Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered the Israeli army and other officials to submit to the cabinet a plan to evacuate Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost governorate.
International humanitarian law prohibits the forced displacement of civilians except when temporarily required for their security or imperative military reasons.
Forcing the over one million displaced Palestinians in Rafah to again evacuate without a safe place to go would be unlawful and would have catastrophic consequences.
I say that its time that all states that are party to the Genocide Convention now have a legal obligation BEFORE IT TOO LATE. To take material steps to put an end to Israel’s genocidal acts in the besieged Strip.
If they dont do so we are very likely entering another long and painful era where armed struggle and violent domination become increasingly and mutually dependent on each other for survival. Yet neither can win.
After Hamas’s deadly attacks in Israel and Israel’s hellish bombardment of Gaza is the world going to sit back and watch what remains of Gaza and its people wiped from the face of the earth, endorsing further murderous violence against civilians.
Who gets to count as human?
The real aim of Israel’s lobbying efforts to undermine UNRWA is the liquidation of the Palestinian identity and the right of return of the Palestinian people that the UN agency has come to embody. If the Western states, and especially the United States, continue to bow down to Israel’s genocidal demands they will only add further weight to the accusations that they are complicit in its genocide in Gaza.
What is at stake today is not only the future of millions of Palestinians and the very viability of the Israeli state, but the stability of an entire region, and the future of the rules-based world order.
The Palestinians will remain. They cannot be eliminated. Israel too will continue to exist. The future is full of unnecessary and horrific bloodshed all around.
Terrorist organisations like ISIL and al-Qaeda could not have asked for a better environment to regroup and mount new attacks on the West, as the global majority now views the West solidly as an enabler of the ongoing genocide of an occupied and oppressed Indigenous people.
The international community must first ensure the safety of the Palestinian people.
Given the current gridlock and the total devastation of Gaza, the first step towards ending occupation should be to bring the Palestinian people – who have now been identified by ICJ as a unique “group” – under international protection.
The inclusion of Hamas in any peace process is crucial as no sustainable settlement can be achieved without acknowledging the concerns and expectations of the group that has led Palestinian armed struggle against occupation for many years.
This means the killing must stop, captives on both sides should be released, the siege should end, adequate aid and basic services should reach all Palestinians in Gaza immediately.
The international community must make it clear to Israel that it cannot infringe on the territorial integrity of Gaza by occupying any part of the territory, establishing a so-called “buffer zone” within it or dividing it into smaller settlements.
The international community must unanimously call for an immediate and unconditional cessation of all illegal construction and land-grabbing activities in the West Bank and demand accountability for the violence and aggression perpetrated by Israeli settlers against the Palestinians. World’s nations must insist on Israel decommissioning all the settlers outposts in the West Bank, and obviating any such intentions in the Gaza Strip.
To ensure that the Palestinian people can live freely and with dignity under the governance of their own elected representatives, the international community should officially recognise a Palestinian state based on 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital and commit to ensuring the swift implementation of the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals in post conflict Palestine.
Desperate western attachment to morally bankrupt double standards bears a large portion of the blame.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
If God wanted a ‘flagship’ nation that was an example to the world he sure has got one now.
Not just a whaling wall of religious forgiveness, stricking chest’s, in the hope of jolting awakness.. but a land of no promises with a revelation that no matter what you belive in, there go I but for the grace of God.
Forgive us our Father for we have erred… is now burning example of vengeance. Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth not as God said, turn the other cheek.
My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place.” (John 18:36, NIV) I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.
Of course there are Bibilical quotations for ever situtation.
For the Christian, the Holy Land is birthplace of Jesus of Nazareth and the site of his ministry, for the Moslem, Jerusalem’s Dome of the Rock marks the spot from which the Prophet Mohammed is said to have ascended to heaven. The Qur’an specifies that the Land of Israel is the homeland of the Jewish people, that God Himself gave that Land to them as heritage and ordered them to live therein.
For jews its the promised Land. In Genesis, God promised Abraham that his descendants would inherit the land of Canaan, so Canaan became known as The Promised Land. Modern Israel and Palestine encompass the majority of Canaan.
For the rest of us its any land of promised, any place of complete bliss and delight and peace.
In reality the promised land is a theological concept.
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There is no other example in all of recorded human history where a people were conquered, expelled from their country, exiled, dispersed and then, as a unique community suffered persecution, oppression and multiple attempts at genocide over a period of 2,000 years than Palistian.
On the other hand the list of massacres of Jews in Europe is virtually endless, but the birth of the State of Israel in 1948 did not, in any way, reduce antisemitism, which is on the rise.
Any society that has been influenced by Christianity, Islam, or European civilization will have antisemitism in it, even if there are no Jews living there.
The Islamic persecution of the Jews has its own unique history which is in full swing today.
Israil is now a spiritual cancer without a cure.
So tell me what exactly is Israel’s singularly unforgivable fault, because of which a permanent peace deal with it simply cannot be achieved. Fighting wars? Occupying territories? Having security and repressive apparatus? Granting citizenship on ethnic basis? Being set up by the British in early 1900s upon ruins of Ottoman Empire?
What exactly is a person called Jewish?
Judaism isn’t just a bunch of men in black suits and white shirts, it is a mystical religion that is about revealing the divine presence in this world. They spread throughout the world not by conquest and colonization, but by being conquered and scattered around, persecuted and exiled from one place to another.
Who wrote the Torah? (Consists of the five books of the Hebrew Bible, its primary goal is to convince Jewish people that Yeshua (Jesus Christ) is their Messiah.)
We don’t know. The tradition claims it was Moses, but the Torah itself says otherwise.
The black boxes are called “tefillin.” are actually a set of 2, one worn on the head and a second worn on the non-dominant arm is always bearing God and religion in their minds, giving a sense of masculinity and gender roles, since they are only worn by men.
Why do Jews sway from side to side when reading Torah or praying, trembling.
There seems to be no single reason and I am left scratching my head.
The skull cap is called a yarmulke or a kippah.
