it's all in the genes

Update to yesterday's post: Well, at least the U.S. has been protesting the randomness of the supplies that Israel lets into Gaza or not.* Though who the "officials" mentioned in the report below are, I do not know.

The United States is protesting to Israel over seemingly random restrictions on deliveries to the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip of harmless goods such as soap and toilet paper, diplomats said Wednesday.

Diplomats fear day-to-day crisis management on Gaza was diverting the United States and other Western governments from bigger issues like the goal of restarting peace negotiations for a Palestinian state.

In one case, Israel blocked for weeks a World Food Program (WFP) shipment of chickpeas, used to make the Palestinian food staple hummus, the U.N. food agency said.

"We're certainly asking the Israelis questions about this," a U.S. official said of the restrictions on what is allowed into Gaza.

A Western official said: "The Americans and international NGOs (non-governmental organizations) are raising their concerns... We're protesting."

I think the second paragraph of the above is the most important, especially considering Hamas has ordered those who are firing rockets to stop while negotiations are currently going on in Egypt, and it is especially indicative of why it is not necessarily a wonderful policy to have an unquestioning, "special" relationship with Israel. Our own prime minister has said in the past that support for Israel is "in his DNA". Of course it is possible to support Israel and to condemn the occupation (though you wouldn't think so), but considering Rudd did nothing to condemn the recent onslaught on Gaza (it was Hamas' fault entirely), and has celebrated Israel in ways that no government before him has, and his government is now considering not attending the Durban II conference against racism*, along with the U.S., Canada and Israel, it seems that he has little problem with the occupation and the human rights abuses that occur within, or even the racism that also occurs within Israel "proper" (it doesn't define its borders). It's obvious that pettiness, inconsistency, cruelty, sycophancy and the means to annihilate a people must be a genetic thing.

*Reference to the opening article first found here.

*The United States and Israel walked out of the first UN conference on racism in Durban, South Africa, in 2001, to protest against an attempted resolution comparing Zionism to racism. Considering that it is a sect which justifies the keeping of a people in an open air prison, the taking of their land, stripping them of their rights and their lives, could it be that maybe the call was justified?