High Human Cost of Hamas' Political Gamble

Since the start of Operation Protective Edge by Israel on July 8, over 1000 Palestinians and 42 Israeli soldiers have lost their lives in the latest episode of the age-old conflict between Israel and Palestine. There seems to be no imminent end to this bloodbath. Talks for an internationally brokered cease-fire agreement seems to be elusive as neither party refuses to budge in their stance as far as the demands of the agreement are concerned. So far, on UN's proposal, two humanitarian cease-fire agreements were reached. Hamas had violated the more recent cease-fire agreement stating that it won't accept a cease-fire until Israeli soldiers have left Gaza along with the lifting of the blockade and the release of prisoners by Israel.

So what is Hamas' angle? Why do they keep refusing any sort of cease-fire agreement when they clearly don't stand a chance militarily against Israel? Obviously, there is a political agenda here. Since 2011, when Hamas failed to side with Syria's Bashar Al Assad, it's funding from Iran had been cut off heavily. This, coupled with the 2013 military coup that overthrew Egypt's pro-Palestine president, Mohamed Morsi, and replaced with a military government led to the closing of Egypt's borders with Gaza. With Hamas losing two important strategic and financial allies in the Middle East, Gaza was thrust into an economic crisis. They were crippled to such an extent that they couldn't pay the salaries of 43,000 civil servants.

With unemployment going over 40% and Gaza effectively shut out from the outside world due to the blockade, nearly 80% of the people rely on humanitarian aid. The UN has warned that if such levels of stifled conditions continue, Gaza will be unliveable by 2020. According to a Pew poll, opinions of Hamas is negative in the Gaza strip (63%, up from 54% in 2013).

Hamas' strategy of firing rockets at Israel and risking Gaza civilian casualties in return fire is an attempt to gain the wider sympathy and political support of a few important Middle Eastern players. Such a scenario seems unlikely as Egypt, UAE, Saudi Arabia and Jordan have made it abundantly clear that they are not willing to bow down to the pressures of Hamas’ political maneuvers.

This approach by Hamas and its repeated insistence on not refusing to halt rockets into Israel has come at a steep price of civilian casualties. Gaza, being densely populated, leaves its civilians with nowhere to go. The UN has declared 43% of Gaza to be a "no go area", which leaves Israel's evacuation warnings effectively useless. With Israel looking unlikely to meet the steep demands of Hamas and Hamas not letting up, it is, as often the case in times of war, innocent civilians who are paying the toll for a largely political conflict. One thing is for certain, while a temporary cease-fire ideally brought about by both sides may solve immediate issues, there's no guarantee that a future siege might not happen. Let us hope for the sake of civilians caught in the middle of this war that the current impasse sees a long-term deal, which can be achieved only through political discourse, and not through the use of arms. 

Wrestling with memories is futile

Time seems to be a blur. Now, two hours ago, yesterday, tomorrow, at this point, it's all the same. Time is white. Time is also red. Now, I know what you are thinking. And no, I will tell you now that this is not one of those moments. I actually like this moment. The best I've been in a long, long time. The benefit of time being a blur is that memories are often swept away from you. Yes, the good ones go too, but it's a small price to pay to get rid of the bad ones. Their existence in our life is ephemeral. As it should be.

Through a narrow prism

It is somewhere between night and day. More night, less day. The first signs are often the hardest to spot. In most things, it is. But as seconds become days, it's becoming clearer and clearer. The slight uncomfortable smile turns into doubts, doubts into distances, and eventually, distances into memories. The natural course, nothing else. After all, I did see this coming, I keep reassuring myself...

Catharsis

Stupefied by this glass, I write. I do so not because of need, but out of want. Ah, Want. The harbinger of all doom, you tell me. You also tell me not to tempt want. "It's 4.50 AM, silly, go to sleep!" sounds the voice in my head. Which, of course, I tend to ignore. My pride and ego are too big to listen to inner voices. Bad, very bad, I agree.  Heck, I even tend to ignore real people. Real people, breathing and all. Too much for me. Thanks, but no thanks.

