ISRAEL: Israel defends itself, but the media ignore it

Friday, January 16, 2009

“Israeli attack costs 1000 lives!” – This kind of titles is quite ordinary in most of the media. The evident fact that the Palestinians in Gaza Strip broke the cease-fire unilaterally and attacked Israel with missiles is very hard to be found. Where from comes this hypocrisy of the worldwide media against Israel as well as that quite strange affinity to the Palestinians?

In most of the media we can read what the main problems in Palestine are: hunger, unemployment, lack of energies, generally lack of everything. That is true; the common Palestinians suffer having no possibility to escape it. The main problem is different – almost all the media put all their skill to present Israel as the one who is responsible. Their readers therefore watch the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a football match, or better say a rowdies’ fight. Firstly they characterize it by pointing out, that there is no significant difference between them, secondly they don’t think about other actors in the region.

The Palestinians’ problems often have minimum to do with Israeli responsibility – the Arab countries are by my opinion much more responsible though. We have to point out the fact that the West Bank borders with Jordan and the Gaza Strip with Egypt. The Egyptian-Gaza border is hermetically closed; the Jordan-West Bank border is open only for exceptional cases. The Arab countries are very hypocritical; the Arabs (even these living in Israel) consider the Palestinians quite similarly, as the Europeans consider for example the Roma. Despite this the Palestinians are ethnically the same Arabs as these outside Palestine – they are just economically backward due to several reasons. The main one is that they went out of their homes in 1948, wanting to attack Israel from outside and kill all the Jews there, which didn’t happen, so they ended up in refugee camps. Meanwhile we have to acknowledge that Jordan is one of the most rich, most progressive, most open and most liberal Arab countries. Coincidentally it’s one of two Arab countries, which recognize Israel (the other one is Egypt). Egypt, as well as Jordan, perceives the Palestinians as the “poor brothers”, with which they don’t want to live together, and to which they are sympathetic only by words. It was about year ago, when some Palestinians blew up the wall separating Gaza from Egypt. Few more days of “free passage” followed – after which it looked a little bit better in Palestine. But the Egyptians, perceiving the Palestinians with economical racism, did their best to renew the wall and keep everything as it was.

The rest of the Arab World is also very sympathetic towards the Palestinians, but as well just with words. Even as rich states as Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates are, use the problems of common Palestinians just as a weapon against the West (including Israel) – by misusing the Western conscience. They are quite open with the idea, that if one day their Palestinian “brothers” would die of hunger, they wouldn’t really care, but the more they would use such situation in their propaganda against the West and Israel, pointing out that they care little about “how these people can live in 21st Century”. The West is intimidated by manners, to which it can’t react. It can’t let the Palestinians reject help, because it’s quite sure (and right) that the Arabs would let them die and blame the West for not offering any help.

The Palestinians themselves of course due to massive Hamas or Islamic Jihad propaganda mostly don’t know about these issues, and are convinced that all their problems could be solved by destroying Israel. They have no connection to the open world – but until they had it (through Israel, not through Jordan or Egypt), the terrorists misused it for killing innocent Israeli people. In fact, Israel was forced to close its borders if it wanted to protect its civilians, because it has responsibility to its citizens. The problem is, that the Palestinians in Gaza Strip, absolutely convinced that it’s Israel who is responsible for their problems, showed their will and how they think about peace by electing Hamas in the last elections. Of course there are people who didn’t vote for Hamas and who don’t support terrorism, but these are not victims of Israel, but of Hamas, because of which they have to suffer. If they’re bombed in Gaza, it’s Hamas who is responsible, not Israel who is defending its citizens. There would be no victims in Gaza if Hamas didn’t attack Israel. The Palestinians have full rights to defend their lives, but not by resistance against Israel, but against Hamas. I hope they will one day understand this.

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Do we really need another Communist experience?

Sunday, December 21, 2008

In connection with what is going on right now in Athens, Greece (and not only there, looks like the radical communist youth is letting loose in Sweden as well), we can't help but look at the events taking place in the Czech Republic these days.

