Why the European Union Will Die

 

After our Brexit article some inquired why we claimed the European Union would die, or more aptly, implode, as we had stated at one point. A few expressly pointed to the fact that there were signs of economic recovery and that the steps taken by the European Union were working to bring the troubled nations, especially Spain and Italy, back from the brink. While it would be quite a blessing should the European Union make a recovery of unparalleled dimensions resembling the great periods of the post-World War II era but the likelihood is slender as there is not about to be another Marshall Plan as the United States too is facing lean years and will be working on their own recovery for the immediate future. The challenges to the Western World are mounting and if not addressed and some mitigation found the refugees flowing into Europe and North America on top of the brutal effects the refugees are placing on Turkey and more so on Jordan threaten to topple leaders as the strains on the economies will be extensive.

 

The challenge for Europeans as well as Turkey and Jordan will be to alter the manner in which they treat refugees and those who come from foreign extraction and to integrate them into their society rather than all but forcing them to live in autonomous zones separate and anything but equal. The French produced a 2,200-page report, “Banlieue de la République.” The report had numerous suggestions and goals which could be enacted which might alleviate some of the difficulties but are unlikely to see the light of day. The challenges listed in the French report can easily be applied to the other nations, Germany, Sweden, Italy, Finland, Britain and other nations will be a test of whether Europe can adapt and commit to integrating those who are unlike the native population as unless the Muslims are integrated and have opportunities the probability of rioting and radicalization rises. We are not equating lack of work and the other poverty and similar tags which have often been blamed for terrorism as not even claiming that their frustration and lack of address of grievances by government will produce terrorism, we are identifying such as a drain on the finances and budgetary balancing will be a factor which may tip the scales from an affordable situation to a destabilizing financial drain. Such situations can also be exploited leading to rioting and lawlessness. The same is true for Turkey and Jordan as their economies are not so vigorous such that they can integrate the thousands upon thousands of refugees which are streaming across their borders. Jordan has the added problem of refugees streaming in from Iraq as well. Even Israel is feeling some financial effects as she is called upon increasingly to provide medical treatment both for refugees as well as injured fighters from the various factions in the Syrian war zones, many of which are bordering the Israeli Golan Heights which makes Israel the best place to get emergency treatments. 

 

What will come about is the death of the European Union as a super-governance or providing a standard currency and economic plans as it has been the disparate rules and economic plans which are not universal which has caused much of the problems. With the work week standard being a 40 hour week we find that those who do work from national average to another are surprising in the numbers we were able to find from 2013 with Greece leading at 42.0 and the Netherlands with a mere 30.0 (see below).

 

European Average Hours Worked by Those with Employment

 

The next important, actually vital, statistic is the unemployment rate by nation. We found records for 2014 and 2015 graphed (see below) where the lowest recorded at 5% for Austria followed closely by Germany and with Greece and Spain hovering at about 25%. During our researching we found that Youth unemployment usually ran from half again to around double the figures for population in total.

 

European Unemployment by Country for 2014 and 2015

 

Another measure of the health of an economy is the debt to Gross Domestic Product (GDP), a measurement where the lower the percentage the healthier the national economy. The percentages range from Sweden at 38% all the way to Greece at 157%. (see below) The one regularity which one has seen consistently was that Greece and Spain are at the end of the figures which are least desirable and Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and the Scandinavian nations tend to be the most desirable positions which also explains why these nations rated amongst the happiest of nations in Europe. The main rational behind these numerous graphs and statistics was to generate the vast disparity between many of the European Union nations and to point out why the sharing of a singular currency, the Euro, places strains and limitations on the necessary monetary policies each individual nation has at their disposal as well as economic policy restrictions. For those at the disadvantaged end of the scales their not having their own adjustable currency means that they must make allowances in policies to the largest economic powers as they drive the European Union’s viability but while doing so they imperil the lesser economies.

 

Debt Expressed as % of GDP for European Nations

 

The difficulties the European Union is facing goes beyond the individual national monetary and fiscal policies and the single currency enforcing economic policies of the strongest power nations upon the least national economies thus perpetuating their difficulty and in most cases condemning them to deficit spending and an ever rising debt load with little if any recourse. The financial difficulties are aggravated further by the bureaucracy in Brussels which continues to grow and demand more and more treasure be skimmed from the economy of the entirety of the European Union nations. This results in an ever more drastic effect upon the economically weaker nations sending their finances ever further into the red. The European Union regulation are simply one more drain on every economy throughout the European Union and once more the effect is disproportionally more dramatic on the weakest once again. When one observes the growth of the European Union Legislation and Legal Action Surge one starts to realize exactly where and why the European Union will eventually legislate itself out of existence.

