over Palestine and neighbouring countries killing and expelling Palestinians.
Netanyahu's hypocrisy is astonishing. He preaches democracy and simultaneously denies it to the people from whom Israel had stolen the country. His party has consistently opposed peace efforts and promoted belligerent acts, including the notorious wall which recalls the worst of German communism in Berlin.
Hamas's position in Gaza is as legitimate as Netanyahu's in Israel but Netanyahu seems to suggest that democracy does not include the results of a legal Palestinian election.
Obama's position will be unpopular among conservative Jews but moderate elements may welcome it as a solution to continuing conflict.
It is possible that Netanyahu's recalcitrance and unwillingness to return Palestinians' lands are simply expressions of Jewish tradition. In a small store in central Florida I bought a copy of the Holy Bible, casually opened it on Joshua 8:35, which says in part, "and the Lord said unto Joshua, 'Fear not, neither be thou dismayed, take all the people of war with thee, and arise, go up to Ai: see, I have given into thy hand the king of Ai, and his people and his city, and his land...'" Instructions follow on how to besiege Ai and slay the inhabitants; "and it came to pass when Israel had made an end of slaying of Ai in the field, in the wilderness wherein they chased them, and when they were all fallen on the edge of the sword, until they were consumed, that all the Israelites returned unto Ai and smote it with the edge of the sword. And so it was that all fell that day, both of men and women were 12,000, even all the men of Ai. For Joshua withdrew not..until he had utterly destroyed all the inhabitants of Ai. Only the cattle and the spoil of that city Israel took for a prey...Then Joshua built an altar to the Lord God of Israel..."
This and other Old Testament accounts of Jewish conquest might explain the brutal reaction of Zionists to those who stand in their way.
But we are today 3.5 millennia later and in a different more global society with advanced technology, international institutions and revolutionary communications. Instead it seems that Israeli leadership is solidly rooted in the distant past, and changed only in the quality and quantity of its armaments.
Netanyahu and his ilk should wake up, and see over the top of the rut of past millennia in which he stands firmly submerged and realize that his 6 million population, however powerful they have become through American charity, patronage and Rothschild/Wall St money, are only six millions and cannot forever dominate the hordes of other Middle Eastern groups around them, and that their rigidity will foment increasing conflict, with the real threat of Armageddon.
Israelis possess nuclear arms and people like Netanyahu will pull a nuclear trigger as so many moderate Jews fear. Yet Netanyahu's brinkmanship seems solidly supported by anonymous men and women, such as the mystical 'bonesmen' and promoters of the New World Order. If this is the case then Obama might well be tilting at windmills.
Why I love fishing
and 'pelting' mangoes
One of my first memories of how I grew to love fishing and "pelting" mangoes was gathering firewood with Ma. She would say, "Boy, come with me. We going 'Up-the-Hill'."
I was a willing participant. It meant crossing the bridge over the river.
By then I had already developed a routine despite my young age. I would wait patiently until Ma went to the back by the cattle pen (that's another story) for the rope to tie the bundle of firewood. I was quick about it. Ma always saved a few pieces of burnt and misshapen roti to feed the chickens. These she would break, or rather, crack into pieces, and soak in
an enamel plate with water. She would call the chickens even as they ran to her. They too had developed a routine.
With her ankle-high "gangaree" lifted and tucked into her waist, Ma would lean backwards and make her calling sound so that the chickens knew it was feeding time.
"Ah! Ah! Ah!" Ma sang into the evening. The chickens ran to her as if shot from catapults, half flying off the ground with excitement. She would toss the wet, soaked pieces of roti into a roiling sea of feathers, a flapping of murderous wings being wielded as clubs, and a well-established pecking order. Some of the pieces of roti would either be too large, or remained stubbornly resistant to the water-soak in the chipped enamel plate. And so, a few chickens stood outside the feeding circle, struggling and choking to get the tough roti down, eyes bulging, necks thrusting up and out with herculean, peristaltic effort.
Their quota of the evening feed would be significantly reduced when Ma and I went "Up-the-Hill" to gather firewood. I would quickly pocket the few pieces of this old and hard roti when she was safely out of the way in the cattle pen. The roti was as stiff as a piece of board. Some of the pieces when snapped sounded like the breaking of dry twigs.
Ma was a quick walker. She made up for her diminutiveness with a pace that quickly lengthened the distance between us as she strode. Of course, I malingered – kicking a pebble or two, or stopping with some exaggeration to inspect a dead insect on the dusty, gravel road. My ulterior motive was to have her put as much distance between us after she crossed the bridge under which the river flowed.
It was dark under the bridge where the river disappeared on one side, to emerge with effervescence into the sparkling light on the other. Ma would be striding up the hill when I dropped a few pieces of the purloined roti into the water on one side of the bridge. I would quickly run to the other side to watch it emerge.
Following the roti as it floated away with the current were sleek, lithe fish. They lived under the bridge, in the shadows and among the weeds that grew there. They emerged to chase the roti, grabbing it with a plop on the surface and pulling it down and back under the bridge. Sometimes there was a roiling, similar to the chickens, as the fish competed for the roti crusts.
At times I would be rewarded with the appearance of a fish as long and thick as my youthful person. It would glide out of the darkness, causing the smaller fish to scatter like torpedoes. A row of sharp teeth would grab the roti and immediately reject it with a contemptuous shake of the large head. As it arrived, so the fish left – a flash of silver and then the renewed gurgle of a timeless, flowing river.
By then Ma would be calling insistently from the distance. The wind would bring her voice down from the slope of the hill, its tone a thrill of vexation. I knew well that to push an extended stay on the bridge over the river could turn disastrous when I caught up with her. A wilderness of shrubs thrived on the hill. A "switch" was just too handy for Ma to "crack" a few lashes on my tiny legs, with a stinging reminder on my thin behind, as she intoned that I could fall into the river.
We gathered firewood from under the mango tree. It was tall with boughs that grew out of a solid trunk that would take more than a few boys my age to wrap their arms around. The wind that had carried Ma's calls to me was a gentle flutter among its leaves. Among the green were hints of yellow, ripening mangoes.
I aimed for the sky, fruitlessly pelting with Ma's gathered firewood. I could reach only the lower branches. Ma's hard work became permanently entangled. No mangoes fell.
"This child over harden," she would say, holding the small of her back with both hands and shaking her head at the smaller bundle of firewood. As we trudged home, I wondered what she would say when she discovered the roti missing that she used for chicken feed.