I thought John was smack on about his auto advice.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Is all of America within N Korea's range or is Kim bluffing? Can any president run the risk? Will Kim now stop launching missiles and hope we forget about his enhanced capabilities as other presidents have done before?
As I have written previously, war is closer than ever before unless The State Department can convince Trump more negotiations and diplomacy are in order in the confused hope N Korea will come to the table and negotiate away their nuclear ability.
Even were Kim and Iran to give their word it would not be worth the paper on which it was written because, like trained Russians, lying is simply the way one acts. Russians do not give lying a second thought. It is part of the culture and strategy. They feel no guilt nor shame .(See 1 and 1a below.)
Meanwhile, I listened to Trump today while he was visiting the state of Missouri. He was in his 100% campaign Trump mode and though he was covering the waterfront and touching all the bases he makes it hard to focus on the meaty part of his message because he is so full of himself, repetitive and really engages in expressing himself in a manner that is mostly self-defeating.
I am more than willing to give him room and license to be who he is because I know he is who he is. That said, he makes it hard for me to be proud. I believe his heart is in the right place, I do not think he is insane but I do believe he often tries to be funny, and sometimes really is, but most of the time his comments fall flat.
Nevertheless, when I remind myself of what he has accomplished, his appointments of those who are carrying out the dismantling of the most egregious aspects of Obama's 8 years of strangulation and how he works like a dog, I cannot help but admire him and am still glad I voted for him.
As he often reminds us, he did inherit a mess and the problems he faces are daunting and I am not sure easily solvable. I give him credit for making Congress and his party toe the line. His willingness to leave The White House and go to their home and to call out the Democrats for what they are, a pathetic crowd of "pissy fanny" adult hypocrites, is commendable and refreshing.
Give "em Hell Harry was suitable for Truman and is equally applicable to Trump.
++++++++++++++++++++++++
Ross rants. (See 2 below.)
++++++++++++++++++++++++
If women keep coming forth with accusations of sexual humiliation against "iconic" members of Congress and elitists in the mass media it is possible they might be able to eliminate more fake news and our federal deficits because many Democrat spender will be gone along with reporters and TV personalities .
If that is the case, I appeal to all women who have been abused to quickly speak out because you could actually beat Trump in draining the swamp.
Meanwhile, without making light of the serious matter of abusing women, the sooner we get this behind us the better off we will be in several ways.
a) We have other serious issues which demand our entire attention
b) The way these allegations are being resolved can ultimately lead to abuse on the part of aggrieved women who might have a desire to be vindictive for reasons that are not, in fact, truthful and/or related to sexual misconduct etc.
c) At some point, men who are guilty of sexual harassment that might have occurred during a different era and decades ago, though unacceptable under any circumstance, should be allowed to apologize and express their sincere contriteness and move on with their life.
Even an earthquake, hurricane, tornado ends.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Palestinians are so consumed by hatred and bad leadership that they seem to prefer self-destruction/misery to betterment. Not a good legacy for their children.
It takes guts to overthrow bad leadership but if Birmingham, Alabama could do it so can Palestinians. (See 3 below.)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dick
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
1)North Korea Says Nuke Push Complete as Entire U.S. in Range
By Kanga Kong
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un claimed a missile launch on Wednesday showed he can strike the entire U.S. with a nuclear weapon, signaling a new phase in his standoff with President Donald Trump.
North Korea “successfully” launched a new type of intercontinental ballistic missile with improved technology that can deliver a nuclear warhead anywhere in the U.S., the state-run Korean Central News Agency said. Kim watched the test and “declared with pride that now we have finally realized the great historic cause of completing the state nuclear force,” KCNA said.
Kim’s claims on his nuclear capabilities, yet to be verified independently, suggest he is seeking to push the U.S. into talks from a position of strength. Trump has threatened to use military force to stop North Korea’s nuclear program, which Kim says he needs to deter an American invasion, and the U.S has long said the regime must dismantle its weapons in order for negotiations to occur.
Trump struck a more measured tone after the launch compared with previous threats to unleash “fire and fury,” telling reporters “we will take care of that situation.” The United Nations Security Council, which has imposed sanctions on North Korea this year, plans to meet later Wednesday in New York.
