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If ever there were a more convincing demonstration of the arrogance and intransigence of the US Senate, then it would be hard to find. The almost humiliating fawning of politicians, from both sides of the fabled ‘political divide’, over Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as he addressed the Senate this week, was sickening in its intensity.

Netanyahu, it seems, is unmoved by the push for democracy presently sweeping the Middle East. His ‘terms’ for the creation of a Palestinian state are ludicrous.

According to a BBC report on his address:

His speech to Congressional lawmakers was punctuated by around 30 standing ovations.

Some of the biggest came when he listed the things Palestinians would have to accept to make a deal with him.

“Jerusalem must never again be divided, it must remain the united capital of Israel,” he said to waves of applause.

Palestinians want a capital in East Jerusalem.

Mr Netanyahu also demanded a continuing Israeli military presence along what would become an independent Palestine’s border with Jordan.

But the Palestinians want to control their own borders.

Mr Netanyahu ruled out any right of return of Palestinian refugees to Israel.

The most realistic of the theoretical peace deals that have been thrashed out over long years of meetings at neutral locations between well-meaning Israelis and Palestinians assume there would only be a token return of refugees.

But it is supposed to be an issue to be decided by negotiation, not by a unilateral declaration.”^[1]

Most Americans are pro-Israeli because they know no better. The Jewish-controlled US media has long force-fed anti-Palestinian propaganda down their throats. America’s politicians, however, have far more concrete reasons to roar approval at Mister Netanyahu’s bully-boy rhetoric – his stance too unyielding even for President Obama to stomach.

There’s a war in the Middle East hardly ever reported back home in the West. While Iraq, and more lately, Afghanistan, managed to hold America’s attention for a while, the real war being fought in the region is between Iran and Israel. Like most wars it’s about control. Middle East dominance is the prize.

Israel fears an Iran allowed to grow too militarily powerful. The US has similar fears, but for somewhat different reasons. The spread of democracy would prove advantageous for American markets in the region, but if Iran becomes another nuclear power in the Middle East it will not only threaten Israel’s security, but could take control of the oilfields and suppress the democratic process, making expansion of Western companies into the region more difficult.

America’s politicians see only military might as a means to prevent that from occurring. Their support for Netanyahu’s intransigence is based on controlling the Middle East by force of arms, as Israel has tried to do since its inception in 1948.

For the last thirty years Israel has relied on the support of Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian dictator kept in power by American money, to corral the Palestinians. This became vital to Arial Sharon, when in 2005, he evicted 10,000 Israeli settlers from the Gaza strip and allowed Palestinians to retake control of the land.

Many saw the action as a brave attempt at reconciliation, but it was nothing of the sort. Instead, it was a clever ruse by the old Israeli campaigner. By splitting the Palestinians into two segments he created divisions between them that resulted in factional infighting between Hamas in Gaza and Fatah in the West Bank. Conditions inside Gaza rapidly became intolerable as Israel strictly controlled access in and out of the strip.

Mubarak closed the Egyptian border with Gaza and the land became, for all practical purposes, a prison for those forced to remain and suffer the degradation imposed on them by these two nations.

Netanyahu would like that situation to continue. So would the US Senate.

It’s likely, though, that the arrogance of both has caused them to overlook one effect of the ‘Arab Spring’ spreading throughout the Middle East.

Mubarak no longer controls Egypt. He’s awaiting trial for corruption.

Today, the BBC reports:

Egypt is to open the Rafah border crossing into Gaza permanently to most Palestinians from Saturday, Egyptian state news agency Mena has said.

Gaza has been under blockade since 2007, when the Islamist Hamas movement took control of the territory.

Under ex-President Hosni Mubarak – ousted in February – Egypt opposed the Hamas administration and helped Israel to enforce the blockade.

Israel says the blockade is needed to stop weapons being smuggled into Gaza.

The Rafah crossing will be opened permanently from 0900 to 2100 every day except Fridays and holidays, beginning Saturday 28 May, Mena said.

“Palestinian women of all ages will be exempted from visas as will men under 18 or over 40,” Mena reported.

Rafah is the only crossing into Gaza which bypasses Israel.”^[2]

Will this mark the beginning of a change in Palestinian politics? Already Hamas and Fatah are patching up old wounds. There is talk of asking the UN General Assembly in New York to recognize Palestinian Independence. Israel and the US will undoubtedly oppose any move to do so, but there is far more sympathy for the Palestinian cause among Europeans.

Without the assistance of Egypt, Israel may find it has few friends other than those fawning politicians in the US Senate.

^{[1] “Netanyahu chooses to make things worse with Capitol Hill speech” BBC, May 25th 2011}

^{[2] “Gaza: Egypt ‘to open Rafah crossing to Palestinians'” BBC, May 25th 2011}

Filed under: Stamped ‘Defective’

Harold Camping, the man who predicted the end of the world would occur today, got it wrong. It came as no surprise to most us, but as something of a shock to those who’d sold all their possessions and spent all their savings in anticipation of the grand event.

Is it right, though, that we should mock Mister Camping – or, for that matter, his followers?

Just because he’s one of a long line of misguided individuals, who have come to believe they have some unique affinity with the god of Abraham and his plans for the human race, does that give us the right to belittle him as a religious crank?

In true American ‘football game’ style, the “Central North Carolina Atheists and Humanists” (whoever they may be) are holding a two-day party, in celebration of some apparent ‘victory’ over Harold Camping and his misplaced ideas.