As colleague Finrod Felagund has mentioned in his latest article about possible "Victorious February" in Greece (there is a pun to the Czech communist coup, although it looks more like "the victorious January" for the Greek, provided they won't make it by the end of this year), the communist experience might actually be a good experience (for Greeks and the whole Europe). One might say, if they want communism so bad, let them have it. But we have to have in mind that there are probably thousands of Greek citizens who actually back up the reforms of the current Greek right-oriented government, are not fond of the anarchist raids and don't want to experience any communist experiments.

Keep in mind there are quite similar things going on in our country. Granted we don't have frangible grenades and Molotovs flying in the air and the extremists are not devastating our capital city yet. But take a closer look at the current spree of Jiri Paroubek, the leader of Social Democrats, in our Parliament - and it makes it clear that the communist and socialist coup is coming closer. It's Paroubek and his powermonger clan, drunken with their success in the latest regional election, who in fact rule our country - and the weakened and defeated coallition is pretty much due to satisfy their blackmailing condition, which is the premature election in autumn 2009.

The painful reality is, that if there really are election in ten months time, the communists and socialists are sure to win. I am afraid there is no other option visible. For quite a long time, we have been able to hear voices saying that there is actually the need for letting the communist rule our country for once - so that they could be "historically precluded" and then, the right wing could finally step in. These days, those voices can be heard even louder, just as the ambitions (and the percentage in polls) of the left wing are increasing. We could even hear them from the so-called liberals.

Unlike Greece, we have experienced communists in full force here. I doubt that the political trials and other horrors would ever come back, but the communists still have potential to destroy this country economically. That's why I cannot understand those calling for making communists historically preclude by letting them govern this country. Once they are here, we won't be able to get rid of them. Comrades have always been perfect at this.

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GREECE: A Communist coup approaching?

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Conflicts between the so-called “angry youths” and the Greek state seem growing. Also some “average, grey mass people” are joining the young Communist radicals, those people who really don’t care about how the state should be organized, what should be paid with how much money – but who know exactly that they have “the right” and that “this is enough”. They are destroying without building. They are destroying without wishing anything to be built. The attackers are no crowd of vandals any more; they are well-organized groups with political ambitions. They have no doubt – and they say it publically – that they want to throw down capitalism and establish a Communist government, which they consider fairer. If that happens, what it would mean for us, Europe?

The Greek revolutionaries, of course, don’t want only capitalism to be destroyed; they wish also to leave the European Union and NATO. If they wish it seriously and would really go this path, it’s only their problem. But for the European Union it is not really such a big issue; perhaps for NATO yes, but from the strategic point of view it would be more serious to lose Turkey than Greece. The people would highly probably tend to listening to leftist (among others Communist) ideas and utopias – it’s easier than to think, how to reform the system, though. The right-wing across Europe is of course reacting and trying to convince the voters about how is necessary to spare money, to invest them in what is really necessary and to abolish certain social securities. They explain people quite logically why the Communist ideas can’t really work, but the people don’t take it seriously. They underestimate the risk until the problem grows to be uncontrollable.

As we already wrote on our server (link to the article translated by Google Translate to English), any practical attempt to establish communism with its ideas included has to lead to crime and totality. Communist ideology, being internationalist, counts with simultaneous revolutions to achieve its goals. A situation in which some countries establish the communism and some not is for the “world revolution” quite bad, because it shows to the non-Communist countries where does the communism lead to. From that point of view it would be extremely profitable for the rest of Europe as a perfect uniting force (uniting against common enemy) and as a justification for persecution of the Communists. Remember – we are not speaking about any kind of innocent people. Who is a Communist in a democratic society is as well bad and guilty as if he was a Nazi – and persecution of the Nazis is quite OK (as most of our society believes). There is a significant difference between the Communists within a free society, who are portrayed as some kind of silly people without real influence, and the Communists who have power to change the political system. These can be viewed as a huge threat and can be considered according to that.

