Hamas will do well to read Pinkers “The Better Angels of Our Nature.” Enduring state of conflicts exhausts and consume nations, kills the incentive, annihilate any signs of recuperation or creativity and destine the young to a enduring begging bowl. No Palestinian deserves it.
The Egyptian-mediated deal Gaza’s Hamas Jihadist rulers pulled off the most lopsided prisoner exchange in Israel’s history. Hamas will exchange kidnapped Sgt. Gilad Schalit for some 1,027 Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons. In a strange, tortuous rather wicked but counter argument one can argue ‘if this exchange does not reflect how little Hamas accord importance to a Palestinian life?’
Hamas has the pleasure of a ‘Pyrrhic victory’- a victory with such a devastating cost to the victor that it carries the implication that another such victory will ultimately cause defeat. If free 1 Israeli = 1027 free Palestinians, an equation that Hamas established! (Top Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar said they haggled name-by-name with Israeli officials.) Most regrettably in this 1X= 1027 quadratic equation, the missing X is now legitimized and shall determine future pounds of flesh to be exacted!
Joy of this victory is so short lived that one more such victory would utterly undo them completely!
Hamas ‘logic’ to accord highest human exchange price for a single Israeli kind of ‘justifies’ massive disproportionate and indiscriminate response that Israel evokes when Hamas provoke their primitive 15th century missiles on North of Israel. This is tantamount to total lack of human respect, where one nation’s accords so much respect to its own and other blackmails to get the maximum out of the illegal kidnapped plunder, it is so self defeating.
Does Hamas understand that in matters of statecraft; ‘human life’ is worth equal to the ‘price’ the ‘mother state’ puts on its own ‘sons.’ Hamas enjoys its pyrrhic victories and chances of prospective peace dividend to an ‘incessant game of death and fire.’ This unremitting preoccupation with war of ideology has destroyed few millenniums; and the ‘Gods of peace’ and “The Better Angels of Our Nature’ that have evolved in most of the regions of the world will most likely continue to overlook and bypass the region. What a heart rending tragedy of a leadership that is totally incompetent and morally bankrupt.
If a criminal hijack is expected to be rewarded by the lopsidedness; a disproportionate response for an Israeli killing is kind of a defacto agreement and also it is defacto recognition of Bani Israel as chosen ones?
Having lost war time and again this is the worst defeat of understanding and logic that Hamas can ever suffer, but I doubt they understand the common sense of the whole human tragedy. Regrettably nothing has changed and the theater of suicide bombers have expanded as predicted most unfortunately. Faithful are unwilling to pop out of the Abel and Cane ideological jealousies and protective wars spanning over centuries of half baked untrue scriptural disputes.
Hamas has lost far more ground has become far lesser political power and now has negotiated with those whose existence they refuse to accept, begging of mercy from the ‘infidels.’
There is no single characteristic that defines a suicide bomber and it is the incessant amalgamation of the factors discussed above interacting in an individual’s mind that will induce a suicidal cum sacrificial mindset. Appeasement has never paid neither unreasonable tough position like that of Sharon. A middle way has always brought some semblance of order to chaos and that is the way out of this crisis. Human bombing will have to stop.
In 1967 Palestinians introduced ‘ art of hijacking’ as a tool of political statement. It has added discomfort and huge cost of hundred of billions in lost revenues and lost time for millions of air travelers since. If we can’t have it, we will deny it to the whole world is the tall slogan of these extremists. Since than, the phenomenon of human sacrifice and hijacked planes have been further cunningly entangled and what we saw on Sept. 2001 was mix of that extreme wickedness that got new thrust as evil was perpetrated at a higher scale by combining a hijacked plane with humans who were suicide bombers. Is it not high time that these guys should not be appeased any further in name of ‘desperate survival?’ Has the desperate and evil art of hijacking made their aspirations of independent Palestinian state come true? The fact is that now hijacking has been hijacked by bigger criminals and combined with the zeal of ‘holy suicide bombers’, has made our world far more instable!
Millions of young man are watching and learning this dreadful art of carnage and world, as a whole is a loser. These new techniques of suicide bombing will not see the end in Palestinian, like plane hijacks gained momentum this will spill out of the borders of the region, may be we will have to go through same kind of through checks as we to go through for planes even for small journeys in buses. The world is being made of smaller and closed place. Free movement is the strength of global interaction we are being robbed of that systematically.
Someone who encourages youngsters to strap bombs on themselves with the intent of killing innocent civilians has no self-esteem, the lesson being taught, “if we cannot live peacefully then we will not let others live peacefully.” That is not a prescription for a healthy society.
I believe that life is a gift of God and that progress and prosperity is in the reach of every human being. ‘Love thy neighbor’ will unravel all the evils.
In these changing times the need of co-existence far exceeds our banal animal instincts to fight, the powers in the last millenniums had very little business but to go at war, now we have learned the banality of war and should make peace and love. Role of learning in the age of discovery- Humans have engaged in cruel and terrible behavior as far back as we can piece together our history. One question that emerges is whether we are growing more violent toward each other.
I wished Columbus was working with Starfleet General Order 1 ‘The Prime Directive,’ when he discovered Americas. One of Starfleet’s most important binding principles about noninterference in another culture’s internal affairs, natural development and progression. Alas 1492 was not 23rd century. “No identification of self or mission. No interference with the social development of said planet. No references to space, other worlds, or advanced civilizations.”
Cognitive scientist Stephen Pinker argues that human violence is actually decreasing in his book, “The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined.” His exploration of the history of human violence ranges from neuroscience to the poetry of Homer. His research offers some hope that we are evolving from our more brutal past due to development of our capacity for empathy and compassion.
Steven Pinker thinks that though ‘we believe our world is riddled with terror and war, but we may be living in the most peaceable era in human existence. Why brutality is declining and empathy is on the rise. With all its wars, murder and genocide, history might suggest that the taste for blood is human nature. “What is the world coming to?” But a better question may be, “How bad was the world in the past?”
Harvard Prof. Steven Pinker vehemently argues in support of the decline in violence in recent decades and his new book, “The Better Angels of Our Nature.” Evidence of our bloody history is not hard to find. Violence has declined because historical circumstances have increasingly favored our better angels. Evidence of our bloody history is not hard to find. Consider the genocides in the Old Testament and the crucifixions in the New, the gory mutilations in Shakespeare’s tragedies and Grimm’s fairy tales, the British monarchs who beheaded their relatives and the American founders who dueled with their rivals
On being asked ‘why has violence declined so dramatically for so long, is it because violence has literally been bred out of us, leaving us more peaceful by nature?’
He retorts back this seems unlikely. Evolution has a speed limit measured in generations, and many of these declines have unfolded over decades or even years. Toddlers continue to kick, bite and hit; little boys continue to play-fight; people of all ages continue to snipe and bicker and most of them continue to harbor violent fantasies and to enjoy violent entertainment.
It’s more likely that human nature has always comprised inclinations toward violence and inclinations that counteract them—such as self-control, empathy, fairness and reason—what Abraham Lincoln called “the better angels of our nature.”
Hamas needs “the better angels of our nature” to work for them full time.
