Arkady's Thoughts

An ongoing story with the Iranian ship suspected of carrying weapons for Hamas has taken an interesting twist. Last week US released the ship after determining that the cargo was not intended for Hamas , despite the fact that Iran is in clear violation of a UN resolution preventing Iran from selling weaponry. The ship is now in the custody of Cyprus and according to the latest story from DEBKAfile and surprisingly from AsiaNews , Cyprus finds itself in a pickle. US who just let go of the ship is pressuring Cyprus to search the ship and take action. One might wonder why the United States is pressuring Cyprus to do a task, that could have been just as easily done last week. Consequently, Iran is threatening Cyprus with economic and possibly military retribution if the ship is not released immediately. Cyprus fears that if the ship is released, then Israel will be forced to intervene and handle this mess in ways Israel sees fit. This could have the potential of escalating already very t...

This is a story that the good folks over at the PatriotRoom are covering. Tthe gist of the story is as such; Iran's ship was stopped (by US/Egyptians) and it turns out that they are secretly smuggling about 60 tons of weaponry to Hamas . We are talking long ranged missiles, anti-tank weaponry, mines, machine guns, the whole lot. I bet they would find some explosive rigged camels if they search the ship thoroughly enough. Iran can send food, medicine, aid and clothing to the Palestinians, instead they choose to send war materiel. Where is the international pressure? Where? Where are the protesters who go and march in the streets bashing Israel at any opportunity? Why does Gaza need even 1 ton of weapons, let alone 60? Humanity is flipped on its head and it is frustrating. Lastly, Obama has to act on this. Currently the ship is in US/Egyptian control, but in order for them to act in any meaningful way there must be an order from the top. I await extremely strict and damaging rules/...

As you have may have heard this Saturday, Israel politicians approved a cease-fire stating that accomplishments have been made. I wrote previously in what was the point of the fighting if eventually Israel would simply bow to international pressures and bow they did. You see, it is estimated that there are roughly 20,000 Hamas militants in Gaza and the latest death tolls suggest that roughly 500-600 have been killed. I am not a math whiz , but that still leaves a lot of Islamic fundamentalist J ihadists roaming around. What did Israel do in the past three weeks? Took out leadership and high command Bombed some tunnels and halted shipments Destroyed rocket launchers and crippled infrastructure. That would to be expected of course, its not reasonable to expect the IDF to kill thousands of Hamas militants - but it begs the question as to what is next!? As of now, Israel makes no plan to withdraw, which of course is the ultimate irony because Hamas justified rocket fire due to occup...

Ron Paul got up in front of Congress and very simply in about two sentences, stated that Israel created Hamas . (Video below) The problem of course is that as a politician he created himself some wiggle room in case he is ever confronted, after all he could spin this in a multitude of ways. He could easily say "Israel never stopped Hamas from forming, therefore they helped create them". Whatever, not the point. What Ron Paul did however is set off a virtual firestorm among his constituency and much more importantly, among the anti-Israeli crowd as if they need any additional encouragement. Just perusing the YouTube videos alone, will give you an indication of how passionate and emboldened his supporters are upon hearing this. They praise him for being a lone voice of reason, a hero, etc. The truth is that Ron Paul is either purposely spreading vague misinformation or somehow - I have a hard time believing this - truly believes this garbage. For now we have the effect ...

CNN's lead story: Doctor: Gaza patients dying before treatment Gaza's main hospital, already full of Palestinians wounded in the week-long Israeli air assault, reached critical mass on Sunday, according to a Norwegian doctor volunteering at Shifa Hospital. full story And showing the following picture (Notice that the people in the background are actually Israelis!?): Secondary story: Aid stuck at Egyptian border Third Story: Israeli troops push forward, splitting Gaza I probably should not be at all amused at this point, but it is just rather dissapointing to know that a good number of Americans are being fed a constant diet of civilian death stories. After a while any sensible individual would conclude that the only thing Israel can do is cause death among innocent civilians. Bravo CNN, bravo.

This is the picture on the main page of CNN.com and the caption reads "A Palestinian brings his wounded daughters to a hospital in Gaza City today. ( AFP /Getty Images)" Meanwhile FoxNews .com is showing a story about the son of one of Hamas's founders and how he turned against not only his family and Hamas , but also Islam. Which story do you think is more important? What is more relevant to the education and overall information of Americans? Everyone knows that there are dead civilians, war is such an ugly thing - especially considering that Hamas is using civilians as human shields (won't hear that from CNN). CNN is just flooding us with emotional images to turn the minds and opinions of Americans against Israel. I find this to be rather off-putting.

As I watch the war versus Hamas develop and the ground invasion roll out I am thinking to myself, what is the purpose of all this? Some of the effects are quite clear, others are a bit muddied. Clear effects are the easily tangible and observable ones. A most striking and obvious phenomenon is that everyone has an opinion. The blogosphere is rife with opinions; some angry and passionate, some muted and somber. Coverage is non-stop and the pundits offer a bouquet of insight and opinions. What is clear to me at least, is that this particular war that started in the hay days of 2008 is a very polarizing war. People have for the most part scurried into two major camps; First camp is of the opinion that Hamas must be wiped out at all costs, the second camp believes without equivocation that Israel is in the midst of genocide and performing atrocities every day. Naturally there are some (minority) that find themselves in the middle, sympathetic to the plight of Israel's security and...

No, not what you think folks. This is not a traditional physical offensive, but rather a psychological front. The Israeli army has started to upload certain exclusive videos to their channel on You Tube showing certain actions they find important. Not to be outdone, Hamas and their supporters have started uploading counter videos and images. In fact, there were so many Hamas supporters that certain videos from IDF were flagged as objectionable. YouTube pulled the video, but restored it a few hours later due to clamoring from Israeli supporters. Here is the YouTube channel from Israel: IDF on YouTube I am unable to locate the Hamas website, if anyone knows of one please let me know. It would be interesting to see the point of views from the two difference forces. Happy New Years!

How can this be? We have a conflict that is so decisively clear to our current administration, Canada and even the leader of the West Bank (M. Abbas). Yet, our president-elect cannot formulate an opinion? There is video footage showing Hamas hiding rocket launchers smack in the middle of residential neighborhoods and specifically force Israeli air strikes to potentially kill civilians. Yet, this is not enough information to persuade the president-elect to voice his thoughts on something that can be described as a war crime? People should be demanding leadership, yet everyone is comfortably numb with the deafening silence. You know why he cannot? Because his true opinion, is that he does not have one. He sympathizes with the dead Palestinian civilians as does everyone else and he sympathizes with the Israeli civilians, as do some people. His bleeding heart is rendering him useless, for he cannot see the distinction between right and wrong. To Obama: Firing rockets for the purpose of k...

According to this story a violent series of air strikes has left the Gaza strip in utter destruction, with 200 people dead and another 200+ injured. It is unclear as to what prompted such a backlash, but apparently Hamas fired longer ranging rockets this time. UPDATE: I recognize that Hamas has been firing rockets for years and has launched thousands in that time. I was unclear as to why this last firing served as the catalyst for this war. What is disturbing about this development is the timing. Anti- semitism appears to be on the rise and with US continuing to defend Israel the anti-Jew crowd will have more to scream and shout about. My observations, and they may be purely coincidental is that a growing number of people are holding the Jews responsible for our financial crisis. I am seeing this on YouTube, specific websites and forums. There are circles that are known for hate - like the white nationalists or Nation of Islam Muslims , but now a group of disenfranchised Ron Paul s...