A man goes into a bar and drinks beer. After every glass of beer he pulls a picture out of his pocket and looks at it. After the 4th beer the waiter asks him why after every glass of beer he pulls the picture out and looks at it
Then the man says: It's a picture of my wife. When she looks good to me I'm going home.
Then we have some Obama twitterings as America roars back -- with laughter. A fed-up nation with itchy Twitter fingers is bringing down what's left of an insufferably pompous presidency. How? By unleashing the most American weapon of all: the wisecrack.
"Obama's ego is blocking my view of the sky."
"My neighbor seems to be a bit of a freethinker. Should I take him out quietly tonight or wait for backup?"
"I just parked my private jet in a handicap space, left it running & bought lemonade from little girls in yard w/o a permit!"
"I was told in my Econ class that supply & demand drives the economy, not government."
Thanks to Stella Pundit.
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Several days ago I e mailed a video of interviews with Miss America applicants answering whether we should continue teaching math in schools to which I added the comment: "We are sunk."
I received many e mails lamenting the e mail's message and expressions of disbelief and concern. I replied it was a spoof but apparently some took it as serious commentary on some of the air heads who compete to become Miss America and the state of education in our country.
Both understandable reasoning.
I feel like Orson Wells! Sorry.
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I have met Khaled Toameh and consider him a friend and, as I oft repeated, one of the best, most courageous and honest reporters in The Middle East. CNN would never hire him for these reasons and continued to rely upon Christiane Amanpour until she left for greener pastures. (See 1 below.)
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Palestinian pathology by Caroline Glick. (See 2 below.)
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An article setting the record straight with respect to Turkey. Those who are quoted suggest Erdogan's Turkey is interested in selling secularism and the role Turkey wants to play will be positive for the West. Time will tell. (See 3 below.)
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The two state solution is no solution but since solutions, in the Middle East, are hard to come by, it at least permits the world to fantasize.
(See 4 below.)
Some rebuttals defending Israeli legitimacy. (See 4a below.)
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The Obama Administration and their State Department minions are great at becoming concerned after the horse has left the barn, in this case the camel. (See 5 below.)
From the Palestinian viewpoint what is there to lose? Surely we will continue to ship them money as their continuing reward for continuing their teaching hatred, continued killing of Israelis and their continued desire to eliminate the Middle East's sole democracy. (See 5a below.)
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Is the U.N. good for anything? If so I would like to be told what. (See 6 below.)
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Here are some general statistics that provide insight into where government is compared to the private sector from the start of the recession.
Before the recession The Transportation Department had a single employee earning over $170,000 today over 1800 are earning that salary.
The Department of Defense had some 1869 earning over $150,000 and today over 10,000 earn that salary.
The private sector has expanded jobs by 2% government by 15%. Over 16% of the voting population work for government. They are not likely to vote to cut their jobs or pay because that would be cutting their throats.
The key to ending the recession is for everyone to work for the government! Makes sense to me what about you?
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Not the message Obama may want to hear but it is insightful. (See 7 below.)
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Finally Neil Boortz talks to students at commencement of his Alma Mater. (See 8 below.)
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Dick
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1) PA to US: Statehood veto would 'destroy' two-state solution
By KHALED ABU TOAMEH
The Palestinian Authority on Saturday warned the US against using the veto to thwart its plan to seek membership for a Palestinian state in the UN next week.
The PA said that a US veto would "destroy" the two-state solution.
The warning came hours after PA President Mahmoud Abbas announced in a speech in Ramallah that he would ask the UN Security Council to accept membership of a Palestinian state.
Chief PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat warned that the US Administration's use of a veto to foil the PA move would destroy the two-state solution.
"Anyone who supports the two-state solution should back the Palestinian effort [at the UN]," he said.
Erekat hinted the Palestinians would consider dismantling the PA if the US thwarted their statehood bid.
Zakariya al-Agha, the PLO's top representative in the Gaza Strip, also warned against the consequences of a US veto at the UN next week.
He said the PA was going to the UN because US President Barack Obama, in his last speech to the UN in 2010, talked about the establishment of an independent and sovereign Palestinian state within one year.
"We are going to the Security Council," Abbas declared. "As soon as I finish delivering my speech [at the UN on September 23], I will submit the application [for membership] to the UN Secretary-General, who will relay it to the president of the Security Council."
Abbas said that his "extensive and sincere" efforts to reach an agreement that wound end occupation and lead to an independent Palestinian state through negotiations have hit a dead end.
He blamed Israeli "intransigence" for failure of the peace process.
"We seek to gain membership in the UN on the basis of the 1967 borders so that we could afterward return to the negotiations on a clear and internationally recognized reference."
Abbas said that the statehood bid was only part of the Palestinian strategy that is designed to "put the Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital back on the geography map."
He also cautioned Palestinians against resorting to violence, stressing that support for the statehood bid should be "peaceful." Otherwise, he said, this could "harm us and sabotage our efforts."
Abbas made it clear that the statehood bid would not affect the status of the PLO as "the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinians." He said that the PLO would continue to exist and function not only until a solution is reached, but until it's implemented.
The PLO, he pointed out, would also continue to work toward solving the issue of the Palestinian refugees.
Abbas said that he was ware that the Palestinian would face major obstacles and difficulties after the statehood bid at the UN. But, he said, "we must remain determined to achieve our goal."
He said that even if the PA succeeds at the UN, "we must know that occupation would not end the day after the recognition of the state. But we would have gained recognition of the world that our state is occupied and that our lands are no longer disputed territories as the Israeli government claims."
Calling on Palestinians to take to the streets on September 21 to support the statehood bid, al-Agha emphasized the importance of avoiding violence "so as not to give the Israeli government any excuses to ignite the region."
The PLO official said that the statehood bid would not affect the Palestinian refugees' "right of return" to their original homes inside Israel.
"The Palestinian state is being established in connection with UN resolutions 242 and 338," he pointed out. "But the right of return for the refugees is guaranteed through UN resolution 194."
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2) The Palestinian obsession
By Caroline Glick
If nothing else, the Palestinians' UN statehood gambit goes a long way towards revealing the deep-seated European and US pathologies that enable and prolong the Palestinian conflict with Israel.
In a nutshell, the Palestinian Authority - or Fatah - or PLO initiative of asking the UN Security Council and the General Assembly to upgrade its status to that of a sovereign UN member state or a sovereign non-UN member state is an act of diplomatic aggression.
Eighteen years ago this week, on September 13, 1993, the PLO signed the Declaration of Principles with Israel on the White House lawn.
There, the terror group committed itself to a peace process in which all disputes between Israel and the PLO - including the issue of Palestinian statehood - would be settled in the framework of bilateral negotiations.
The PA was established on the basis of this accord. The territory, money, arms and international legitimacy it has been given was due entirely to the PLO pledge to resolve the Palestinian conflict with Israel through bilateral negotiations.
By abandoning negotiations with Israel two years ago, and opting instead to achieve its nationalist aims outside the framework of a peace treaty with Israel, the Palestinians are destroying the diplomatic edifice on which the entire concept of a peace process is based. They are announcing that they have no intention of living at peace with Israel. Rather they intend to move ahead at Israel's expense.
In truth, there is little new in the Palestinians' behavior. They have been using the UN to weaken Israel diplomatically since the early 1970s. Moreover, even if their bid does provide them with upgraded diplomatic status, it won't change the reality on the ground, nor are the Palestinians particularly interested in changing the situation on the ground.
As the PLO ambassador in Lebanon, Abdullah Abdullah, made clear in an interview Wednesday with Lebanon's Daily Star, in the event that the UN recognizes some form of Palestinian statehood at the UN, the new "State of Palestine" will still expect the UN to support the so-called Palestinian "refugees."
This is true, he said, even for the "refugees" who live in Gaza, Judea and Samaria. That is, the same UN that the Palestinians seek recognition of statehood from will be expected to provide relief to Palestinian "refugees" living inside "Palestine."
As he put it, "Even Palestinian refugees living in [refugee camps] inside the [Palestinian] state, they are still refugees. They will not be considered citizens."
So if nothing will change on the ground, why do the US and the EU care what the Palestinians do at the UN next week with their automatic General Assembly majority?
Why have the senior peace-processors of Washington and Europe descended on Jerusalem and Ramallah, begging and pleading with the Palestinians to cancel their plans?
Why have the Americans and the Europeans been pressuring Israel to make massive concessions to the Palestinians in order to convince them to put out the diplomatic fire there have set at the UN?
Why are the White House and the State Department telling the media that the US will consider it a major diplomatic embarrassment if the Palestinians go through with their threats? Why in short, do the Americans and the Europeans care about this?
THE PALESTINIANS have certainly never given either the Americans or the Europeans a good reason to support their cause. Just this week, the PLO representative in Washington told reporters that the future state of Palestine will ban Jews and homosexuals.
And yet, the Obama administration and the EU have made the establishment of a racist, homophobic Palestinian state the greatest aim of their policies in the Middle East.
Every single Palestinian leader from the supposedly moderate Fatah party has rejected Israel's right to exist and said that they will never set aside their demand that Israel accept millions of foreign-born Arabs - the so-called Palestinian "refugees" - as citizens. They say this with the full knowledge that this demand is nothing less than a demand for Israel's destruction.
And yet, both the US and the EU, which certainly do not support the destruction of Israel, insist that it is imperative to strengthen and support the supposedly moderate Fatah party which seeks the destruction of Israel.