So what I am doing here? At this "uncivilized hour"? The birds are starting to coo in their nests, shouldn't you be asleep? I respond, "Should you really ask me this question, my dear? After all, isn't it you who brought me my knees. This, here, is because of you. Do you not see? Or do you choose to ignore?".

***

I look out the window and see 3 stars gazing right back at me. I wonder about a lot of things. Maybe it is time to sleep after all.

Alea iacta est

Little thoughts, little emotions,

Immersed in silence, quivering, 

Probing into the unknown.

They stood waging a war,

But with no enemy in sight,

Victory was afar. 

 

Effervescent souls, 

Cast away in submission.

"Is it time?", she queried;

A moment passed, 

It was time after all. 

There are people and there are people.

It is 12.41 AM as I begin to write this. I feel awake. Sleep continues to be elusive. Well, not 'continues'; I did manage to sleep fairly well in the past few months. However, things have returned to status quo. Never mind my sleeping pattern; I feel like I am leading you to the wrong path starting of with my sleep issues. No. That is not what I wanted to scribble down about today.

In our daily life, we come across a lot of people. There are the overly cheery ones; the ones who look like they have just survived the end of the world; and there are people like me. Dreamy, avoiding the cracks on tiled floors, reveling in the crunch of dry leaves. These people either have their idiosyncrasies attributed to them naturally, or in certain cases, achieved through conscious acquisition. The latter raises my curiosity. What were the circumstances that dictated the course of their life, which in turn molded them into the person they are?

***

This morning, while riding the bus from campus, I came across a girl. She was probably around my age, but slightly shorter. She had high heels on. As the bus jerked into motion, she lost balance and stumbled backwards. In doing so, she planted her heels on my right foot for a good second and half. I tried not to show any discomfort. After regaining balance, she turned around and gave me a look. I returned her look with a smile, half-expecting an apology for stomping on my foot. I always thought smiling at a person you had never met before to be a polite thing to do. Turns out it wasn't. Now, I don't know what the reason was behind that look. It was as though she was accusing me for the chain of events that took place in that short period.  She then turned away, mumbled something to her friend, who now turned to give me the same look. Soon, they broke into giggles. I just met the fourth kind of people. 

Fiscal Cliff: What exactly is it?

       Election season is done. Now that we know we will be seeing Obama at the White House for another four years, the focus shifts to the 'Fiscal Cliff' which has been increasingly drawing public attention. I wouldn't  use the term 'panic' just yet to describe the developing situation, but come the end of the year, and if no action is taken, panic might very well set in.

Fiscal Cliff

As I learned in the past two-three weeks, Fiscal Cliff is nothing but a bunch of policies that expire at the end of the year. Policies such as the Bush tax cuts (which favors the wealthy Americans) and Payroll tax cuts among many others are expected to expire at the end of this year. So, if no action is taken, tax rates are going to shoot up for ALL leaving households with fewer dollars to spend.

Secondly, the 'sequestration' cuts will also go into effect come January. These include Pentagon budget cuts of $55 Billion in 2013, $12 Billion cuts to Medicare among other cuts that will see the around $1.2 Trillion reduction in deficit over 10 years.

Potential repercussions

It's quite simple: higher tax rates leads to lesser dispensable income, add to that the fact that money coming into households also goes down as a result of government spending cuts, and we will be faced with a severe 'fiscal contraction'. While the government spending will aide in the long-term deficit reduction, it will not do much good to the economy which is trying to claw its way back to recovery. Large spending cuts leads to slower and slower GDP growth. According to the Congressional Budget Office, these policy changes could lead to almost a 4% decline in the growth of real GDP, meaning a negative growth rate which could thrust the economy into recession again.

Can this be tackled?

If Obama and Congress can eke out a compromise on the policy changes needed, then yes, falling over the fiscal cliff can be averted. Obama wants Bush tax cuts to be extended to all except those those who earn over 250k - he demands that the rich Americans pay a higher tax rate - to which the Republican House has been vehemently against for a while now. They feel that taxing the rich Americans, who they label as 'job creators', would impact business in a negative way, and lead to fewer job opportunities.

***

This is where the situation stands at the moment. While Obama has repeatedly said that he is willing to compromise, talks are still not very productive as far as an amicable solution is concerned. The next few weeks will be very interesting indeed.