Survival of Israel is Dependent on Palestine

Firstly, I would like to thank my co-blogger, Vanillaman for having reposted the Avaaz video. This will help us bring our message of hope to the world. I will now proceed to criticize a few parts of vanillaman's post.

In his post, he mentions that Israeli settlements in the West Bank are actually legal. Maybe they are. Yet, it's irrelevant whether they're legal or not. That can be argued à la Monty Python and that would be extremely pointless. The real question is: what is the point of the settlements? Vanillaman's answer: defense of Israel. But, these settlements have existed ever since Israel took over the West Bank in 1967. These settlements have done nothing but enrage Palestinians and rightly so until they turned hostile. If the settlement's weren't there, maybe there would be more chance for peace.

These settlements are counterproductive and could make Israel lose an ally.

One more argument for an independent Palestine

My last argument for an independent Palestine is the survival of Israel itself. In a short amount of time, the number of Palestinians living under Israeli control (Gaza, West Bank and Israel) will be greater than the number of Jews living in Israel. There will be a choice to make. Maclean's magazine explains it better than me, so I will quote my favourite parts here as it is a long article.

Their country will either be Jewish, but not democratic — in other words, a Jewish minority will control a land mostly inhabited by Palestinians — or Israel will be democratic, but not Jewish, because Arabs will form the majority in what will become a bi-national state.

[...] Still, the consequences of Israel's victory — namely the settlement of occupied territories — have frustrated prospects for peace in the decades since. And now, with Israel perhaps irreversibly entangled in the West Bank, these same fruits of victory threaten Israel's future as well.

[...] Matar is opposed to the creation of a Palestinian state and believes Israel must annex the West Bank and Gaza. When she is asked how Israel could continue to exist as a Jewish state if Muslim Arabs were the majority, she looks genuinely surprised by the question. "I'm not going to give them voting rights," she says.

[...] Our road home skirts the Israeli security barrier. It has been credited with dramatically decreasing the number of terrorist attacks inside Israel, though Palestinians decry it as a land grab because much of it runs inside the West Bank, essentially attaching territory captured in 1967 to the rest of Israel. Mohamed doesn't think the wall has much to do with security because, he says, he's able to cross it at will.

[...] Most Israelis favour a two-state solution.Israel's diverse political landscape, which results in perpetually fragile governing coalitions, makes it difficult for politicians to move this agenda ahead, even when there is a genuine will.

Read more at Maclean's. 

Scary is Governing with Ignorance

It's been blogged about again and again, but that is because it's so stupid and at the same time, scary. With their majority government, the Tories are looking to spearhead an omnibus "tough on crime" bill to increase jail time among other things. Crime prevention will be cut in favour of these measures. You'd think that the Conservatives would pretend to be working with the latest statistics, to agree with the facts. Nope!

“We’re not governing on the basis of the latest statistics,” said our Justice Minister Rob Nicholson. So, we have a government that is admitting to governing with ignorance. That is: ignoring the latest facts and statistics, ignoring evidence and putting in measures that have been proven to be counter-productive. And not only does this not work, but wastes our money at the same time. The facts are clear; let's not ignore them.

“We’re not governing on the basis of the latest statistics,” federal Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said this week. “We’re governing on the basis of what’s right to better protect victims and law-abiding Canadians.”

Read more at the Globe and Mail. 

Palestine is the Best Bet for Peace

An independent state for Palestine is the best way to create peace in the Middle East. Since the creation of Israel in 1948, violence has never stopped, fueled by hatred on both sides. Then in 1967, Israel took over the remaining Palestinian land and subsequently started building settlements to take up the land and resources, squeezing the inhabitants into small pockets. Obviously, when foreigners take over one's land, one isn't too happy about it.

And neither are the Palestinians. That's why they fight against Israel. Because they are living in bad conditions and have no sovereignty. Having their own state will solve that problem. By removing the settlements, there will be no more reason to fight. Hamas will lose its importance as they would receive a victory far greater than any other achieved by violence. And the rebuilding would begin.

Using a UN General Assembly resolution to make an end run around potential negotiations and create a Palestinian state is not a new idea, of course. It’s exactly what was done in 1947, under strikingly similar circumstances, and the resulting Palestinian state became known as Israel. That experience taught us a lot about the hazards of statehood by declaration from above – and about its occasional necessity.

Read more at the Globe and Mail.

Vote Compass Ontario

The CBC is at it again. And being someone who follows politics I find it very enjoying to try these voting compasses. Even though I can't vote in the up coming election me being not in the province in question and all. It is still slightly interesting (not really) that my results were pared up pretty good with the Liberal party of Ontario. Try it for yourself. According to the vote compass I am slightly more to the economic left than the Liberals in the province and am slightly less socially liberal than the premier. And go figure the PC i was no where near close too. Try it for yourself 

Quebec Desreves Everything?

The NDP Brian Topp a man who is running to lead the NDP is proposing that the province of Quebec be given 25% of the seats of the house of commons no matter what happens. Not even considering of course that Quebec today doesn't even deserve 25% of the seats. I don't know if he knows about this, but there is something called "rep by pop" the Liberal party pretty much created it in this country. Even though some prairie provinces and Atlantic provinces including Quebec got some extra seats they got it, because of the laws that were created to make sure they get representation and not be overflowed by the bigger provinces.these sort of laws over represent some parts of the country over the other I think we should move to make our house of commons truly rep by pop by giving more seats to the provinces that are growing much quicker versus the rest of the country. It's to hard to take away seats, but giving Quebec 25% of the seats when it currently represents less than that, and is growing much slower than the rest of the country is just insane. My province doesn't even deserve the seats in currently has. Our commons should be trying to move into the direction of making it truly "rep by pop." This policy is a desperate attempt by Brain Topp. There is no justification for giving Quebec more seats.