Every year, the US and Europe transfer collectively approximately a billion dollars in various forms of aid to the Palestinian Authority and yet, the PA has failed to develop a market economy capable of supporting the Palestinians without foreign assistance. Instead, they have developed a welfare society where most economic activity stems from foreign handouts.
Rather than feel embarrassment at their failures, PA leaders use their economic corruption to continuously threaten their patrons. If aid is cut off, they say, the PA will disintegrate and the far more popular Hamas movement will take over, and then, woe of woes, the peace process will be destroyed.
Of course, Hamas is also sustained by Western aid money. Every month, the same PA that warns of the dangers of a rising Hamas transfers tens of millions of dollars in foreign aid to Hamas-controlled Gaza to pay salaries of Hamas "government" employees.
Yet despite its mafia economy, and its exploitation of their aid funds to support a terrorist organization, the US and EU insist on maintaining the PA's status as the largest per capita foreign aid recipient in human history. And they do so even as the Eurozone is on the brink of collapse and the US is descending rapidly into a new recession.
Finally, in the interest of maintaining the peace process, aside from periodic pro forma statements, the US and the EU have turned blind eyes to the PA's routine and institutional glorification of terrorist mass murderers and Nazi-style anti-Semitic indoctrination and incitement of Palestinian society.
Given their absolute commitment to the so-called peace process, it would be reasonable to expect the US and the EU to oppose the Palestinians' decision to move their conflict with Israel from the negotiating table to the UN.
After all, in acting as they are, the Palestinians are making clear that they are abandoning the sacrosanct peace process.
Alas, this is not the case.
The Obama administration is engaging in desperate eleventh hour diplomacy to convince the Palestinians to cancel their UN plan, because it does not wish to oppose it. Most EU member states are expected to support the Palestinian bid at both the Security Council and the General Assembly.
The fact that the US and the EU are reluctant to oppose the Palestinian UN initiative, despite the fact that it destroys the foundations of the peace process, tells us two things about the Americans and the Europeans. First, their support for the Palestinians has more in common with a psychological obsession than with a rational policy decision.
The Obama administration, the EU bureaucracy and most EU member states are obsessed with the Palestinians. There is nothing the Palestinians can say or do to convince them that the Palestinian case is anything other than wholly and completely just.
There are many possible explanations for how they arrived at this obsession. But the fact is that it is an obsession. Like all obsessions, their faith in the justice of the Palestinian cause is impermeable to contrary facts or rational interests.
The flip side of this obsession is, of course, a complementary obsession with blaming Israel for everything that goes wrong. For if the Palestinians are always in the right, and they are fighting Israel, then it naturally follows that Israel is always in the wrong.
This "Blame Israel First" mindset was exposed in all its madness in a New York Times editorial on Thursday.
Despite the Palestinians' refusal to negotiate with Israel, despite Fatah's unity-government deal with Hamas, and despite their rejection of Israel's right to exist, the Times argued that Israel is to blame for the current crisis in relations.
In the paper's view, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu "has been the most intractable" party to the conflict. Netanyahu's crime? He has permitted Jews in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem to exercise their property rights and build on land they own.
Of course, that is not how the Times put it. In the Times' words, Netanyahu has been "building settlements."
Intrinsic to the Times' claim, (and to the Obama administration's EU-supported demand that Israel disregard Jewish property rights in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria), is an embrace of the Palestinians' bigoted position that Jews must be banned from the future Palestinian state.
That is, like the administration and the EU, the Times' support for the "just Palestinian cause" is so comprehensive that its editors never even question whether it is reasonable for them to be completely committed to the establishment of a racist state. It is this inability to consider the significance of their actions that removes Western support for the Palestinians from the realm of policy and into the sphere of neurosis.
The second lesson of the US and European unwillingness to oppose the Palestinians' UN statehood bid is that the Obama administration and the EU alike are obsessed with getting on the right side of inherently anti-Western international institutions.
Here, too, the reason that the position is an obsession rather than a considered policy is because no conceivable rational US or European interest is advanced by strengthening the UN and similar bodies.
Administration officials have repeatedly said that they do not wish to veto a Palestinian statehood resolution at the Security Council because they do not want to isolate the US at the UN. It is due to their aversion to isolation that the administration has worked so intensively in recent weeks to convince the Palestinians to cancel their UN plans, by pressuring Israel to give them massive concessions.
It never seems to have occurred to anyone at the White House that standing alone at the UN more often than not means standing up for US interests, and that standing with the crowd involves sacrificing US interests.
As for the EU, their automatic support of the UN is somewhat more reasonable. Although the UN majority systematically empowers states and forces that are hostile to Europe, many EU member states share the UN majority's anti-Israel and anti-American positions. So by voting with the majority, EU member states are able to act on their prejudices without having to own up to them. Moreover, many EU states have irredentist Islamic minorities. Joining the Israel-bashers at the UN is a low-cost way to appease them.
On Thursday, Netanyahu announced that he will address the UN General Assembly in New York next week and put the truth about the Palestinian cause on the table.
Perhaps someone will be moved by his words.
Perhaps not.
But whether he makes a difference or not, at least reason will have one defender at the UN next week.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) The Middle East’s new emperor: Why the West quietly cheers Turkey’s rise
By DOUG SAUNDERS
From the moment he stepped off his jet in Cairo Tuesday night to find thousands of Egyptian fans shouting “God is great,” this was far more than a routine visit by a foreign leader.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish Prime Minister, toured the newly liberated capitals of Egypt, Tunisia and Libya this week with the sort of popularity usually reserved for pop stars. He is polling as the most popular politician, by far, in virtually every country of the Middle East, and for the revolutionary generation who turned to the Middle East’s only Muslim democracy for inspiration, he is a conquering hero.
Not since the Kurdish sultan Saladin recaptured Egypt, Syria and Jerusalem from the Europeans in the 1100s, some commentators remarked as Mr. Erdogan filled TV screens across the region, has a non-Arab held such widespread popularity and uncontested influence in the Arab world.
But it is exactly those sort of imperial analogies that have Westerners worried about Turkey’s new assertiveness. It has become popular to call Mr. Erdogan’s tactics “neo-Ottoman,” after the Turk-led Muslim empire that conquered much of Europe, the Middle East and north Africa between the 14th and the 19th centuries. The worry is that Turkey is now turning away from its European roots – after being shunned by the European Union in its bid for membership – and using the power vacuums to its south to link up with the region’s Islamist parties and form a network of Islamic power to threaten the West.
It is a misleading analogy, mistaking Mr. Erdogan’s bold but self-interested mission for some sort of Islamic imperialism, but it is a popular and understandable one.
After all, Mr. Erdogan, a former Islamist and devout believer, launched this tour after turning a minor spat with Israel, Turkey’s traditional staunch ally, into an outright conflagration. After Israel refused to apologize earlier this month for its army’s killing of nine Turkish civilians aboard the controversial aid flotilla to Gaza in May of 2010, Mr. Erdogan responded furiously by withdrawing Turkey’s ambassador, suspending its military co-operation with Israel, and freezing all trade ties with the Jewish state.
His Arab tour has been laced with fiery criticisms of Israel, glowing support for the Palestinian cause, and macho statements suggesting a military showdown: “Israel will no longer be able to do what it wants in the Mediterranean,” he told an audience in Tunis on Thursday, “and you’ll be seeing Turkish warships in this sea.” That was only one of several such alarming sabre-rattling statements, suggesting that the spat with Israel is in large part intended to send a message of solidarity to his country’s Arab neighbours.
That, combined with the warm mutual embrace between Mr. Erdogan and leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood (who tend to tell Western reporters that they see Turkey as their role model), has led some to fear that Europe’s largest Muslim state is turning to the dark side. It’s an alarming prospect, given that Turkey has Europe’s largest standing army and has become wealthy enough, from gas pipelines and industrial exports to Europe, to become a major power.
Yet most informed observers of Turkish diplomacy would say that’s a serious misreading.
“Yes, Turkey has been engaging its neighbourhood, and not just in the Middle East, and building its influence with Muslim states,” said Joshua W. Walker, a Turkey specialist who is a fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, “but it would be a mistake to think that this is a move away from the West or from democracy or secularism. They’re making a shift from a French style of secularism to an American one, where you’re allowed to be religious and still be in government, but there’s no sign that Turkey is moving away from the West.”
Indeed, many Western diplomats, including those from the United States, quietly say that Mr. Erdogan’s eastern turn is a welcome and beneficial development – in good part because it could herald the eclipse of Saudi Arabia’s and Iran’s much more dangerous influence over the Arab states, but also because what Mr. Erdogan is doing is hardly imperial or Islamist.
His key message to Egyptians, delivered in a national TV interview, is that they should get rid of their old sharia-based constitution and become a secular state. “In Turkey, constitutional secularism is defined as the state remaining equidistant to all religions,” he said. “In a secular regime people are free to be religious or not.”
And if there was any ambiguity, he then told Egyptians that the most important thing Arabs should learn from Turkey is secularism – a word that is close to unmentionable in Egypt these days.
“I recommend a secular constitution for Egypt,” he said. “Do not fear secularism because it does not mean being an enemy of religion. I hope the new regime in Egypt will be secular. I hope that after these remarks of mine the way the Egyptian people look at secularism will change.”
That message was heard loudly across the Arab world, and provoked angry responses from the Brotherhood and other Islamist groups (who nevertheless still sought to associate themselves with the Turkish leader).
