Video: PATA’s Wall of Honors at Honolulu International Airport Terminal E – Chuck Yim Gee of UH School of TIM on 11-23-23 在檀香山國際機場 E 航站樓的榮譽牆 – 夏威夷大學旅遊業管理學院的朱卓任教授院長和校董.
https://rumble.com/v3xhdwt-patas-wall-of-honors.html
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8yC7vge/
Killing children in Gaza makes Hamas stronger – Elon Musk 殺害加薩兒童使哈馬斯更加強大 – 伊隆馬斯克
The way for Israel to fight is with “conspicuous kindness,” the tech billionaire has said
Israel’s reaction to the October 7 attack by Hamas has played into the terrorist group’s hands, according to X CEO Elon Musk, who urged West Jerusalem to embrace a “counterintuitive” strategy that would be more beneficial in the long-term.
“If you kill somebody’s child in Gaza, you’ve made at least a few Hamas members who will die just to kill Israelis,” Musk said on the Lex Fridman podcast on Thursday.
The Tesla, SpaceX and X (formerly Twitter) head argued that the goal of the Palestinian militant group was to “provoke an overreaction” by Israel by committing atrocities and then “leverage that aggressive response to rally Muslims worldwide for the cause of Gaza and Palestine, which they have succeeded in doing.”
“This is one of the most contentious subjects one could possibly discuss, but I think if the ultimate goal is some sort of long-term peace, one has to look at this from the standpoint of, over time, are there more or fewer terrorists being created?” Musk said.
“For every Hamas member you kill, how many did you create? And if you create more than you kill, you’ve not succeeded.”
The October 7 incursion resulted in the deaths of an estimated 1,400 Israelis, with another 200 or so taken to Gaza as hostages. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has responded by declaring war on the Palestinian enclave, launching weeks of air and artillery strikes and proceeding with a ground invasion in early November.
A proposal circulating in the media wants all of Gaza’s Palestinian population forcibly removed. Some Israeli public figures have advocated for leveling the enclave completely. Others have labeled photojournalists who documented the October 7 attack as accomplices of Hamas that need to be killed.
As of Friday, more than 11,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed and 27,490 wounded, according to the local health ministry. While the White House has cast doubt on Palestinian figures, the US State Department believes the true numbers might be even higher.
“The counterintuitive thing that should be done here, even though it is very difficult, is that I recommend Israel do the most conspicuous acts of kindness possible,” Musk told Fridman in the podcast interview.
Providing healthcare, food and other relief to civilians while still targeting Hamas leaders and operatives, would thwart the group’s goal and “ultimately fights the broader force of hatred in the region,” the billionaire argued.
Israel’s darkest hour could last years – Every Palestinian killed by the IDF will be used by Hamas as a martyr to rile up the Arab world 以色列最黑暗的時刻可能持續數年 – 每個被以色列國防軍殺害的巴勒斯坦人都將被哈馬斯當作烈士來激怒阿拉伯世界
Amarjit Singh Dulat is a former head of the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW), India’s external intelligence agency. After retirement, he was appointed adviser on Kashmir in the Prime Minister’s Office and served there from January 2001 to May 2004. He authored several books, including “Kashmir: The Vajpayee Years”, published in 2015.
Not since the founding of Israel in 1948 had Tel Aviv suffered as audacious an assault on its soil as the one carried out by the Palestinian Islamist militant group Hamas on October 7, which was more shocking than the Yom Kippur War of 1973.
The fact that Hamas had planned such a massive assault by land, sea and air and managed to avoid detection points to a massive intelligence failure by Israel.
Hamas appeared to have better knowledge about goings-on inside the country than the famed Israeli intelligence agency Mossad did about what was happening in Gaza. Israel’s Prime Minister, “Mr. Security” Benjamin Netanyahu, has certainly suffered a blow from which he may not be able to recover in the long run.