“North Korea is saying the U.S. should acknowledge it as a nuclear state and shift its policy to dialogue,” said Koh Yu-hwan, who teaches North Korean studies at Dongguk University in Seoul. “Pyongyang’s following the Chinese model: obtain nuclear weapons and suggest co-existence to the U.S.”
No major power has said it will recognize North Korea as a nuclear state. China and Russia, two countries that Trump has singled out for supporting North Korea, have said they prefer dialogue to rein Kim in.
China opposed Wednesday’s test and will continue to strictly uphold UN sanctions, Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said at a regular briefing. He reiterated support for a proposal made with Russia, under which North Korea refrains from missile and nuclear tests, while the U.S. and South Korea halt large-scale military exercises.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told parliament Wednesday it would be a mistaketo recognize North Korea as a nuclear power.
Experts differ on when North Korea will pose a credible threat to the U.S., with estimates ranging from months to years. While the regime has made steady progress, the U.S. and South Korea assess that its ballistic missiles still can’t survive the stress involved with re-entering the atmosphere or target specific locations. Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera said Wednesday that Japan was analyzing whether North Korea had that capability.
Japan said the ICBM flew for 53 minutes on a lofted trajectory and may have reached an altitude of more than 4,000 kilometers (2,500 miles) before landing about 250 kilometers off its northwest coast. U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis said it flew higher than prior North Korean launches.
KCNA said the missile it fired showed accuracy in its target, speed correction mid-flight and the operation of a high-thrust engine.
“The test-fire also re-confirmed the control and stabilization technology, phase-separation and start-up technology and the safety of warhead in the atmospheric reentry environment that had already been confirmed,” it said.
South Korea’s military staged its own missile exercise within minutes of the launch, which Mattis said “made certain that North Korea understands they could be taken under fire by our ally.” Trump spoke by phone separately with Abe and South Korean President Moon Jae-in.
Moon called for dialogue, warning that matters could become “uncontrollable” if North Korea obtains a fully functional ICBM. “We should prevent a situation where North Korea threatens us with its nuclear arsenal based on misjudgment, or the U.S. considers a preemptive strike,” he said.
North Korea has threatened in recent months to take even more provocative actions, such as testing a hydrogen bomb over the Pacific Ocean or firing missiles over Japan near the U.S. territory of Guam. Launches of missiles from submarines or an ICBM on a flatter trajectory would show technical improvements.
Experts said the altitude and distance of Wednesday’s missile would give it more than enough range to reach any part of the continental U.S. if flown on a standard trajectory.
Kim said the launch was conducted at a high launch angle to avoid risk to the security of other nations. He claimed the missile could carry a “super-large heavy warhead which is capable of striking the whole mainland of the U.S.” — something experts questioned.
“We do not know how heavy a payload this missile carried, but given the increase in range it seems likely that it carried a very light mock warhead,” David Wright, the co-director of the Union of Concerned Scientists Global Security Program, wrote on his blog. “If true, that means it would be incapable of carrying a nuclear warhead to this long distance, since such a warhead would be much heavier.”
The Trump administration has recently sent mixed signals to North Korea. On a trip to Asia this month, Trump called on North Korea to “come to the table” to make a deal to end its nuclear program, while Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said he could envision talks with Kim’s regime as a precursor to formal negotiations.
Then on Nov. 20, Trump labeled North Korea a state sponsor of terrorism. North Korea called that a reminder it should keep hold of its “precious nuclear sword.”
Tillerson said after Wednesday’s missile launch that “diplomatic options remain viable and open, for now.”
— With assistance by Takashi Hirokawa, and Peter Martin
1a) The Editorial Board
1a) The Editorial Board
Kim Jong Un tested a new intercontinental ballistic missile in the early hours of Wednesday, and the data suggest it could hit all of the continental United States. If North Korea is allowed to perfect its warhead technology, it will be able to hold the U.S. hostage to nuclear ransom. The Trump Administration is right that the U.S. can’t live with this threat, so what more should it do to prevent it?
Conventional wisdom says that Pyongyang already faces extreme economic and diplomatic pressure. But in reality the United Nations and U.S. only began to impose broad sanctions last year, and even U.S. allies such as Singapore and Thailand have been slow to enforce them. China and Russia continue to support the Kim regime—China through oil exports and other commerce, and Russia through payments for North Korean slave labor.