 

Growth in European Union Legislation
And Legal Action Surge 1973 to 2008

 

The vote next month will tell the story and will very likely be the last chance for the Western World to finally start to turn away from socialism and its guaranteed outcomes instead of simply providing a guaranteed equality of opportunity and a level playing field. Initially when the precursor of the European Union started, the European Common Market, it worked well as it basically created a low or no tariff zone within Europe for its member states. By the time it had grown and transited into the European Union it was already showing signs of becoming a super governance which was obviously heading to becoming the central power over the entirety of Europe. This was made all the worse by the fact that many of those in positions of influence and power were unelected individuals who need not report to any individual nation as they were employed to look out for the European Union and not babysit or hold the hand of any one country. From this humble beginning the European Union began to write large edicts. Many were about certain levels of pollutants one might put into the air, water or ground and also writing the procedures for handling and disposing of poisonous chemicals. Many of these regulations were quite important such as where to store spent nuclear fuel rods safely. The European Union also set standards for each nation on pollution control due to agreements entered into either by the nations or the European Union. Soon the European Union has become a super government which rules in a dictatorial manner with the individual European nations being incapable of altering their relations once a decision has come down from on high in Brussels.

 

This is part of what has galled many British voters and it is only the youth who have graduated within the past decade and probably left university knowing less than they went in but are now assured that they know everything and it will be their charge to come out and teach those out in the workforce what is the only approved manner of performing any work. They will expound regularly the complaints about income inequality and how it is not fair that older people receive higher salaries just because they have proven their ability, which, they will tell us, is a form of ageism except this particular time it is the youth at a disadvantage. Once the youth of today become a majority, be prepared for their instruction in college to come to the fore in our society and Capitalism will disappear and Socialism will become the new perfection of society and our national problems. They will address the income inequality by setting a maximum wage one will be permitted. Let us assume we have two people, one making 35,000 Euro per year and another making 250,000 Euro per year. Without even addressing how these two individuals came to be making such different amounts but will defer to the one making the higher wage and simple make the difference far less. Their newly adjusted salaries after the equality of worth standings are applied result in the first gentleman going from making 35,000 Euros per year to making 95,000 Euros per year and the gentleman who once made 250,000 Euros per year will now be making 135,000 Euros per year leaving the government with 55,000 Euros in redistribution fees. This will be the future when the youth get to make all the decisions across Europe and then slowly the rest of the Western World. Between an economy teetering on the point of exasperation and a flooding of refugees who are largely seeking the government relief and expecting the government to feed, clothe and house them and pay them salaries as they were told was their right upon arrival. The refugees seeking such as this will be the lesser of the problems as there are those who upon arrival disappeared into the woodwork and have yet to be found and it is these individuals who are most likely terrorists planted within the midst of the Europeans and the Americans and Western nations as ticking time bombs primed and ready to detonate at a moment’s notice.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Western Liberal Hypocrisy and Anti-Semitism

When in Cairo at the Fund Hamas and Islamic Jihad and World Terror Supporting Gala one expects no small amount of fawning over Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority and its latest unity government and denunciations of Israel and Zionism. It can perhaps be excused to air an amount of acrimony while criticizing Israeli use of disproportionate power and possibly asking rhetorically if the amount of destruction in Gaza might have possibly been averted and announce grand promises to alleviate the suffering of the residents of Gaza. All of Israel would love to alleviate the suffering in Gaza if it were to be accompanied by a real peace with security and an end to rockets landing on the unfortunate citizens in towns bordering Gaza to the east such as Sderot, Ashkelon , Ashod, Be’er Sheva, and the Kibbutzim along the Israeli southern border with Gaza as well as any escalations where hundreds of rockets per day rain down on the residents listed and additionally on Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa, Netanya and the bordering towns and neighborhoods which account for over seventy percent of the Israeli population. We even accept that there is no mention of these victims of the recent conflict with Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and it was a conflict with Hamas and Islamic Jihad and not with the people of Gaza except in as far as they served as a protective shield for the Hamas and Islamic Jihad war machine and the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorist army which was raining rockets into Israel. We have learned that what Western representatives say in Cairo and other Arab cities is to be mostly ignored by Israel as long as corrections are offered by our political leadership and the perfidy and lying remains in Cairo and other Arab cities and not be taken out into the general rest of the world. That is not what happened yesterday and the denunciations of Israel going to an international setting must be answered with some truths which remain obscured by these righteous representatives of the Western nations and the purveyors of honorable truths go so far awry straying into areas which can only be classified as the new blood-libels of anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism and anti-Israelism with a few exception such as the current Canadian government under Prime Minister Harper.