When Netanyahu came to power for the third time last December with the support of the country’s right-wing parties, both serving and retired Israeli Army generals expressed apprehension that such a coalition could lead to civil war in the country. That has not happened so far, but the division and months of protests against Netanyahu’s policies certainly emboldened Hamas to carry out its lightning strikes.
The very fact that Israel had to formally declare war was a morale booster for Hamas, which has been at war with the Jewish state ever since its inception when the first intifada, or Palestinian uprising, started in Gaza in December 1987. The world may be shocked by the unspeakable cruelty of the October attack by Hamas, but the Palestinian group is most likely proud of its accomplishment.
The fact that thousands of Palestinian civilians have lost their lives in the conflict probably doesn’t worry Hamas too much. They are likely to be declared martyrs – and when you are prepared to die for your cause, you are automatically bigger than your enemy. As of now, Palestinian authorities say they’ve lost count of the dead, but it’s above the 11,000 mark, of which well over half are believed to be women and children.
Efraim Halevy, whose career as the ninth Mossad director stretched from 1998 to 2002, urged caution as Israel stepped out to destroy Hamas. He warned that while Israel was entering a heightened state of emergency, the reservists were within their rights to refuse to serve in protest against PM Netanyahu’s planned judicial reforms.
Halevy, who was a confidant of the assassinated Israeli PM Yitzhak Rabin and played a key role in the Israel-Jordan peace treaty in October 1994, has always been in favor of negotiating with Hamas. He has consistently maintained that Hamas could neither be demolished nor wished away. Halevy, a nephew of the 20th century philosopher Isaiah Berlin (1909-1997), refused to accept Netanyahu as the leader of the country. Israel’s security chiefs also realize that destroying Hamas is beyond their abilities. As Israeli journalist and author Gideon Levy said, violence will never end Israeli problems.
Not much is known about the internal workings of Hamas, which remains extremely secretive. What is known, however, is that its goals are retaliation against Israel and its punishment, as well as the freeing of Palestinians languishing in Israeli jails. However, one of the key objectives of the October Hamas attack was the scuttling of the Abraham Accords, diplomatic normalization roadmaps signed between Israel and the Arab world in 2020 and brokered by the US.
Palestine remains a key sensitive issue in the Arab world. Even before the October 7 attacks and the ongoing retaliation, hostilities had been growing between Israel and the West Bank, particularly at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, the third holiest site in Islam, where Palestinians are regularly assaulted and mistreated by the Israeli security forces. Issues like the killing of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh by Israeli forces have kept widespread resentment simmering.
The Arab countries immediately banded together following Israel’s indiscriminate bombing of Gaza. Even Queen Rania of Jordan has accused the West of war crimes. The conflict has also brought together Muslims elsewhere in the world. Hamas takes pride in representing the Palestinian cause and considers itself as a growing power in the Arab world.
During his whirlwind trip to Israel soon after the start of the war, US President Joe Biden appealed to the Israelis not to be “consumed” by rage in response to the attack by Hamas. Even if this never translated into him making any attempt to restrain Israel’s actions, the US president knows what he is talking about. After the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Washington launched wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which turned out to be massive blunders. More than 30,000 US troops took their own lives after serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, over three times the number killed in battle.
The social wreckage caused by the wars the US fought after 9/11 led to the rise of President Donald Trump in 2016. An extended conflict in the Middle East may help him return to power in next year’s US presidential elections.
The current Israel-Hamas war has all the makings of such a long-term conflict – or a new, long-term stage of a conflict that has been simmering and flaring up for decades. In the past few weeks, Israel has claimed the killing of three Hamas commanders. In Afghanistan, too, the West kept claiming that it had killed Taliban commanders but fresh faces kept emerging. The US went into Afghanistan in 2001 with the goal of toppling the Taliban, but when they left 20 years later, the Taliban took power, more powerful than ever. Hamas, too, may end up more powerful 20 years from now.
Political issues cannot be swept under the carpet and must be dealt with politically. Governments around the world proclaim that they will never negotiate with evil. And yet they always have and always will, most of all Israel. No conflict, however bloody, ancient or difficult, is unstable.