Shutting down those lifelines should be a top priority. After the North’s intermediate-range missile launch in September, the U.S. circulated a draft resolution at the United Nations Security Council to do just that. But Russia and China resisted and the U.S. caved; Resolution 2375 only capped oil exports and labor contracts. The Trump Administration portrayed the unanimous vote at the U.N. as a victory, but the resolution kept open many of Pyongyang’s cash lifelines.
The U.S. even rewarded Beijing for the vote by pausing the process of sanctioning Chinese companies that violate sanctions. That pause ended last week when the Treasury Department put four companies based in the Chinese city of Dandong on its financial blacklist. Treasury is playing catch-up with a June report on sanctions-busting firms by the private research group C4ADS. The U.S. government continues to hold back on other “secondary sanctions,” especially against Chinese banks, for fear of losing Beijing’s cooperation.
But China’s internal enforcement of sanctions is patchy. Chinese banks froze the accounts of some North Korean customers while continuing to finance Chinese companies that are breaking sanctions rules. Imports of coal from North Korea have continued in violation of a U.N. resolution in August that banned all trade in North Korean coal. The Trump Administration can make an example of these firms and expose Beijing’s failure to honor its sanctions promises.
The U.S. response to Wednesday’s missile tests should also include security measures. The redeployment of tactical nuclear weapons to South Korea is needed to deter a nuclear attack from the North. Showing Pyongyang that American forces would retaliate overwhelmingly to an attack on a U.S. ally, even at the risk of an ICBM attack on the U.S. mainland, would help prevent Kim miscalculating.
The deployment of more Thaad missile-defense radars and launchers to South Korea would send a strong signal to China that its support for Pyongyang has consequences. At the end of last month Beijing bullied South Korean President Moon Jae-in into freezing deployment of the Terminal High-Altitude Air Defense system. But the U.S. should insist it needs new Thaad units to defend its own forces and deter attacks from the North.
The U.S. and South Korea can also expand their programs to encourage North Koreans to defect. The Kim regime’s former Deputy Ambassador to the U.K. Thae Yong-ho has good ideas on how to do this. Mr. Thae, who fled to freedom in the South last year, testified to Congress last month on human-rights messages that will resonate in the North.
The soldier who defected across the Demilitarized Zone on Nov. 13 seems to have been inspired by watching and listening to South Korean media. If China accepted refugees across its North Korean border and sent them to the South, word would spread in the North and internal instability might grow. Regime change assisted by China is the best way to end the North Korean threat short of war.
The Trump Administration has done more than its predecessors to thwart North Korea’s nuclear progress, but it is still far from using maximum pressure. It may not work in the end, but the alternatives are terrible: acquiescence or war. Wednesday’s ICBM test shows Kim is getting close to his goal of threatening American cities, so why is the U.S. not using all the tools it has to stop him?+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
2) RANTS:
Finance
The Fed is largely driven to raise rates based on inflation. While there is a rate rise happening in December, it is getting more and more questionable what happens in 2018. Inflation for all of 2017 might be as low as 1.5%. The yield curve is flat and getting flatter. This normally means a slowing economy, but this time it means continued low inflation is expected. Per my last Rant comments, inflation is in a new position due to online markets, and that is a major change as to how prices are communicated to consumers. This is all new so we will have to wait longer to see how this plays out, but my projection is Amazon, Wal Mart and Alibaba will continue to make inroads and will drive all prices to remain lower than they ever would have been before Amazon. That is not able to change now with Wal Mart and others moving to major online presence. Just look at yourself and your family. Don’t you shop online, or at least peruse prices and products before you shop for a major item. The only way retailers and manufacturers or importers can sustain margins is to lower costs. So lower pricing gets transmitted offshore by importers here being forced to pay lower prices for imported products. All of this translates to lower wages worldwide. It will drive much more AI being used in manufacturing and delivery of products and services faster than we might have seen if not for Amazon and Wal Mart and Alibaba. We are in a major shift on how economies function, and how wages and productivity get affected. There is the equivalent of the industrial revolution underway and the outcome is not clear. For all the fear of AI replacing labor, we now have full employment and millions of unfilled jobs. This major change in inflation expectations will likely mean lower than forecast interest rates for the next two years. Everything we used to know about monetary policy, and what to expect from QE flooding the capital markets with cash, and causing inflation, may be permanently upended. We will have to see how all of this plays out.