It is worn as a sign of humility before God. Some say that wearing the kippah is a reminder that God is always above us, others that it helps to remind Jews that we are separate from the rest of the Nations.
God revealed his character in this declaration to Israel:
“I, the LORD, have called you in righteousness; I will take hold of your hand. I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles, to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness.”
How is any of that different from any other state in the region?
One of the things which always impressed me about traditional Jewish law (Halakhah) is the principle of pikauch nefesh, which states that if human life is in danger, an observant Jew is not merely allowed, but obliged to break any other of Jewish intricate laws that could stand in the way of saving it:
Now compare that to Hamas’ interpretation of Islam, or for that matter with any fascist’s interpretation of their national or religious idea; that unless you’re willing to kill yourself and as much as other people possible in heroic death for the Grand Idea, you’re a traitor to the cause and deserve nothing but death yourself.
So which of these two approaches do you think will be more likely to win wars, build states, maintain a society and endure in the long run?
The Jewish way has shown itself, time and again, able to survive even under the rule of a fascist death cult; while a fascist way cannot even survive on its own, because it will eat itself alive. Hence, the only thing left for it is to blame the Jews, who ruin everything by refusing to die!
Political Zionism, is seeing it as a an attempt to ‘force God’s hand’.
I supported Israel’s right to exist and defend herself, but not to expand by means of genocide and not to treat others whose homes were there unfairly.
(Since Israel is a Jewish state and governed by Jews, many people throughout the world feel increasing support for the Palestinian cause and concomitant opposition to Israeli policies/actions. These attitudes toward Israel may shift into, or be manipulated into, hatred of Jews (i.e., anti-semitism. Many Jews perceive anti-Israel activities as anti-semitic, though this is subject to some debate even within the Jewish community.)
So long as Judaism exists, (a religion out of time) the validity of Christianity and Islam is cast in doubt.
What it boils down to is their religious stance of “being the chosen people.”
When we wonder, “Did God choose Israel and not the other nations?”
For example Iran, which is notable for its anti Israel policies, does not limit the practice of judaism within the country.
Is there any soloution. One State Two State.
The religious affiliation of the Israeli population as of 2022 was 73.6% Jewish, 18.1% Muslim, 1.9% Christian, and 1.6% Druze.
All prophecies are fulfilled in a Federation with a written constitution ( See previous posts)
“Let there be light” is an English translation of the Hebrew יְהִי אוֹר found in Genesis 1:3 of the Torah, the first part of the Hebrew Bible.
So God created in darkness, hopefull it would turn out all right.
All human comments appriciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
We have the spectral of Mr Antony J. Blinken the Secretary of State for the USA (the largest and once the most powerful military country in the world) running around the middle east unable to call for a cease fire in the current war Israel/Palestine.
Why?
Because, President Joe Biden’s promise for the US to “stand with Israel” continues a special relationship that dates back to 1948, when President Harry Truman became the first world leader to recognize the Jewish state, moments after its creation.
Even before 7 October, support for Israel among American Jews – who constitute the world’s second largest Jewish population after Israel – was shifting. At this point, more Americans, but not a majority, think Israel’s response has been appropriate.
The idea that of all nations in the world, Israel alone doesn’t have the right to respond in self-defense, of course is wrong, but as the saying goes two wrongs don’t make a right.
The question is why does the US support a country that is committing a genocide.
I believe this is because americans learned very few details about the role of racist violence in American history. They are not always familiar with the often coded language and imagery of antisemitism.
The answer lies in its history.
The USA is a country founded on immigration, so it has historical roots of support for Israel.
In our current age of unapologetic racism and resurgent authoritarianism, for dismantlers of democracy, there is no better exemplar than a Genocide.
The mechanics of Hitler’s rise are a particularly example.
Hitler had no blueprint for the Holocaust.
Nazis took inspiration from American racism of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
He was a student of history and admired America’s rapid industrialization and growth, which he attributed to a vast, diverse continental empire and agricultural base. So Hitler’s plan was for Germany to emulate the United States.
What possessed a society of seemingly, sane, educated and cultured people to implement a policy of barbarism and depraved violence upon the Jews of Europe during World War II?
Hitler’s understanding of how the American republic came to industrialize and prosper through expulsion of indigenous people and, especially, through the institution of slavery, which is now understood to have been central to America’s economic development.
First by seizing large tracts of productive land by pushing the indigenous populations out. If those natives could not be pushed out, they were to be killed. And then slave labor was to be employed to produce the food necessary to support industrialization and militarization, just as the United States had done.
When Hitler praised American restrictions on naturalization, he had in mind the Immigration Act of 1924, which imposed national quotas and barred most Asian people altogether.
Commodification and suffering and forced labor of African-Americans is what made the United States powerful and rich.
Nazi ideology also embraced virulent European anti-semitism.
The kind of genocidal hatred that erupted in Germany had been seen before and has been seen since.
Why?
First, the very application of the term “genocide” is applied too slowly and cautiously when atrocities happen. Second, the international community fails to act effectively against genocides. Third, too few perpetrators are actually convicted of their crimes.
Seventy years after the UN Convention, genocide remains ever present in our global society. Now consider that only three have been legally recognised – and led to trials – under the convention:
The world watched in apparent indifference. Rwanda in 1994, Bosnia (and the 1995 Srebrenica massacre), and Cambodia under the 1975-9 Pol Pot regime. The widespread killing and displacement of Yazidi by IS and Rohingya in Myanmar and Darfur, are ongoing.
Add the Indonesian genocide of 1965-66 and the Guatemalan genocide of 1981-83, the Kurds in 1988-91 in Iraq, and by West Pakistan forces against Bangladeshis in 1971, the Tamils in Sri Lanka between 1983 and 2009, not to mention the Australia’s “stolen generations”, the Irish Famine that might fall under the UN definition is frighteningly long.
The US, for example, famously never officially recognised the 1915 Armenian genocide as one.
