Kwtia

Took a few days off to get over an attack of hopelessness...

-----------

Smokers should not expect to be protected by anti-discrimination laws in employment. The Financial Times had a piece that quoted an employer who said 'smokers need not apply' explaining that smokers 'stink', they take more sick leave and suggested that if they were ignoring all the health warnings and facts about smoking then they "haven't got the level of intelligence" needed for the job..

Which is another excuse for me to link you to a piece by Stephen Colbert

-----------

The 'Condi Rice Show' is doing very badly...

-----------

"In addition to regular deadly raids on Gaza, where 1.4 million Palestinians are trapped by an economic blockade, the Israelis have arrested a third of the Hamas government and 36 members of the Palestinian parliament since 26 June." By Anne Penketh

-----------

While the UN fiddles... the Middle East burns

-----------

Lebanon has rejected the UN draft proposal because as Nabih Berri says: " the draft resolution legitimised Israel's occupation, adding that it would "open the door to never-ending war"

Syria and Iran made fun of the US pretending to be mediator while being the biggest backer, arms dealer and apologist for Israel all these years..It's like asking Iran or Syria to be mediators in a Hezbullah dispute..

-----------

Text of the Draft Resolution

------------

Israel also has problems with the draft..

-----------

Robert Fisk: This draft shows who is running America's policy... Israel

"a document of such bias and mendacity that a close Lebanese friend read carefully through it yesterday, cursed and uttered the immortal question: "Don't these bastards learn anything from history?"

-----------

How do some Israelis and victims of Hizbullah attacks feel about the debate between using military might or Diplomacy?

Kibbutz mourners call for diplomacy
By Eli Ashkenazi
"Based on the conclusion that the military operations of the past 31 years have not brought quiet to the north, but only more and more bereaved families and graves, what will you do, from today, to stop the chain of wars and victims within the borders of the state where our kibbutz lies?" Baumel asked. "Will you find the diplomatic path, which exists and which we all know what it is, or will you continue to stick, with blind faith, to the gods of killing and bereavement?"

Kol HaKavod to voices like this...we are all tired of this insatiable thirst for blood.

.

The Kibbutz can add its voice to that of the father of hostage soldier Gilad Shalit, who has been calling for negotiations to free his son from the begining...They can also add their names to the over 100 Israeli intellectuals who signed a petition accusing the Israeli government of war crimes...also there are the refuseniks and 5,000 protesters in Tel Aviv...yet PeaceNow is silent...In the New York Times, Tikkun put in an ad for "an end to the slaughter in Lebanon, Israel and the Occupied Territories" ...and yet, Peace Now is silent... Gush Shalom is protesting....And yet Aviv Gefen the poster boy for peace...says this war is justified..the tide is all over the place..

--------------

Yitzhak Laor (The writer who initiated the petition mentioned above) writes in Ha'aretz:

"That is the great trap of military thinking, the Israelis' only way of thought regarding the conflict: not only belief in the need to be superior, right or wrong, able or not able, but especially the inability to think in terms of the other side, not as an object translated and interpreted by the Intelligence Corps, but as human beings."

Many Arabs need to think about how they also fall into this type of thinking...

-------------

Ha'aretz's Danny Rubenstein writes:

"Those in power in Israel are portrayed now, more than ever, like foreign agents striving to serve American interests. They are striking Hezbollah in order to hurt the Iranian "patron."

"The Palestinian media highlighted an item in which lawyers in Morocco are suing Amir Peretz - who, according to them, holds a Moroccan passport - for war crimes."

-------------

"Shulamit Aloni, a human rights activist and former minister of education, said, “This is a reckless war… The army introduced its ready-made plan while the government didn’t have any plans. In our country, the army is a sacred cow, [people] believe in it blindly, on the pretext that it understands security issues better than anyone else does." Asharq Al-Awsat

-------------

Enough...Kafa...yesh gvul, lo?