And it came alongside a number of other signs that Turkey is far from turning eastward. Just as he was falling into his feud with Israel, Mr. Erdogan struck a bold deal with the United States to use his country as the staging ground for a missile defence system that uses huge radar installations to protect against Iranian missile attacks. A senior U.S. official told the New York Times that it is “the most significant military co-operation between Washington and Ankara since 2003” and it was widely seen as part of a major boost in the country’s 59-year-old membership in NATO. At the same time, Turkey joined a major antiterrorism initiative with the United States. And its trade and political relations with European states have been growing strongly.
“If you actually examine what is happening,” says Fadi Hakura, head of the Turkey Project at London’s Chatham House, “you realize that this is the best possible situation for the United States and Europe – you have a strongly allied country that can exercise a tough position with Israel without promoting the kind of violence that other regional actors like Iran did.” In other words, Turkey may play the bad cop with Israel, but unlike Tehran, it won’t be interested in bankrolling terrorists groups like Hezbollah.
Mr. Ergdogan’s eastern thrust, accompanied by large aid expenditures across the Middle East, North Africa and Somalia, is part of a strategy engineered by Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu to build Turkey’s regional influence in order to avoid the multiple crises Turkey faced before 2000 when it was surrounded on all sides by menacing, unstable authoritarian states.
Mr. Davutoglu’s strategy is based on what he calls a “zero problems” relationship with Turkey’s neighbours, designed to minimize expensive confrontations. Given the bellicose standoff with Israel this week, and Mr. Erdogan’s own drift back into military conflict with his own Kurdish minority (whom he’d previously spent a decade granting impressive minority rights), it’s obvious that the problems with Turkey these days are far from zero. But they might be a lot fewer than you’d think.
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4)Please, Mr. Netanyahu, Don't Make Trouble!
By Robert Morrison
I used to hang out with the kids in Young Judea -- a Jewish youth group -- when I was growing up on Long Island. I was welcomed as a non-Jew. I remember the endless Jewish jokes. They all had a serious point. Two men in Tsarist Russia were being led out to a firing squad: one, a humble tailor, the other a wild anarchist. As the Tsarist officer in charge of the firing squad tried to put a blindfold on the condemned anarchist, the young militant recoiled. He would face death unblinkingly, he said bravely. Alarmed, his fellow Jew interceded: "Please, don't make trouble!"
President Obama's top political aides are racing to shore up hemorrhaging support in the Jewish community. Mr. Obama won the votes of 78% of American Jews in 2008. But a heavily Jewish congressional district in New York just sent a conservative pro-life, pro-marriage Republican to Congress. So, the New York Times gives us this report, in which Obama's political operatives urge the Jewish community: please, don't make trouble:
And the White House is drawing attention to recent expressions of gratitude from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israelis after Mr. Obama intervened last Friday to help prevent violence after a mob attacked the Israeli Embassy in Cairo, threatening the Israeli diplomats inside.
Gratitude for what? For President Obama's intervening with the Egyptian interim government. It was to prevent the lynching all the Jews in the Israeli Embassy.
For thirty years, Hosni Mubarak was not good for much besides crowd control. You could buy the Tsarist era anti-Semitic forgery "Profiles of the Elders of Zion" in any bus or train station. But at least then there were annual meetings with Israelis, there were high-level contacts. Mubarak sealed his border with Gaza so that the terrorists of Hamas could not be supplied by their Muslim Brotherhood sponsors in Egypt. Mubarak was a dictator, but he kept a Cold Peace with Israel for thirty years. No more.
President Obama welcomed the uprising of the "Arab street," first in Tunisia, then in Egypt, now in Libya. He not-so-gently shoved Mubarak out of office. He hailed the uprising as the "Arab Spring." It's a flowering of democracy and human rights in the Middle East, he said.
And the Israelis get to thank Mr. Obama that they are not lynched.
Now, the policy of the Obama administration is to recognize a new state for Palestinians on the West Bank of the Jordan River and in Gaza. Sec. of State Hillary Clinton agrees that these two separate regions must be linked by a land corridor. Right through the heart of Israel. This makes the Israelis queasy.
Please, Mr. Netanyahu, don't make trouble. Instead of that nasty blindfold, take this nice, moist, warm towel for your eyes.
When the UN General Assembly votes later this month on whether to create a new state on the West Bank and in Gaza, they will only be doing what official Obama policy says they have a right to do. But not yet.
We're being warned by Hanan Ashrawi, the PLO's official yenta. No woman speaks with authority in any Arab land. No Christians, if they're smart, speak at all. So Hanan Ashrawi, allegedly Christian, is there only to lecture credulous Christians in the West. This is what she told Public Radio International [http://www.theworld.org/2011/08/mixed-views-on-palestinians-un-recognition-plans/]:
"We're telling the Americans, the best thing for you to do, at least if you don't want to vote with us, if you don't want to be seen as on the wrong side of the law, isolated with Israel, blocking the rights of one nation, we're trying to convince them to abstain."
This we get from the PLO that we are paying $450 million this year to work toward the Mideast peace process. Whenever I hear "Mideast peace process" or "Arab spring," I think of what Gandhi told reporter who asked him what he thought of Western Civilization: "I think it would be a good idea."
Why should there be a "two-state" solution in the Mideast. Are there any states there now? Israel is a state. An Arab diplomat once said his own Egypt is the only nation over there; "the rest are tribes with flags." The Palestinian rulers certainly don't want two states. Their maps show no Israel at all.
If the Obama administration says there should be a two-state solution, how after twenty years can we stop the UN General Assembly from recognizing Palestine? Will the Obama people storm the ramparts of Turtle Bay with a flag that says "OK, but not yet."?
A Palestinian state will be a new base for terrorists. That's all the PLO ever was or ever will be. We need a new Terroristan like we need a loch im kopf (Yiddish for a hole in the head.) It's time to "re-set" the entire Obama Mideast policy.
Robert Morrison served in the Reagan administration and is currently a Senior Fellow at Family Research Council in Washington, D.C.
4a) Israel's Rights as a Nation-State in International Diplomacy
By Alan Baker
A concerted campaign is being waged against Israel to question its very legitimacy in virtually every aspect of its historical, political, and cultural life, with the aim of undermining the very foundations of Israel's existence.•In response, several world-renowned experts have joined to present an authoritative exposition of Israel's Rights as a Nation-State in International Diplomacy, published jointly by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and the World Jewish Congress.•The volume includes: "The National Rights of Jews" by Prof. Ruth Gavison, "From the Balfour Declaration to the Palestine Mandate" by Sir Martin Gilbert, "Self-Determination and Israel's Declaration of Independence" by Prof. Shlomo Avineri, "The United Nations and Middle East Refugees: The Differential Treatment of Arabs and Jews" by Dr. Stanley A. Urman.•"Israel's Rights Regarding Territories and the Settlements in the Eyes of the International Community" by Amb. Alan Baker, "The Historical and Legal Contexts of Israel's Borders" by Prof. Nicholas Rostow, "The Misleading Interpretation of Security Council Resolution 242 (1967)" by Prof. Ruth Lapidoth, "Defending Israel's Legal Rights to Jerusalem" by Amb. Dore Gold.•"Palestinian Unilateralism and Israel's Rights in Arab-Israeli Diplomacy" by Dan Diker, "Is the Gaza Strip Occupied by Israel?" by Col. (res.) Pnina Sharvit-Baruch, "The Violation of Israel's Right to Sovereign Equality in the United Nations" by Amb. Alan Baker, and "Countering Challenges to Israel's Legitimacy" by Prof. Alan M. Dershowitz.
As the United Nations is about to be manipulated by a Palestinian attempt to impose its statehood on the international community in a manner that undermines a vital negotiating process based on the UN's own resolutions, a concerted campaign is being waged against Israel by Palestinian, Muslim, and other non-Arab elements in the international community to question the very legitimacy of Israel in virtually every aspect of its historical, political, and cultural life, with the aim of undermining the very foundations of Israel's existence.
In response, several world-renowned experts have joined to present an authoritative exposition of Israel's Rights as a Nation-State in International Diplomacy, edited by Alan Baker, former legal counsel of Israel's Foreign Ministry and former ambassador to Canada, and published jointly by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and the World Jewish Congress.
The National Rights of Jews
Prof. Ruth Gavison, Professor (emerita) of Human Rights at the Faculty of Law of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and recipient of the Israel Prize in Law (2011), challenges the often- repeated denial by the Arabs of the rights of Jews to establish their own nation. The Jews have always had the characteristics of a nation, both ethnical and cultural, and not only religious. This was true before Israel was established and it is true today. It is justified for Jews to have sought revival of their political independence in their ancient homeland - Zion.
Zionism is not a colonial or an imperialist enterprise. The Arab population in pre-state Israel had never enjoyed or established political independence, and Jews were at liberty to seek political revival in the only place in the world that had been their homeland.
"An Overwhelmingly Jewish State" - From the Balfour Declaration to the Palestine Mandate
World-renowned British historian and author Sir Martin Gilbert, who is Winston Churchill's official biographer, discusses how Great Britain viewed the right of the Jews to a national home in Palestine. The Times of London declared on September 19, 1919: "Our duty as the Mandatory power will be to make Jewish Palestine not a struggling State, but one that is capable of vigorous and independent national life."
Winston Churchill announced publicly on March 28, 1921: "It is manifestly right that the Jews, who are scattered all over the world, should have a national center and a National Home where some of them may be reunited. And where else could that be but in the land of Palestine, with which for more than 3,000 years they have been intimately and profoundly associated?"