Only by stripping away its national regalia and comprehending its essential human form do we have any hope of vanquishing genocide.
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The “tyranny of hindsight”—the lordly perspective that reduces a complex, contingent sequence of events to an irreversible progression.
So Hitler’s model was in fact the U.S.A.
It goes without saying that he was an extreme narcissist lacking in empathy. a loner.
He had a Jewish grandfather; that he had encephalitis; that he contracted syphilis from a Jewish prostitute; that he blamed a Jewish doctor for his mother’s death; that he was missing a testicle;
Hundreds of thousands of Americans died fighting Nazi Germany. Still, bigotry toward Jews persisted, even toward Holocaust survivors.
These chilling points of contact are little more than footnotes to the history of Nazism.
But they tell us rather more about modern America.
Since Trump entered politics, he has repeatedly been compared to Hitler, not least by neo-Nazis.
What is worth pondering is how a demagogue of Hitler’s malign skill might more effectively exploit flaws in American democracy. He would certainly have at his disposal craven right-wing politicians who are worthy heirs to Hindenburg, He would also have millions of citizens who acquiesce in inconceivably potent networks of corporate surveillance and control.
The above however is not the only reason as such, it is only fair to my American readers to point out.
We certainly live in a VUVA world; Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous.
Undoubtedly our world is becoming increasingly digital and there is a blurring between the digital and non-digital world.
The excesses of social media and the impact that this has on people’s psychological wellbeing needs to be addressed. (I think that psychology; understanding of people, their behaviour and how the mind functions, will be increasingly important.)
Desensitization is an unsettling phenomenon which stems from individuals refusing or being unable to react to or express emotion towards a certain situation. Through the click of a button on our device, we distance ourselves from the serious happenings of society.
Ours is a forgetful age. In an era of instant news, amnesia is baked in. And amnesia has consequences.
While it is vital to be aware of current events and their impacts, like the war in Ukraine and the current Israeli/Palestinian war, both are purposeless if we aren’t able to understand these events and empathize with the people involved.
We spend much of our lives on devices that are designed to need replacing every three years, accessing social media platforms that amplify the sense of a continuous present and an absent past. Everything feels unexpected, as if it is coming out of nowhere. Developments appear unconnected to the past, and indeed to each other. In the absence of a plausible historical narrative, people retreat into tribalism or conspiracy theories (perhaps both) to help them make sense of the pace of change.
The vast majority of people in human history have not shared our views of work, family, government, religion, sex, identity, or morality, no matter how universal or self-evident we may think they are.
They expose vulnerabilities in the national consciousness that:
All men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience.
With one in every ten people in Gava now killed the future of further any peace efforts with Arab nations could now be in doubt, as Israel continues to bomb the Gaza Strip in its effort to punish Hamas.
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Finally:
The spread of white-supremacist propaganda on the Internet. YouTube is a superb vehicle for the circulation of such content, its algorithms guiding users toward ever more inflammatory material.
Given its billion or so users, YouTube may be one of the most powerful radicalizing instruments of the 21st century.
The internet is a breeding ground for loners who have a “vague notion of being reserved for something else. Suicide bomber, Mass killer, may attempt to turn metaphor into reality.
He might be out there now, cloaked by the blue light of a computer screen, ready, waiting.
For me, this digital and data analytically world emphasises the important of social connections and networks. There will be a need for collaboration and for different ways of working.
Part of this will be reflected in the changing power dynamics. Organisations may operate in different ways. This includes social change, climate, and the balance that we want in our lives, simply because the repetition can be overwhelming. When things occur again and again, we become too-familiar with the situation, thus not treating it as important, unable to put intense situations into perspective.
Which inclines us to fawn over the future, and either patronize the past or ignore it altogether.
To sum up, as Albert Einstein said ‘learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.
The important thing is not to stop questioning. A person who never made a mistake, never tried anything new.
The question is, are we happy to live in a world that deliberately creates destitution for some?
Our technology does not help us here.
Now as ever, great-power politics will drive events, and international rivalries will be decided by the relative capacities of the competitors.
Memory, in contrast, should generate humility:
The acknowledgment of our past, with all its strengths and weaknesses, and the recognition that the reason we have the moral convictions we do, and the material advantages we do, is because of our ancestors.
As James Baldwin relentlessly pointed out, we are our history.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
The world today looks very different from the way it appeared thirty years ago.
It is one thing to express your opinion, it is another to do so in a way that actually puts a stumbling block in the way of others.
It’s okay to want to find ways of expressing some nuance.
Not about the wickedness of what’s happened. Not about the horror at loss of life. Not about the fact Hamas are terrorists, committed to the total destruction of the Jewish state.
But about where (like all war’s) is this war going before it ends as all wars eventually do.
How do you draw the line between retaliation and self-defence?
What proportion of vengeance is acceptable?
Is sending hundreds of thousands of troops into Gaza wise?
Is cutting off water and electricity act of justice?
These are complex questions.
Palestine is not a country. That’s the whole point.
Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and Israel all live under various regimes of organized discrimination and oppression, much of which makes life nearly unlivable. But in terms of what happens now, and how the response plays itself out, there might well be room for nuance but first and foremost, we must unequivocally condemn the Hamas attacks for what they were. Any attempt to justify these actions is morally indefensible, and we must firmly oppose the arguments of those who seek to rationalise them.
However the line between punishing evil and revenge can be a fine one, but it’s an important one.
For example, I think Hamas are freedom fighters, turned into terrorists by the west and their recent barbaric acts.
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Let’s distinguish between those questions on which we can be clear.
The conflict and tensions in the Middle East are complex and deep rooted.
Let’s be equally honest about the complexity of this situation and not white wash away the sins of either side.
There is no Biblical justification to what Israel is doing.
There is not Promised Land anymore.
Why?
Because the events are and were unavoidably, part of a 80 year long story of modern times.
A further episode of horror. Israel – using unprecedented violence on a largely defenseless and penned-in population, in part to cover for its own fatal mistakes and embarrassment.
