As usual there are many temptations in the lizard weekend edition of the Oz, but many of them are recyclings and rebrandings, as with this bit of filching from the WSJ, and this from another source ...
The WSJ piece needs a google, but the Kent Harrington is on hand at Project Syndicate here, and it says a lot about the reptiles' dire predicament that this seems to be a new favourite source for opinion page stocking filler ...
Never mind, the pond is loyal, always faithful and ready to celebrate the way the reptiles still have faithful plodding, prattling old Polonius on hand to present his proposals for peace in the middle east ...
Now spoiler alert - the pond knows the end to this story and it's all the fault of the devious, tricky Arabs ...
Let's see if the pond really does know the plot off by heart, which is sure to see ideology dressed up as history ...
Let's see if the pond really does know the plot off by heart, which is sure to see ideology dressed up as history ...
Or, if you like, they created a gulag or a ghetto and monitored it in a merciless way. But say, the pond almost overlooked the good news, which it stumbled on when checking out the google link ...
Yes, Polonius scored a link on Beastwatch ...
If that isn't the highest form of praise, then the pond can't recognise an impending apocalypse and rapture.
And now for the rest of the rapture, which is Polonius prattling ...
Of course that glib line "the right to live within secure borders" is particularly ripe and rich, in the context of the appropriation, colonisation, segregation and ongoing military rule that is currently a feature of Israel's problem-solving approach ...
It gets even richer when the onion muncher talks of a country which is in essence at the moment a theocracy of a particular kind as a liberal, pluralist democracy.
The pond might head off to check the meaning of those words, but it surely doesn't apply to the way that the settler movement, with approval of courts and government, goes about its business of expropriation ...
And so to the final thoughts of prattling Polonius ...
Nary a mention of Saudi Arabia and the Wahhabists of course, and as the pond predicted the essential block to peace is the Arabs. Nary a mention of the way Netanyahu has gone about his business these past few years ...
Well as a corrective, it just so happens that the reptiles ran another story set in the same area, one of a number of stories about the two state solution, and the news was less cheery, and the blame game encompassed a few other elements ...
What's this? The pond saw no mention of a "Greater Israel" in Polonius's historical monologue ...
Now this is a new story. Back in August 2016, Alan Eisner wrote in the Huff Post of Israel's Creeping Annexation of the West Bank ...
In recent months, alarming signs have been accumulating that Israel is stepping up its creeping annexation of most of the occupied West Bank, and in doing so killing any prospect of ever reaching a two-state peace agreement with the Palestinians.
Most of this Israeli activity is focused on the 60 percent of the West Bank known as Area C which is totally under its control, where Israel is stepping up settlement planning while simultaneously throttling Palestinian economic and social development.
The most dramatic manifestation of this policy is a plan to totally demolish a small Palestinian village called Susya in the hills south of Hebron making several hundred people homeless. The plan has been put on hold until the end of October in the face of a chorus of international protests from European governments and the US State Department. Important American Jewish organizations like the Union for Reform Judaism, which issued a strong statement, and J Street which collected over 10,000 signatures on a petition to Secretary of State John Kerry to use his influence in the matter, also weighed in against the impending demolition. Sussya is just one of 17 Palestinian villages in the area under threat. Israeli settlers have long been eyeing this area of the West Bank for their own expansion - which for them would have the added benefit of driving a stake into the idea of ever making a two-state peace with the Palestinians.
In recent months, alarming signs have been accumulating that Israel is stepping up its creeping annexation of most of the occupied West Bank, and in doing so killing any prospect of ever reaching a two-state peace agreement with the Palestinians.
Most of this Israeli activity is focused on the 60 percent of the West Bank known as Area C which is totally under its control, where Israel is stepping up settlement planning while simultaneously throttling Palestinian economic and social development.
The most dramatic manifestation of this policy is a plan to totally demolish a small Palestinian village called Susya in the hills south of Hebron making several hundred people homeless. The plan has been put on hold until the end of October in the face of a chorus of international protests from European governments and the US State Department. Important American Jewish organizations like the Union for Reform Judaism, which issued a strong statement, and J Street which collected over 10,000 signatures on a petition to Secretary of State John Kerry to use his influence in the matter, also weighed in against the impending demolition. Sussya is just one of 17 Palestinian villages in the area under threat. Israeli settlers have long been eyeing this area of the West Bank for their own expansion - which for them would have the added benefit of driving a stake into the idea of ever making a two-state peace with the Palestinians.
Hmm, that might pose a little problem for the two state solution, and perhaps it's not just the pesky Arabs that are the problem ...
How's this for pesk of a full-on kind?
Now the pond always likes to do a background check on the authors which turn up on its pages, and for those interested, Jacob Atkins has of late been a reptile contributor, tagged here, and on Twitter here, and he brings great news ... it's only going to be a 60 per cent annexation, which as everyone knows is the ideal sort of split (well would you want 50-50 when you could do 60-40?):
Yes, a solution is sounding terribly promising, with the whiff of compromise in the air (tone check: whimsy might be present):
Bottom line? The Palestinians can kiss goodbye to a two state solution of any meaningful kind, and can look forward to lives as second class citizens in a theocracy hostile to their existence ... anyone for another intifada?
And please enough of this talk of a liberal pluralist democracy. They used to say that about South Africa too, with its gulags and its apartheid ... or at least Polonius's hero Ming the Merciless did ...
What a mess has been made, and now murder in the streets by both sides remains the norm, and the prospect of any change for the better is a shimmering heat haze in the distance promising an oasis but likely consisting only of ashes and sand ...
Well let's not get started on that story, but while Haaretz is behind a paywall, google will help with some of its stories ...
Tony would have liked Gerard using the word "nuanced" to describe something he did.
ReplyDeleteJust read your comment and can imagine Gerard mincing around (in between autopsies) asking Tony to give him a good nuancing.
DeleteWould make a fine soft porn vid and Anal Jones could do the voice-over
Don't these right wing numpties understand that in 1948 The Jewish people were allacated around 10% of Palestine to establish their own state.
ReplyDeleteThey have now taken over 90% of the country and reduced most of the Palestinians infrastructure (as basic as it was) to rubble.
As much as I'm not a fan of Islam, if someone shoves a giant firecracker up Netanyahu's arse and annihilates these pseudo Nazis posing as saviours, I'd be a most happy chappie.