On June 3, 1922, the British Government issued a White Paper, known as the Churchill White Paper, which stated: "During the last two or three generations the Jews have recreated in Palestine a community, now numbering 80,000....It is essential that it should know that it is in Palestine as of right and not on the sufferance. That is the reason why it is necessary that the existence of a Jewish National Home in Palestine should be internationally guaranteed, and that it should be formally recognized to rest upon ancient historic connection."
Churchill told the 1937 Palestine Royal Commission: "We committed ourselves to the idea that someday, somehow, far off in the future, subject to justice and economic convenience, there might well be a great Jewish State there, numbered by millions, far exceeding the present inhabitants of the country and to cut them off from that would be a wrong."
Self-Determination and Israel's Declaration of Independence
Israel Prize recipient Prof. Shlomo Avineri, Professor of Political Science at the Hebrew University and Director-General of the Israel Foreign Ministry in the first term of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, analyzes Israel's right to self-determination in the context of its Declaration of Independence. He notes that the Arabs of Palestine and Arab states went to war not only against the emerging Jewish state, but also against a UN resolution in the only known case when member states of the UN not only did not abide by a UN resolution but went to war against it.
Had the Arab community gone through a profound internal debate and come out of it - as did the Jewish community - with an acceptance, however reluctant, of the compromise idea of partition, be it on moral or realistic grounds, or both - history would have been different: on May 15, 1948, two states - Israel and Palestine - would have been established. There would have been no 1948 war, no Palestinian refugees, no nakba, no further Arab-Israeli wars, no terrorism, and no Israeli reprisals. This could have happened - but it did not. The moral and political responsibility rests on the shoulders of the Arab side. Had the Palestinian Arabs and the countries of the Arab League chosen a different path, this would have made the Middle East a region of prosperity, mutual respect, progress and abundance for all its peoples.
Despite the difficult war situation, the practical steps taken by the newly established, independent State of Israel reflected the country's willingness to abide by obligations inherent in the UN partition plan. Israel adopted a multicultural approach toward its Arab minority, maintaining the status of Arabic as an official language. Israeli Arabs send their children to schools which teach in Arabic, with the curriculum tailored to their culture.
The acceptance by most Israelis today of a two-state solution - of a Jewish and a Palestinian state living in peace with each other - is a testimony to the fact that, despite decades of war and siege, the fundamental decision adopted by the Jewish community in 1947 continues to guide the moral compass of the Jewish state.
The United Nations and Middle East Refugees: The Differential Treatment of Arabs and Jews
Dr. Stanley A. Urman, Executive Director of Justice for Jews from Arab Countries (JJAC), contrasts the considerable diplomatic advocacy and discussion concerning the Palestinian refugee issue with the utter lack of consideration for the Jewish refugee issue. The mass violations of the human rights of Jews in Arab countries and the displacement of over 850,000 Jews from their countries of birth has never been adequately addressed by the international community, although on two separate occasions, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) specifically declared that Jews fleeing from Arab countries were indeed refugees "who fall under the mandate" of the UNHCR.
From 1949 to 2009, General Assembly resolutions focused much greater attention on the issue of Palestinian refugees (163 resolutions) - some 20 percent - than on any other Middle East issue. There were never any General Assembly resolutions that even mention Jewish refugees from Arab countries. Since 1947, billions of dollars have been spent by the international community to provide relief and assistance to Palestinian refugees. During that same period, international resources provided to Jewish refugees from Arab countries were negligible.
For the United Nations or other international entities to continue to ignore or reject the rights of Jewish refugees from Arab countries is to validate past and continuing injustice.
Israel's Rights Regarding Territories and the Settlements in the Eyes of the International Community
For over 40 years, it has been persistent UN practice to repeat in parrot fashion the phrases "Israel the occupying power," "the occupied Palestinian territories," and to refer to Israel's settlement activity as illegal, irrespective of the facts and the correct legal situation. Amb. Alan Baker stresses that the Israel-Palestinian Interim Agreement of 1995, signed by Israel and the PLO, was witnessed by the United States, the European Union, Egypt, Jordan, Russia, and Norway, and supported by the UN. This agreement changed the status of the territory and the status of each of the parties to the agreement as well.
Israel's continued presence in Area C of the West Bank, pending the outcome of permanent status negotiations, enjoys the official sanction of the PLO. It cannot, by any measure of political manipulation or legal acrobatics, be considered "occupied territory."
Construction activity by each side in those parts of the territory under their respective control was expressly permitted in the agreement. Israel's presence in the territory of the West Bank, pending the outcome of permanent status negotiations, was with the full approval of the Palestinian leadership and thus is not occupation.
Furthermore, analysis of the introduction to the 4th Geneva Convention as well as the official International Red Cross Commentary to it makes it very clear that Article 49 of the Convention was never intended to apply, and cannot apply, to settlement activity carried out by Israel.
The Historical and Legal Contexts of Israel's Borders
Prof. Nicholas Rostow, senior director of the U.S. National Defense University's Center for Strategic Research, addresses the claims against Israel's rights to defensible and recognized borders. He notes that UN Resolution 242 left open for negotiation where Israel's final boundaries would be in exchange for withdrawal from Egyptian, Jordanian,Syrian, and disputed territory, rather than requiring a restoration of the 1949 Armistice Demarcation Lines as the international boundary of Israel. The resolution thus treated that boundary only as marking a minimum Israeli territory. Resolution 242 arguably entitled Israel to more territory than that. Adjustments were contemplated, as implied by the requirement for "secure and recognized boundaries."
The Misleading Interpretation of Security Council Resolution 242 (1967)
Israel Prize recipient Prof. Ruth Lapidoth, former legal adviser to Israel's Foreign Ministry and member of Israel's negotiating team, analyses the way in which Israel's rights are being consistently negated through misleading interpretations of UN Security Council Resolution 242. The resolution does not request Israel to withdraw from all the territories captured in the 1967 Six-Day War and does not recognize that the Palestinian refugees have a right to return to Israel.
The establishment of secure and recognized boundaries requires a process in which the two states involved actually negotiate and agree upon the demarcation of their common boundary. The UN Security Council did not regard Israel's presence in the territories as illegal. As an act of self-defense, this military occupation was and continues to be legitimate, until a peace settlement can be reached and permanent borders agreed upon.
Defending Israel's Legal Rights to Jerusalem
Israel's rights regarding Jerusalem are perhaps one of the most sensitive issues on the agenda of the international community. Amb. Dore Gold, former ambassador to the United Nations and currently President of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, sets out Israel's rights regarding the city. The Jewish people restored their clear-cut majority in Jerusalem not in 1948 or in 1967 but in 1863, according to British consular records. This transformation occurred well before the arrival of the British Empire in the First World War and the Balfour Declaration. It even preceded the actions of Theodor Herzl and the First Zionist Congress. Indeed, in 1914 on the eve of the First World War there were 45,000 Jews in Jerusalem out of a total population of 65,000.
In the last seventeen years, a number of key misconceptions about Jerusalem took hold in the highest diplomatic circles in the West as well as in the international media. When Israel signed the Oslo Agreements in 1993, for the first time agreeing to make Jerusalem an issue for future negotiations, that did not mean that Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin planned to divide Jerusalem. On October 5, 1995, one month before he was assassinated, he detailed to the Knesset his vision for a permanent status arrangement with the Palestinians: "First and foremost, united Jerusalem, which will include both Ma'ale Adumim and Givat Ze'ev - as the capital of Israel, under Israeli sovereignty."
In the years of the Arab-Israeli peace process, proposals were raised and considered for the re-division of Jerusalem, but no binding agreements were actually reached and brought to the Knesset for ratification. Israeli opinion remained firm about the rights of the Jewish people to retain their united capital under the sovereignty of Israel. The recognition of those rights in the future by the international community will depend on Israel demonstrating that it alone will protect the Holy City for all faiths.
Palestinian Unilateralism and Israel's Rights in Arab-Israeli Diplomacy
Dan Diker, Secretary-General of the World Jewish Congress and Adjunct Fellow of the Hudson Institute in Washington, addresses the attempt to deny Israel's rights to settle the conflict through bilateral negotiation. UN support for or endorsement of Palestinian unilateral actions would clearly negate the principles of negotiated settlement of disputes as set out both in the UN Charter and in the major Security Council resolutions regarding the Middle East peace process.
A unilateral declaration of statehood by the Palestinians robs Israel of all its rights and negates the peace process's validity in its entirety. The Palestinians' rush to unilateral statehood cannibalizes the basis of all past agreements including those that established the Palestinian Authority, and ignores and dismisses the concessions already made by Israel during the Oslo Accords and in later agreements.
Is the Gaza Strip Occupied by Israel?
In light of the attempts to represent Israel as if it is still occupying the Gaza Strip, even after having evacuated its forces and citizens from the area, Col. (res.) Pnina Sharvit-Baruch, former head of the IDF International Law Department who served as legal adviser to the Israeli negotiating teams during Israeli-Palestinian and Israeli-Syrian peace negotiations between 1993-2009, places the legal status of Gaza in the correct perspective.
The evacuation of Israeli citizens and IDF forces from Gaza was aimed to reduce friction with the Palestinian population and improve Palestinian living conditions. The hope was that the Palestinians would take advantage of the opportunity created by Israel's disengagement to break the cycle of violence and reengage in a process of dialogue. Israel is clearly not an occupier of Gaza. Israel has fully withdrawn and carries out no governmental authority over the population in the area.