If the Greeks would choose to leave the EU and NATO, I would be probably one of the last ones who would regret it. As we wrote on our server here (Google translation of the article), the Greek participation both in NATO and in the EU is just a geopolitical relict from the Cold War, when it was important to have ideologically dominantly Communist Greece on the Western side of the Iron Curtain. Realistically it looks differently. In next five years most of the new EU member states would have bigger GDP per capita than Greece has, because Greece isn’t – compared to the new EU countries – developing at all since 1981, when joined the EU. Its foreign policies, which are at least making unrest in the region, should be a reason to kick Greece off the EU and NATO as soon as possible. If Greece would choose to do it willingly from its own will, it would in the end help the other EU countries a lot.

Concluding the problem I have to say that in the long-term could this Communist experiment help the Greeks themselves, because nothing can cure from believing in such utopist ideas as a personal experience. The fact that the Greek Communist Party was always a strong power against occupations and dictatorships in Greece without any possibility to govern in accordance with its whishes caused, that it’s absolutely impossible to explain the Greeks how bad any Communist ideas really are. Some people have to warn the others by negative example and I would be very much pleased if that would be Greece and not the rest of Europe, which, I hope, would, facing a new brutality, tyranny and devastation in the country they counted into the West, would understand where the Communist experiments lead to sooner than it will be late.

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LAW: How should we protect our property?

Violent riots, which broke out couple of days ago in Exarhia district in Athens, Greece, opened again all these painful questions about where to put the respect to one’s life and the right to defend one’s property limits.

Contemporary positivist discourse of the Continental Law, which is based on the Roman law, can’t solve this problem with much efficiency. While it puts in all circumstances a human life as a top priority, it can’t protect those whose houses, cars, shops, or whatever else are being burned. A normal theoretical procedure “the state has a monopole of violence” by Max Weber doesn’t really work here, because it doesn’t count with a situation, in which state fails. The rioters often cover their faces for not to be identified, and their aggressiveness is so violent that the police has not really any chance to calm them down without shooting. Because of that the rioters know that they are non-punishable, which motivates them to even bigger violence. The police though don’t want to risk even stronger violence, which could break out if some of the rioters would die in fight. This possible violence is not acceptable by the public, therefore the public gets often a very tricky impression, that “the more police intervene, the more violence there is”. What is politically strongly double-sided is a fact that the public’s opinion differs in the case of e. g. the Hooligans and these Anarchist rioters. When it is about the Hooligans, the public wants as much strength against them as possible, but when it is about these Anarchists, the public sympathizes with these “innocent young boys” – and makes martyrs of them.

I am afraid that under the Continental Law is this problem absolutely impossible to be solved, because a law without individual judicial considering of each case together with making precedents can’t really protect the victims and prevent the rioters from violence. In the Common Law it would be though the violent person who would be punished – and defending property (like a house) would be justified even by killing the attacker (if other possibilities of stopping him wouldn’t work) – because the attacker should have known what was he doing and that he couldn’t do it by mistake. I speak now of the traditional Common Law, which was not spoiled by this kind of post-modernist thinking: “he was a poor guy raised in a bad family, therefore he is innocent and the society is guilty for his acting”. On the other hand in the Continental Law there is written which punishment should follow which offence – regardless of the motive. If in this case someone kills an attacker, defending his house against burning, he would very probable get a punishment. If there is written, that for killing one deserves from 5 to 25 years of prison, due to his motive that person could get these 5 years. Better than 25, but is it really fair? The Common Law, by using the jury, brings some “common sense” to the case. This common sense has really no doubts who is guilty – and that a burned house, which costs a lot of money and to which its inhabitants feel also an emotional binding, has more value than the attacker’s life – a life which definitely was not forced to burning someone’s house.

These cases, brought by our time, in which the criminal behavior is less and less predictable, make 2000 years tradition of the Roman law and Code Napoleon really very outdated. Arguments of the lawyers against the Common Law are clear tens of years. The costs for change should be enormous; it would be difficult to teach the lawyers and judges how to use the new system. Yes, I agree, but one day it would be inevitable and the costs would be even higher than now. If there would be no change, law would be taken by such organizations like the Sicilian Mafia, Nazi paramilitary organizations or whoever else that would be prepared to “protect the citizens against violence according to common sense”; the same common sense, which the Continental Law clearly lacks.

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