If you have been incommunicado for the past three days, or
if you are just awakening from a long winter’s nap and are wondering what the
president has been up to, the answer is, nothing. He did spend several days in Israel, arriving in midweek for the
first visit of his presidency.
He must have had some purpose in mind, but security has been
tight, and , so far, no one has been able to discern what it was.
Perhaps Mr. Obama was making an Easter Week pilgrimage to the Holy
Land. Or perhaps the crew of Air Force
One needed to get its flight time in before the end of the month. Who knows?
Barack sometimes works in mysterious ways.
The jaunt wasn’t entirely fruitless, though. Although seemingly in grimmer than his typically grim humor recently, Prime
Minister Netanyahu agreed to receive the President, perhaps because Mr. Obama
brought the check with him.
Photo ops were manifold, and the President seemed to be
grinning broadly in every picture. That
might indicate that whatever he was there for was working. Except for the one of him together with
President Abbas of Palestine. While
Obama grinned, Abbas looked as though
he was going to be sick
Mr. Obama’s West Bank drive-thru was as perfunctory as his remarks to the Palestinian people. He was apparently unmoved by the Israeli
Barrier, the Israeli version of the Berlin Wall, which confines and pens in
Palestinians, controlling and restricting movement in and out for any reason or
purpose, such as work, or receipt of vital materials and supplies, including
food and medicine.
It isn’t clear that Mr Obama saw the squalor of the refugee
camps or noted the misery of Palestinians hopelessly entrapped in them. It’s quite clear that he brought the
Palestinians no checks.
But the Mr. Obama swore his unwavering support to Mr.
Netanyahu, and, thus, despite what appear to have been conceptual flaws in his
hegira, assumed his position in the long line of presidents who have pledged
American obeisance while those Israeli settlements just keep on a-comin.’
Still, something has caused Netanyahu to hesitate in his
dangerous intent to defy world opinion, other than American, to usurp land and
to bomb Iran. He must consider the
populist revolutions in neighboring Syria and Egypt, and another ready to flare
in Iraq, if American. troops ever leave.
He must calculate a response if the U.S. decides it has sufficient
domestic oil reserves to enable a drawdown of forces that have straddled the
world from Gibraltar to Mumbai for the past 70 years protecting U.S. interests
in regional oil, while providing Israel with a shield behind which to hide
while relentlessly engaging in territorial expansion. And he must contend with the looming reality of the Palestinian
population outstripping that of the Israelis not many years from now.
It may be that the junction of these possibilities or the
anticipation of them will cause Mr. Netanyahu and his cohort to negotiate with
the Palestinians in good faith, at long last.
On the other hand, it seems to me I’ve heard that song
before.
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Gun Running: Gun deaths in the U.S. since Newtown: 2,964
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has given up banning
military style rapid fire rifles and high capacity ammunition clips. So has House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.
By default, apparently, so has the White House. However, the Democrats’resolve
did last 3 months.
But Mayor Bloomberg is still in the game. He’s bankrolling a $12-million dollar ad
campaign aimed at senators who may be persuaded to change their minds. Way to go, Your Honor.
Mayor Bloomberg’s announcement drew a quick response. According to the N.Y. Times, Cris W. Cox,
chief lobbyist for the NRA “predicted voters and senators would resist a
message from an out-of-state-magnate who is associated with government limits
on soda and salt.” “ ’What he is going
to find out is that Americans don’t want to be told by some elitist billionaire
what they can eat, drink and they damn well don’t want to be told how, when and
where they can protect their families,’
Mr. Cox said.”
From whom and from what, Mr. Cox?
Howard Cox
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