According to the Supreme Court of Israel: "Israel is under no general obligation to provide for the welfare of the residents of the Gaza Strip and to preserve the public order there, according to the body of laws pertaining to belligerent occupation in international law." Israel does not possess full control over the external perimeter of Gaza and has no effective control over the area. Thus, there is no valid legal basis to regard Israel as the occupying power of the Gaza Strip. The Hamas government exercises effective powers of government there. Consequently, the laws of occupation do not apply.
The Violation of Israel's Right to Sovereign Equality in the United Nations
Amb. Alan Baker notes that since becoming a member of the UN in 1949, Israel has been denied its Charter-based right to "sovereign equality," and is the only UN member state that is excluded from the UN geographical groupings and that cannot be elected to the Security Council, the International Court of Justice, or any other major UN body. Sovereign equality in the UN - judicial equality, equality of voting, equality in participation in all UN activities and processes, and equality in membership in all forums - break down with respect to Israel, which is clearly discriminated against.
Since Israel has been excluded from its geographical regional group - the Asian Group - by vote of the Arab and Muslim members of that group, and is not accepted as a full member in the Western European and Others Group (WEOG), Israel is being denied its UN Charter-guaranteed equality.
In such a situation, Israel can never put up its candidacy for membership in the Economic and Social Council, or other major UN organs. It is denied any chance of having its jurists chosen as candidates for the major juridical institutions, tribunals, and courts within the UN system, and it cannot participate in consultations between states, organized within the regional group system, to determine positions and voting on issues, resolutions, and other matters. In 1998, the UN Secretary-General called "to rectify an anomaly: Israel's position as the only Member State that is not a Member of one of the regional groups....We must uphold the principle of equality among all UN member states."
Sir Robert Jennings, former President of the International Court of Justice, wrote in 1999: "Exclusion of one member from an essential part of the workings of an international organization in which all other members are entitled to participate is a crude breach of the rule on non-discrimination." He continued: "I venture to suggest that Israel's exclusion should no longer be tolerated; and that it is now an issue of primary importance for the [UN] Organization itself to see that it be remedied."
Countering Challenges to Israel's Legitimacy
Persistent and oft-repeated charges against Israel's legitimacy, such as the charge that Israel is an illegitimate, "colonial" state; that it secured its statehood unlawfully; that it is an apartheid state; and the claim for a "one-state solution" are analyzed by the eminent U.S. jurist Prof. Alan M. Dershowitz, Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. He notes that the Jewish refugees in Palestine had established their homeland without the assistance of any colonial or imperialist power. They relied on their own hard work in building an infrastructure and cultivating land they had legally purchased. These Jews had the right to determine their own future consistent with the Wilsonian principle of self-determination.
Israel's statehood was secured lawfully by, among other instruments and acts, the Balfour Declaration of 1917, the 1922 League of Nations Mandate, the 1937 Peel Commission Report, the 1947 United Nations partition resolution, Israel's Declaration of Independence, subsequent recognition of the State of Israel by numerous world powers, and Israel's acceptance into the United Nations. What other country has its origins so steeped in international law?
A binational state would not only imperil Israel's Jewish population, but would eradicate the one state in the Middle East that affords its Muslim citizens more expansive civil liberties and political prerogatives than any other. Israeli Arabs are better off - as measured by longevity, health care, legal rights, even religious liberty - than other Arabs in the Middle East.
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5)Tumult of Arab Spring Prompts Worries in Washington
By STEVEN LEE MYERS
While the popular uprisings of the Arab Spring created new opportunities for American diplomacy, the tumult has also presented the United States with challenges —and worst-case scenarios — that would have once been almost unimaginable.
What if the Palestinians’ quest for recognition of a state at the United Nations, despite American pleas otherwise, lands Israel in the International Criminal Court, fuels deeper resentment of the United States, or touches off a new convulsion of violence in the West Bank and Gaza?
Or if Egypt, emerging from decades of autocratic rule under President Hosni Mubarak, responds to anti-Israeli sentiments on the street and abrogates the Camp David peace treaty, a bulwark of Arab-Israeli stability for three decades?
“We’re facing an Arab awakening that nobody could have imagined and few predicted just a few years ago,” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in a recent interview with reporters and editors of The New York Times. “And it’s sweeping aside a lot of the old preconceptions.”
It may also sweep aside, or at least diminish, American influence in the region. The bold vow on Friday by the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, to seek full membership at the United Nations amounted to a public rebuff of weeks of feverish American diplomacy. His vow came on top of a rapid and worrisome deterioration of relations between Egypt and Israel and between Israel and Turkey, the three countries that have been the strongest American allies in the region.
Diplomacy has never been easy in the Middle East, but the recent events have so roiled the region that the United States fears being forced to take sides in diplomatic or, worse, military disputes among its friends. Hypothetical outcomes seem chillingly present. What would happen if Turkey, a NATO ally that the United States is bound by treaty to defend, sent warships to escort ships to Gaza in defiance of Israel’s blockade, as Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has threatened to do?
Crises like the expulsion of Israel’s ambassador in Turkey, the storming of the Israeli Embassy in Cairo and protests outside the one in Amman, Jordan, have compounded a sense of urgency and forced the Obama administration to reassess some of this country’s fundamental assumptions, and to do so on the fly.
“The region has come unglued,” said Robert Malley, a senior analyst in Washington for the International Crisis Group. “And all the tools the United States has marshaled in the past are no longer as effective.”
The United States, as a global power and permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, still has significant ability to shape events in the region. This was underscored by the flurry of telephone calls that President Obama, Mrs. Clinton and Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta made to their Egyptian and Israeli counterparts to diffuse tensions after the siege of Israeli Embassy in Cairo this month.
At the same time, the toppling of leaders who preserved a stable, if strained, status quo for decades — Mr. Mubarak, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya and Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia — has unleashed powerful and still unpredictable forces that the United States has only begun to grapple with and is likely to be doing so for years.
In the process, diplomats worry, the actions of the United States could even nudge the Arab Spring toward radicalism by angering newly enfranchised citizens of democratic nations.
In the case of Egypt, the administration has promised millions of dollars in aid to support a democratic transition, only to see the military council ruling the country object to how and where it is spent, according to two administration officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss diplomatic matters. The objection echoed similar ones that came from Mr. Mubarak’s government. The government and the political parties vying for support before new elections there have also intensified anti-American talk. The officials privately warned of the emergence of an outwardly hostile government, dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood and remnants of Mr. Mubarak’s party.
The upheaval in Egypt has even raised the prospect that it might break its Camp David peace treaty with Israel, with Egypt’s prime minister, Essam Sharaf, telling a Turkish television channel last week that the deal was “not a sacred thing and is always open to discussion.”
The administration, especially Mrs. Clinton, also spent months trying to mediate between Turkey and Israel over the response to the Israeli military operation last year that killed nine passengers aboard a ship trying to deliver aid to Gaza despite an Israeli embargo — only to see both sides harden their views after a United Nations report on the episode became public.
Unflinching support for Israel has, of course, been a constant of American foreign policy for years, often at the cost of political and diplomatic support elsewhere in the region, but the Obama administration has also sought to improve ties with Turkey after the chill that followed the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Turkey, which aspires to broaden its own influence in the region, has been a crucial if imperfect partner, from the administration’s point of view, in the international response to the fighting in Libya and the diplomatic efforts to isolate Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad.
The administration deferred to Turkey’s request last month to delay new sanctions on Mr. Assad’s government to give diplomacy another chance.
This month, only days before expelling Israel’s ambassador, Turkey agreed to install an American radar system that is part of a new NATO missile defense system, underscoring its importance to a policy goal of the last two administrations.
Mrs. Clinton, in the interview, expressed hope that the United States would be able to support the democratic aspirations of the Arab uprisings. She also acknowledged the constraints that the administration faced at home, given the country’s budget crisis and Republican calls in Congress to cut foreign aid, especially to the Palestinians and others seen as hostile to Israel.
“It’s a great opportunity for the United States, but we are constrained by budget and to some extent constrained by political obstacles,” she said. “I’m determined that we’re going to do as much as we can within those constraints to deal with the opportunities that I see from Tunisia to Libya and Egypt and beyond.”
The administration has faced criticism from all quarters — that it has not done enough to support Israel or has done too much, that it has supported some Arab uprisings, while remaining silent on the repression in Bahrain. That in itself illustrates how tumultuous the region has become and how the United States has had to scramble to keep up with events that are still unfolding.
“Things are so fluid,” said Robert Danin, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. “They’re not driving the train. They’re reacting to the train, and no one knows where the train is going.”
5a)FW: Barry Rubin Explains The Palestinian Gambit At The UN.
International Efforts to Avoid the Palestinian UN Bid Will Inevitably Fail Because Western Policy is So Bad
By Barry Rubin
I have seen about 20 articles today about why the UN bid isn't in the PA's interest and why they should stop. But none of these articles really point out that the opposite is true: the PA has pretty much nothing to lose.
Will the United States cut off all aid? Of course not. Will it make them more unpopular at home? No. If it kills talks with Israel? That's good. They don't need or want them. If it delays the creation of a real state? Since the PA can't and won't negotiate for a compromise agreement it doesn't matter. The PA will get a huge majority in the General Assembly and that will seem a diplomatic victory. If the United States vetos, the PA has an excuse for not succeeding.
