Sunday January 4, 2009 (can it be?) Our discussion centered on the current state of affairs relating to Israel and Gaza. Sadly, as we enter the new year concerned about our own economic affairs we are brought back to the reality that in other parts of the world people are dying on both sides of a conflict that seems to have no end.
While we did not come up with a solution, we did discuss the lack of information we have regarding the relationships between the warring parties. Our views of country loyalites are often different than the loyalites and relationships in cultures that go back hundreds or thousands of years. A Financial Times article (11/22/08) referenced the relationship between certain Gaza family clans with more than 5000 members whose history extends over 300 years who have been battling with Hamas within Gaza. There was a general hope that the UN process would work to bring about a stop to the fighting, and a desire to get more information. It was suggested that the UN web site would be a good place to look for updates.
The UN has a daily briefing page at www.un.org The briefing page is http://www.un.org/News/ossg/hilites.htm
Finally, to put it in perspective, FG offers the following.
Good review of book, "A World of Trouble" about our long term mis-handling of the Middle East, in the Life --- section of the AA-S. Also, on further "research" I find the area of the Gaza Strip is only 14% of Travis Co. (139 sq. mi.) for a population density of about 10,000 per sq. mi. No wonder we didn't solve the problem today.
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