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Cascading Down The Generations

When you read exchanges like this, it’s difficult to have any hope at all for a solution to Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine, not while collective punishment of Palestinians for having had the temerity to fight back against the invaders and for electing someone Israel hates continues.

This is an excerpt from a question and answer session between Israeli and Palestinian school students, which I came across while looking for the podcast of the companion exchange between Tanzanian and English schoolgirls that was featured on Womans Hour this morning.

Question from Boaz, Charles E Smith High School of the Arts, Jerusalem

I’ve never myself met a Palestinian kid and I’d like to know do you do the same things as we do? Do you go out on Friday nights? What is there to do in Palestine and Ramallah?

Semma, The Friends Boys School, Ramallah:

We can go to cafes but the difference is that we’re always worried that a tank will pop out or a bunch of soldiers will come and start shooting and we’ll get injured. One of my fellow Palestinian classmates was supposed to join us today but couldn’t as he was shot.

So you could say that we could go to restaurants, we could hang out, but we always have this big weight on our shoulders. We’re never safe. We’re children living in fear. We’re children living in oppression. It’s horrible but we have to try to make the best of it.

Question from presenter Fred Dove

Would it be better if you could meet each other?

Mohammed, The Friends Boys School, Ramallah:

I don’t think so. I’ve built an image of Israelis. Israeli kids are not terrorists but… they are our enemies right now.

Mazen, The Friends Boys School, Ramallah:

I’m not really interested in meeting any Israelis right now because they are the people who are occupying our country. A lot of people who are Palestinian can’t go to Jaffa, Haifa because they’re living there. Also I think that all Israelis are the same. If you’re 16 now then in two years time you’ll be joining the army, stopping us at checkpoints, maybe shooting us, killing some Palestinians.

Question from presenter Fred Dove

Liron, Ziv and Boaz – do you consider yourself “enemies”?

Boaz, Charles E Smith High School of the Arts, Jerusalem:

No. No. What I do feel is that yes there is anger on both sides and images. I don’t consider them my enemies and I don’t want to be considered an enemy but I can definitely see where they’re coming from when they’re making that statement.

Question from presenter Fred Dove

Can you imagine living in peace?

Ziv, Charles E Smith High School of the Arts, Jerusalem:

As it is now, peace seems very far away. As long as the two sides won’t compromise, there’s not going to be any peace. It’s a terrible situation of escalation. One side blows up a bus. The other side blows up a house. And it’s just a circle of death and there are many hopes of peace… everyone – no matter what side they take – wants peace. But if Palestine and Israel won’t compromise… then the situation is actually going to remain the same.

Mazen, The Friends Boys School, Ramallah:

We Palestinians agree to make peace with Israelis and in a way forget about a big part of their land… but a fair peace, an equal peace.

Mazen, The Friends Boys School, Ramallah:

To us, to the Palestinians, we either live an equal life with equal peace and equal land. Also we’re not willing to keep our Palestinian refugees living out of Palestine and we’re not willing to give the Israelis all our Palestinian land. We want to live in peace but equal peace.

Boaz, Charles E Smith High School of the Arts,

Jerusalem: After what the guys in Ramallah said I sort of feel that it is impossible for both people to live in a single state. So in order to have truly equal peace it’s going to have to come in two countries, because the fact is Israel is a state meant for Jews… but I don’t know how to cut Israel a little bit.

One side cannot see why they should stop resisting an occupation and the constant bombing and state-sponsored assassinations, and the other refuses to understand why they are resisting. It’s tragic. Especially as the Israeli student still, despite being told what’s actually happening to his Palestinian counterparts, just refuses to accept that this is not some sort of an equal contest where both sides are equally to blame.

Those last words of young Boaz are the saddest of all:

“So in order to have truly equal peace it’s going to have to come in two countries, because the fact is Israel is a state meant for Jews.”

If these’re the kind of absolutist, separatist, rightwing values that the Israeli school system is teaching its children, there will never, ever be peace.

Read more: Middle East, BBC, Israel, Palestine, Schools, Education

Congratulations Wetka and Melka!

I only came across this story while googling for something else. Nice, eh?

Tribe blesses lesbian ‘marriage’ By Sanjaya Jena Orissa

An Indian tribe has given its consent to a lesbian ‘marriage’ in the eastern Indian state of Orissa.

A priest belonging to the Kandha tribe led the ceremony between Wetka Polang, 30, and Melka Nilsa, 22, in Koraput district recently.

Both the women are day labourers and now live together in Dandabadi village.

Same-sex relationships are outlawed in India. The 145-year-old colonial Indian Penal Code clearly describes a same sex relationship as an “unnatural offence”.

Sociologists say that a community blessing a same-sex ‘marriage’ is unheard of in India.

It was not easy for Wetka and Melka to convince their tribe that they wanted to get married and live together – the local community at first fiercely protested at the idea.

The two women then eloped to another village to escape the wrath of their neighbours.

‘Unhappy’

After much persuasion by family members, Kandha villagers of Dandabadi finally gave consent to the formal wedding.

We love each other very much. We are leading a blissful married life

“They [Wetka and Melka] wanted to prove that they can live without the help of men. They also love each other very much. So we decided to forgive them,” said village elder Melka Powla.

But the two tribal women had to pay fines to their community to get it to bless their union – they offered a barrel of country liquor, a pair of oxen, and a sack of rice and hosted a family feast.