From a BBC report:

“Though the absurdity of this claim is obvious to the majority of the world, it’s a great opportunity to highlight some of the most bizarre beliefs often put forth by religious fundamentalists and raise awareness of the need for reason,” said a posting about the party on the group’s website.^[1]

Similar events are taking place in Washington, Texas, Florida, and California.

All of which leaves one wondering: if the atheists were all so sure Mister Camping was wrong, is there any need to party? Or, are the celebrations merely an exhibition of relief that he wasn’t right, after all?

^{[1] “‘Rapture’ apocalypse prediction sparks atheist reaction” BBC, May 21st 2011}

Filed under: Schoolboy antics

The story fast capturing headlines this week is all about the infidelity of ex-terminator and ex-governor of California, and now, soon to be ex-husband of Maria Shriver, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Questions over the breakup of Schwarzenegger and Shriver were answered when the ex-bodybuilder…

…announced to the world that a female member of the couple’s house staff had given birth to his love child a decade ago. Apparently, he forgot to mention this to his wife, until last week.

Now, the big question perplexing America’s media is just who is the mother?

Meanwhile, in New York’s Rikers Island prison, IMF boss Dominique Strauss-Kahn is ruminating on his folly in believing every black hotel chambermaid in New York must find him irresistible.

It’s not the first time Strauss-Kahn has made that wrong assumption when in the presence of the fairer sex. Hearing of his arrest, 31-year-old French writer Tristane Banon…

…has now revealed a similar assault on her, back in 2002, when she interviewed Strauss-Kahn for a book she was writing.^[1]

Stories of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s sexual assaults on womankind have abounded on the internet for years. Back in 2003, the Daily News reported that, while filming ‘Twins’:

Assistant director Linnea Harwell told the Los Angeles Times that Schwarzenegger regularly displayed himself naked when she went to fetch him from his trailer and once pulled her onto a bed while he was wearing only underwear.

“He was laughing like it was all a big joke. Well, it wasn’t. It was scary,” she said.”

In another incident at the time:

Carla Baron, a stand-in for “Twins” female lead Kelly Preston, said Schwarzenegger and his own stand-in once crowded her from the front and back, suggesting “a Carla sandwich” as the Austrian star stuck his tongue in her mouth.”^[2]

All of which leaves one wondering whether it wouldn’t be justice for Schwarzenegger and Strauss-Kahn to be sharing a cell in Rikers Island prison together?

When men achieve a certain power-status in the world, they seem to reach a moment in their lives when they believe all women find them irresistible. It isn’t true, of course. The only person who finds them irresistible is themselves.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, in his big empty mansion, and Dominique Strauss-Kahn in his tiny barred cell, may now find they have the time to ruminate on that fact.

None of this media attention, on two fairly worthless male members of the human race, has deflected the US government this week from its primary aim of milking the killing of Osama bin Laden for much more than it could ever be worth.

Not content with killing their enemies, the 18th century Polynesian native people went one step further by cooking and eating them. Thus was the sad fate of Captain James Cook, among others…

It would seem that the US administration, unsatiated by the mere death of Osama bin Laden, is determined to metaphorically cook and eat him, by disparaging his existence in any demeaning manner they can conceivably conjure.

Having published video footage of a frail old man, wrapped in a blanket, watching home movies; made much of the ‘dong syrup’ in his medicine cabinet, and guffawed at the sensational ‘outing’ of the dyed beard, they’ve now slipped another slice of juicy ‘news’ to the waiting media – he owned a porn video.^[3]

Needless to say, the US media has pounced on this like a starving dog scavenging a rotting mouse carcase. Within minutes, a plethora of tasteless jokes and double entendres was cascading forth onto the airwaves:

Is this, perhaps, one tasty bin Laden morsel too far?

Americans spend over thirty-three billion dollars every year on pornography. That forty-four dollars per head of the population, or, to put it another way, approximately two dirty videos each.^[4]

Has the vilifying of Osama bin Laden’s dead body become just another case of American hypocrisy – the US pot calling the al Qaeda kettle, black?

Moralism in the US may still be preached from the pulpits, but in the political arena the behavior and actions acknowledged to accompany it are long dead and buried. Whether the act is one of sexual assault, fathering a love-child out of wedlock, or assassinating one’s enemies, there are precedents (and presidents) galore to justify them.

Former N.C. Senator John Edwards fathered a love-child with campaign worker Rielle Hunter while his wife was dying from cancer; South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond; US President Warren Harding; US President Grover Cleveland; Utah Senator Arthur Brown; Benjamin Franklin; Thomas Jefferson, and more recently, Jesse Jackson, have all sired children out of wedlock – to name just a few.^[5]

For Arnold Schwarzenegger and Dominique Strauss-Kahn there may well be yet more skeletons, duly emerging from various closets, to add to their not inconsiderable embarrassment.

But, who knows, maybe the US government can divert attention by announcing further revelations of Osama bin Laden: he bit his toe nails, waxed his pubic hair, or – oh, no! – could he possibly have been gay?

^{[1] “IMF chief Strauss-Kahn undergoing tests over sex charge” BBC, May 16th 2011}

^{[2] “SEX STORIES GRIP AH-NOLD” Daily News, October 5th 2003}

^{[3] “Bin Laden’s porn has been found” FP, May 13th 2011}

^{[4] “Internet Pornography Statistics” Internet Filter Review}

^{[5] “Politicians and their ‘love children'” Access Atlanta}

Filed under: Immoral politics