Writings, Visitors, Events

[tcpip]

It is more than several days since I've added a journal entry, but not for want of activity. Quite the contrary, there has been a great deal of finger-to-keyboard activity, not the least being a reiteration of the "zero state solution" in a recent article on the Isocracy Network, "Universal Rights from the River to the Sea". Plus my summary of the Environmental conference in China made it its way to the ACFS Newsletter at the end of last month, with a copy made publically available by yours truly. Further, there was the matter of Spartan finally making it in the Top500 world supercomputers after being eligible for many years but for actually conducting the necessary test, meaning that it was deserving of a summary write-up of its story. I have also been writing a great deal on Python performance issues, but these are yet to be released to the public, so that will have to wait for the next entry.

There have been many events in the past several days concerning interstate and international visitors. Liana F., had a birthday gathering last Friday which continued on today for all intents and purposes, with the consumption of a setting-appropriate kirstorte. The Friday gathering ended up at the Creature Bar and consisted of a gathering of four - Liana, myself, Simon S., and Julie A. We are all friends from more than 30 years ago in Perth, so it was an interesting migrant gathering, which was followed up with a visit from James N., and yesterday with a catch-up with Nathan B., visiting from Sydney at Naked for Satan, which provides the best views of any pub in Fitzroy. On Friday and Sunday, I spent time with Mel S., and Victoria S., both from Christchurch which is the other side of my migrant history (I am one of the few in Melbourne who can say that they are both a migrant from New Zealand and Western Australia, but such are circumstances), which included a visit to the Hellenic Museum. Last week also caught up with some of Alison B's friends at Hopscotch bar who were also part of a rather notorious UniMelb club that I had a tangential association with - the Friends Of Unnatural Llamas (FOUL).

On Thursday, Nitul D., took me to an Italian jazz event at the most politically powerful building in the state - government house. It took a while to find an open entrance, and we accidentally gatecrashed a wedding at Garden House for a while, but we finally made it to what is a truly impressive building. The following evening I helped Carla move into her new home (and put up some large but extremely well-designed shelving units), and the following day I joined the youthful Ru's Crew group the following day for another session of the boardgame, "Root" where my mighty river otters succeeded through position and assistance. Another moving session is planned for this Saturday. In summary, it has been a busy past several days - and I really must make use of some of those planned holidays (New Caledonia et al, alas, is delayed to January).

Comments

[garote]

I agree that ideally we should all work from an assumption that human rights are central, and that states and corporations are not entities that can have rights; just regulations.

But the questions at hand are of a more practical nature. There exist two states, both of which are filled with people whose heads are filled with ideas that vilify the other state and feel threatened by its existence. We can't swap their minds out for others that value human life over religious or political ideals. We have to work with what we've got.

As I understand it, one of those states - Palestine - has been subject to intense economic pressure that has left it festering for decades. It's unsurprising that a people living there would accept or even embrace the presence of an armed organization intent on violence towards the people they see as their oppressors. Yes, Hamas calls for "freedom", but it also calls for something else: Extreme and vicious indiscriminate violence towards the residents of Israel, as the world saw on October 7th.

So, what's Israel supposed to do here? Clean up the horrific mess, bury its dead, barter with Hamas for hostages, and otherwise sit on its hands and wait for the next strike?

What are the Palestinians supposed to do, after nearly 20 years of iron-fisted rule by a theocratic state with no oversight that uses its tax revenue to commit atrocities? There is no practical way for them to rise up and rout Hamas from their midst, even if the majority of them wanted to.

Israel's current action considers Hamas a cancer in the body of Palestine, and since surgery has failed, it's now applying brutal chemotherapy. I suspect that once "enough" people have died and been displaced to satisfy the Israelis that Hamas is toothless, the next 20 years in that region will depend largely on how they go about reconstituting the government there. And that's either: Hand the country to the Palestinian Authority (dangerous), hunker down and occupy Gaza indefinitely (more dangerous), or ... ? Are there any other options? No organization on Earth is impartial enough to be trusted by both sides at this point.

How do we convince either side that the core of the problem is their embrace of a religious identity as something more important than the humanity of the citizens of the other state? And, how do we convince backers like Iran and Turkey that their own push from behind - with funding and arms - is just as misguided, and making things far, far worse?

[tcpip]

Palestine is not a state; the Israeli regime has made it pretty obvious (even in the Oslo accords, the "Palestinian Versailles" as Said put it) that it has no intention to ever recognise even a much-reduced Palestinian state.

HAMAS's existence (and behaviour) is essentially the biggest gang in the open-air prison of the Gaza strip and is due to those circumstances (and, Israeli start-up funding in the 1980s).

The actions of Israel in Gaza this past two months have, if anything, created a new generation of people there who will seek even greater retributive violence. Rather than weakening HAMAS, Israel's terrorist actions have created more Palestinian terrorists for the future.

Maybe the authorities think that's going to be someone else's problem.

[garote]

Call it what you like ... state, region, block party ... It doesn't alter the central dilemma. And yes, Israel has no doubt created massive fresh grounds for radicalization with its heavy-handed tactics. If there is an alternative to disassembling Hamas by brute force, that doesn't involve exposing Israeli citizens to attacks even worse than what just happened, I'd be interested to hear it. I personally loathe the actions taken on both sides of this conflict, but my personal loathing doesn't matter much in practical terms.

[tcpip]

HAMAS is a result of the conditions. If the Gaza strip (and the West Bank for that matter) is treated less like a prison and with less apartheid/hafrada then the objective basis for HAMAS's existence will dissipate.