Gaza, School Children and Faith...and Boycott

Faith is supposed to be a source of comfort and understanding. Yet our expression of faith has sown division, instill suspicion and sometimes incite hatred. Faith is supposed to make us more tolerant, yet it has contributed to racial, religious and cultural tensions.

And our politicians, instead of resolving those tensions in the way they should; they exploit faith as a means for their own end. So faith instead of sowing tolerance, drives the people apart.

We've a Minister of Education who encouraged school children to gather and protest the HAMAS (Gaza) cause....... Why not ask these same students to gather and protest about the conditions faced by the Indians or the indigenous people of Malaysia? Our education system is also skewed... we teach our children skewed values for our own interests.

It's not that I don't sympathize with the plight of the Palestinians. I think the 'war' is silly. HAMAS and the Israelis... they're basically fighting for land. One of HAMAS' goals is to obliterate the Jews...go read the HAMAS Charter. So the Israelis will definitely be jumping at every threat and seek to destroy before they are destroyed; they are after all a nation under siege. If you know your foe is out to kill you, would you not want to do the same to him??? Peace with the Jews is not on their agenda... and on the Israeli's end, probably to have the HAMAS being so bent on Jewish blood also would give them excuse not to say aye to the creation of a Palestinian state.

This is politics! And when the big boys fight, it's the small people who get caught and become collateral losses. And others get caught up in it too.... some using it as a means to push their own cause. Hence you have countries like ours portraying it as an aggression of one religion against another, to garner support for our own end... The history of Israel (and Palestine) is complicated. One nation carved up to give rise to another....and if you go back even further...... a fight for birthrights?

And we have politicians here telling us to boycott things US... stop working for US franchise, stop buying US goods..the list goes on. Okay...tell that to the franchise holders of MacDs, KFCs, Starbucks and ask them to return their license, stop using Microsoft or CISCO or Red Hat or Apple, stop drinking Pepsi, stop using everything US... and where does that leave us??? Hardly a wise thing to harp about at this juncture. Our own economy would be crippled should we stop using anything Microsoft, I think. That's very us...shooting our own feet with our own mouths!

HAMAS, Israel.... they all too have their own agendas. You think HAMAS really cares whether Palestinian children get killed by Israeli bombs??? If they did, in the first place they wouldn't be hiding in those places where children are known to be. Nope...they too use the people for their own means.