I find it hard to believe that in a nation that has just elected its first Black President, we've placed such a low value on the Martin Luther King holiday. I've heard radio talk-show hosts call it a "pseudo-holiday" and "half a holiday" because so many businesses choose to ignore it! People would get pissed if they were suddenly ordered to go to work on Memorial Day or the 4th of July. Hopefully, President Obama will see to it that the King Holiday becomes a full-fledged REAL holiday, not only in the eyes of the Nation, but in the eyes of the private business sector.

A few weeks ago I published an article entitled "The Situation" on my blog*spot blog. This was before the conflict escalated in Israel. In the post, I noted that there are some who would argue that the Middle East is setting the stage for the next (last?) major World war. There are others who invoke the biblical warning of "wars and rumours of wars."

In his newspaper column, Israeli Nechemia Meyers writes about the range of terrorist rockets: "According to maps we see almost every evening on TV, it now reaches only a dozen kilometers south of Rehovot, where we live. There is no reason to doubt that it will soon reach us too."

Meyers brought something very interesting up... it reminds me of the argument people use here in the US sometimes. You'll see Pakistani and Indian businessmen and women coming to New York, living in cramped quarters with several others, working two or three jobs and saving that money for a year or two. Then they buy into a business: a convenience store, pizza shop or gas station. Observers then attack less fortunate Americans with the argument "if they can do it, and they can barely speak English, why can't YOU?" Anyway - here's what Meyers writes about the Palestinians in Gaza: "They are still there after six decades because their Arab brothers want them to be there (emphasis mine). Rich, underpopulated Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States could easily absorb them as they have absorbed untold thousands of Indians, Pakistanis, Thais, Filipinos and others, who do work that could be done by Palestinians. But most of the Arab states would rather have the Gazans remain a festering sore in Israel's south rather than to rehabilitate them as Israel has done with Jews from Arab countries... One can only dream of another scenario, one in which peace and cooperation between Israelis and Palestinians would make life easier on both the frontlines and the home front." Isn't that what all "ordinary citizens, everyday people" really want? Peace and cooperation? Can the leaders not make it so?

I've thought this out a bit farther in the interests of clarifying something. Follow me now:
- In the U.S.A. blacks have been socially disadvantaged for many years.
- The Civil Rights Movement (inlcuding the JFK era and the social disorder that raged thru the later sixties into the early seventies) paved the way for many changes which
- really started to "set" during the mid-1970s when there was increased interracial activity on may fronts.
- As the harsh reality of the 1980s set in and hip-hop was born, an mist of hopelessness settled over many inner-city neighborhoods, while at the same time, Indian and Pakistani people (along with other foreigners) came to the States and began to establish the businesses mentioned above.

Even now, many of the poor black families in the US share a common bond with the Palestinians in Gaza. Although other Arab countries could give the Gazans jobs, they choose not to. Although the United States could give jobs (training and loans) to black citizens, those jobs and benefits are going to foreigners. Something is wrong with both pictures.