Ok, so this weekend all the children were home for Sunday dinner, a rather unusual situation considering that they are either in London (two) or at University (Cambridge and Oxford). Clearly, our daughter who is entering her third year at Cambridge is the least inconvenienced since it's only about an hour away, still all for children, and two of their "friends" were there for the weekend.
Needless to say in university circles the Israeli/Hamas war is in full swing with a great deal of self-righteousness from both sides. Our children have long learned their lessons, but their "friends" are new to our household. I am certain that my two youngest warned their friends that both my wife and I would force them to fully explain any opinions they voiced, afterall if you feel confident to voice an opinion, you understand the issues.
Obviously, our children grossly exaggerated my wife and my debating with our children when they were younger. Still, it makes for a good story. Anyway, I suspect that my daughter wanted to have a debate about the Israel/Hamas, but didn't want to be the instigator. Her "friend" a very good-looking and pleasant young man, who I suspect is, in reality, more than a friend... but still these things cannot be rushed, is studying medicine, and mentioned, in passing, how medical teams were aggressed by both side of the conflict -- in his opinion a first time ever that doctors were the target of aggression by combatant/population. I mentioned that in the Middle East, the Red Cross had rebranded as the Red Crescent 40 years ago to avoid such a situation, that was, unfortunately, the comment to begin the strong-worded discussions on the validity of either Hamas or Israel supporters.
Sensing that things could easily get out of control I decided to make a bold statement; the conflict between Jews and Muslims goes back 14 centuries and as the Protestants and the Catholics have often demonstrated there are no worse enemies than close cousins. In addition, I said, that neither side has clean hands in the conflict, and although the Palestinians live in Gaza with Hamas they have not voted for them in 40 years. On the other side, Israel is deeply divided and Egypt is the creator of Gaza and its near-prison reality.
Those who preach that either one side or the other is right or wrong unless they are part of the conflict, they have little understanding of the situation and to tread with care.
I did that because I could easily see a nasty situation develop with no possible positive outcome. First and foremost are the following facts that everyone agrees to:
1. Hamas was used by Iran for its own purpose, but there is no love lost between the two. Iran is Shite and Hamas and the Palestinians are Suni.
2. Hamas is not a pro-Palestinian government they are the equivalent of the Mafia, the vast majority of its leadership lives in luxury in Dubai
3. Gaza residents are stuck with Hamas was elected and removed the right to vote
4. Israel's security services really screwed the pooch
5. Israel's defense minister is an extreme far-right politician who is more than happy to kill the entirety of the Gaza population, ideally so that settlements could be expanded to the sea.
6. The Jews and the Palestinians have equal rights to the region and have been there for more than 2,000 years (BTW the original Palestinians were probably Jews -- their religion only started in the 8th century).
7. Supporting Hamas and supporting the Palestinian causes are not the same thing.
8. The reason for the conflict is that Iran wanted the stop the Abraham agreement from being signed between Saudi Arabia and Israel (I kind of pushed that one -- this is one massive assumption).
9. Israel is not the only source of Gaza's nightmare, the rest of the Arab world shares a lot of the blame here, starting with Egypt (which shares a border) and wants nothing to do with the Palestinians.
10. A discussion is possible, but remain civil, and remember the odds of you convincing anyone of your views are nil.
In addition, our son who works in London was saying that there was a memo at work that discussion of the conflict within the organization is prohibited and if it occurs will lead to immediate dismissal. People were a little upset, but then I mentioned that in my time social media didn't exist but there was a generally agreed position that we didn't talk about the conflict in Ireland.
In any event, my daughter had a twinkle in her eyes and I knew she was testing the mettle of her "maybe-boyfriend" to argue with his "potential father in law" the boyfriend took a rather unexpected position, he said, in wars, there are only losers those who win are those who stay outside the conflict and gain from the hot heads or those who were convinced to join the fight. Palestinians have been telling the world media for days now that Hamas has used hospitals, schools, and other public buildings to hide their operations. He stated that the Israelis are, for now, stuck with a crazy situation of their own making, and as such should shoulder the majority of the blame, Netanyahu's desire to remain in power backed by insane ultra-orthodox warmongers (who don't join the military) will eventually cost his government and the country a lot. Right now the US supports Israel, but for how long as the war atrocities mount?
And that was the end of that conversation. One of my sons suddenly asked if we had watched the football yesterday, and I said that we had instead worked with the team that installed our new biodigesters. The equipment is complex, especially the dryer that is required to reduce the amount of water in the methane. The potential boyfriend was fascinated that we used biodigesters on the farm. I said we anticipate that propane will become harder to acquire and this way we recycle our waste so that we extract carbon dioxide for our greenhouses, methane for power and heat, and organic material as compost and we also clean the water that is then recycled into our process.
He could not believe that this was cost-efficient, my wife then mentioned that we estimated that with current propane prices our payback on the biodigester plant with be around 40 months -- thereafter the biodigester with generate net savings for the farm, reducing our environmental footprint dramatically.
I didn't tell the kids, because it doesn't concern them, but with our planned greenhouse expansion we will need more power, and the cheapest solution is to add to our farming operations (more cattle) so that we can add an additional biodigester, although we are in a conversation with a nearby farm to buy their waste directly and transfer it to our farm by pipeline...but that's another story
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