Falling behind

Well, Obama won. Yeah, old news, I know, but I haven't posted in a while, so be patient with me. Actually, there are some allegations that there were some machinations set in place by Karl Rove (and his various peeps) to rig the election in Ohio that were nixed by...someone. I don't know much about it, so I'm not going to talk my ass off about it. It is an interesting postulation, but, as always, take it with a grain of salt, as you should do for everything.

Anyway, the other big event occurring is the current clash between Palestine and Israel. To take sides on such a thing is a divisive action among friends, because attitudes for both sides are largely entrenched in upbringing, religion, and personal values. To some, there can only ever be the two sides diametrically opposed with no middle ground, which leaves little hope for a peaceful solution. In order to truly understand the conflict, one must look into the history of the area, and that is certainly a storied one by any stretch of the imagination. That being said, ancient history can only go so far to provide reasoning for a present context.

To understand the present context, one must start with the end of WWII and the partition of Palestine. I'm not going to go into it all since there is a large amount of literature on it; learning that is up to you. But, just know that, at the time, there were millions of displaced Jews across Europe with nowhere to go, and the UN partitioned Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state, leading to a civil war with an eventual victory for the Jewish state of Israel. Fast forward through several wars to the present day (apologies for this, but again, the history is too long for me to go into), and Israel has Gaza, the largest city in the Palestinian Territories, under blockade. There are health and sanitation issues in the city because of the blockade, so naturally an anti-Israel party (Hamas) wins the election for the city. The conflict has thus evolved from there.

Here is a video explaining one viewpoint.

Here is another interesting video. I highly recommend watching it.

That's all, honestly. Voicing an opinion is likely to elicit extremes, anger, insults, etc. I don't care for any of that; if you can't be civil and constructive in a discussion then you have no place in that discussion at all.