San Francisco is up to its usual wacky political responses in answer to this. They raised the minimum wage to $15 so there is starting to be a rise in closures of shops where the minimum wage is paid, and consumer spend by low income workers has not happened as the left wingers projected. Jobs at the bottom end are shrinking. Same in Seattle. So managers are turning to automation. So what is San Francisco proposing to do. There is pending legislation to fine any company that uses AI or automation to reduce labor costs. Between raising taxes and this, I do not understand why anyone would expand or open a new business in CA. They really have lost their minds there. Add on the non deductibility of state and local taxes and living in CA or operating a business there becomes highly questionable. It is likely why so much tech has moved to Denver, Raleigh, Pittsburgh and Austin along with some other low tax, Republican states. If San Fran really does pass this insane law, there will be more companies leaving and in the end there will be more unemployment at the lower end. It is hard to wrap your brain around fining operators of business for lowering costs and gaining productivity, especially in a city that claims to be the heartland of high tech.
Washington
Conyers held a meeting in his office in his underwear. It is unimaginable that any executive in private industry doing that and not being fired on the spot. But he is still there. Franken seems to admit to be a serial groper. So the so called ethics committee will “investigate” even though we all saw the photo. A Congressman in his late sixties send nude pics. Gellibrand says Bill should have resigned, and so she is attacked by the Clinton team, and the left, who have overlooked his raping Juanita Broderick, and having oral sex sitting at his desk in the Oval office, for which there was no question it happened. Roy Moore is the wrong guy to be a senator, and probably did what is claimed, but then Bill Clinton cannot be excused for what he did which was much worse, as Hilary has tried to do. It was Hilary who attacked and intimidated all of the victims of Bill’s abuse, and the press and the Democrats went along with that for all these years. They are all hypocrites. Congress has a secret fund to pay off people who claim to have been mistreated by Congressmen, but nobody in Congress seems to know anything about this, even those in office for decades. And they wonder why we all think Congress is a swamp filled with corrupt, disreputable bozos?
Anyone who worked with Charlie Rose and did not know he is an alcoholic, and always had at least one or two 25 year old bimbos around, was not paying attention. Even I knew from someone who only worked with him periodically, who saw this regularly. So when his co- hosts on CBS claimed they had no idea, that is pure BS. Everyone who had any regular contact with him knew about Charlie, just like everyone knew all about Weinstein, but nobody talked. Now of course it is open season on all sorts of men. When I was young in Wall St it was common to have strippers on the trading floor at least weekly. Solomon Bros was infamous for this. The women who worked there just accepted it as boys will be boys. Lots of other similar things went on in offices at that time. My first wife at the time even sent as stripper to my office for my birthday, and all the staff was there. None of that is to suggest all this was OK, but we need to get a grip, and realize times are very different, and the whole culture has changed. For those who are too young, or never worked on Wall St, the Wolf of Wall St movie was an exaggeration, but not a fantasy. Those things, and more, really went on back then with traders, along with coke, strip clubs with the clients and other things. It was the norm. I tell this just so everyone has some perspective, and knows how much things have changed. Back then, when I was young in the business, in Wall St, if someone said you have to take a class in prevention of sexual or racial abuse, everyone would have burst out laughing. Back then, trading floors were the crazy places.