Perhaps the best place to start is with United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon who blamed the conflict with Hamas and its terrorist allied entities on the Israeli occupation in Gaza. There has been absolutely no occupation in Gaza by the Israelis since the disengagement where Israel tore out their emotional hearts wringing hands at the wretched scene of IDF soldiers dragging sobbing women and children from their homes and neighborhoods, tearing down the Synagogue to prevent its desecration, and threatening the older men and younger adults, both men and women, and eventually dragging them down from the roofs of their homes and community centers forcing them into buses to be transported to nowhere, a nowhere which was spread around southern and central Israel placing them in inadequate makeshift mobile homes, many of which had no electricity, sewage, or water hooked up as of yet and there they remained while Israel at first took care but slowly their plight faded from the consciousness and many of them have yet to recover and recollect their shattered lives to this day. If this had been the limit of the sadnesses of those days and that horrific sacrifice but it did not end there. What was mostly shielded from Israeli citizens’ eyes was the even more horrific scene of Israeli Security Police and IDF soldiers exhuming every last Jewish grave disturbing those interred there and reburying them in a cemetery within Israel as had the dead been left there their graves would have been desecrated and possibly their bodies dragged from their resting places to be burned and dragged around in an orgy of horrid unsightly ghoulishness as depraved as any of the ancient sacrifices to Ba’al and other pagan deities. There has not been any Israeli occupation of Gaza and Israelis have not set foot in Gaza since the disengagement except when forced to give a military response to Hamas unceasing rocket fire into Israel such as was the cause of the recent conflict, not any form of occupation.

Then there are the inconsistencies in Western acquiescence to Palestinian demands and their adopting those demands and attempting to foist their compliance on Israel in the name of peace, but they will not bring peace. They say nothing about the demand that all Palestinian occupied lands be free of any Jewish presence while insisting that Israel continue to give full rights to the Arab and Muslim citizens within Israel, something Israel has provided them since her founding and has never challenged or threatened to revoke their equal standing in Israeli society. They not only demand that Israel remove any Jewish presence from Palestinian lands but also give credence to the Palestinian demands that Israel incorporate some five-million Palestinian refugees and provide them with Israeli citizenship and assure that they receive adequate housing and other privileges. Somehow this is what defines equity and fairness to the minds of many of the Western elite. In Israel this equates to the European propensity for anti-Semitism and their recent and seemingly endless obsession with destroying the state of Israel and making it into simply another Arab state with no regard for the continued safety of the Jews. There is also the wrongheaded agreement with the canard that all the Jews in Israel originated from Europe and that the Jews in Israel are actually European colonialists. Israel as a Mandate Land was treated as a British colony from before 1920 until finally in 1948 when Israel was born. The Israelis were not the colonialist power as Britain was the occupying colonial power. Further, by 1950, two years after her founding, Israeli Jewish population was virtually equally consisting of Jews who emigrated from Europe and Jews emigrating from the Middle East and Northern Africa as the numerous Arab and Muslim nations made concerted and even overt acts to rid themselves of their Jewish populations and in many cases expelling them sending them into Israel. The Arabs know and fully understand that the threatening demand that the Jews return to where they came from is impossible as these very same Arab nations would never allow their Jews and their descendants to return and settle in their lands. Still, the Arabs are echoed by the Western political leadership that all the Jews in Israel originated in the West and mostly are from Europe. These libels also ignore the large Russian influx of Jews once they were permitted to make Aliyah from the Soviet Union. The other mistreatment originating from the Western elite is their ignoring of the hatreds taught in the Palestinian schools and the incitement which permeates their societal activities. The teaching of martyrdom as being a desirable end as long as it is aimed at Israel and the Jews is part and parcel of Palestinian media of every genre. This incitement goes hand-in-hand with their glorification and deifying of terrorists who murdered Israelis by any means including but not limited to ambushes of busses, suicide murder bombings, drive by shootings, rock throwing at and from vehicles, shooting across from one neighborhood to the next, rioting and assassinations of IDF and security police. UNRWA schools and camps teach children from preschool throughout their education that they were from Israeli cities and their most cherished desire is to return to their birth city or city of origin which include Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa, Akko, Netanya, Tiberius and every other city, town and kibbutz within Israel. This is ingrained into these children’s minds from an early age in order to promote an institution where every child believes that they were uprooted and their destiny is to return to their home in Israel and take the Jewish homes restoring their homeland and their entitlement which must be rewarded.

