The Trouble With Oranges

I have a lease on an orange orchard in southern Lebanon, about 25km from the Golan Heights. The lease is held in partnership with a Palestinian refugee who is one of Ramallah’s representatives for Palestinians to the Lebanese government. He describes himself as “un-factioned”. In fact he has a long time association with US approved Fatah. I think the US approval really only springs from a favourable comparison to Hamas.

People here often seem to be confused about Hamas and Hizbollah. Hamas controls the Palestinian Parliament and governs the Gaza Strip from behind a wall that Israel built. The US and Israel classify Hamas as a terrorist organisation, the UN does not. Unsurprisingly, Palestinians are a bit upset about the wall. It reduces Gaza to a ghetto comparable to the Warsaw ghetto. The Warsaw ghetto existed behind a wall that the Nazis built. Palestinians aligned with Hamas fire primitive rockets and homemade bombs at Israel from behind the wall. Israel strikes Gaza with some of the most sophisticated weaponry in existence today. Israel’s military is US backed and funded. Surgical strike technology notwithstanding, Palestinian casualties vastly outnumber Isreal's. It’s an entirely unsatisfactory situation, given that dead is dead regardless of your ethnicity, political loyalties or religion.

The Sunni and Shia branches of Islam are analogous to Roman Catholic and Protestant branches of Christianity. Sunni and Shia have been known to get a bit fractious with one another through history, as have Catholics and Protestants. Most Palestinians are Sunni. Hizbollah is Shia. It finds its support from Iran and Syria. Iran is predominantly Shia. Syria's government is Shia dominated. The Sunni - Shia juxtaposition is not a specific problem in Lebanon, but it all adds to the tapestry and tension in the region.

Hizbollah is classified as a terrorist organisation by the US and Israel. That is not an opinion universally held. They hold democratic elections in Lebanon. Hezbollah and its allies hold 57 seats in Lebanon's 128 seat parliament. But, Hizbollah’s existence in Lebanon was Israel’s excuse for its invasion and veritable flattening of Lebanon in 2006. I say flattening because they took out most major infrastructure: roads, bridges, telecommunications - and the irrigation to my oranges. The Refugee and me lost 127 young trees. Remarkably in the circumstances, he managed to pay back most of the capital in the years since then. The lease will be sold later this year and I expect the small remaining amount will be paid back along with some capital gain. It was a business deal done on a handshake. It’s turned out quite well, especially when compared to some of my friend’s investments during that period, in Bridgecorp and the like.

The popular protests that have spread across the Middle East have reached Syria. At the moment, the Refugee can’t get our oranges across the Syrian border and through to Dubai where they are supposed to be sold. It’s a problem but he’ll find a way or another market. He always does. Resourceful people, Palestinians. I saw the Queen on TV visiting Ireland. Isn’t it amazing how things can turn around? Catholic France and protestant England were at war for most of the period between 1688 and 1815. They seem to get on pretty well now. They tunnelled through. I hope the Refugee and my oranges make it.

NEVER MESS WITH LAMBCUT

Lambcut is the sister of Busted Blonde

Never ever mess with her....

These are her office decorations....
True, no shit... really....

We think this will leave a stain in whaleoils undies......

WIKI, HOLOCOUSTS AND A WORLDLY LAMB

Lambcut's pen began to drip red ink when she read this post.

It is suspected that this post will be too left field for the Splendidly Busted One’s navy blue blog. But, if you are reading it then she has surprised the Lamb and published.

No sane person is a Holocaust denier. The Holocaust, without a breath of a doubt, was the greatest travesty and horror of the twentieth century. Having said that, if one puts aside sub groupings amongst Semitic peoples (Arabs, including Palestinians are Semitic too), the horror continues into this century unabated, and it continues unsung.

We, and I mean we in the Western aligned countries, continually report on the lives lost among our people in the fight against “terror”, against the “Axis of Evil”.

Oy! It’s enough already!

It’s actually quite hard to Google up good sound sources on the death ratio regarding US and Allied incursions. Try it and see. You have to go a lot more than six clicks deep. It behooves an inquiring mind to wonder why. Where are, and what happened to the ladies and gentlemen of the Fourth Estate. American and allied losses are around 4,500. That figure we can be sure of. It Googles easily and in bulk from sound sources.

On the other hand, estimates of the number of Iraqis killed since the war started on March 20, 2003, range from nearly 91,000 to more than 600,000. Blowed if I know with any certainty; and nor do you. What we can know with considerable certainty is that Iraqi civilian losses outweigh ours, tens of thousands to one. Reporters there make their reports from sheltered compounds in the major cities, quite misleadingly, as though they were in the field as first hand observers.

Lambcut knows this from first hand knowledge of reporting with regard to the 2006 Israeli incursion into the Lebanon. Let us not go into that, or BB, out of misplaced protectiveness toward Lambcut, will never publish.(note from Editor BB - But we will write the book!)

Try Googling Corporal Gilad Shalit. He is the Israeli soldier still held hostage presumably somewhere in the Lebanon. See what you get in the first six clicks. A multitude of sound sources Google up from that search. Now try Googling information on the 11,000 Palestinians held by Israel; held without trial or due process of law. You won’t find a single name from among the souls languishing there. Not one. Not in the first six clicks; probably not on the first six pages.

There can’t be much doubt for any “well informed person” (although Lambcut seldom meets any here in NZ) that the entire Middle Eastern problem centers on strategic control of Middle Eastern oil stocks and Palestine’s importance in that regard. It’s all about the oil. The Western media has managed very ably to perpetrate the myth that Palestinians and Israelis have “always fought” and that peace cannot reasonably be expected - ever. Let Lambcut tell you, as a matter of incontrovertible historical fact that Israel didn’t even bloody well exist until 1948.

Get this - England and France spent around 300 years at war. How long did the Irish conflict last? We can hope for and we can expect peace in the Middle East. Unnaturally drawn borders never last. Be in no doubt, the lack of hope with regard to the Israeli Palestinian conflict is Israeli generated spin.

As to Lambcut’s suspicion of fatuous, superficial, sound-bite twitter reporting: in that thing Lambcut shares BB’s suspicions. Poor, indeed very poor journalism is at the root of the matter. All of you who might still regard the media as a special thing, the fourth estate of government with a singular privilege and a commensurate responsibility, you go forward now, and do something about it.

WHALE OIL ON THE MONEY

Whale oil appeared to have been distracted over the wee scrap in Gaza but we were mistaken. He was still hunting arsewipes. And today the Herald on Sunday has a pic of Winston's crown supplied car being taken back. The only bit we don't get is how the Herald swallowed the weasel words of Internal Affairs over the ins and outs of the vehicles return. We don't want weasel words from government departments.

Well done Whale.

Update - and the story is the lead in the Sunday Star Times. At least they acknowledge the story appeared first on the blogs.

SHAMEFUL RACISM

Invercargill it seems, is the latest theatre for the the Israel/Gaza conflict. As a political protest its a winner as the story is getting world wide coverage. Shit, there will be pilgrimages to Mustafa Tekinkaya 's shop Mevlana Cafe in Esk St soon. However, as an obvious immigrant to NZ , the Turkish Muslim should leave the battles of another land in that land. I thought that's why most came here - to get away from all the political shit. So Shame on him.