World History
I recently read a piece in Foreign Affairs magazine by a woman who served in a top advisory capacity to general Odierno from 2007-2010 in Iraq, and prior she served as a top coordinator for the US in Kirkuk. Now she is a senior fellow at Yale in the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs. Not a right wing group. This is her report in summary. How did ISIS happen. First the US dismissed most civil servants and the entire army was fired and rebuilt. A huge mistake. The surge in 2007 worked very well, and the US got the Sunnis to work with us and defeat the terrorists in Iraq. In essence we won the war, and were on the way to resolving the worst of the sectarian violence. The surge that the left severely criticized was, in fact, a massive success. Sadr fled to Iran and Iranian influence was becoming more limited. The Sunnis were back feeling they were respected, and a participant in the Iraqi power structure. The US under Bush was intending to leave 10-20,000 US troops in country to assure peace prevailed, to assure the army was non sectarian, and the Sunnis remained on equal footing, and to rebuild. In 2010 there was an election which was won by Ayad Allawi by a small margin, but he won. Obama and Hilary insisted that Malaki be declared the winner, and they forced Iraq to accept him as prime minister, despite the Iraqi constitution and Iraqi parliament. He was Iran’s man. Obama claimed Malaki was an Iraqi nationalist and a friend of the US. Either he was stupid, or he did it intentionally to curry favor with Iran, knowing he wanted to do the nuke deal. Iran then forced Sadr to align with Malaki, and ensure Malaki was retained as prime minister. Part of the deal with Sadr was that Malakai committed to remove all US troops, so the excuse that Obama could not get a status of forces agreement and had to pull out US troops is because he and Hilary created a situation with Malaki in charge where no agreement was possible, and where Shiite Iran was in control. Whether Obama did this in an attempt to side with Iran to pave the way for the nuke deal may never be known. However, it was not what Odierno, or the Pentagon, or the CIA thought should happen, nor what most Iraqi politicians wanted. The world has paid a terrible price for what Obama did in Iraq, and the problem is ongoing now. His decision to put Malaki in place and pulling out US troops, was one of those historic moments that will be seen as one of the world changing terrible mistakes of history.
Malaki then labeled all Sunni politicians as terrorists, and fired them, and he stripped Sunnis from command positions in the army, then ordered the army to crush the Sunni awakening. He created the conditions to allow the rise of ISIS as a Sunni reaction. ISIS became the defender of Sunnis, and this is how it all came to be. So when Trump said Obama was the founder of ISIS, he obviously used bad wording, but it was the move by Obama and Hilary to force Malaki in as prime minister, and allowed Iran to get effective control of Iraq, that led to ISIS and the situation we find today with Iran having so much influence in Iraq. It is why the Shiite militia are still so powerful and directed by Iran, and why the Iraqi army collapsed in the face of ISIS. The qualified Sunni officers had been driven out of the army. So when you Democrats start to blame Bush, go read what really happened under Obama and Hilary as related by non partisan professionals who were the people who were really on the ground there in 2010, and in charge of US military affairs in Iraq. The decision by Obama to completely withdraw and disengage from Iraq, and the region, is what led to US forces having to go back into Iraq and to the deaths of thousands at the hands of terrorists trained and led by ISIS and Iran. Malaki is still a person with a following in Iraq, and who is closely aligned with Iran. The Trump administration needs to follow through now and leave large numbers of US troops in Iraq and Syria to keep control of events. Trump needs to undo all of the damage Obama did with his disastrous policies. The left never understood what was really happening, and the politics of withdrawal were exactly the opposite of what was required. The world will continue to pay a terrible price for these policies and decisions.
If you think this is some right wing version of events., I suggest you go read what the non partisan, military and civilian professionals who were on the ground then, and directly involved, say what really happened as I have related. Foreign Affairs is hardly a right wing magazine. It is quite liberal. Obama created the opportunity for Iran to get control in Iraq and Syria, and to now threaten Israel and Saudi Arabia. It was Obama who allowed Putin to move into control in Syria. Obama’s weak policies, and his failure on the red line, let Putin move into Syria and set the stage for events now unfolding. We are just starting to see the ramifications of those policies, and it is getting very dangerous. If Hilary had been elected, things would have been getting much worse as she was going to continue the same policies she helped craft and implement under Obama. You can criticize Bush for invading Iraq, but just as happened in WWI, it was the disastrous and stupid policies in the aftermath that created the historic disasters that followed.
I am off to Europe for two weeks then driving to my home in FL. So there may be no, or just one Rant for a long period. That is why this is so long. Some of you may find a respite from the Rant to be a good thing, but I will return.
Joel Ross
Citadel Realty Advisors
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
3) Gaza’s Latest Lesson in Self-Inflicted Misery
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
3) Gaza’s Latest Lesson in Self-Inflicted Misery
Rent seekers gonna seek rent.
Observing developments since Hamas and Fatah signed their latest reconciliation deal in October is an object lesson in just how much of the Palestinians’ misery is self-inflicted–or to be more precise, inflicted by their two rival governments.