There are other Westerns echoing, restating or granting credence by not denying Palestinian blood-libels against Israelis and Jews. Many of these are old and discredited only to be given rebirth by the Palestinians and seldom denied or corrected by Western leaders who act as if they fear retribution if they stand up for the truth. The Western leaders refuse to counter the canard that the essays titled “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” are nothing more than a Czarist invention written to justify the pogroms against the Russian Jews by Czarist forces. The Protocols have been exposed for quite some time but have been allowed to be given new life and credence in the Arab and Muslim world without even the slightest denunciation and counter fact from Western leadership. Hitler’s screed “Mein Kampf” is one of the most bought and read books throughout the Arab and Muslim world and is not refuted as the vile and disgusting tome of hatreds, lies and manifestations of a troubled and hateful mind. Instead of denouncing these megalomaniacal writings, Western leaders just ignore this reality and continue printing copies of “Mein Kampf” in Arabic and shipping it to bookstores in the Middle East and North Africa. Western leaders associate equality for the Palestinians as forcing compromises and concessions on Israelis while excusing and justifying Palestinian prevarications and accusations giving them credence and gravitas despite knowing it all to be empty fabrications. Western leadership knows just as many Israeli leftists supporters that the idea of an indigenous Palestinian Arab peoples is simply an invention conceived and formed in Moscow as a pan-Arab club to wield against Israel to beat Israel into submission and eventually to replace Israel with a Palestinian state only to have it then divided between Syria, Egypt and Jordan. They are aware that the Palestinians were brought into being and placed under Yasser Arafat who is an Egyptian and if one traces the family names of the Palestinian leadership over the years one finds their family names indicate they originate from Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and even further astray throughout the Arab world and none were indigenous to the region. Western politicians are aware that the Palestinians have no relation to the Philistines, the Canaanites or any of the other peoples from the general area which is Israel, let alone having roots which date back nine-thousand years as claimed by Mahmoud Abbas.

