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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 8-Dec-2010
8-Dec-10 News -- Obama administration ends effort to pressure Israel on settlements

Web Log - December, 2010

8-Dec-10 News -- Obama administration ends effort to pressure Israel on settlements

A bitter, angry Obama turns away from nihilism

Obama administration ends effort to pressure Israel on settlements

In a stark admission of failure, the Obama administration has abandoned its strategy for reaching a Mideast peace agreement, according to VOA.

The Obama administration will no longer try to persuade Israel to renew the moratorium on building West Bank settlements. The previous moratorium ended on September 26, and the Obama administration has been applying enormous pressure to the Israelis to extend it. At one point, the administration offered to provide Israel with a squadron of fighter planes if only Israel would agree to a further 90-day moratorium. However, it's been clear that Israel's government would collapse if Prime Minister Benjaamin Netanyahu tried to impose a new moratorium under any circumstances.

The administration claims that it's now going to try other approaches to reaching a peace treaty, but it's hard to see where they're going to go next after this complete failure.

Latin American countries recognize Palestinian state

Another question is: What are the Palestinians and the Arab League going to do now?

Will Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas go through with his threat to resign, and to dissolve the Palestinian Authority?

Will the Arab League as the United Nations Security Council for an international mandate declaring a state of Palestine on the pre-1967 borders? And if so, will the U.S. veto it, or let it pass?

The international political pressure to unilaterally declare a Palestinian state is growing, according to The National (UAE). Several Latin American states, including Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Costa Rica, Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, have all recognized a Palestinian state based on the pre-1967 borders.

However, an analysis by China's state-sponsored Xinhua news service says both Israeli and Palestinian analysts say that "the move was mostly symbolic and would have little practical effect on either Israeli or Palestinian policy."

I'm not so sure. This is the kind of issue that can catch fire and spread. We say what happened last spring with the "Gaza flotilla incident," when condemnation of Israel spread rapidly to many countries, especially in Europe. The same thing could happen with this issue. This issue could go either way.

A bitter, angry Obama turns away from nihilism

I first wrote about Barack Obama in 2007, in "Barack Obama to Boomers: Drop dead!" In that article, I quoted Obama as expressing his contempt for Boomers. This was when Obama and the loony left were doing everything in their power to cause America to lose and be humiliated in Iraq. In the end, it was the loony left that was humiliated, after the success of President Bush's "surge" strategy.

Nonetheless, Obama has adopted almost everything the loony left has proposed, the loonier the better. He was going to heal the world as soon as he took office. He would be guided by facts, not like President Bush, who was guided by ideology and ignored facts. He would cure global warming, close Guantanamo, become friendly with Iran and North Korea, bring a two-state solution to Palestinians and Israelis, beat the Taliban and al-Qaeda, reflate the real estate and stock market bubbles and, of course, provide universal health care. He's failed at all of these objectives (except possibly the objective of reflating the stock market bubble). And his party suffered a humiliating electoral defeat in November.

As we described above, Obama suffered another major foreign policy disaster on Tuesday, when it was forced to abandon the effort to pressure Israel to renew its West Bank settlement freeze.

I've listened to many of Obama's speeches, during his campaign, and after he took office, and he never failed to express contempt, in one way or another for accomplishments of earlier generations. Whether it was in Iraq or on Wall Street, or in policies like health care, other people's ideas were crap, and he knew better than anyone.

On Tuesday, for the first time, Obama threw aside the nihilism of the loony left, and began to act more presidential. He was obviously angry when he spoke, and was obviously saying things that he didn't want to say, but he said them because he had to. Here's a portion of the transcript:

"I know there’s some people in my own party and in the other party who would rather prolong this battle, even if we can't reach a compromise. But I'm not willing to let working families across this country become collateral damage for political warfare here in Washington. And I'm not willing to let our economy slip backwards just as we're pulling ourselves out of this devastating recession.
I'm not willing to see 2 million Americans who stand to lose their unemployment insurance at the end of this month be put in a situation where they might lose their home or their car or suffer some additional economic catastrophe.
So, sympathetic as I am to those who prefer a fight over compromise, as much as the political wisdom may dictate fighting over solving problems, it would be the wrong thing to do. The American people didn’t send us here to wage symbolic battles or win symbolic victories. They would much rather have the comfort of knowing that when they open their first paycheck on January of 2011, it won’t be smaller than it was before, all because Washington decided they preferred to have a fight and failed to act.
Make no mistake: Allowing taxes to go up on all Americans would have raised taxes by $3,000 for a typical American family. And that could cost our economy well over a million jobs."

As I said, I've heard many speeches by Obama, but I've never heard him talk this way. If you put aside the bitter, angry tone, this kind of compromise is much closer to the way a President of the United States should be acting.

Obama seemed to be bitter and angry at everyone, but he seemed particularly angry at the loony left, who have been rancorously criticizing him for daring to reach a compromise.

There's one more point to be made. During the question and answer session, Obama referred to a certain recovery in the coming year. He apparently believes that there will be a recovery next year with absolute certainty.

There's a huge asset bubble in the stock market, and people are confusing that with economic growth. From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, nothing has changed.

Additional links

19 countries have announced that they will not attend the Nobel Peace prize ceremony for the award to the imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo. The 19 countries are: China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Colombia, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Serbia, Iraq , Iran, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Venezuela, the Philippines, Egypt, Sudan, Ukraine, Cuba and Morocco. This is a very interesting list because in some cases it indicates which side certain countries will choose in the Clash of Civilizations world war. NY Times

China is rejecting a barrage of US criticism that China is enabling North Korea's aggression, and helping North Korea develop nuclear weapons. VOA

Much of India is on alert today, after a terrorist blast killed a two year old girl and injured 21 others on Tuesday evening at a holy Hindu shrine in the city of Varanasi in northern India. The Islamist terrorist group Indian Mujahideen has claimed responsibility for the attack, and has threatened additional attacks. The Hindu

Late Tuesday evening, Ireland's parliament passed the first votes on the austerity budget that must be enacted for Ireland to receive EU bailout. However, the budget process still has a long way to go, and passage of the budget is not a done deal. Bloomberg

Those who wish to watch high definition prime time shows on their 50-inch television sets, but don't want to pay for a cable service, can do so by getting the modern equivalent of rabbit ears antenna, and pull free tv signals over the air. NY Times

(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 8-Dec-10 News -- Obama administration ends effort to pressure Israel on settlements thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be posted anonymously.) (8-Dec-2010) Permanent Link
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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 8-Dec-2010 8-Dec-10 News -- Obama administration ends effort to pressure Israel on settlements

Obama administration ends effort to pressure Israel on settlements

Latin American countries recognize Palestinian state

A bitter, angry Obama turns away from nihilism

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 8-Dec-2010
8-Dec-10 News -- Obama administration ends effort to pressure Israel on settlements