I suppose that this is expecting ‘WAY too big a jump in such a short time….but when the evidence slaps you in the face THAT hard, and THAT intensely, it seems to me that you’d make the journey a little faster.

In fact, given the reality of Gaza, and he cannot possibly be ignorant of THAT,…….. ….I’d expect him to be asking for asylum in Israel.

I’ve never been terribly patient with people who seem unable to see what is so abundantly clear, I’m afraid.

What’s confusing is that people realize that they live in more than just a limited world, a world beyond their parochial doorsteps and even beyond the limits of their imagination.

When people understand that in war, their side is not particularly always 100% right, it increases their sense of perception about human nature. That increase of perception, for sheep, would be stunning and confusing. Those that seek to criticism their own side but believe the other side is perfectly ideal or ideally perfect, do the opposite of expanding their horizons and thus are no better than the fanatic that believes his own cause to always be Righteous.

As a thought experiment, Mr. Shafi….what would happen to a Jewish woman and her twins, were they to be transported somehow to Gaza, today?

So, here we have Gazans hiding in civilian neighborhoods, shooting off rockets into civilian neighborhoods occupied by Jews, and bringing down the defensive fire of the IDF onto the houses and the children of their innocent co-religionists, who allow access only under threat of murder.

Over there, we have the Jews, who take in a pregnant Gazan mother to save the lives of her two children, who protect her from the indiscriminate rocket fire of her co-religionists on the other side of the border, who finish taking care of the problems and then send her safely home, whose Army takes every precaution to save civilian lives as they attempt to defend their country and their people, and who daily provide the energy supplies and other services needed for Muslim, murdering Gaza to keep going.

And you, Mr. Shafii, are somehow CONFUSED? No, you’re not….you’re dishonest.

If somebody doesn’t solve these problems, bad things will happen, I assure you. Nations will fall and billions will be stuck in the Dark Age that is Africa and North Korea.

Because Israel refuses to engage in any contact with the authorities in Hamas-controlled Gaza, patients turn to private brokers who submit their entry applications to the Palestinian Authority of moderate President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank city of Ramallah. But it can be a lengthy process.

If you want the loyalty of the Palestinians, the Jews better create departments linking Israel directly to the Palesitnians that need their services. We all know the middle man takes a cut of everything, and don’t serve either side.

Every Empire eventually figured out that the Emperor had to have the support of the people directly and NOT through the power hungry aristocrats. Unfortunately, those lessons were lost when Europe jacked up imperialism and colonialism by their half-hearted failures. Rome and Greece did great things just so Europe could frack up the entire image of empire. Great.

Why doesn’t he object? “They are armed,” says Shafii, “and they shoot at anyone who gets in their way.”

Ironic that in the end, what matters is not religious or political beliefs, but who can use the tool of violence better. For sheep, life is never a battleground. It is just a state to be in until dead.

There are those that believe in Peace through Superior Firepower and then there are those that believe in Peace Through Letting People Die. I suppose the peace of the grave is the easier of the two to acquire.