The Europeans and the rest of the World knows that the truth is the idea of a Palestinian people was crystalized in 1964 with the founding of the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization) which had as it leadership Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas as his second in command. The PLO Charter sets as their goal the liberation of all of Palestine and defines this as all the lands from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea with the exceptions of Gaza and the West Bank which are wholly owned lands of the Egyptians and Jordanians respectively. The formation of the PLO, the grandfather of the Palestinian Authority and Fatah, came a full three years before the 1967 Six Day War which saw Israel in a defensive war capture Gaza, the West Bank, the Golan Heights and the Sinai Peninsula. Soon after the Six Day War ended, the United Nations issued their demands for Israel to return most of the gained territory and Israel was to be permitted to retain those lands necessary for secure and defensible Israeli borders. The initial idea actually depicted Israel returning the Sinai Peninsula and retaining at the least the West Bank, which was actually Judea and Samaria in historical references. Israel made peace with Egypt and Jordan, with each relenting their occupied areas of Gaza and the West Bank. Egypt never actually formally claimed Gaza and Jordan annexation of the West Bank was recognized by a mere two nations, Britain and Pakistan. Western governments would reassess the amount of lands Israel was presumed to retreat from in such a manner as once Israel had given Egypt back the Sinai Peninsula, the area from which Israel was now expected to return land was redrawn to exclude the Sinai Peninsula as if Israel had never held the area, let alone returned it to Egyptian control. Carrying this concept to its final and only logical conclusion, should Israel give the Palestinians Gaza and the West Bank then those lands would be removed from the equation and after a few years when the Palestinians once again claim that all of Israel is occupied area then the pressure will come from Europe, the United Nations, the United States and the world to return further lands to the Palestinians. There may even be a demand for Israel to surrender the entirety of the Negev Desert allowing for the formation of national homelands for the Bedouin tribes. Just think about that one for a moment, a homeland for Bedouins who wander an area but do not settle anywhere, well, anywhere except Israel it seems. The end result appears to be taking all of Israel and leaving the Jews nationless, an idea which was first given credence by the Romans who dispersed the Jews from Judea and claimed to have destroyed the Jewish nation into perpetuity. This definition of the Jews as homeless and nationless was adopted by the Roman Christian Church (Later to become the Catholic Church) who added to the nationless degradation of Jews that this was G0d punishing the Jews for not becoming Christians who now replaced the Jews thus rendering the Jews to scorn and a future without a nation again in perpetuity. Perhaps this is the origin of the European inability to accept the existence of Israel as a state for the Jews; it undermines their own self-worth to recognize the Jewish nation. This also is something the Muslims got from their Christian neighbors and have adapted this definition of the Jews as well. It also seems that the Muslims have also adapted that idea as an eventuality for the Christians amongst others. Of course this progression is not possible as long as there is a Jewish Israel, thus a Jewish Israel must be resolved before history can proceed, or at least that appears to be the driving force behind much of this animosity, an animosity on a level not seen since Rome sacked Carthage, or since when Rome scattered the Judeans from Judea. Somehow we are now told that Judea was never Jewish and this makes sense exactly how? Rest on that thought.

Beyond the Cusp

By Any Name They Are Terrorists

There is one point which the European Union, Majority of European Governments, and the United States all officially agree, that Hamas is a terrorist entities which must never be funded officially or unofficially. There used to be agreement and there exists some remnant of the belief that the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) was a terrorist entity which was only blessed with funding after taking on a new and determined neutral name of the Palestinian Authority. There have been a number of times where Hamas and the Palestinian Authority announced deals to unify all of which fell apart. Often the Western nations were presumed to figure greatly in placing wedges between the two Palestinian terrorist entities and the actual differences often ignored or glossed over. There was one huge difference which was insurmountable and another difficulty which constantly dogged and nagged the negotiations and had such strength that these two points had torn apart every attempt to merge the two terror entities. The main difference was one of political orientation with the Palestinian Authority which is simply a politicized entity made up of the Fatah portion of the PLO is a nationalist terrorist group while Hamas is an Islamic jihadist group which employs terrorist tactics to wage jihad. Then there are the giant egos that were built by the world media the access to almost unending flows of funding coming from all corners of the world making these leaders wealthy beyond their dreams. Further was the fact that should the two terror entities merge into one then there would be a slimming of the number of top positions. Since when United States President George W. Bush insisted that the Palestinian Authority Parliamentary elections include Hamas candidates and Hamas won a majority of the seats which led Mahmoud Abbas to realize that if he stood for election at that time, as was scheduled, he would lose to Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, thus there has been no election for Palestinian Authority President and Abbas has basically become President for Life, or until great and far reaching changes occur.

 

It appears for the moment that the necessary changes have possibly come to fruition as Fatah and Hamas are in the process of merging within a newly defined Palestinian Authority and new elections are supposedly in the near future and Abbas may actually stand against opposition in elections, possibly even honest elections. That is the theoretical plan and time will tell but there are other problems and difficulties that are immediate and needed to be addressed in the present. The most important dilemma is to continue to fund or to stop funding. The funding quandary is that Hamas is among the most dangerous and decidedly committed terrorist group according to every European and North American government and international agency. The challenge to continued financing of the Palestinian Authority which includes Hamas is an even more difficult if not insurmountable problem for the United States as explained in the Consolidated Appropriations Act, in Section 7020, Subsection F, entitled Prohibition to Hamas and the Palestine Liberation Organization which unambiguously declares, “None of the funds appropriated … may be obligated or expended for assistance to Hamas or any entity effectively controlled by Hamas, any power-sharing government of which Hamas is a member, or that results from an agreement with Hamas and over which Hamas exercises undue influence.” Of course this law includes the seemingly mandatory exceptions which are in the form of several enumerated Presidential override provisions. Whereas of this writing none of these exemptions or prerogatives have been claimed or enacted, it is our opinion that President Obama will almost assuredly invoke these clauses and do whatever is necessary to continue the funding to the Palestinian Authority without any concerns for who is in the leadership positions or their connections to terrorism.

