I was watching the TV last night and I found out about the kidnapping of Cpl. Gilad Shalit, an Israeli gunner. Israel is going to great lengths to get him back, but their methods are far from honourable.

They are bombing civilian infrastructure such as power plants and bridges. This is supposably to put pressure on Hamas to release corporal Shalit, but all it does is make Hamas more stubborn and the lives of Palestinians that much worse. Can you image tucking your kids in at night and a low flying supersonic F-16 smashes every single window in your house? Even the right leaning Fox news believes these tactics are militarily pointless.

There is no real military gain from taking out the power plant but it reveals the clear focus of the Israeli strategy: to increase the misery index for all the people in Gaza and therefore put pressure on the Palestinian government to do something about the kidnapped soldier.

Hamas is also being incredibly stupid. In a decent country where the rule of law applies: if your citizens do something against the law you arrest them prosecute them and lock them up. Instead Hamas defends them. Just look at what this fool said on Lateline last night.

I’m saying that if Israel thinks and believes that the military action directed to civilians and to our institutions and to the bridges and to the electric power plants are going to free this single soldier, I think they’re deceiving the world and they’re deceiving themselves. This military action is only directed and has been for a long time, is only directed at destroying the Palestinian life and continuing the massacre of Palestinian lives. This will not free their soldiers.

What Dr Abdul Rahman Zaidan seems unable to understand is that if Hamas hand done the right thing and raided the kidnappers hideout, arrested them and sent the corporal back to Israel none of this would have happened. Until Hamas understands the concept of the rule of law Palestinians will live in misery.

Yes, I’m finally back to the blog.

 I have just spent three hours transferring my old Movabletype blog to this WordPress one. I have also changed hosts from IVT to Destra. It is now impossible for me to let that three hours go to waste, so I now have to blog everyday! One funny thing about the transfer is the comments. WordPress has a comment count in its wp_posts table, Moveable Type does not. This means when you click on the comments, your old comments are still there, but it says there are none on the Index page.

 From now on I will no longer be holding myself back. My earlier attempt at blogging was held back by me not wishing to offend anyone, embarrass my family etc. To be the blogger that I know I can be, I need to say whatever I fucking well want to!

 And if you’ve got a problem with that, GET A DOG UP YA!