Arkady's Thoughts

An angry muslim woman in Florida , shouted at a group of Israel supporters to "go back to the oven" - fully outfitted with standard muslim regalia . She was not the only anti-Israeli protestor to call for extermination of Jews and even though the organizer for the event denounced the woman's words he quickly added that Israelis are "barbaric" and "racist". What troubles me the most is when the Israeli conflict broke out, I wrote about the first reaction that I anticipated coming down the pipe would indeed be more anti-semitism. According to the article anti-Jewish protests have been on the rise all over America. I find it ironic that Israelis have been accused of being Nazis, racists, murderers and then virtually in the same breath wishing a reincarnation of the Nazi crimes? Beyond not making much sense, it is an illustration that the protestors are swelling with hate and hate does not usually coincide with rational thought. Where were those p...

Obama finally shared his opinion on the ongoing Israeli conflict. "I am being fully briefed and monitoring the situation on a day-to-day basis. The loss of civilian life in Gaza and in Israel is a source of concern to me. ... I am not backing away at all from what I said during the campaign, that starting at the beginning of our administration we are going to engage effectively and consistently in trying to resolve the conflicts that exist in the Middle East," Obama said. "I think it's not only right for the people of that region, it's right for the national security of the American people." So after 11 days, his only opinion is that the loss of life is concerning. Well, no kidding!? Unfortunately that is all we have, Obama prefers to be mum on the matter and is waiting until he is dubbed king..err president to make a final statement. This is consistent with Obama's previous history of shying away from difficult choices. This assessment of the con...

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...