Thursday, June 29, 2006




What a memorable weekend. I came down to KL last Thursday to file in my petition for chambering. I stayed at ati’s coz I made my promise to spend the weekend with her. On early Friday morning I went to Masjid Jame’ to get all the things done.kinda worried coz I barely knew the exact location of the places that I had to go..the high ct,commissioner for oath and the bar council…indeed God is always with me when I need Him the most..i happened to see farhana on my way out of the erl counter…but a few seconds after that I lost her..i decided to have my breakfast first..just to kill time as I’d do anything to avoid the traffic-not on the road..but in the lrt..for crying out loud!!how could these people stand this every day????that makes me want to own my own private island someday!!haha..even if its only in my dreams..ahaha!!somehow my instinct kept telling me to call farhana on the phone just to tell her that I just saw her..my luck!!!her office was just around the places that I needed to go..she practically brought me to these places..i was so happy for that..i met hida and raina..unplanned reunion…after I got all the things done..i have to wait for about two hours coz asni wanted to have lunch with me..but I had to wait until she’s done with her work at the Malaysian bar…

On Saturday..ati and me went to tim’s wedding..it was a garden wedding..awesome..i met hida,munah,dilla,ema;asma,syitah,pakdi,aja,shue,lily and sasha and sir iqbal too..it felt so good to gather and talk and talk and laugh..like we usually did before..talking for hours..even in a kenduri..hmm..no one could help it I guess..and tim’s photographer kept coming to our table..he took lots and lots of pics…on our way back..after four hours being there..we saw a playground next to where ati parked her car..and we decided to go and play with the swings… it felt so good…just like when we were little kids..

And on Sunday..ati and me went to visit mar,,she just got a baby girl..baby humaira is soooooo adorable..she’s so cute.and I could just spend hours looking at her while holding her in my arms..she’s such a nice baby…no wonder why I dreamt about her last nite..

And on Monday as I stayed all alone by myself, as ati had to go to work..
mourning over my orange boys..Holland had to go home after losing to Portugal..i felt so bad about it..but football is just like life..even heroes have the right to bleed right..but the bottom line is,,they’ve tried their best..and the match statistic proved it all…it doesn’t matter if u win or lose..as long as you fight to the end..that’s what really counts…coz we are all fighters as that what makes a man a MAN..in the evening ili and mimi came over and we had dinner together..another episode of non stop talking and laughing…

hmm..and not to forget..mom kept calling..’’when are u coming back?’’..indeed time is not always on my side right now..there’s still a bunch of close frens I didn’t get to spend my time with..im sori guys!!i wish I could stay longer but I couldn’t…and I promise ill meet u guys the first chance I get yah..coz I love u guys so much..thanx to my choco top-dome buddy-ati and to all my lovely frens!!

Thursday, June 15, 2006


[COMMENTARY]
On the BeachbyRonnie D. Lipschutz
Bombs, rockets, and artillery shells don’t always go where you aim them or want them to go. Sometimes, however, where they go may serve a political purpose.
This past Friday, some sort of projectile went astray at a beach in Gaza, killing at eight people—six from one family—out to enjoy a day in the sun. We know who killed them; it is less clear what killed them or why. Some thought the wayward shells might have come from an Israeli gunship offshore or from an aircraft. Israeli military officials explained that the deaths were accidental—“collateral damage”— and that the wayward artillery shells were meant to deter the firing of Qassam rockets into Israel. Official sources regretted harm to any Palestinian civilians. But the damage was done. Eight people were dead and Hamas declared it would resume attacks on Israel. Perhaps this was not an accident.
One irony of this episode is that the Qassam rockets fired by Palestinians into Israel are made locally in workshops, notoriously inaccurate, short range and cause few, if any, casualties or damage. Mostly, they have nuisance value. Israel’s reaction, by contrast, is powerful and deadly. It has produced steady stream of Palestinian casualties, both “militants” in cars and houses and civilians who are merely in the way. Predictably, such killings cause resentment, anger and more rockets, all beyond the control of either President Abbas or the Hamas government. Israel can then argue that violence is all the Palestinians know and there is no one among them with whom to negotiate, even as it ensures, with its repeated attacks, that there will be no Palestinians willing to risk negotiations for fear of assassination.
Such an outcome, we might speculate, is precisely what the new government of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert seeks. Why? In the recent elections to the Israeli Knesset, competing parties fought over the so-called legacy of former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, now three months into a coma from which he is unlikely ever to awake. Over the past few years, Sharon decided to pursue the physical separation of Israel and Palestine (what the Israelis call “hitkansut,” or a “coming together”), building a wall between the two—which takes in substantial portions of the West Bank—and orchestrating a unilateral Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. This policy was violently opposed by many members of the Likud Party, to which Sharon had belonged for decades, as renunciation to title to all of the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. In response, Sharon formed a new party, Kadimah, which he hoped could form a new government empowered to continue the process of separation.
No doubt, Sharon and his colleagues were hoping that the Palestinians would fall to fighting among themselves as well as continue to attack Israel, making it all the easier to finalize separation and impose a “final” border as a fait accompli.
Kadimah won the election, although receiving many less votes than predicted and has formed a government in coalition with several other supportive parties. This new government will complete the wall dividing Israel from the Palestinian lands, and will try to move several tens of thousands of West Bank settlers out of their current locations into communities on the Israeli side of the wall. A majority of Jewish Israelis support this plan although, if and when it happens, it is likely to be fairly contentious procedure and even trigger Israeli-on-Israeli violence. Many predicted such clashes during the withdrawal from Gaza, but that turned out to be fairly peaceful. Still, Gaza has never been as important as the West Bank in Zionist ideology and religious belief, and the West Bank settlers have promised to resist with all their ability.
This is where a certain amount of Palestinian violence might serve the interests and goals of the Olmert government. Renewed bombings in Israeli cities will highlight the continued risks of engagement with Palestine as well as the vulnerability of settlers on the wrong side of the wall and the high costs of keeping soldiers out there to protect them. After all, if bombs can be detonated in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, given how well defended they are, imagine how much easier it will be to set off bombs in the West Bank. Just as in Gaza, the pullback will be rationalized as a “security measure,” which will satisfy the Israeli electorate and leave the Palestinians with those few remaining pieces of territory that no one in Israel wants.
Yet, the Sharon solution will hardly put an end to this war or to civilian deaths. In a very real sense, the growing discord among various Palestinian factions is directly attributable to Israeli policy, especially over the past decade. Seeking perfect safety, Israel continually made impossible demands of the Palestinian Authority. Thinking that it would be easier to deal with a splintered enemy than a unified neighbor, Israel thought it could manipulate the Palestinian Authority into an alliance of convenience against Hamas and Jihad. Now, facing the consequences of its cynical strategies, Israel is trying to wash its hands of the mess it did so much to create.
No doubt, the Israelis will find that walls are only walls and that they can be surmounted rather easily. The violence within Palestine will not remain contained but will spill over into Israel. More critically, perhaps, sooner or later the Palestinians will unite in the face of Israel’s cynical exploitation. Then, as real war spreads from the Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea, not only the beach will be a dangerous place for families and others.