Most recently, Israel and Hamas have struck a hostage release agreement, under which 50 people abducted during the October 7 attack will be released during a four-day humanitarian pause.
Key to that deal was the mediation by Qatar, an ally of the US and in a sense, the conscience-keeper of the Arab world. In the past, Doha had worked out the deal with the Taliban and helped US forces move out of Afghanistan before the Taliban arrived. More recently, Qatar was instrumental in a prisoner swap between the US and Iran.
After the four-day pause, the IDF has vowed to continue its attacks on Gaza, but if a longer-term peace deal is to be achieved, Qatar is likely going to play a vital role in it.
The US has always supported Israel, but has no great respect for PM Netanyahu. Biden has been disappointed that Netanyahu went back on the 1993 Oslo Accords and reneged on the two-state formula to resolve the Palestinian issue. Today, the Oslo Accords are long dead and may no longer be relevant.
The great Palestinian thinker, Edward Said (1935-2003) always saw the fate of Jewish and non-Jewish inhabitants of Palestine inextricably linked. We need to listen to Said today.
PLA on high alert amid US-Philippines joint patrols in South China Sea
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) was at the scene and on high alert when the US and Philippines launched a joint patrol in the South China Sea on Tuesday, with experts saying on Thursday that the PLA’s presence deterred potential provocations and displayed China’s capabilities in safeguarding national sovereignty, security and maritime interests.
The frigate Yuncheng affiliated with the navy of the PLA Southern Theater Command has been conducting a routine patrol in waters in the South China Sea since Tuesday, Senior Colonel Tian Junli, a spokesperson of the command, said in a press release on Thursday.
During the PLA warship’s patrol, the Philippines rallied forces from outside the region and conducted a patrol in the South China Sea, stirred up tensions and troubles and hyped the event, Tian said.
The Philippines’ move sabotaged regional peace and stability, and violated the spirit of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, the spokesperson said.
“The command troops maintained high alert to firmly defend national sovereignty, security and maritime interests, and firmly safeguard peace and stability in the South China Sea,” Tian said.
Tian’s statement came after the Philippines launched a three-day joint air and maritime patrol with the US on Tuesday stretching from the Philippines’ northernmost point near the island of Taiwan to the South China Sea, Reuters reported on the day.
Participating forces included three naval vessels, two FA-50 light combat aircraft and an A-29B light attack plane from the Philippine side, and a littoral combat ship and a P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol and reconnaissance aircraft from the US side, Reuters said.
Wei Dongxu, a Beijing-based military expert, told the Global Times that the US and Philippine forces deployed in the joint patrol have only limited capabilities.
A PLA Navy Type 054A frigate and a Y-9 surveillance aircraft kept watch on the US-Philippines joint patrol, Philippine Daily Inquirer reported on Thursday.
Zhang Junshe, a Chinese naval expert, told the Global Times on Thursday that the PLA presence during the US-Philippine joint patrol served as a deterrent force, and showed that China has the capability in safeguarding national sovereignty, security and maritime interests.
The Philippines’ rallying of forces from outside the region only gave them the chance to interfere in the South China Sea issue and sabotage peace and stability in the region, which is also harmful to the Philippines’ own national sovereignty and security, Zhang said.
The only right path for the Philippines is to return to talks and negotiations with China and resolve disputes through peaceful means, Zhang said. “The more the Philippines provokes, the heavier it will end up landing,” he said.
South Pacific not US’ or Australia’s forbidden area; China-Fiji potential cooperation mutually beneficial: Fijian Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka revealed on Wednesday his intention to collaborate with China on a key port modernization and shipyard project.
