Israel - Palestine Peace Psychout

This weekend I read an article titled “Israel shuns Palestinian prisoner deal” which was written by Al Jazeera and agencies. I actually found this article the old fashioned way: searching for it on Google. This article was published by Al Jazeera and agencies on March 28, 2014 and it is about the Israel-Palestine peace talks. The agreement reached between Israel and Palestine last July was that if Israel released the 104 Arabs that were held since before the Oslo Peace talks (another agreement in which Israel and Palestine tried to negotiate peace) by April 29, 2014, then Palestine would not continue to press their claims for statehood to the UN. Israel has released 78 Arab prisoners and now refuses to release any more. Due to this Palestine has started saying that they don’t consider Israel a Jewish state and the United States has to work harder just to set up a basic ground plan for peace.

I feel like the United States has to play the father role for these two Southwest Asian areas, like they are children. “Now Israel, Why didn’t you release the rest of the Arabs? Can’t you just release the rest of them?” the United States said. Israel replied simply, “No!” Then Palestine began to scream, and cry, and curse Israel. Finally, the United States assumes that they have not had anything to eat recently and gets them both a sandwich. And they all live talking about peace plans forever. The End

Seriously! When you break this all down, it’s really just two children throwing a fit except instead of toys in sandbox, they’re fighting over peoples’ lives. “Oh, you want peace. Okay… Well, too bad!” If world peace sways on such small problems like this, then I’m going to my room to wait until the Apocalypse because this is a waste of time.

United States officials are working now to come up with negotiations for a plan that will appeal to both parties before the April 29^th deadline. Previously we were hoping that all negotiations would be over soon and we could talk about how silly all of these negotiations were and achieve peace. However, the world isn’t perfect so we’re hoping to scrape by with what we’ve got. It’s like a school project when one student does their portion of the project and the others didn’t. Then later that day, you find out that the project is due tomorrow and your friends are arguing over what color paper to use. Somehow we’ll manage any way.

Turkey shot something!

This weekend I read an article titled “Turkish military shoots down Syrian warplane” which was written and published by Al Jazeera and agencies. I found this article after searching “news in Southwest Asia/ news in middle east” and it was published on March 23, 2014. Just as the title stated, the Turkish military shot down a Syrian MIG 23 jet warplane after issuing four warnings. However, what the title doesn’t mention is how this action has strained relations between the Turkish government and Syria.

                Syria has claimed that this aircraft never left Syrian airspace and that this obvious aggression towards them shows Turkey’s further support of the rebel army. The civil war/ rebellion in Syria is a result of the Arab Spring that began as protests on March 15, 2011. These protests quickly progressed to become a war. The United States, France, Britain, Turkey, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia continue to support the rebels in this civil war, while Iran, Hezbollah, Russia, Al-Qaeda and others support Syria.

                Turkey, however, did not attack Syria without reason. There were two Syrian warplanes in Turkish airspace and Turkey was aiding the Syrian opposition in their civil war. This aircraft incident, to the Turkish, could have seemed like an attack and yet, despite this assumption, they still proceeded to give a more than customary four warnings to the oncoming jets. Syria had also attacked the Turkish before, when two years ago Syria shot a Turkish plane inside international airspace with a missile and sank it to the bottom of the sea. When only one of the Syrian jets altered course, the other plane was shot out of the sky.  

                In the end, Syrians can make a fuss if they want to about this incident, but I am more inclined to believe the Turks. Turkey had every right, reason, and inclination to do what they did and the Prime Minister, Recep Erdogan, was correct to commend them for defending their country well. As for the Syrian government, I find that the kind of military behavior that they are expressing right now is dangerous and I would like to see the rebels to make some changes to these types of actions by winning this war. I wish that all of my Muslim friends in Al- Qaeda would drop dead. I would also hope that President Barrack Obama would continue to show support to the Syrian rebels until democracy is able to stand firm in Syria.   

Cote D'Ivoire Elections: Past, Present, and Future

This weekend I read an article titled “Thousands pack the streets as Ivory Coast's Ouattara returns home” by Joe Bavier. I found this article by searching for “Africa news” on Yahoo News; however, it was published on the Reuters on March 2, 2014. This article is about the celebratory greeting of Cote D’Ivoire’s 72 year old President, Alassane Ouattara, after his return from medical treatment of pain caused by sciatica (pain, numbness, weakness, etc. caused by pressure of the sciatic nerve in the leg) in France and what is expected of him for the 2015 elections.

There was much indecision and angst in Cote D’Ivoire when President Ouattara was elected in 2010. President Ouattara’s competition in the election, Laurent Gbagbo, claimed that there were mass amounts of fraud when he realized that preliminary elections were in favor of Ouattara. Many international observers disagreed and, despite this, Gbagbo supporters claimed that he had actually won the election. In the end, both presidents proceeded with their own individual inaugurations believing that they were the actual winners of the election and civil war broke out with obvious evidence of human rights violations by both parties. Ouattara began to regain control of the country and the U.N. and France (even though France denies their involvement) ended up arresting Gbagbo. The civil war ended in 2011 and Ouattara still maintains his office.

Cote D’Ivoire’s citizens are beating drums, holding up signs of welcome, and are shedding tears of joy at the return of their beloved president. Some tension exists between President Ouattara’s party (the Rally of Republicans Party) and the Ivory Coast Democratic Party because rallies marking the return of the Ivorian Popular Front Party (Gbagbo’s previous party in 2010) are taking place, the Ivory Coast Democratic Party has yet to show their support for a presidential candidate, and the Cote D'Ivoire election is coming up in 2015.

These elections have already proven to be dangerous. It frightens me that Cote D’Ivoire’s reconstruction depends on these elections. The idea that conflict could flare up because one party supports the wrong candidate or too many people vote carelessly could cause masses to suffer the effects. There is almost no way of avoiding chaos in this situation and it, not only makes me feel millions of times more grateful that I live in the United States, but it makes me worry for the poor people of Cote D’Ivoire that they have to endure that kind of suspense and stress.