Saturday, May 02nd
Last update08:36:58 AM GMT
Editorial Glance
A retired Air National Guard general called Thursday with three worries. Something bad's gone wrong in this country," said retired Brig. Gen. Tom Daniels, 62, of Fort Worth.Most Americans ever since have seen the destruction of the populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as necessary and effective—as constituting just means, in effect just terrorism, under the supposed circumstances—thus legitimating, in their eyes, the second and third largest single-day massacres in history. (The largest, also by the U.S. Army Air Corps, was the firebombing of Tokyo five months before on the night of March 9, which burned alive or suffocated 80,000 to 120,000 civilians. Most of the very few Americans who are aware of this event at all accept it, too, as appropriate in wartime.
Too many in the West remain unaware of the impediments to economic development — not to mention political freedom — we Palestinians continue to face.
Some Israeli checkpoints have been dismantled, but any Palestinian businessman will tell you that with over 600 checkpoints and roadblocks still scattered across the West Bank, we remain in a tenuous economic position.
Defaming Judaism and Holocaust denial are indeed anti-Semitic. However, criticising Israel and revealing the ugliness of its occupation of Palestine is nothing at all near anti-Semitism. In his Aftonbladet’s article (17/08), the swedish photographer and freelance journalist Donald Boström, neither criticized any religion nor denied any genocide. All what he mentioned is a crime, he witnessed, about involvement of the Israeli army in illegal killing for Palestinians and harvesting their organs.
What's striking are the continuities in American foreign and military policy, no matter who is in the White House. The first-term Obama foreign policy now looks increasingly like the second-term Bush foreign policy. Even where change can be spotted, it regularly seems to follow in the same vein.
Several days ago Dr. Neve Gordon of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev published an opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times. In that article he explained why, after years of activity in the peace camp here, he has decided to pin his hopes on applying external pressure on Israel - including sanctions, divestment and an economic, cultural and academic boycott.
He believes, and so do I, that only when the Israeli society's well-heeled strata pay a real price for the continuous occupation will they finally take genuine steps to put an end to it.
Within a short 26 years, the United States expects to add 100 million people by 2035.
All totaled, human beings expect to grow from 6.8 billion in 2009 to reach 7.0 billion in 2011. From there, census reports show humans expanding by another 2.0 and possibly 3.0 billion within 40 years.
STAGGERING INDIFFERENCE OF MEDIA, LEADERS AND CITIZENS IN USA
In America, human population numbers add 3.4 million annually to our already unsustainable society—on our way to an added 100 million by 2035. We suffer carrying capacity issues as to water, energy and food—yet not a peep by the media. News outlets report on “greening” our future, hybrid cars and conservation—but they refuse to deal with the granddaddy of all our problems: hyper-population growth.
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