You might even think that Palestinians are the ones colonizing the land of Israel, no less. And you probably believe that Israel, which holds ultimate control over the lives of 5 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza and yet denies them the right to vote in Israeli elections, is a democracy.
WAR IS WAR.
NO INTERNATIONAL LAWS or INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY WILL CHANGE THAT NO MATTER WHERE A WAR IS OR TAKING PLACE.
The one thing war and bloodshed do for us is leave us longing for a new world.
Palestinians always act while Israel only reacts.
(It is amazing that such a poorly trained and equipped group of Palestinians from Gaza could overcome the best intelligence in the world found in Israel. The Israelis were caught napping and their response is influenced by this.)
It is not appropriate to see Hamas as separate from the Palestinian people.
It is a fundamentalist political group, supported originally by Israel, that responded to the secularism and corruption of the Fatah dominated Palestinian Authority.
Whilst we may disagree about what is proportionate. What Hamas have done is wicked, “unprovoked”
What exactly counts as a provocation?
Not the 248 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces or settlers between 1 January and 4 October of last year.
Not the denial of Palestinian human rights and national aspirations for decades.
Israel have human rights, as do other nations, but there are terrorists on both sides, including those in power currently in Israel. Mutually dependent on each other for survival. Yet neither can win.
The Palestinians will remain. They cannot be eliminated. Israel too will continue to exist.
There are roughly 14.5 million Palestinians in the world, according to a 2023 estimate from the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the vast majority of whom are Sunni Muslims, though a significant minority is Christian. Over 5 million live in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and another 2 million in Israel. The remaining population lives elsewhere, mostly as refugees, with the largest communities in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.
As of 2019, about 5.6 million Palestinians were considered refugees by the United Nations because they or their forebears were displaced by wars with Israel.
Today Palestinians are a minority. 1.8 million Palestinians form around 20.8 percent of Israel’s population. They’re not equal. One dominates while the other is dominated. One colonizes. The other is colonized.
Desperate western attachment to morally bankrupt double standards bears a large portion of the blame for this and the resulting wars that have plagued the region.
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The future is full of unnecessary and horrific bloodshed all around.
There is and has been wrongdoing and bad decisions on both sides.
Calling out either one, does no good.
Was the land stolen from Arabs living in the British Protective of Palestine. The land was granted them by an UN charter.
Unfortunately the “land without people for a people without land” was flawed as there were people on that land and that was stolen from them.
We are ignoring the painful context.
If we once again ignore the big picture, then all this will just keep happening.
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THAT THERE IS NO DENYING (BEING LIVE STREAMED IN FRONT OF THE WORLD.) This new outbreak is turning into a Genocide.
SHOULD THE UNITED NATIONS NOW EXPEL ISRAEL? ( LIKE IT DID WITH SOUTH AFRICA DURING ITS APARTHEID.)
SHOULD INTERNATIONAL SPORT AND CULTURAL ORGANISATIONS & COMMERCIAL CORPORATIONS NOW BOYCOTT ISRAEL, WITH TARGETS BOYCOTTS. TO AVOID BEING COMPLACENT AND TARNISHED WITH A GENOCIDE?
SHOULD THERE BE A LARGE DE VESTMENT OF INVESTMENTS IN ISRAEL?
SHOULD THERE BE A MILITARY EMBARGO?
SHOULD AS 83% OF IDRSAI TO DAY SUPPORT ETHNIC CLEANSING ISRAEL BE BAN IN COMPETING IN THE OLYMPICS, THE WORLD CUP AND ALL OTHER SPORTING EVENTS.
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EVEN WHEN ALL OF THIS COMES TO A STOP THE ROOT CAUSE WILL NOT JUST DISAPPEAR FROM THE MAP.
WE MUST APPLY PRESSURE AND NOT BE COMPLICITY.
WE MUST NOT ALLOW GOVERNMENTS TO CLOSE DOWN OR UNDERMINE ANY FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION OR SPEECH SUPPORTING A CEASEFIRE AND POLITICAL SETTLEMENT.
ISRAEL DOES NOT REPRESENT ALL JEWS ETHNICS. CLEANNESS IS A JEWS VALUE NOT GENOCIDE.
HERE ARE A FEW COLLECTIVE ACTIONS THAT WE ALL CAN APPLY.
Boycott:
Hewlett Packard helps run the biometric ID system that Israel uses to restrict Palestinian movement.
Siemens is complicit in apartheid Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise through its planned construction of the EuroAsia Interconnector
Soda Steam is actively complicit in Israel’s policy of displacing the indigenous Bedouin-Palestinian citizens of Israel in the Naqab (Negev).
AXA invests in Israeli banks, which finance the theft of Palestinian land and natural resources
Sabra hummus is a joint venture between PepsiCo and the Strauss Group, an Israeli food company that provides financial support to the Israeli army.
A barcode starting with 729 usually indicates a product of Israel. ( But this is not always reliable.)
Palestinian refugees have long claimed that international law guarantees them the right to return to their homes, citing U.N. General Assembly resolution 194, adopted in December, 1948, which states that refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date.
For its part, Israel largely considers this claim a non-starter, fearing that the return of millions of Palestinians is neither feasible nor just and would demographically overwhelm the country, erasing its Jewish character.
Sadly, 2023 has been a violent one on the global stage.
Many proposals have been put forward for how the current conflicts could, or should, be brought to a close. All will involve concessions that will effectively appease one side or the other without tackling their underlying cause.
The unanimous conclusion rest on a common belief: That wars should, and usually do, end in negotiation and compromise.
The first problem is that they don’t.
It is true that the majority of wars do not end in absolute victory. Ceasefire, armistice and stalemate terminate most conflicts, even if the ‘peace’ is infirm or short-lived.
The second problem lies in the fatalistic quality of many arguments ruling out the pursuit or even possibility of defeat. The third deficiency of arguments to ‘settle now’ is their reliance on false analogies. The fourth and greatest problem is a failure to take account of the character of this war and the outlook of a systemic adversary viscerally hostile to the ‘collective West’ and the international order it claims to uphold.