 

What has been interesting are the reactions and shifting official positions from over the past two weeks as this merger grew more and more likely. Despite the possibility that this merger may still end up unravelling as small differences between Abbas, Haniyeh and numerous other leaders from either Fatah, PLO, Hamas or the Palestinian Authority old guard and their fears of losing their positions of privilege, large salaries, influence and immunity to the law as once some of these people lose their positions and the security provided them fear sufficiently for their lives that loss of position has a high probability of becoming a death sentence, thus they will go to any lengths including harpooning the agreement to remain in their privileged positions. Add the huge difference between a nationalist and an Islamist outlook and how these two almost exclusive and mutually antagonistic viewpoints have clashed repeatedly to destroy all previous merger attempts and any difficulties which appear may quickly escalate into an insurmountable problem placing the two groups at each other’s throats once again just as they were during the coup in Gaza when Hamas took control over Gaza from Abbas and the Palestinian Authority. But until this marriage results in the almost inevitable divorce, the question of financing remains for the European Union and the Western nations.

 

The initial reactions to the merger under the Palestinian Authority of Fatah and Hamas were telling and one was actually refreshing, even if short-lived. Right from the start the European Union was completely supportive of the merger and demanded that Israel immediately take whatever steps are necessary to return to negotiations and stated they refuse to entertain any excuses from the Israelis protesting the presence of Hamas. The European Union claimed that simply by joining the Palestinian Authority, Hamas had become legitimized and had obviously accepted the positions of the Palestinian Authority and were now of similar mind as Mahmoud Abbas. Actually, I can agree with the European Union on this one but as I see it, Abbas has revealed his true love and acceptance of terrorism and jihad to be the path to destroy Israel but the European Union has a different view; they believe that Hamas has been cleansed by the merger and now must be accepted by the rest of the world, especially Israel, and that this should cause no problems for anybody. The initial reaction from the United States Department of State was when spokesperson Jen Psaki stated that Israel could not be expected to negotiate with Hamas as they desired to destroy Israel. This lasted almost forty-eight hours, yep, two whole days, and then they parked their official position right alongside the European Union and are demanding that Israel accept the new merger as, according to the State Department there are not any Hamas members placed within the interim government. So, am I really supposed to accept that the State Department has a complete list of the membership of Hamas from which to make this determination? Really? A number of European government, most all who have bothered to recognize that there has been any change, have mostly echoed the European Union viewpoint that Israel is obligated to accept whomever the Palestinians choose as their representatives. One spokesperson for the European Union went so far as to point out that Hamas is the representative of some Palestinians and as such should be accepted by the Israelis as an authorized and viable negotiation partner and there should be no exceptions accepted from the Israelis as far as negotiating with any viable and recognized representative for the Palestinian people. By such reasoning, the Israelis would also necessarily be required to negotiate with the PFLP (Palestinian for the Liberation of Palestine), PRC (Palestinian Resistance Committee), al-Qaeda in Gaza and numerous clan based, criminal and smaller terrorist groups which mostly exist within Gaza though some also can be found operating in Judea and Samaria (West Bank). With the recent determination by Europeans and those from the United States that Israel must recognize and negotiate with any groups which represents or claims to represent any number of Palestinians, even if it is only their members, can we also extrapolate and determine that the Europeans and United States must recognize and negotiate with any terrorist group which claims to have any claims or other negotiable problems with either the Europeans or United States? Oh, wait, the United States just spent a number of months negotiating with the Taliban and who knows who else. Well, just because President Obama approves of negotiating with whoever might be necessitated does not translate into Israel should follow that example. Sometimes real life ends up being so predictable and this was definitely such a case. Just because so many Western nations are demanding that Israel not be bothered by Hamas joining the Palestinian leadership and immediately start negotiations is no reason for Israel to simply comply, especially considering the recent explosion of the last abortive peace negotiations.

 

Beyond the Cusp