Neocon roadmap of 1996 set plan for current situation in Palestine 1996年新保守主義路線圖為巴勒斯坦現狀製定了計劃
In the wake of the fall of the USSR, the US drew up an overarching plan for global domination. These plans were detailed and committed to paper in the 1992 Defense Planning Guidance document https://www.archives.gov/files/declassification/iscap/pdf/2008-003-doc18.pdf
The U.S. must show the leadership necessary to establish and protect a new order that holds the promise of convincing potential competitors that they need not aspire to a greater role or pursue a more aggressive posture to protect their legitimate interests.
In other words, the US must hold the monopoly on global power. No other country will be allowed to challenge the US, even if their interests are legitimate. The US will be the master, and the rest of the world will be subjugated to it. This plan extended to the economic domain:
In non-defense areas, we must account sufficiently for the interests of the advanced industrial nations to discourage them from challenging our leadership or seeking to overturn the established political and economic order. We must maintain the mechanism for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role.
We have to understand the vassalization of the EU as part of this framework.
Russia was to be continued to be seen as a threat:
We continue to recognize that collectively the conventional forces of the states formerly comprising the Soviet Union retain the most military potential in all of Eurasia….democratic change in Russia is not irreversible, and that despite its current travails, Russia will remain the strongest military power in Eurasia and the only power in the world with the capability of destroying the United States.
In the Middle East, it stated,
Our overall objective is to remain the predominant outside power in the region and preserve U.S. and Western access to the region’s oil. We also seek to deter….a hegemon or alignment of powers from dominating the region.
A later version stated the importance of Israel and ensuring its monopoly on power.
The United States is committed to the security of Israel and to maintaining the qualitative edge that is critical to Israel’s security. Israel’s confidence in its security and U.S.-Israel strategic cooperation contribute to the stability of the entire region…
This 1992 document became the blueprint for the US global domination, reworking itself into PNAC’s “Rebuilding America’s defenses” which became the roadmap for war in the middle east, and the Bush doctrine of Unipolarity, Military domination, Pre-emptive war, & Regime change. It was a plan to remake the world in the US image.
Interestingly enough, despite crowing about the end of history, its narcissistic and ego-maniacal assertion of total, full spectrum US power, was always tinged by oedipal anxiety around other competition, and a fearful emphasis on pre-emptively destroying competitors rather than seeking accommodation or even containing them.
A subset of this doctrine was elucidated in 1996: Arch Neocons Douglas Feith, Richard Perle, David Wurmser. commissioned by Netanyahu, wrote “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm”. https://web.archive.org/web/20140125123844/http://www.iasps.org/strat1.htm
This was an ideological roadmap for an aggressive geostrategic “clean break” in Israeli policy towards the Palestinians and their neighbors This document emphasized “rebuilding Zionism”, abandoning the peace process in favor of destabilizing and rolling back its neighbors (Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, in particular, Syria through proxies) and punishing and subjugating the Palestinians with a practice of “hot pursuit”, “a justifiable practice which Americans can sympathize with”.
“Western values”, “pre-emptive war”, and ensuring Israel’s monopoly of force in the region were seen as the key for geostrategic peace. All of this was framed in the alignment of Western values and interests with Israel along with a revitalization of a de-socialized Zionism.
