Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Mideast mess, spilling elsewhere

What the world needs now is ... not the unholy mess coming out the Mideast. Yet again.

Hard to know what to say, that hasn't already been said. It's the usual cycle of violence that serves no one. Hamas was not in the right to be rocketing Israel, and Israel isn't in the right with its shock-and-awe campaign against the Islamic paramilitary group. If these were children, we'd sit them all down in the corner and take away their marbles. Unfortunately these children all have high-tech weaponry, and millenia of religious grudges to work out.

Now Indonesian militant groups are said to be recruiting fighters to send to Gaza, the government is calling on the UN to decry the Israeli attacks, and Indonesian medical teams are on the way to help out. The vast membership of the Muhammadiyah group is actively lobbying for sanctions to help end the bombings.

In other words, this is spilling beyond local borders, poisoning religious and cultural relations far beyond the limits of Gaza. For what it's worth: Stop.


Today's Top Stories

Jakarta's history gets its due
Heritage sites largely untapped

Gus Dur speaks up
Former president condemns Gaza attacks

China VP on way home
Li Keqiang visited Indonesia, Egypt, Kuwait

Rupiah stable - for now
More currency trouble could be on way in 2009

6 comments:

Brett said...

Something tells me that if Israel had the same rockets, instead of US funded warplanes and an undisclosed number of nuclear weapons, the whole thing would sort itself out pretty quickly. And if not, well who would care? They would just be throwing stones at each other! ;-)

Christopher Taylor said...

I suppose on the continuum of weaponry, stones are better than nukes ...!

Therry said...

And for some reason, they choose to demonstrate in front of The US Embassy, KFC and McDonald's franchised restaurants!

It's getting more and more ridiculous each day.

PS: I'm thinking of taking a side job as a second-hand tire dealers - seeing as everyday there are always some demonstrations going on, and they are always burning used tires, for some strange reasons, I'd make really good money selling them!

What do you think?

Christopher Taylor said...

Now there's a born entrepreneur! Then it would be in your financial interest to stir things up ...

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