Negotiation, compromise and reconciliation are undertaken with new regimes only after old regimes are defeated and removed.
This war might not meet legal definitions of genocide, but the barbarism and the serial war crimes that have taken place – material, cultural and now ecological – have not been witnessed in Europe since the Second World War. The war is being waged on an industrial scale OF DESTRUCTION.
Western policy must be underpinned by a long-term strategy – political, military and industrial – based on a sustainable definition of victory, not on a search for negotiation with an adversary whose minimal terms flatly contradict Western interests.
Outlier events cannot be ruled out.
The only way I can foresee either the Ukraine War or the Palestinian Israeli War possibly ending is a change in leadership with new agreed compliant political federation regime installed.
THERE WILL BE WITH CLIMATE CHANGE MANY WARS TO FOLLOW.
Wars of the 21st century will be fought over something quite different: climate change, and the shortages of water and food that will come from it. If you look deeply at the source of future conflicts, I think you’ll see a basic resource conflict at the bottom of it all.
All human comments appreciated. All like and abuse chucked in the bin.
The quest to understand life and its purpose has been around as long as we have.
Today the same question persists: What does it mean to be fully alive?
With the arrival of machine learning/artificial intelligence we are becoming disposable products – here to day, gone tomorrow. Therefore most essential existential drive is to understand the meaning of our own existence, that relates to all of us – rich or poor – left hemisphere – right hemisphere.
This with what the world is now facing, there are no questions more important or pressing ( now and or in the not so distant future), than the above for the whole planet.
It is one of those philosophical questions that can never be answered definitively.
However the conspiracy of greed, in all its forms, is not sustainable for any lifeform, whether it is alive or not.
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Life is short and time moves fast. Your life is not a dress rehearsal – make it count.
There is simply no room for belief in a spiritual realm, or in a scientific view of reality. Period.
No matter what we put in a test tube nothing is going to crawl out alive, it would simply be another kind of physical property.
We defined biology as the branch of science concerned with the study of living things, or organisms.
That definition is pretty straightforward. However, it opens the door to more difficult—and more interesting—questions:
LET’S START.
Do you have to be conscious to be alive. No. It actually isn’t as cut and dry as you think it is. Where does consciousness come from? And how do our brains create it?
We don’t have a great scientific definition of consciousness, and philosophical definitions are disputed, but in almost every conception it has something to do with an ongoing awareness of events beyond the raw computation of their properties and immediate selection of an action.
It might depend on what we mean exactly by consciousness (cognitive/representational abilities? Qualitative experience?) and also by “living” (autonomous subsistence? Self replication? Lineage with biological organisms on earth?).
All evidence is that brains generate consciousness.
Only living matter is susceptible of consciousness, but not all living things have a consciousness in the sense that we employ. Rudimentary life forms such as worms, bacteria, virus, do have a primitive form of consciousness even though they can hardly be said to be “conscious”.
Consciousness results from the antagonistic relativization between biological matter and physical matter. Somehow, within each of our brains, the combined activity of billions of neurons, each one a tiny biological machine, is giving rise to a conscious experience. And not just any conscious experience, your conscious experience, right here, right now.
One of the most compelling aspects of the mystery of consciousness is the nature of self.
Is consciousness possible without self-consciousness? And if so, would it still matter so much?
To understanding consciousness it immediately becomes apparent that like all other biological phenomena and like life itself, it must have evolved in gradations.
People have long pondered what consciousness actually is. What do we even mean by consciousness?
How can a purely physical thing feel like something? Surely consciousness is some kind of otherness?
Perhaps consciousness is an as-yet undiscovered fundamental property of the universe, or is it God himself.
So how far back in evolutionary history should we go to look for the origins of consciousness?
All the way back. Nearly four billion years. Long before animals had brains, or even a nervous system. Back to simple single-celled organisms like bacteria. Back to the origin of life itself.
This is not to suggest that simple unicellular organisms possessed consciousness, or even a modicum of it. Not consciousness, but its building blocks:
The origins of life will never be found. Nor will we ever be able to create it.
Consciousness probably evolved as a way for organisms to go far beyond responding merely reflexively to stimuli—to be able to respond more flexibly, and in a more delayed and planned manner.
Thoughts and feelings seem ethereal, untethered from anything physical.
Self-awareness seems like a phenomenon utterly divorced from anything that could possibly be produced by cells comprised of physical particles. How the same material particles that comprise inanimate matter could be arranged in such a way as to make something alive, without adding that special, mysterious nonmaterial essence. Let alone how inanimate matter could organize itself in such clever and intricate ways through entirely unguided, spontaneous processes.
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Now, in the present century, science is turning its attention to decoding the enigma of consciousness.
Without a shadow of a doubt there is no aspect of the mind that is not entirely the product of, and utterly dependent on, the physical brain. Disruption, disassembly or enhancement of brain circuitry (subtle or major) can radically alter any aspect of the mind.
And yet the mystery of how exactly the brain produces consciousness has remained unexplained.
When does consciousness begin in development? Does it emerge at birth, or is it present even in the womb?
We don’t yet know exactly how consciousness emerges, and very many intriguing mysteries remain.
About six minutes after the heart stops, and the blood supply to the brain is interrupted, the brain essentially dies. Then, deterioration reaches a point of no return and core consciousness – our ability to feel that we are here and now, and to recognise that thoughts we have are own own – is lost.
The moment the brain loses its exquisitely synchronized organization, consciousness is lost.
If that breakdown of physical processes is irreversible, consciousness is permanently extinguished, and the unique organization of matter that constituted that individual’s personhood, self or essence ceases to exist.
Everything that lives dies. Is this true? Yes You only live once. No living thing know when living a life ends.
Indeed, the denial of death is the raison d’être of most religions.
The idea of life after death makes complete sense to our intuitions, and that’s not the only reason why the belief comes so naturally to people.
Because we associate ourselves with our body and we know bodies die this is true, but the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.
