2008 May Edition

FOREIGN and DOMESTIC POLICY/POLITICAL
and MEDIA ANALYSIS
Links to Revealing References and News 
Sources

Highlighted Article
Rating Google
Is the Internet losing its promise of being an honest and reliable media for learning current events and conducting research? The multitude of present day Internet pages succeed in bringing a world view to the world's population, in releasing masses from captivity to local and often biased media. However, in observing the past for ordering the future, the Internet starts to fail. The most prominent danger is the growing Google monopoly as a one-stop information center; a library of archived material and daily news references. The Google search engine presents retrieved information ordered more by clever search engine optimization (SEO) and less on content. Information is not rigorously validated and mis-information arrives more quickly.

Comments
The United States has become the sycophant of the world.

What nation allows its sailors to be killed, its secrets to be stolen without taking action, its military to be killed in battles for benefit of another nation, its media and government to be used to excuse the aggressive actions of another nation, and an honored president to be insulted by a leading official of another government? The all powerful United States of course!

Some strong action can still be taken for the 1967 Israeli air force attack on the U.S.S. Liberty in international waters, which killed 34 Americans and wounded 173. A strong action can still be taken for Israeli spying, such as the recent arrest of Connecticut-born military engineer Ben-Ami Kadish for passing classified documents to an Israeli science attaché, linked to sentenced spy Pollard, with whom Israel denied any contact. An investigation can still resolve if the U.S. invaded Iraq and remains there in a quagmire due to the influence of the pro-Israel Neocons.

Israel bombed the sovereign nation of Syria because of the "discovery" that Syria is constructing an atomic reactor. Note that constructing an atomic reactor to relieve oil imports and assist with energy needs is beneficial to a nation. Its development is also a long, long way from constructing a nuclear weapon, especially when the nation has no means of acquiring weapons grade uranium or a means to produce the fissionable material. Imagine if Syria bombed an Israeli plant known to produce nuclear bombs, which Israel prepared to use on Syria. For preventing a nuclear catastrophe, Syria would probably be rewarded with a nuclear catastrophe.

Since Israel won't apologize for its rash action; it remains for sycophant U.S. to offer the excuse for Israel's violation of another nation's sovereignty. The White House described the alleged reactor as "a dangerous and potentially destabilising development for the region and the world".

It's not the U.S. invasion of Iraq, or Israel's invasion of Lebanon, or Israel's oppressive policies in Palestine, or the U.S. confrontation with Iran that are destabilizing the Middle East; no, it's powerless Syria who dared to construct an atomic reactor that has no military potential, who is "a dangerous and potentially destabilizing development for the region and the world" - not just the region, but the world.

Now we have Dan Gillerman, Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, on April 24, denouncing former U.S. President Jimmy Carter as "a bigot" for meeting with Hamas political leader Khaled Mashaal in Syria. Can diplomacy allow this to happen, for a UN ambassador to audaciously and falsely accuse a revered ex-president of the U.S., one who had always fought for peace and against prejudice, to be insulted in this manner? Can a proud nation not react strongly to this insult to all Americans?

A Ha'aretz Editorial: Our Debt to Jimmy Carter, April 15, 200, said it well.

"Jimmy Carter has dedicated his life to humanitarian missions, to peace, to promoting democratic elections, and to better understanding between enemies throughout the world. Recently, he was involved in organizing the democratic elections in Nepal, following which a government will be set up that will include Maoist guerrillas who have laid down their arms. But Israelis have not liked him since he wrote the book "Palestine: Peace not Apartheid.

Whether Carter's approach to conflict resolution is considered by the Israeli government as appropriate or defeatist, no one can take away from the former U.S. president his international standing, nor the fact that he brought Israel and Egypt to a signed peace that has since held. Carter's method, which says that it is necessary to talk with every one, has still not proven to be any less successful than the method that calls for boycotts and air strikes. In terms of results, at the end of the day, Carter beats out any of those who ostracize him. For the peace agreement with Egypt, he deserves the respect reserved for royalty for the rest of his life."

Declaring the Israeli UN ambassador non persona grata on U.S. territory could demonstrate U.S. still has some pride, some credibility, some standing and some independence in the world.

Observations
Statistics Tell the Story
Israel has previously grown by immigration, while losing almost a million of its citizens. Only lately, has Israel's growth been principally by birth and most of the recent growth has been in in the disputed West Bank. Despite the huge waves of Jewish immigration (3 million since1949 ) and the sizable displacement of Palestinians ( 750, 000 in 48-49), the Israeli Palestinians increase their proportion of Israel's population each year. Considering that many statistical Israelis don't live in Israel, but in the West Bank and overseas, the Palestinians are a poorly represented minority.

Year	Jews Million	Arabs Million	Total Jews+ Arabs	% of Arabs to Total
1949	1.013	0.159	1.173	13.56%
1967	2.383	0.392	2.776	14.14%
1973	2.845	0.493	3.338	14.77%
1983	3.412	0.706	4.118	17.14%
1990	3.946	0.875	4.821	18.15%
1995	4.522	1.004	5.527	18.18%
2000	4.955	1.188	6.144	19.35%
2006	5.393	1.413	6.806	20.76%
2007*	5.472	1.449	6.921	20.94%
2007**	4.972	1.449	6.421	22.56%
2007***	4.172	1.449	5.621	25.78%

Source: Israeli-Palestinian Procon
*Source: The Jewish Virtual Library

** Jews in Israel to Green Line. Subtracts over 200,000 people in East Jerusalem, 270,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank, and 20,000 in the Golan Heights (July 2007 est.)
*** Subtracts an estimated 800,000 Israelis who are living abroad.

Memorable Prose
The morning was fine, bright March sunshine warm on Lucy's arms and face. The bank of the stream might have been grazed by sheep, the grass was so short, but no sheep ever came here. It was a mystery that this grass, green throughout the long heat wave, its springiness a pleasure to walk on, never seemed to grow at all. Lucy lay on it, staring up at the sky, her shoes kicked off, the book she had been reading face down beside her. She wasn't thinking about it, neither of its people nor its cathedral places, not of Mrs. Proudie or Mr. Harding or the sun on the bell-tower. "Will you write and tell me?" she had asked, but realized now that she had asked too much: of course Ralph hadn't written to say what the wife he married was like. He'd forgotten or was embarrassed; not that it mattered, and perhaps it was as well. In her reverie Lucy saw a pretty, capable face, and sensed a manner that went with it. A window of the creeper-covered house bythe sawmills opened and tendrils of the creeper were cut away: tidiness was a quality too. When the saws were silent, husband and wife walked in the balmy evening air, across the bridge by Logan's Bar and Stores. 'How peaceful it is here!' Ralph's happy wife remarked.

William Trevor
The Story of Gault

The Leaf image: Speculation has it made in the 1790's and preceding the birth of photography.
Photo: Sotheby's