So much has happened in the world in the last couple of weeks. Where should I begin? Lets start on Israel. Well, its not the first time I blogged about Gaza, and I have a feeling this would not be the last as well. 9 Turkish activists including one holding US citizenship were gunned down in a floatilla which tried to deliver humanitarian aid to the blockaded area of Gaza. 30 shots were shot, a few people were shot at the back of the head. Israeli soldiers did it out of self-defense claiming that they were facing death threat from terrorists who tried to kill them. Again, how do we define āTerrorismā? Israel has been living under constant rocket attacks from Hamas inside the Gaza strip. That was why the blockade was placed, in which collective punishment on the thousands of Gazans living in what can only be described as a ghetto. Watching the news, I found out that chocolate is a commodity which is forbidden. On facebook, my American friend Zac wrote on this status, āIām just catching up on this developing story again, but now it looks like 19 civilians were killed by the Israeli Defense Forces, which is more than the number of Israelis who have been killed by those makeshift rockets in the past 10 years @_@ā. End of 2008, early 2009, Israeli forces moved into Gaza with their tanks and helicopters bombing what they claimed to be terrorist cells. Yet, an UN school was hit, thousands of peopleās homes were demolished. Walls were errected around the parameters of the strip, sea blockade extends a few miles off the Gaza shorelines. Any further than that you enter Israeli military zone in which you would be killed. UN aids have been allowed into Gaza in limited supplies. Everything must be done in Israeli permission. This time, as the ship with over 40 nationalities on board left for Gaza, the Israeli response on these humanitarians, or as BBC like to call them - Pro-Palestinian activists, were shot at, I ask the question: how much longer will the world remain silent on this issue?
I was not at High Street Kensington these couple of weekends as thousands of protesters line the High street outside the Israeli embassy. I donāt see the point. I guess there are many layers of expressing our concerns over this issue. For me, its through blogging and possibly facebook, although I havenāt been very vocal on both of them. Perhaps a part of me has already grown numb to Israelās treatment on Gaza. More so after I saw pictures after pictures of dead children being pushed into ill-equipped hospital. Perhaps I should be on that floatilla heading towards Gaza.
Another major developing story: BPās attempt to stop the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. A silent confession was that I was secretly glad that this was happening in the US. Of course, I sense the hypocrisy of my sentiment as I myself is guilty of driving a gas-guzzler (not that guzzling I suppose given its around 43MPG) around 50 miles a day. The reason I am secretly glad is because after all this rhetoric of āDrill-Baby-Drillā business, they are finally getting a taste of their own medicine. Donāt get me wrong, seeing the birds, dolphins, turtles etc covered in oil does break my heart, but at least now they would push towards to more greener, less carbon-reliant economy. Bad news for the economy of Gulf in the middle east, but good news for the environment. As you can see on my facebook, I am quite vocal about my disappointment in Obama.
As the world lives another day, we all learn another lesson. Yet, history is never a lesson learnt. Just as money corrupts, power corrupts. I guess even someone who talks so highly of morality as Obama could be corrupted by power (by his seemingly over cover-my-back attitude towards this oil spill), what hope do we have?