Eventually, last month, Wetka applied vermillion on Melka’s forehead in the tradition of Indian marriage ceremonies before a disari or community priest, said village elder Dalimangi Chexa.

Now the couple say they are happy.

“We are leading a blissful married life. We love each other very much,” Wetka told the BBC.

Both the women have had unhappy experiences with men in the past.

Wetka says she walked out of her marriage to an alcoholic after years of abuse.
Melka’s family had arranged her marriage with another local man much against her wishes – she managed to break the engagement by telling the man’s family that he was mentally “not normal”.

The two women now hope to extend their family by adopting the son of Wetka’s elder brother.

Read more: Gay marriage, LGBT rights, Lesbians, Women, India

Could They By Chance be Connected?

This from the WSJ, via Sadly No:

And this, from the UN via The Scotsman

The world’s wealth in hands of the few
TARMO VIRKI
IN HELSINKI

TWO per cent of adults on the planet command more than half of the world’s wealth, while the bottom 50 per cent possesses just 1 per cent, according to comprehensive new research.

While income is distributed unequally across the globe, the geographical spread of wealth – which includes property and financial assets – is even more skewed, the study by the World Institute for Development Economics Research of the UN University showed.

“Wealth is heavily concentrated in North America, Europe and high-income Asia- Pacific countries. People in these countries collectively hold almost 90 per cent of total world wealth,” the survey said.

I think we should be told…

Read more: Capitalism, Marxism, World’s wealth, Income inequality

Wait Till They Realise Women Will See Their Tiny Penises

Why not just compulsorily RFID tag everyone and have done with it?

According to free market economic theory, capital must be free to move without borders. Not so real, actual people, the source of that capital. Here’re two chilling pieces of news for those who mistakenly thought they had freedom of movement in a globalised world: first this–

WASHINGTON – Without notifying the public, federal agents for the past four years have assigned millions of international travelers, including Americans, computer-generated scores rating the risk they pose of being terrorists or criminals.

The travelers are not allowed to see or directly challenge these risk assessments, which the government intends to keep on file for 40 years.

The scores are assigned to people entering and leaving the United States after computers assess their travel records, including where they are from, how they paid for tickets, their motor vehicle records, past one-way travel, seating preference and what kind of meal they ordered.

And then there’s this:

Bare naked travel

Published by Pam Spaulding December 2nd, 2006 in Personal Security, Boggles the Mind, Bad Ideas, Body Issues.

The TSA has decided to unleash this invasive horror at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix.

This is a new X-ray screening device designed to protect The Homeland, folks. Are you ready for this level of Big Brother public scrutiny?

Susan Hallowell, the director of the Transportation Security Administration?s security laboratory, allows her body to be X-rayed by the ?backscatter? machine at the Transportation Security Administration in Egg Harbor Township, N.J., Wednesday, June 25, 2003. Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix Arizona will test the new federal screening system that takes X-rays of passenger?s bodies to detect concealed explosives and other weapons. The technology, called backscatter, has been around for several years but has not been widely used in the U.S. as an anti-terrorism tool because of privacy concerns. (AP Photo/Brian Branch-Price)

No need to worry though, there’ll be no invasion of privacy, oh no. Don’t you worry your pretty little heads about that, l’il ladies.

But the TSA said the X-rays will be set up so that the image can be viewed only by a security officer in a remote location. Other passengers, and even the agent at the checkpoint, will not have access to the picture.

In addition, the system will be configured so that the X-ray will be deleted as soon as the individual steps away from the machine. It will not be stored or available for printing or transmitting, agency spokesman Nico Melendez said.

Uh-huh. And I am Marie of Roumania.

There’s a reason they used a picture of a visibly naked woman to publicise this idea: this gadget feeds every now-adult heterosexual-leaning small boy’s fantasy of a machine that let’s you see under girls’ clothes. “Woohoo! We get to look at boobies and they won’t even know! Cool!”

Who knew the operators of the War On Terror read the small ads in the back of comic books?

What these men pushing this horribly invasive bit of kit don’t realise is that the machine can also see the shape, location and worst of all the dimensions of their willies. And the operator might even be a woman…

I give the x-ray 6 months, tops, after that realisation sinks in.

The profiling issue is much more more dangerous – subjective judgements about you based on secret information, that’ll follow you around the world for 40 years – or let’s just say forever -and there is no appeal.

The government notice says ATS data may be shared with state, local and foreign governments for use in hiring decisions and in granting licenses, security clearances, contracts or other benefits. In some cases, the data may be shared with courts, Congress and even private contractors.

Yet the X-ray is getting much more media attention, because you can see boobies and maybe even the outline of some pussy, hur, hur. Funny, that.

Read more: War On Terror, Homeland Security, Airports, Screening, Data Mining, Invasive X-Ray

He’s Not The Messiah, He’s A Very Naughty Boy

I’d’ve thought Sadly, No would’ve been the place for the best Atlas Bugs snark, following UN Walrus of Lurrve Ambassador John Bolton’s resignation, but nope, Lawyers Guns & Money wins on grounds of wit and brevity:

For Pam Oshry So Loved the World,
That She Gave Her Only Begotten Bolton

It is finished.

Praise be.

posted by d at 9:43 PM

I think there should be extra points for pissing off the fundies. And on so many levels too. Nice.

Read more: United Nations, John Bolton, Insane Big-Breasted Zionist Bloggers