Israel, Hamas and the elusive cease fire
GWYNNE DYER — PUBLISHED: 7 MAY 2024
Hamas did not need a ceasefire. It had already demonstrated that Israel could not eradicate it. It had achieved its primary goal of wrecking the anti-Iran alliance that was brewing between Israel and the major Arab Gulf states. And it doesn’t care about how many Palestinians get killed; they are all “martyrs” for the cause.
So why would it have agreed to a ceasetire that isn’t permanent?
Sheesh! Did somebody slip one (or two) of those “new” cure-all psychedelic pills into my low-sodium tomato juice??
Must have, because I’m having wild and weird hallucinations from —I don’t know— 1967? They’re full of long-haired young men shouting slogans against the draft.
I can tell they’re hallucinations because other than the hair, the protesters are dressed all alike in the most un-hip getup ever: not a tie-dye in sight, nary a scrap of paisley, and no roaches anywhere. Maybe it’s a back alley scene from the Haight-Ashbury?
Also, the slogans seem to be aimed at overthrowing the government, but they’re all in some exotic local slang that, from the accents, sounds kind of — kind of, like, maybe, Hebrew?
I know I’m delirious because I heard one of the longhairs talking English to some TV guy, and he insisted they’re gonna make the revolution so they can all be free to — what?? Study Tarot? “Say what?” I asked. “Dude, like, the Age of Aquarius is so over.” He just grunted and flipped me off.
I must really be having a bum trip, I figured . . . .
Continue reading Flashbacks! I’m Having 1967 Anti-Draft Flashbacks! From Vietnam to Jerusalem
Last month I attended two presentations by the new AFSC Director of Quaker Engagement, Brian Blackmore, at Durham and Chapel Hill Meetings here in North Carolina.
Blackmore, just a year in the job, is the successor to Lucy Duncan, a longtime AFSC staffer who was unceremoniously fired in early 2022 when she tried to start a staff uprising to stop a major internal reorganization. Continue reading AFSC: When the Slides Went Awry, And The Key Questions Weren’t Asked . . .
It’s a venerable Jewish joke: a Jew falls off a ship, in mid-ocean, and swims to an uninhabited island. Years later, his SOS signal is spotted. When rescuers arrive, they find he has managed to construct three small buildings from flotsam and jetsam: a small cabin, and two identical synagogues.
“Why two?” He was asked. The answer is immediate:
This one,” he points to the right “is where I go to pray each Shabbos.”
”And the other?”
He snorts. “Why do you ask? That’s the one I wouldn’t be caught dead in.”
Intra-communal controversy and sectarianism are persistent features of Jewish populations, and in this respect, the state of Israel is no exception. And the divide between a strongly Jewish-identified but non-observant majority and a rapidly growing ultra-orthodox minority, known as haredim, is a continuing source of tension.
Continue reading Could Drafting Ultra-OrthodoxYouth Bring Down Israel’s Government?
Gwynne Dyer remains one of my go-to reporter/analysts on the international scene. Here he brings three recent, revealing and concise snapshots.
Three famines: Gaza, Sudan, and Haiti
Gwynne Dyer
There are three incipient famines in the world today, and politics is at the root of all of them.
That’s not unusual, actually: Famines are almost always political events.
My family is descended from the Catholic Irish diaspora, and when I was a boy in Newfoundland we would sometimes play the game of “potatoes and point” at the dinner table. We’d point at the potatoes (there was always a bowl of boiled potatoes with the main meal) and say, “May I have a slice of beef” or “I’ll have some more carrots, please.” Continue reading Three Timely Reports from Gwynne Dyer, from Ireland, Sudan, Gaza, Haiti & England