Do you believe that your mind, personality, or self is an essence that exists independent of your physical brain?
Do you think of you as a spirit or soul, temporarily constrained and residing in the organ that is your brain—an immortal consciousness merely housed in your earthly body?
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Death has never been popular, especially when it is seen as the final and utter cessation of being.
The prospect’s tolerability increases only when it is reframed as a mere passage to a heavenly paradise filled with all manner of delights—all the more so for those who are suffering or disadvantaged in this life.
It all depend on the observer.
What you see could not be present without your consciousness.
Your eyes are not portals to the world. Everything you see and experience right now‚ even your body, is a whirl of information occurring in your mind so you could live a life without been conscious that you are alive.
So how can a particle change its behavior depending on whether you watch it or not?
Our mind and its knowledge is the only thing that determines how they behave.
The answer is simple, reality is a process that involves your consciousness.
A particle’s exact location and momentum can’t be known at the same time.
So why should it matter to a particle what you decide to measure?
How can pairs of entangled particles be instantaneously connected on opposite sides of the galaxy as if space and time don’t exist?
In 2002, scientists showed that particles of light “photons” knew, in advance,what their distant twins would do in the future.
There are an infinite number of universes and everything that could possibly happen occurs in some universe. Death and Life does not exist in any real sense in these scenarios. All possible universes exist simultaneously, regardless of what happens in any of them.
When we die, we do so not in the random billiard-ball-matrix but in the inescapable-life-matrix. Life has a non-linear dimensionality; it’s like a perennial flower that returns to bloom in the multiverse.
Of course, we live in the same world. But critics claim this behavior is limited to the microscopic world. But this ‘two-world’ view (that is, one set of physical laws for small objects, and another for the rest of the universe including us) has no basis in reason and is being challenged in laboratories around the world.
Until we recognize the universe in our heads, attempts to understand reality will remain a road to nowhere.
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You are alive, and so am I.
The tree’s outside my window.
However, snow falling from the clouds is not alive, or is it
The computer you’re using to read this article is not alive, and neither is a chair or table. The parts of a chair that are made of wood were once alive, but they aren’t any longer. If you were to burn the wood in a fire, the fire would not be alive either, or is it.
How can we tell that one thing is alive and another is not?
As I have said it’s surprisingly hard to come up with a precise definition of life.
Many definitions of life are operational definitions—they allow us to separate living things from nonliving ones, but they don’t actually pin down what life is. To make this separation, we must come up with a list of properties that are, as a group, uniquely characteristic of living organisms.
All living organisms are made up of one or more cells, which are considered the fundamental units of life
Humans—are made up of many cells.
Life depends on an enormous number of interlocking chemical reactions. Living things must use energy and consume nutrients to carry out the chemical reactions that sustain life.
Living organisms regulate their internal environment to maintain the relatively narrow range of conditions needed for cell function.
For instance, your body temperature needs to be kept relatively close to 98.6. This maintenance of a stable internal environment, even in the face of a changing external environment IS ESSENTIAL.
Living organisms show “irritability,” meaning that they respond to stimuli or changes in their environment.
Living organisms can reproduce themselves to create new organisms. Sperm and egg cells containing half of their genetic information, and these cells fuse to form a new individual with a full genetic set. You yourself started out as a single cell and now have tens of trillions of cells in your body.
Unicellular organisms may migrate toward a source of nutrients or away from a noxious chemical.
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Populations of living organisms can undergo evolution, meaning that the genetic makeup of a population may change over time, for instance the basic building blocks of everyday life that have been obliterated in many areas of the Gaza Strip as the Israeli bombardment following Hamas’ deadly 7 October attacks stretches into its third month, will result in an state of unsecure Israel for decades to come.
You might well ask what can I do to change life. The answer is simple – Give and you will receive.
I was not alive in 1066 or 1492 or 1865 or 1920, so I have no way to judge any time except the time I experienced myself. I don’t think anyone can really pass judgment on any time which they did not experience for themselves, without seriously romanticising, or conversely vilifying that time.
I submit that the “golden years” for any generation, or individual, are the years right before you are forced to confront the realities of keeping yourself alive by yourself.
I am a 60th youth. so I could dream about being a part of the changes needed to make the world a better place, without being jaded by the realities of the roadblocks set up to prevent any of these changes from maturing.
We must come alive to be alive. The best time to be alive is today, this moment, right now.
We have some big challenges facing us, like climate change, growing socioeconomic disparity, and threats of an erosion of rights and on going wars. “Yes, we have challenges galore … but those challenges spark imagination, creativity, courage and cooperation (if we are smart enough to rise to the occasion).
It is a battle, but it is possible to win.
That’s a problem because when we act instead of being, we aren’t living in the fullest sense.
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GET OFF YOUR SMARTPHONE.
Engage with the world around you and learning as much as possible. don’t take things for granted or perceive life casually. Being fully alive means being open to all the possibilities of your existence and exploring every part of yourself until you find what…
“Wealth is the ability to fully experience life,” Henry David Thoreau said. Wrong. You need an awakened brain to see life.
To rap this post up we could ask how and what has changed to living one life.
It can be made complicated or simple as the Malthusian trap in 1751 when we allowed machines to think,
– the AI trap.
What about future.
Will a Robot’s develop their own consciousness.
Here, we ought to be concerned not just about the power that new forms of artificial intelligence are
gaining over us, but also about whether and when we need to take an ethical stance toward them.
With each new advance in our understanding comes a new sense of wonder and a new ability to see
ourselves as less apart from — and more a part of — the rest of nature.
Our conscious experiences are part of nature just as our bodies are, just as our world is.
“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people just exist,” Oscar Wilde said.
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TWO WEEKS OF NEGOTIATIONS AND ONCE AGAIN THE WORLD OF LEADERSHIPS SHOWS US ALL JUST HOW PATHETICALLY DIFFICULT IT IS FOR US TO ACT AS ONE.
