Israelis and Palestinians

I was a bit conflicted over what to write about this time.I'm stuffed after a big family dinner, my head hurts a bit, I have the flu and my little cousin (whom I love) won't stop discovering the world. I read an article about Wikileaks and how even the Swiss bank who has protected drug lords and Nazis has refused to service Wikileaks on the basis that Julian Assange gave out misinformation about his place of residents (gasp!). For that article follow this.

Israeli Settlements

Instead of decided to talk about the Israeli Palestinian conflict; not the entire conflict itself because it's history will be too long for a blog like this and should be left for the history books. However I did bump into several articles that I thought were worth mentioning: Agreement for peace seems more hopeless than ever as the Obama Administration tries to push through peace negotiations. This became evident after the U.S. failed to get Israel to extend a freeze on settlement construction in the West Bank.This was in direct defiance of the administration's statements against the settlements. After that the State Department decided to move on and not stick to the issue as Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas said that negotiations could not continue as Israel built settlements on their land.

Just though this was representative of recent edicts and letters.

Shortly after, life for Arabs in and around Israel got worse as hundreds of Rabbis published a religious edict forbidding Jews from selling or renting houses to Arabs. As a result, but which got far less media attention, a letter by the New Israel Fund (which is a progressive organization in the United States for peace) condemning the edict was signed by almost a thousand Rabbis around the world was sent to the hateful Rabbis (of course there edict still stands). More recently, a letter by 30 Rabbi wives has been sent out to Israeli girls advising them not to date Arab men.

Hamas-- generally considered an extremist organization

Of course, Anti-semitism in Palestine is widespread as a country that identifies itself as "the Jewish state" helps make their lives worse; they draw a connection to the Jewish people. Admittedly, both sides extreme show hatred to one another as Muslim extremists can't stop rambling on about the evil of the Jewish people; these need no links because it's so blatantly obvious to anyone who understands even a tiny amount about the conflict.The problem is, Israel elected a right wing party to its government in the last elections and all these hate-filled messages from Israel come at a time when things are already unsettling as they are. Furthermore, Hamas isn't giving up on it's goal of replacing all of Israel with a one state solution of Palestine. So if peace seemed likely at any point (which it didn't) the situation is even more dire now.

Ban Ki Moon -- UN Secretary General

There is hope however. The UN is directing it's attention at stopping the settlement building in the West Bank which will help to bring Palestinian leaders to the table without the shadow of the Israeli settlements. At the same time Palestinians are now turning to the UN Security Council to condemn the settlements, which could, if passed, set the tone for future negotiations as the legitimization of the settlements garners less support.We can always hope for a change in the next Israeli elections to more reasonable leaders? Can't we? Of course, Hamas is getting more unpopular as efforts by the U.S. and Israel seem to be working at making the millions in Gaza live horrible lives.

This isn't just a hit at Israel, since the media is afraid to publish Wikileaks cables about it, because the Palestinian side hasn't been very helpful in the process, but their requests aren't unreasonable. Furthermore, Israel, more and more, can not claim to be the reasonable and less extreme side as all these things occur over time. Both sides need to swallow some pride because decisions, even against the extremes of their people, are only made my real leaders; recently a friend told me that leaders aren't needed when things are going fine, only when change is needed. They must make the difficult decisions and all leaders must be " very adaptable to different situations and climates." This conflict has gone on for more than 60 years, it's time to adapt to the different circumstances but with the same vision of peace and co-existence.