If you don't confront the reality of why a country or group act the way it does--and why a weak Western policy makes radical behavior possible--any discussion of the issue is a waste of time.
Here is the problem with "international efforts to avoid the Palestinian UN bid." To say this is not an attempt to avoid giving some constructive advice. Rather, giving constructive advice requires using this as a starting point and explaining why this is true.
First, it’s too late. The Palestinian Authority (PA) has been talking repeatedly about this gambit for almost a year. Why is it only now, when it is so thoroughly committed to this effort, is the U.S. government staging a campaign against unilateral independence? The failure to start earlier has destroyed any attempt to avoid this disastrous outcome.
Second, the U.S. government did virtually nothing to mobilize other countries to oppose this campaign. What should have happened is that starting in late 2010, the White House should have begun lining up votes. American ambassadors should have been given high-priority instructions to talk with the leaders of the countries to which they were accredited and put together a coalition to avoid the coming crisis. It failed to do so.
Third, the U.S. government has never used real leverage to persuade the PA to relent or to convince other countries to oppose the UN General Assembly backing for a unilateral independence bid. No threats have been made; no benefits offered; power applied.
Clearly, this is not how international affairs should be conducted. Given neither incentive nor warning, dozens of countries have no compelling reason to vote “no.” On the contrary, they know they are getting a free ride. They can vote “yes” or at most abstain protecting from their irresponsible behavior by the knowledge that the United States will veto the proposal in the Security Council. The U.S. government will take the heat while the others can play progressive, humanitarian friends of the Arab world and Muslims.
As for the PA, without some threat of an aid cut-off, an end or sharp reduction in U.S. diplomatic support, or other price, why should it drop a high-publicity, no-cost campaign that—as we will see in a moment—offers so many political benefits.
Equally debilitating is the failure of the counter-campaign to use the most serious and important arguments—that are the only ones that might be effective. The Palestinian strategy breaks every commitment made to Israel and internationally guaranteed since 1993. These are the very commitments on which the Palestinian Authority (PA) itself is based.
The PA simply abandons the principle that any solution will be on the basis of mutual negotiations. It does so after the PA rejected the U.S.-proposed solution of 2000 and it also rejects a negotiated solution following two years of the PA’s rejection of negotiations. The U.S. refusal to make this argument parallels the Obama Administration’s refusal to criticize or use leverage against the PA, thus guaranteeing its own failure.
Equally, there is no use of the argument about the future implications of this gambit. After all, if the PA has an internationally recognized state it has no incentive to negotiate or compromise in future. Equally, Israel’s main asset—the ability to trade territory in exchange for the creation of a Palestinian state—is removed with no concomitant gain. What then is Israel’s incentive to make more concessions and take more risks?
Thus, the unilateral independence campaign and its at least partial success—certainly from a public relations’ perspective—kills the peace process for many years to come. Yet this fact has not energized the campaign, galvanized the U.S. government into strong action, or persuaded other countries to oppose the proposal.
As if all this weren’t enough, the prize is being given to the PA at a time when it is in partnership (albeit a very conflictual one) with Hamas, a group that opposes any compromise, peaceful resolution, existence of Israel, U.S. interests, and much more. The U.S government has not even pointed out that the government to be recognized includes a major pro-genocide, terrorist, revolutionary Islamist, antisemitic, and bitterly anti-Western component.
Since the PA has nothing to lose internationally, it has no incentive to drop the campaign. Since it can make real gains by putting on this effort, even if the United States ultimately vetoes the demand, once again it has no reason to change course.
Turning to the internal Palestinian situation, the current leadership cannot—due to public opinion, Hamas, and militant elements in the PA plus Fatah hierarchies—make peace or even negotiate seriously.
Equally, the leadership does not want to make peace with Israel because most of them are hardliners or at least relatively so, as in the refusal of PA leader Mahmoud Abbas to accept Israel as a Jewish state, end the conflict even in exchange for a Palestinian state, and agree to resettle Palestinian refugees in Palestine. The movement’s goal remains to wipe Israel off the map. Getting a state without commitment, concession, or compromise furthers that goal.
Moreover, this initiative coincides perfectly with shorter-term PA leadership goals. It doesn’t want to negotiate with Israel, doesn’t want to reach a compromise solution, and thus wasting the entire year of 2011 on this bid gives it an ideal strategy to mobilize internal support, blame Israel, and get everything it wants for nothing in return. How can any non-punishing effort to persuade them to change ever possibly succeed?
PS: Negotiation EU style.
Europe's former negotiator Javier Solana is generously given space in the New York Times (funny, they don't seem to have any space for an op-ed opposing Palestinian unilateral independence) which gives ten reasons why Europe should vote for the plan and none why it should vote against. Guess he couldn't find any.
One former EU president has called for supporting unilateral independence because Israel continued to build settlements. This is an example of the ridiculous situation Israel faces because key leaders don't actually pay attention to facts. Israel was allowed to build on existing settlements in the 1993 agreement and the government has dismantled a lot of settlements and built no new ones.
Die Welt in Germany gets it right, though it also has a factual mistake, mentioning Israeli construction in Jerusalem as if it is some new feature rather than something going on for two decades. Moreover, the only way the Palestinians can stop settlement construction or even existence is by making peace with Israel, not refusing to do so.
At any rate, the newspaper explains:
"This crisis has shown which friends one can really count on. As it turns out, there are not many....The Palestinians are taking the easy route in the sympathetic UN General Assembly, rather than making the painful compromises that are necessary for a peaceful solution....It was the Palestinian leadership that in 2000, during the negotiations at Camp David under the direction of Bill Clinton, refused a compromise solution. Shortly thereafter, Yasser Arafat let loose his dogs of hell and destroyed the peace camp in Israel with the intifada. Now the Palestinians are again trying to take a short cut to their own state rather than making necessary compromises. Germany should not support this blatant violation of the Oslo Accords."
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,786684,00.html#ref=rss
How rare is this level of understanding.
Meanwhile, the official EU position is that if the Palestinians drop their bid, the EU will support raising them one level at the UN with the vprospect of more promotions in future. In exchange the Palestinians do nothing to deserve such a promotion. Moreover, the PA knows that hardly any EU country will vote against them. So what's their incentive? To examine this kind of bargaining is to show how ridiculous it is.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His book, Israel: An Introduction, will be published by Yale University Press in January. Latest books include The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan).
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------6)Israel under siege
With the Palestine vote, the UN continues its attacks on Jews
By DAVID HARSANYI
Print In 1993, the Palestinian Liberation Organization, the forerunner to Fatah, signed on to the Declaration of Principles with Israel. The agreement, brokered by the United States, said the parties would engage only in bilateral negotiations to reach any agreement on the final status of a Palestinian state.
This week, in the august body where Zionism was once declared racism, where “human rights” councils are regularly led by the world’s most impressive Jew haters and votes condemning Israel are more common than any other, Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian National Authority, will break this agreement, as he has so many others.
He will make a formal request for the United Nations to unilaterally approve Palestinian independence when the world’s leader convene in New York. Though it’s unclear whether the PA — with the backing of Arab nations and various other stalwarts of liberalism like Russia and China — will be asking for a General Assembly vote (certain to pass and give them “non-member observer status”) or a Security Council vote (one that would grant full voting rights and likely will be vetoed by the United States).
What we do know is that any vote will further undercut American influence in the Middle East, incite violence across the region and fail to bring the Palestinian people one inch closer to their desired goal of statehood. After all, the UN vote can’t change reality. No Israeli government will stop using checkpoints until Palestinians stop targeting civilians. No one will hand East Jerusalem to the PLO. There can be no Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders because today such borders are untenable and a threat to the existence of Israel.
It simply doesn’t matter what Liechtenstein or Sierra Leone have to say on the matter.
But it’s even worse. Sure, the United Nations has historically vacillated between deep irrelevance and monumental ineffectiveness. But with all its prevaricating and impotence on genuine threats to human rights across the world, next week it will be actively precipitating violence and endorsing ethnic cleansing.
It is understood that one of the preconditions for the existence of a Palestinian state is the judenrein West Bank. It will be purified of Jews, regardless of their political inclinations, Zionist or not, because effectively speaking no Jew will be able to live in the West Bank or East Jerusalem safely. Palestine Liberation Organization’s ambassador to the United States, Maen Rashid Areikat, has admitted as much.
Which segues to another problem: Hamas. The Palestinian Authority has charged itself with making decisions about the future of its people without mentioning its partner. Hamas will be large part of any future Palestine, even though it does not recognize Israel and believes the borders of a future Palestinian state should begin at Jordan River and end when the last Jew is living, if they’re lucky, in the suburbs of Cleveland.
What will happen if the United States is forced to veto this unilaterally and fantastical Palestinian nation, or ignore its United Nation’s granted “independence”? One can imagine how much anger our enemies will whip up (it doesn’t take much, mind you). In an increasingly unstable Muslim world, leaders can use this pointless fiasco as an outlet to displace popular rage and redirect attention from their own shortcoming and point it towards Israel.
One need look no further than the fading Arab Spring to understand the inherent danger in this. Earlier this month, an Egyptian mob overpowered 90 police officers and stormed the Israeli embassy. The ambassador to Cairo and 70 other Israelis were forced to evacuate on a military plane in the middle of the night to save their lives.
Israel’s ambassador and most of its embassy staff have temporarily left Jordan because of the UN vote.