The first thing that happened after implementation of the deal in early November was that prices of merchandise imported to Gaza plummeted by up to 25 percent. Having your money go 25 percent further is an obvious boon to anyone, but especially for impoverished Gazans. Prices fell because, for the first time in a decade, Gazans weren’t paying taxes to two different governments–the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza–but only to one. As part of the reconciliation deal, Hamas handed control of Gaza’s borders to the PA and dismantled the tax collection checkpoints it had set up at the border crossings.
This long-overdue relief didn’t last long. Earlier this month, I pointed out that, since Hamas would remain the dominant military power in Gaza even after the deal was implemented, it wasn’t clear how anyone could stop it from extorting taxes again once it had gotten what it wanted from the deal. I overestimated Hamas’s patience. Though the PA has yet to fulfill most of its promises to Hamas, the latter has already resumed collecting taxes.
True, the checkpoints are gone, but Hamas found another method to seek the rents on which it survives. It simply summoned several hundred businessmen to appear in its offices and demanded payment of tax on everything they have imported to Gaza since the reconciliation was signed. After all, Hamas needs that money; it has rockets and tunnels to build. So who cares that Gazans will once again be paying inflated prices they can ill afford?
The reconciliation was also supposed to bring another benefit: the reopening of the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt, which has been closed almost continuously for the last four years. Since Israel allows only limited traffic from Gaza through its territory, Rafah’s closure has meant that leaving Gaza is virtually impossible for most Palestinians.
Israel and Egypt have restricted traffic from Gaza for the same reason: Hamas’s incessant efforts to undermine both countries’ security. In Egypt’s case, Hamas has co-operated enthusiastically with Islamic State’s affiliate in Sinai, providing money, weapons, training, medical care and refuge in Gaza for terrorists fleeing Egyptian security forces. An open border would simply have made it easier for Hamas to supply all these services, as Israel can attest. Israel allows thousands of Palestinians to enter its territory from Gaza every month for business, medical care or transit to another country, and Hamas has exploited that traffic to smuggle everything from cash to explosives.
Once Hamas handed control of Rafah over to the PA in early November, as mandated by the reconciliation deal, Rafah was supposed to reopen. And in fact, it did open for three days two weeks ago, and was supposed to open for another three days this past weekend. But after Islamic State’s horrific attack on a Sinai mosque last Friday, Egypt abruptly announced that Rafah would once again be shut for “security reasons.” As the daily Israel Hayom explained, citing a senior PA official, “Egypt’s security forces suspect that some of the terrorists involved in the attack, as well as other wanted individuals, fled Sinai and entered Gaza via underground smuggling tunnels belonging to Hamas, with the knowledge of senior Hamas officials.” Given Hamas’s track record, that would hardly be surprising.
Incidentally, this track record conclusively disproves the widespread fallacy that Hamas is primarily concerned with the Palestinian cause rather than the cause of global jihad. An organization concerned with Palestinian well-being would strive to preserve good relations with Egypt in order to ensure that Gaza’s main gateway to the outside world remained open. Only an organization that prioritized global jihad way above Palestinian well being would offer extensive aid to Islamic State, even at the price of having Rafah almost permanently closed.
Finally, there’s the minor detail of Gaza’s electricity crisis–a topic I’ve covered extensively in the past. Gaza has been down to four to six hours of power per day for months now, ever since the PA stopped paying for Gaza’s electricity last spring on the not unreasonable grounds that since Hamas was ruling the territory de facto, it should also cover the territory’s expenses. The reconciliation deal requires the PA to resume paying for Gaza’s power. But the PA and Hamas are embroiled in a dispute over which of two steps called for by the deal comes first: the PA’s resumption of the payments, or Hamas’s handover of control of civilian affairs in Gaza. Meanwhile, Gaza remains without power.
Granted, one benefit of the reconciliation does seem to have survived the first month: Gazans with permits to enter Israel are thrilled that, since Hamas dismantled its checkpoint at the border, they’re no longer subjected to lengthy Hamas interrogations every time they leave and every time they return. But we’ll see how long that lasts. After all, Hamas knows who the permit holders are, so there’s nothing to stop it from simply summoning them to its offices for interrogation, just as it summoned the businessmen to pay taxes.
Meanwhile, much of the world will doubtless continue to blame Israel for Gaza’s woes. That will make many self-described humanitarians feel good about themselves, but it will do absolutely nothing to ease Gaza’s misery.
_____________________________
No comments:
Post a Comment