- Dr. Barry Lynn
WEATHER: Taking Hamas Out Of The Equation
Illustration (Image credit: Wix)
After several days of hot and muggy weather and some heavy (but isolated) thundershowers, the weather turned a bit cooler and drier. However, it's back to summer. Low pressure moved past to our east late last week. It's responsible for the hotter temperatures and heavy dust, as well as some high level overcast. The storm was replaced with high pressure entering from the west. This high pressure area originated in Africa. Hence, it also brought hot summer temperatures, and some dust as well. The hot weather should last into mid week when some moisture arriving with a storm from the north might again bring some showers.
I am sure that you've all been following the news lately — as the skies rained mortars and missiles, rather than raindrops along the southern coastal areas. While the weather has been strange (rain in June!), I found nothing quite as strange as the following quotes from a Hamas spokesperson:
“Israel will fail in the attempt to change the rules of the conflict and set a new equation on the ground.” “The resistance in the Gaza Strip reserves its right to react or remain silent in accordance with the interest of our people...”
I assume by using the word "equation" he means that Hamas shoots x number of missiles and we respond with c times x, where the letter c represents a constant. In other words, we're not actually suppose to try to stop them from shooting missiles or what not — we’re just to go along with the "game." But, that was the literal meaning — here is the subjective meaning of “equation”: Hamas is building an army. An army requires resources, which we provide in the hopes that it will be used to ameliorate the hardships of the citizens of Gaza, aka Hamastan. However, the "resistance" has defined the interests of its people to be the destruction of Israel — which means that none of these materials are to reach them.
In the meantime, we hope to "manage" the situation until either we are forced to utterly destroy Hamas or the people do it themselves. However, Hamas is very good at allocating just enough resources (combined with military rule) to prevent any action by the citizens of Gaza to overthrow its rulers. And we go along with it. I'd rather stick to talking and thinking about the weather.
Image credit: The Jerusalem Herald
Dr. Lynn is a lecturer at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Earth Sciences Department. He is also CEO of Weather It Is, LTD, a company that specializes in reducing weather risk.
