‘Halas’, says Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. ‘Enough. It’s over’.
Last night he told his people he has ‘no desire’ to stand in the elections he has called for early next year.
He has made similar threats before, about resigning and not wanting to go on. Whether he means it this time remains an open question. If he does, Palestinian politics is entering extremely choppy waters, and with it the hopes for peace.
But how did we get here, and what happened to the now rapidly unravelling US push for peace?
An Israeli columnist issues a scathing indictment of Israel and calls on the U.S. to apply pressure.
The latest Haaretz column by the outstanding and courageous Israeli columnist, Gideon Levy, is entitled “America, Stop Sucking Up to Israel,” and it highlights one of the most bizarre political facts: criticism of Israeli actions is far more tolerated and permitted in Israeli political discourse than it is in America’s. It’s simply inconceivable that any establishment journalist or national politician would ever echo Levy’s scathing indictments of Israel’s conduct and his calls for the U.S. to apply serious pressure and even threats to coerce changes in Israeli behavior. After describing the increasingly conciliatory actions towards Israel by the Obama administration in exchange for nothing but obstinance, Levy writes:
Hillary left Pakistan even more destabilized – and hostile to the U.S. – than it was when she arrived, and her trip to Israel is similarly disastrous….
In what the Los Angeles Timesdescribed as “a fence-mending trip” to Pakistan, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton managed to tear down more fence posts than she repaired. Abrasive, arrogant, and condescending, she fired a series of verbal RPG volleys that nearly demolished what remained of good relations between the U.S. and its principal ally in the region.
There is a vital development — a new ruling from the British High Court — in a story about which I’ve writtenmanytimesbefore: the extraordinary joint British/U.S. effort to cover up the brutal torture which Binyam Mohamed suffered at the hands of the CIA while in Pakistan and while he was “rendered” by the U.S. to various countries. While Mohamed, a British resident, was in American custody, the CIA told British intelligence agents exactly what was done to him, and those British agents recorded what they were told in various memos. Last year, the British High Court ruled that Mohamed — who was then at Guantanamo — had the right to obtain those documents from the British intelligence service in order to prove that statements he made to the CIA were the by-product of coercion.
The Pentagon’s pre-emptive strike came with the leak of Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s confidential review of the Afghan war to Bob Woodward of The Washington Post.
McChrystal’s painting of the military picture was grim.
The Republicans will win the next election, Vidal believes; though for him there is little difference between the parties. “Remember the coup d’etat of 2000 when the Supreme Court fixed the selection, not election, of the stupidest man in the country, Mr Bush….
…Vidal is sitting in the Connaught Hotel in Mayfair, where he has been coming to stay for 60 years. He is wearing a brown suit jacket, brown jumper, tracksuit bottoms; his white hair twirled into a Tintin-esque quiff and with his hooded eyes, delicate yet craggy features and arch expression, he looks like Quentin Crisp, but accessorised with a low, lugubrious growl rather than camp lisp.
Last Saturday, Honduran soldiers marched into the presidential palace, bundled up President Manuel Zelaya and put him on a plane for Costa Rica.
The ouster had been ordered by the Supreme Court and approved by the Congress, as Zelaya was attempting an illegal referendum to change the Honduran constitution so he could run for another term.
Will someone please explain why this bloodless transfer of power to the civilian legislator first in line for the presidency, in a sovereign nation, is any business of the United Nations, the Organization of American States, Hugo Chavez, the Castro brothers or Barack Obama? For all have denounced the “coup” and demanded Zelaya’s immediate return.
On Sept. 20, 2002, as the War Party was beating the drum for preventive war on Iraq, lest we wake up to “a mushroom cloud over an American city,” The Wall Street Journal introduced an eminent voice to confirm that, yes, Saddam was driving straight for an atomic bomb.
“This is a dictator who is … feverishly trying to acquire nuclear weapons,” wrote Bibi Netanyahu, former prime minister of Israel.
For 50 minutes, Obama sat mute, as a Marxist thug from Nicaragua delivered his diatribe, charging America with a century of terrorist aggression in Central America.
After Daniel Ortega finished spitting in our face, accusing us of inhumanity toward Fidel Castro’s Cuba, Obama was asked his thoughts.
“I thought it was 50 minutes long. That’s what I thought.”
Hillary Clinton was asked to comment: “I thought the cultural performance was fascinating,” she cooed.
Pressed again on Ortega’s vitriol, Hillary replied: “To have those first-class Caribbean entertainers all on one stage and to see how much was done in such a small amount of space. I was overwhelmed.”
As Israel entered the third week of its Gaza blitz, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert regaled a crowd in Ashkelon with an astonishing tale.
He had, said Olmert, whistled up George Bush, interrupted him in the middle of a speech and told him to instruct Condi Rice not to vote for a U.N. resolution Condi herself had written. Bush did as told, said Olmert.
The crowd loved it. Here is the background.
After intense negotiations with Britain and France, Secretary of State Rice had persuaded the Security Council to agree on a resolution calling for a cease-fire. But Olmert wanted more time to kill Hamas.
Having savaged each other for a year, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have now formed a rare partnership in power. Not since James Garfield chose James G. Blaine has a new president chosen his principal rival to be secretary of state.
What does this tell us?
First, don’t take campaign oratory all that seriously.
Second, unlike Dennis Kucinich, Ted Kennedy, Ron Paul or Jesse Helms, Hillary and Barack are pragmatists. They do not let ideology or past insults get in the way of a mutually beneficial deal.
One wonders: What did Sarah Palin ever do to inspire the rage and bile that exploded on her selection by John McCain? What is there either in this woman’s record or resume to elicit such feline ferocity?
What did we know of her when she was introduced?
That she was a mother of five who had brought into this world a baby boy with Down syndrome, thus living her Christian beliefs. That she was a small-town conservative who had risen from mayor of Wasilla (Pop. 9,700) to be governor of a state twice the size of Texas.
DENVER — After the phony roll call vote was taken here to formally nominate Barack Obama — a roll call that did not remotely reflect the true delegate strength of Hillary — the media exploded in an orgy of celebration about the historic character of the moment to which they had just been privileged to be witness.
“The first black presidential nominee ever of a major party in history!” was proclaimed. Coming on the 45th anniversary of Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, Barack’s nomination is being hailed as the last great step forward in the long march to equality and justice in America.
‘Halas’, says Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. ‘Enough. It’s over’.
An Israeli columnist issues a scathing indictment of Israel and calls on the U.S. to apply pressure.
In what the Los Angeles Times 
There is a vital development — a new ruling from the British High Court — in a story about which 
The Pentagon’s pre-emptive strike came with the leak of Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s confidential review of the Afghan war to Bob Woodward of The Washington Post.
…Vidal is sitting in the Connaught Hotel in Mayfair, where he has been coming to stay for 60 years. He is wearing a brown suit jacket, brown jumper, tracksuit bottoms; his white hair twirled into a Tintin-esque quiff and with his hooded eyes, delicate yet craggy features and arch expression, he looks like Quentin Crisp, but accessorised with a low, lugubrious growl rather than camp lisp.
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