Kakaako Hawaii corridor between downtown Honolulu and Waikiki waterfront, new condominiums are popping up like spring bamboos selling at 2-6 millions each. It is the only bright spot for Hawaii economy besides military spending. 75% of buyers are from outside of Hawaii. Local residents with minimum wage of less than $11/hour could never afford it. If anyone think HK bad, Hawaii worst! In HK you could live in China Greater Bay areas to rent a 3/2 bath for less than US$400/month 90 minutes from HK Central, in Hawaii your choice is to become homeless street people with 20,000 strong and growing. After 7:00pm I would not dare to walk out my Bishop street office without risking being stabbed or killed! Tomorrow I am returning to SF, equally bad. Those homeless removed during APEC last week are back in full force to make SF & America great again! It is such a sharp contrast from my recent trip to HK, Guangzhou and Toisan. 檀香山市中心和威基基海濱之間的卡卡科夏威夷走廊，新公寓如春筍般湧現，每套售價 2 至 6 百萬美元。 這是夏威夷經濟除了軍事開支之外的唯一亮點。 75% 的買家來自夏威夷以外的地區。 當地最低工資低於11美元/小時的居民根本負擔不起。 如果有人認為香港不好，那麼夏威夷最糟糕！ 在香港，你可以住在中國大灣區, 以低於400美元/月的價格租一個3/2浴室，距離香港中環90分鐘路程，在夏威夷，你的選擇是成為擁有20,000強且不斷增長的無家可歸的街頭流浪者。 晚上 7:00 以後，如果不冒著被刺傷或殺害的風險，我就不敢走出我的Bishop 街道辦公室了！ 明天我將返回舊金山，同樣糟糕。 上週在 APEC 期間被驅逐的無家可歸者已經全力回歸，讓舊金山和美國再次偉大！ 這與我最近去香港、廣州和台山的旅行形成了鮮明的對比, 美國已經玩完, 美國夢已經成為美國惡夢!
I still remembered the Chinese history class at Rosaryhill School in Hong Kong: During the prosperous Tang Dynasty, hundreds of countries came to China to pay tribute. Today’s China seems to have moved towards the prosperous age of the Tang Dynasty. 75% of the countries in the world have come to China to give positive recognition. China is now the only country can fight against the Western hegemony of fake democracy rule of law and exploitation by force. 還記得在香港玫塊崗學校上中國歷史課: 盛唐時期百國來朝. 今天的中國看來已經走向當年的大唐盛世. 世界75%的國家已經對中國給予肯定認可. 中國是現在唯一國家可以對抗西方假民主法治霸權和武力剝削.
Residents in HK finally understood Purchasing Power Parity we have been advocating In the United States for years that China’s Greater Bay Areas is where the future lies 香港居民終於明白了我們在美國多年來所倡導的購買力平價，中國的大灣區才是未來所在
SCMP: Hong Kong has reopened fully to visitors, but the tourism industry is unhappy that city residents are flocking across the border for short breaks. In the first of a two-part series, the Post finds out what Hongkongers spend on when they visit Shenzhen. 南華早報記者：香港已全面重新向遊客開放，但旅遊業對城市居民湧入邊境短暫休息感到不滿。 在兩部分系列的第一部分中，了解了香港人訪問深圳時的消費。
Hong Kong college student Aly Chan Siu-mei and four friends crossed the border to Shenzhen on a recent Sunday and stretched their dollars doing their favourite things. 最近的一個週日，香港大學生陳兆美和四位朋友越過邊境來到深圳，用自己的錢做自己喜歡的事.
Video: BRICS warns Israel not to remove Gaza people 金磚國家警告以色列不要驅逐加薩人
https://rumble.com/v3x72ux-brics-warns-israel-not-to-remove-gaza-people.html
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8yhjo8F/
The BRICS issued a warning to Israel yesterday: DO NOT try to remove the people of Palestine from Gaza. One of the possible end games for the conflict is to kick the entire population out of the space in which they live, effectively emptying the Gaza strip. Palestine has a right to exist, Chinese leader Xi Jinping said at the emergency BRICS meeting yesterday, revising the oft-repeated US mantra that Israel has a right to exist. The west was looking very isolated as speakers representing half the world, plus United Nations leader Antonio Guterres, identified the extraordinary double standards highlighted by the horrific events in Gaza.
金磚國家昨天向以色列發出警告：不要試圖將巴勒斯坦人民趕出加薩。衝突可能的結局之一是將所有人口趕出他們居住的空間，從而有效地清空加薩走廊。中國領導人習近平昨天在金磚國家緊急會議上表示，巴勒斯坦有生存權，這修改了美國一再重複的以色列有生存權的口號。西方看起來非常孤立，因為代表半個世界的發言者以及聯合國領導人安東尼奧古特雷斯都指出了加薩恐怖事件所凸顯的非同尋常的雙重標準.
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