Another onetime ally the increasingly Islamic Turkey has similarly turned on Israel, kicking out the Israeli ambassador, and ending military ties and trade pacts. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed to send warships as escorts to “aid ships” in the next activist-filled flotilla trying to reach the Palestinians. A United Nations failure will only provoke more hostility and put the two nations in a potentially catastrophic position.
Supporters of Israel often speak in perfunctory tones about the existential threat Israel faces. But one would have to go back to 1973 to find a more perilous time for the Jewish state. With this vote, the United Nations is simply giving in to its seemingly pathological need to undermine Israel — no matter the circumstance, no matter the consequence.
There can be no other reason for a vote that is simultaneously so dangerous and so utterly useless.
Then again, that’s the perfect way to describe the United Nations.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------7)Why Obama should withdraw
By Steve Chapman
When Ronald Reagan ran for re-election in 1984, his slogan was “Morning in America.” For Barack Obama, it’s more like midnight in a coal mine.
The sputtering economy is about to stall out, unemployment is high, his jobs program may not pass, foreclosures are rampant and the poor guy can’t even sneak a cigarette.
His approval rating is at its lowest level ever. His party just lost two House elections — one in a district it had held for 88 consecutive years. He’s staked his future on the jobs bill, which most Americans don’t think would work.
The vultures are starting to circle. Former White House spokesman Bill Burton said that unless Obama can rally the Democratic base, which is disillusioned with him, “it’s going to be impossible for the president to win.” Democratic consultant James Carville had one word of advice for Obama: “Panic.”
But there is good news for the president. I checked the Constitution, and he is under no compulsion to run for re-election. He can scrap the campaign, bag the fundraising calls and never watch another Republican debate as long as he’s willing to vacate the premises by Jan. 20, 2013.
That might be the sensible thing to do. It’s hard for a president to win a second term when unemployment is painfully high. If the economy were in full rebound mode, Obama might win anyway. But it isn’t, and it may fall into a second recession — in which case voters will decide his middle name is Hoover, not Hussein. Why not leave of his own volition instead of waiting to get the ax?
It’s not as though there is much enticement to stick around. Presidents who win re-election have generally found, wrote John Fortier and Norman Ornstein in their 2007 book, “Second-Term Blues,” that “their second terms did not measure up to their first.”
Presidential encores are generally a bog of frustration, exhaustion and embarrassment. They are famous for lowest moments rather than finest hours. Richard Nixon was forced to resign in disgrace, Reagan had the Iran-Contra scandal, and Bill Clinton made the unfortunate acquaintance of Monica Lewinsky.
Administration officials get weary after four years and leave in droves. The junior varsity has to be put into service. New ideas are hard to come by.
Someone said that when a man is smitten with a beautiful woman, he should remember that somebody somewhere is tired of her. Likewise, the most inspiring presidents get stale after years of constant overexposure.
In the event he wins, Obama could find himself with Republicans in control of both houses of Congress. Then he will long for the good old days of 2011. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker John Boehner will bound out of bed each day eager to make his life miserable.
Besides avoiding this indignity, Obama might do his party a big favor. In hard times, voters have a powerful urge to punish incumbents. He could slake this thirst by stepping aside and taking the blame. Then someone less reviled could replace him at the top of the ticket.
The ideal candidate would be a figure of stature and ability who can’t be blamed for the economy. That person should not be a member of Congress, since it has an even lower approval rating than the president’s.
It would also help to be conspicuously associated with prosperity. Given Obama’s reputation for being too quick to compromise, a reputation for toughness would be an asset.
As it happens, there is someone at hand who fits this description: Hillary Clinton. Her husband presided over a boom, she’s been busy deposing dictators instead of destroying jobs, and she’s never been accused of being a pushover.
Not only that, Clinton is a savvy political veteran who already knows how to run for president. Oh, and a new Bloomberg poll finds her to be merely “the most popular national political figure in America today.”
If he runs for re-election, Obama may find that the only fate worse than losing is winning. But he might arrange things so it will be Clinton who has the unenviable job of reviving the economy, balancing the budget, getting out of Afghanistan and grappling with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor. Obama, meanwhile, will be on a Hawaiian beach, wrestling the cap off a Corona.
Steve Chapman is a member of the Tribune’s editorial board and blogs at chicagotribune.com/chapman
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------8)Texas A&M Commencement Address: The Cold, Cold Wind of Reality
By Neal Boortz
(Neal Boortz is a Texan, a lawyer, a Texas AGGIE (Texas A&M), and now a nationally syndicated talk show host from Atlanta. His commencement address to the graduates of a recent Texas A&M class is far different from what either the students or the faculty expected. His views are thought provoking:)
"I am honored by the invitation to address you on this August occasion. It's about time. Be warned, however, that I am not here to impress you; you'll have enough smoke blown up your bloomers today. And you can bet your tassels I'm not here to impress the faculty and administration. You may not like much of what I have to say, and that's fine. You will remember it though. Especially after about 10 years out there in the real world. This, it goes without saying, does not apply to those of you who will seek your careers and your fortunes as government employees.
This gowned gaggle behind me is your faculty. You've heard the old saying that those who can - do. Those who can't - teach. That sounds deliciously insensitive. But there is often raw truth in insensitivity, just as you often find feel-good falsehoods and lies in compassion. Say good-bye to your faculty because now you are getting ready to go out there and do. These folks behind me are going to stay right here and teach.
By the way, just because you are leaving this place with a diploma doesn't mean the learning is over. When an FAA flight examiner handed me my private pilot's license many years ago, he said, 'Here, this is your ticket to learn.' The same can be said for your diploma. Believe me, the learning has just begun.
Now, I realize that most of you consider yourselves Liberals. In fact, you are probably very proud of your liberal views. You care so much. You feel so much. You want to help so much. After all, you're a compassionate and caring person, aren't you now? Well, isn't that just so extraordinarily special. Now, at this age, is as good a time as any to be a liberal; as good a time as any to know absolutely everything. You have plenty of time, starting tomorrow, for the truth to set in.
Over the next few years, as you begin to feel the cold breath of reality down your neck, things are going to start changing pretty fast... including your own assessment of just how much you really know.
So here are the first assignments for your initial class in reality: Pay attention to the news, read newspapers, and listen to the words and phrases that proud Liberals use to promote their causes. Then, compare the words of the left to the words and phrases you hear from those evil, heartless, greedy conservatives. From the Left you will hear "I feel." From the Right you will hear "I think." From the Liberals you will hear references to groups -- The Blacks, the Poor, The Rich, The Disadvantaged, The Less Fortunate. From the Right you will hear references to individuals. On the Left you hear talk of group rights; on the Right, individual rights.
That about sums it up, really: Liberals feel. Liberals care. They are pack animals whose identity is tied up in group dynamics. Conservatives think -- and, setting aside the theocracy crowd, their identity is centered on the individual.
Liberals feel that their favored groups have enforceable rights to the property and services of productive individuals. Conservatives, I among them I might add, think that individuals have the right to protect their lives and their property from the plunder of the masses.
In college you developed a group mentality, but if you look closely at your diplomas you will see that they have your individual names on them. Not the name of your school mascot, or of your fraternity or sorority, but your name. Your group identity is going away. Your recognition and appreciation of your individual identity starts now.
If, by the time you reach the age of 30, you do not consider yourself to be a conservative, rush right back here as quickly as you can and apply for a faculty position. These people will welcome you with open arms. They will welcome you, that is, so long as you haven't developed an individual identity. Once again you will have to be willing to sign on to the group mentality you embraced during the past four years.
Something is going to happen soon that is going to really open your eyes. You're going to actually get a full time job!
You're also going to get a lifelong work partner. This partner isn't going to help you do your job. This partner is just going to sit back and wait for payday. This partner doesn't want to share in your effort, but in your earnings.
Your new lifelong partner is actually an agent; an agent representing a strange and diverse group of people; an agent for every teenager with an illegitimate child; an agent for a research scientist who wanted to make some cash answering the age-old question of why monkeys grind their teeth. An agent for some poor demented hippie who considers herself to be a meaningful and talented artist, but who just can't manage to sell any of her artwork on the open market.
Your new partner is an agent for every person with limited, if any, job skills, but who wanted a job at City Hall. An agent for tin-horn dictators in fancy military uniforms grasping for American foreign aid. An agent for multi-million dollar companies who want someone else to pay for their overseas advertising. An agent for everybody who wants to use the unimaginable power of this agent's for their personal enrichment and benefit..
That agent is our wonderful, caring, compassionate, oppressive government. Believe me, you will be awed by the unimaginable power this agent has.. Power that you do not have. A power that no individual has, or will have. This agent has the legal power to use force, deadly force to accomplish its goals.
You have no choice here. Your new friend is just going to walk up to you, introduce itself rather gruffly, hand you a few forms to fill out, and move right on in. Say hello to your own personal one ton gorilla. It will sleep anywhere it wants to.
Now, let me tell you, this agent is not cheap. As you become successful it will seize about 40% of everything you earn. And no, I'm sorry, there just isn't any way you can fire this agent of plunder, and you can't decrease its share of your income. That power rests with him, not you.
So, here I am saying negative things to you about government. Well, be clear on this: It is not wrong to distrust government. It is not wrong to fear government. In certain cases it is not even wrong to despise government for government is inherently evil. Yes ... a necessary evil, but dangerous nonetheless...somewhat like a drug. Just as a drug that in the proper dosage can save your life, an overdose of government can be fatal.
Now let's address a few things that have been crammed into your minds at this university. There are some ideas you need to expunge as soon as possible.. These ideas may work well in academic environment, but they fail miserably out there in the real world.