For the 30 years this climate summit process has been going on there has been no formal recognition of the fact if we are going to avoid the most dangerous climate change we have to phase out our use of fossil fuels.
Instead of the phrase “phase out” the text tells countries to “transition away” from fossil fuels, beginning this decade. Transition away such as allowing a role for “transitional fuels” like gas.
The deal is not legally-binding.
It was probably never going to in a region or in a text dominated by fossil fuels – but it did pass, with some slight watering down.
Why couldn’t the meeting go one step further and promise to leave all fossil fuels in the ground?
Like it or not, fossil fuels are remarkably good at what they do.
Coal, demonised as it may be these days, isn’t just good at firing up power stations; it’s also nearly unbeatable (in its coked form) at helping you turn certain ores into metals.
We still rely on natural gas for most of the world’s nitrogen fertiliser production, without which half of the world would starve.
We still have yet to find a way of mass producing concrete without spewing a lot of carbon dioxide into the air.
And making plastics without oil is, as Lego learnt to its cost, tricky, to say the least.
Actions are more powerful than words. In modern times, this proverbial phrase is used to express empathetic compassion and a sense of good fortune realized by avoiding hardship.
Whether its Merry Christmas or Happy, it is the intent of the message that truly matters.
Let the light of Christmas be bright on green energy.
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We are in a world full of noise, substitution ciphers – concealment ciphers, transposition ciphers, all that can only be deciphered using AI programs, testing millions of combinations per second.
Self learning AI will not address us in the fulness of our humanity, so I suppose it is reasonable to presume that there is no one who knows the realistic answer to this question . .
Perhaps the question should be: Will people relate to each other as people and not as things?
( We live in an unjust society but we wish it were not. The two parts of this statement are inseparable and exist in constant tension with each other)
The ultimate goal is artificial general intelligence, a self-teaching system that can outperform humans across a wide range of disciplines. Some scientists believe it’s 30 years away; others talk about centuries.
This AI “take-off,” also known as the singularity, will likely see AI pull even with human intelligence and then blow past it in a matter of days. Or hours.
Imagine one day you ask your AI-enabled Soul band wrist device to tune in to a broadcast from the Supreme Court, where lawyers are arguing the year’s most anticipated case. An AI known as Alpha 4, which specializes in security and space exploration, brought the motion, demanding that it be deemed a “person” and given the rights that every person enjoys.
Imagine that, in 2065, AIs help run nation-states. Countries that have adopted AI-assisted governments are thriving.
You might think that this is all hypothetical nonsense, however I am sure you are acquittal aware of just how complicated it has become to navigate modern day living, not to mention the array of other intrusive activates of AI. Algorithms, freed from human programmers, are training themselves on massive data sets and producing results that have shocked even the optimists in the field. All creating societies of greed – a problem that is now systemic with the reality that we stand on the destruction of the the very things needed for life in the first place, which is progressing at a run away pace – Climate Change.
How then do we change the world without taking power?
If we don’t want to live lives ruled by a few World clongonmerations without any say?
A.I. experts talk about “alignment” — that is, making sure A.I. systems are in line with human values and goals.
But how can humans remain in control of artificial intelligence (AI)-based systems designed to perform tasks autonomously?
Such systems are increasingly ubiquitous, creating benefits – but also undesirable situations where moral responsibility for their actions cannot be properly attributed to any particular person or group.
How can designers, users, or other human agents be morally responsible for systems that are designed to perform tasks, learn, and adapt without direct human control?
If we are not to have a say, the solution is simple.
However this can not be achieved without : A NEW WORD ORGANISATIONTO POLICE ARTIFICAL INTELLIGENCE IN ALL ITS FORM AND USAGE. ( I don’t speak here of just one AI, but of hundreds, each specializing in a complex task—and many of the applications are already lapping the humans that made them.)
THIS ORGANISATION MUST HOLD ALL CODES THAT DRIVES ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE.
Why?
Because with AI there is no such thing as one truth, only several truths.
Because AI’s will have no boundaries, morally or otherwise.
Power and knowledge are now so intrinsic all connect they are now almost the two faces of the same coin.
Remember that truth in historical discourse is not objective but subjective.
So the truth in AI terms will need to be redefine.
Will robots become self-aware? Will they have rights? Will they be in charge?
There is a terrible logic here.
With all that the world faces in the next decades, our world is presently being towering apart by inequality of values, and it is a fundamental fact that what is decided by AI will vibrate for decades to come, feed with data from mobile phones and social media, inroading what is left of democracy and its institutions.
This is driving populism which does not replace anything, but is contributing to climate change dementia which now has it own momentum, verbally fashioned by a range of human conscious which is evolving in the wrong direction.
ARTIFICIAL INTELIGENCE it is not yet outside the control of human intervention.
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≈ Comments Off on THE BEADY EYE SAY’S: TAKING REVENGE IS PROHIBITED IN JUSAISM. BUT WHAT IS OR WHO IS A JEW?
( Six minute read)
The diversity of beliefs and practices has led to different definitions of “Who is a Jew.”
Judaism is a religion as well as a nation and culture. Approximately 14.7 million people worldwide identify as Jewish. Today, Judaism is comprised of four major movements: Orthodox, Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist.
The above question is not just philosophical, it has political and legal ramifications.
Defining who is and is not Jewish is a contentious issue.
In Israel, questions of Jewishness have implications for immigration, conversion, marriage, divorce, and the allocation of government money.
Is it determined by heritage? By an individual’s choice of whether or not to identify as Jewish? Whether one “looks” or “feels” Jewish?
Or is the defining issue whether anti-Semites, such as the Nazis, would consider one to be Jewish?
All of these factors have been used at different times and places to determine who is and who is not Jewish.
Both the Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Judah were formed by 12 tribes of Hebrew people. While there is historical evidence of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin (which formed the Kingdom of Judah and are considered the ancestors of modern Jews.
