Tikkun Interview with Richard Goldstone

If any of you have been following the latest UN report on the Gaza war and the outrageous crimes against humanity that Israel committed in Palestine, then I want to hear your thoughts!

For me, the report is not really what is surprising or interesting - the Goldstone element is what really fascinates me. Jewish South African former Supreme Court Judge Richard Goldstone is a self-professed Zionist and a political moderate who has been recently vilified by the Jewish mainstream media and political establishment (both in Israel and in the US) for overseeing and supporting the findings of the report. Goldstone actually refused to oversee the investigation unless Palestinian actions were also scrutinized but he stands by the results of the investigation and good for him! What I find so fascinating is how he is being marginalized because he is questioning the status quo and actually daring to dash the Israel-as-utopia myth (see Uri Avnery's opinions, published by Tikkun here).

If this becomes a trend I see the pro-Israel argument/lobby seriously entrenching itself further and alienating its current powerful base. I can't help but hope that it gets bad so it can get better... Maybe if many current Israel supporters see how extreme Israel's actions are and the extremism of many supporters of Israel can be they more mainstream and moderate folk will mobilize to insist on human rights and some form of justice in the region... Pipe dreams? Let me keep dreaming. Otherwise this entire debacle is just too disgusting and horrifying for words.

Tikkun did a pretty good interview with Goldstone that you can find here.

For the Democracy Now report on the UN Investigation click here.

Hunger and Poverty

The UN reported that its goal of halving the number of people living in poverty by 2015 is unlikely to be reached due to several factors including the economic climate and, more dramatically, the predicted continued rates of population growth. (Read more here.) The world population is expected to reach 7 billion at some point in 2011.

Meanwhile, a separate UN report says that due to population growth in Asia, specifically, the continent is at risk for a major hunger crisis and the resulting social upheaval. Hundred of billions of dollars needs to be invested in infrastructure, especially in irrigation systems:

India, China, Pakistan and other large countries avoided famines in the 1970s and 1980s only because they built giant state-sponsored irrigation systems and introduced better seeds and fertilisers. But the extra 1.5 billion people expected to live on the continent by 2050 will double Asia's demand for food, says the report from the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the World Bank-funded International Water Management Institute (IWMI).

A combination of very little new land left for cultivation, an increasingly unpredictable climate and water supplies stretched to the limit means the only realistic option to feed people in the future will be better management of existing water supplies, according to the report.

For the full article see here.

SO LETS GO DO THAT!!! I'd be surprised if it happens though, for some reason or another.. call me cynical.