First is that favorite buzz word of the media and academia: Diversity! You have been taught that the real value of any group of people - be it a social group, an employee group, a management group, whatever - is based on diversity. This is a favored liberal ideal because diversity is based not on an individual's abilities or character, but on a person's identity and status as a member of a group. Yes, it's that liberal group identity thing again.
Within the great diversity movement group identification - be it racial, gender based, or some other minority status - means more than the individual's integrity, character or other qualifications.
Brace yourself. You are about to move from this academic atmosphere where diversity rules, to a workplace and a culture where individual achievement and excellence actually count. No matter what your professors have taught you over the last four years, you are about to learn that diversity is absolutely no replacement for excellence, ability, and individual hard work. From this day on every single time you hear the word "diversity" you can rest assured that there is someone close by who is determined to rob you of every vestige of individuality you possess.
We also need to address this thing you seem to have about "rights." We have witnessed an obscene explosion of so-called "rights" in the last few decades, usually emanating from college campuses.
You know the mantra: You have the right to a job. The right to a place to live. The right to a living wage. The right to health care. The right to an education. You probably even have your own pet right - the right to a Beemer for instance, or the right to have someone else provide for that child you plan on downloading in a year or so.
Forget it. Forget those rights! I'll tell you what your rights are. You have a right to live free, and to the results of 60% -75% of your labor. I'll also tell you have no right to any portion of the life or labor of another.
You may, for instance, think that you have a right to health care. After all, Hillary said so, didn't she? But you cannot receive healthcare unless some doctor or health practitioner surrenders some of his time - his life - to you.. He may be willing to do this for compensation, but that's his choice. You have no "right" to his time or property.. You have no right to his or any other person's life or to any portion thereof.
You may also think you have some "right" to a job; a job with a living wage, whatever that is. Do you mean to tell me that you have a right to force your services on another person, and then the right to demand that this person compensate you with their money? Sorry, forget it. I am sure you would scream if some urban outdoorsmen (that would be "homeless person" for those of you who don't want to give these less fortunate people a romantic and adventurous title) came to you and demanded his job and your money.
The people who have been telling you about all the rights you have are simply exercising one of theirs - the right to be imbeciles. Their being imbeciles didn't cost anyone else either property or time. It's their right, and they exercise it brilliantly.
By the way, did you catch my use of the phrase "less fortunate" a bit ago when I was talking about the urban outdoorsmen? That phrase is a favorite of the Left. Think about it, and you'll understand why.
To imply that one person is homeless, destitute, dirty, drunk, spaced out on drugs, unemployable, and generally miserable because he is "less fortunate" is to imply that a successful person - one with a job, a home and a future - is in that position because he or she was "fortunate." The dictionary says that fortunate means "having derived good from an unexpected place." There is nothing unexpected about deriving good from hard work. There is also nothing unexpected about deriving misery from choosing drugs, alcohol, and the street.
If the Liberal Left can create the common perception that success and failure are simple matters of "fortune" or "luck," then it is easy to promote and justify their various income redistribution schemes. After all, we are just evening out the odds a little bit. This "success equals luck" idea the liberals like to push is seen everywhere. Former Democratic presidential candidate Richard Gephardt refers to high-achievers as "people who have won life's lottery." He wants you to believe they are making the big bucks because they are lucky. It's not luck, my friends. It's choice. One of the greatest lessons I ever learned was in a book by Og Mandino, entitled, "The Greatest Secret in the World." The lesson? Very simple: "Use wisely your power of choice."
That bum sitting on a heating grate, smelling like a wharf rat? He's there by choice. He is there because of the sum total of the choices he has made in his life. This truism is absolutely the hardest thing for some people to accept, especially those who consider themselves to be victims of something or other - victims of discrimination, bad luck, the system, capitalism, whatever. After all, nobody really wants to accept the blame for his or her position in life. Not when it is so much easier to point and say, "Look! He did this to me!" than it is to look into a mirror and say, "You S. O. B.! You did this to me!"
The key to accepting responsibility for your life is to accept the fact that your choices, every one of them, are leading you inexorably to either success or failure, however you define those terms.
Some of the choices are obvious: Whether or not to stay in school Whether or not to get pregnant. Whether or not to hit the bottle. Whether or not to keep this job you hate until you get another better-paying job. Whether or not to save some of your money, or saddle yourself with huge payments for that new car.
Some of the choices are seemingly insignificant: Whom to go to the movies with. Whose car to ride home in. Whether to watch the tube tonight, or read a book on investing. But, and you can be sure of this, each choice counts. Each choice is a building block - some large, some small. But each one is a part of the structure of your life. If you make the right choices, or if you make more right choices than wrong ones, something absolutely terrible may happen to you. Something unthinkable. You, my friend, could become one of the hated, the evil, the ugly, the feared, the filthy, the successful, the rich.
The rich basically serve two purposes in this country. First, they provide the investments, the investment capital, and the brains for the formation of new businesses. Businesses that hire people. Businesses that send millions of paychecks home each week to the un-rich.
Second, the rich are a wonderful object of ridicule, distrust, and hatred. Few things are more valuable to a politician than the envy most Americans feel for the evil rich.
Envy is a powerful emotion. Even more powerful than the emotional minefield that surrounded Bill Clinton when he reviewed his last batch of White House interns. Politicians use envy to get votes and power. And they keep that power by promising the envious that the envied will be punished: "The rich will pay their fair share of taxes if I have anything to do with it." The truth is that the top 10% of income earners in this country pays almost 50% of all income taxes collected. I shudder to think what these job producers would be paying if our tax system were any more "fair."
You have heard, no doubt, that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Interestingly enough, our government's own numbers show that many of the poor actually get richer, and that quite a few of the rich actually get poorer. But for the rich who do actually get richer, and the poor who remain poor .. there's an explanation -- a reason. The rich, you see, keep doing the things that make them rich; while the poor keep doing the things that make them poor.
Speaking of the poor, during your adult life you are going to hear an endless string of politicians bemoaning the plight of the poor. So, you need to know that under our government's definition of "poor" you can have a $5 million net worth, a $300,000 home and a new $90,000 Mercedes, all completely paid for. You can also have a maid, cook, and valet, and a million in your checking account, and you can still be officially defined by our government as "living in poverty." Now there's something you haven't seen on the evening news.
How does the government pull this one off? Very simple, really. To determine whether or not some poor soul is "living in poverty," the government measures one thing -- just one thing. Income.
It doesn't matter one bit how much you have, how much you own, how many cars you drive or how big they are, whether or not your pool is heated, whether you winter in Aspen and spend the summers in the Bahamas, or how much is in your savings account. It only matters how much income you claim in that particular year. This means that if you take a one-year leave of absence from your high-paying job and decide to live off the money in your savings and checking accounts while you write the next great American novel, the government says you are 'living in poverty."
This isn't exactly what you had in mind when you heard these gloomy statistics, is it? Do you need more convincing? Try this. The government's own statistics show that people who are said to be "living in poverty" spend more than $1.50 for each dollar of income they claim. Something is a bit fishy here. Just remember all this the next time Charles Gibson tells you about some hideous new poverty statistics.
Why has the government concocted this phony poverty scam? Because the government needs an excuse to grow and to expand its social welfare programs, which translates into an expansion of its power. If the government can convince you, in all your compassion, that the number of "poor" is increasing, it will have all the excuse it needs to sway an electorate suffering from the advanced stages of Obsessive-Compulsive Compassion Disorder.
I'm about to be stoned by the faculty here. They've already changed their minds about that honorary degree I was going to get. That's OK, though. I still have my PhD. in Insensitivity from the Neal Boortz Institute for Insensitivity Training. I learned that, in short, sensitivity sucks. It's a trap. Think about it - the truth knows no sensitivity. Life can be insensitive. Wallow too much in sensitivity and you'll be unable to deal with life, or the truth, so get over it.
Now, before the dean has me shackled and hauled off, I have a few random thoughts.
* You need to register to vote, unless you are on welfare. If you are living off the efforts of others, please do us the favor of sitting down and shutting up until you are on your own again.
* When you do vote, your votes for the House and the Senate are more important than your vote for President. The House controls the purse strings, so concentrate your awareness there.
* Liars cannot be trusted, even when the liar is the President of the country. If someone can't deal honestly with you, send them packing.
* Don't bow to the temptation to use the government as an instrument of plunder. If it is wrong for you to take money from someone else who earned it -- to take their money by force for your own needs -- then it is certainly just as wrong for you to demand that the government step forward and do this dirty work for you.
* Don't look in other people's pockets. You have no business there. What they earn is theirs. What you earn is yours. Keep it that way.. Nobody owes you anything, except to respect your privacy and your rights, and leave you the hell alone.
* Speaking of earning, the revered 40-hour workweek is for losers. Forty hours should be considered the minimum, not the maximum. You don't see highly successful people clocking out of the office every afternoon at five. The losers are the ones caught up in that afternoon rush hour. The winners drive home in the dark.
* Free speech is meant to protect unpopular speech. Popular speech, by definition, needs no protection.
* Finally (and aren't you glad to hear that word), as Og Mandino wrote,
"1. Proclaim your rarity. Each of you is a rare and unique human being.
2. Use wisely your power of choice.
3. Go the extra mile .. drive home in the dark.
Oh, and put off buying a television set as long as you can. Now, if you have any idea at all what's good for you, you will get the hell out of here and never come back.
Class dismissed"
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