In Israel, where there is no civil marriage, marrying a Jew and being buried in a Jewish cemetery can be done only if the person in question is considered legally Jewish. In a synagogue, in order to be counted in a minyan, a prayer quorum, one must be Jewish, and so too if one wants to be called up to the Torahfor an aliyah.
The Israeli Chief Rabbinate controls the marriage process for Jews in Israel, and their definition of Jewishness accords with traditional halacha. Thus, it is common to find people who are granted citizenship as Jews under the Law of Return, but are unable to legally marry as Jews (or marry Jews) in Israel.
Historically, Judaism has held that a Jew is anyone born to a Jewish mother or converted to Judaism in a halakhic manner (that is, according to Jewish law) Anyone with a single Jewish grandparent or a Jewish spouse is eligible to move to Israel and become a citizen under the Law of Return.
So who decides who is a Jew?
The original name for the people we now call Jews was Hebrews.
The word is apparently derived from the name Eber, one of Abraham’s ancestors. Another tradition teaches that the word comes from the word “eyver,” which means “the other side,” referring to the fact that Abraham came from the other side of the Euphrates or referring to the fact Abraham was separated from the other nations morally and spiritually.
The word “Jew” (in Hebrew, “Yehudi”) is derived from the name Judah, which was the name of one of Jacob’s twelve sons. Originally, the term Yehudi referred specifically to members of the tribe of Judah, as distinguished from the other tribes of Israel.
Another name used for the people is Children of Israel or Israelites, which refers to the fact that the people are descendants of Jacob, who was also called Israel.
In common speech, the word “Jew” is used to refer to all of the physical and spiritual descendants of Jacob/Israel, as well as to the patriarchs Abraham and Isaac and their wives, and the word “Judaism” is used to refer to their beliefs. Technically, this usage is inaccurate, just as it is technically inaccurate to use the word “Indian” to refer to the original inhabitants of the Americas. However, this technically inaccurate usage is common both within the Jewish community and outside of it.
Judaism thus begins with ethical monotheism:
The belief that God is one and is concerned with the actions of mankind. According to the Hebrew Bible, God promised Abraham to make of his offspring a great nation. Most ancient societies were polytheistic—they believed in and worshiped multiple gods.
When Jews have been at risk from the surrounding culture or from political persecution, they have turned inward and focused on the particularist elements of Jewish law and practice — the unique, defining rituals and institutions — in an effort to survive as a people.
Of course a country is entitled to defend itself when attacked. Killing is good for preventing a future offense, but not for avenging one already done. It is a deed more of fear than of bravery.
You shall not take revenge… Leviticus 19:18
The duty to respect the commands of the government is clearly stated and emphasized in Jewish law.
After the Hamas barbaris attack in Israel today’s society vengeance is at the forefront with an an eye for an eye making the whole world blind.
If Israel wants peace and to be respected by its muslim Arabic neighbours in this time of sorrow it must give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all.
Deeply traditional Jews and the founders of the Jewish state alike understood that the foundation of Jewish values and identity is the Bible. Yet both the Torah of Israel and rabbinic tradition had very different ideas about authentic Jewishness and how Jews should live.
The Torah demands that we keep far away from lies and falsehood (Exodus 23:7), root out corruption from among us (Deuteronomy 19:19), not defile the land by spilling innocent blood (Deuteronomy 19:10), and not allow murderers to go free (Numbers 35:31).
The Torah also teaches that all human beings are created in the Divine Image (Genesis 1:26-27). This means that every human person has intrinsic dignity and must be accorded transcendent value.
Yet, all these fundamental traditional Jewish values are in peril in Israel today – undermined by so many leaders, the government, rabbis, and by militant hypernationalists.
These values rarely pass the lips of today’s religious Zionists.
Zionism will evolve into just another materialistic amoral, sometimes immoral, coarse struggle for a place in the sun, no different from other nationalisms/ or terrorist group with large hats, kippot, tzitzit, or payot as markers of Jewishness, or by jingoistic calls for wiping out those who are not like us.
These are not Jewish values, only superficial facades and expressions of the vulgar abuse of power that is antithetical to the spirituality of the Bible and our religious tradition.
Below prehaps a better understanding of what or who is a Jew.
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≈ Comments Off on THE BEADY EYE SAY’S. IF YOU ARE SEARCHING FOR A PROGNOIS FOR OUR PLANET LOOK NO FURTHER THAN RIGHT NOW.
( Three minute read)
There is no prognosis execept uncertanity and barbarism.
Six thousand bombs on the defenceless, is turning Israel into a phria of vengance.
However humanity is not just waging war on each other but on nature also.
Creating a a crisis for the entire life-support of our civilation and our species
As with all wars nature is strikes back – and it is already doing so with growing force and fury.
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We can not avert climate cataclysm and restore our planet without trillions, that are now being spent on Wars, nor can we use resources to lock in policies that burden poorer countries with a mountain of debt on a broken planet.
It is time to flick the “green switch”.
As nearly every inch of our planet has been affected by human activity now is the time to transform humankind’s relationship with the natural world – and with each other.
We have a chance to not simply reset the world economy but to transform it. It is time in a race against time to put a price on carbon.
IF NOT CLIMATE CHANGE WILL BECOME MORE COMPLICATED BEFORE IT IS FINISHED.
RESULTING IN MASS MIRTATION WITH THE OUT BRAKE OF MORE WARS THAN WE ARE WITINESSING TO DAY.
Here is a list of concerns.
The earth climate system seems chaotic, with the potential to head off in many different directions.
Melting ice will have a huge impact, either by raising sea levels or amplifying global warming itself.
The whole western Antarctic ice sheet could fall apart.
El Nino may get stuck on or off, triggering megadroughts or superhurricans.
The Amazon could dissaper in a furness of wild fires.
The oceans could become lifeless acid baths.
Smog may strangle the Asian monsoon.
Methane could be waithing to explode.
The gulf stream could change direction with North Atlantic freez over.
None of these will happen in isolation and past climate history does not provide a blueprint for the future. There are no easy anologues.
The distinctive nature of our predicament goes a long way beyond the current wars.
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