The Israeli-Hamas conflict is putting
the Obama administration at odds with two of its most important partners in the
Middle East, threatening to undermine other U.S. objectives in the region at a
time of political upheaval. On Monday,
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, which has frequently served as a
moderate voice in the region, described Israel as a “terrorist state” and
condemned the airstrikes in the Gaza Strip, which is run by the Islamist group
Hamas. Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi has warned Israel against a ground
invasion and thrown his support behind Hamas’s leadership, sending his prime
minister to Gaza. The growing outcry has
exposed the United States to criticism that it has not done enough to press
Israel to agree to a cease-fire. The conflict has also created a wedge in
relations with officials in Egypt and Turkey and highlighted the limits of U.S.
influence in the aftermath of the revolutions that swept the region last year. Neither the new Islamist government in Egypt
nor the established one in Turkey has succeeded in persuading Hamas to cease
firing rockets from Gaza into Israel. Jordan — like Egypt, a traditional lever
of U.S. influence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — has similarly been
unable or unwilling to persuade Hamas militants to stand down. An Egyptian official on Monday expressed
frustration with the role played so far by the United States, which has made no
attempt to publicly urge Israel to rein in its airstrikes. The United States has the most sway with
Israel of any “country on Earth,” said the official, speaking on the condition
of anonymity to discuss the ongoing negotiations. “The Israelis would not
listen easily to any other voice.” The
Obama administration has pleaded for all sides to “de-escalate” but has
criticized only Hamas. All high-level U.S. diplomacy has been conducted from
afar, including phone calls Monday from Obama to Morsi and to Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. International
diplomatic efforts for a cease-fire intensified in Cairo, but the United States
did not expressly back any plan. “We
don’t practice diplomacy from the podium,” State Department spokeswoman
Victoria Nuland said Monday. “We have been very clear that Israel has a right
of self-defense. We’ve been very clear that rockets continue to be fired and
land on Israel. We’ve been very clear that we are working to try to get this
conflict de-escalated. We have been very clear about our concern for the
civilians and innocents on both sides who are getting
caught in this.” The administration,
meanwhile, has tried to tread carefully with Egypt and Turkey. It is seeking to
recalibrate relations with the former in the wake of the election of an
Islamist leader, while relying on the latter as its main diplomatic bulwark
against further deterioration of the situation in Syria. U.S.
officials have supported both countries as possible peacemakers in Gaza but
abstained from criticism of their embrace of Hamas.
There are two food
inspection stories floating about. One
involves sea food substitutions such as imitation crab for real brand- and a
strange fish for tuna, which some people are allergic to, and they aren’t
informed it isn’t tuna. And it was
crayfish instead of lobstar. The other
story involved Donald Trump’s restaurant.
It seems there were fifty one major health violations upon the most
routine of inspections. The Trumpster
has not responded yet. Stock prices
were sharply up today as the D J I rose over two hundred points in a belief
“that a fiscal cliff agreement will be reached”. Christmas shopping business is generally up
and small gift shops in Los Angeles are prospering as today’s customers seek
those “out of the usual” gifts. Of
course in Pasadena, commerce would be much improved around town if the city
council would approve a football team renting the stadium for “a period of up
to five years”. Pasadena had previously
said they did not want a permanent team at the Rose Bowl. But of course there are those little old
ladies with hat pins showing up at the meeting saying that all of the new
traffic noise would disturb their cats, or something. But they would sure be helping Los Angeles
out.
Just who plays in the
Pac Ten NCAA championship game depends on how the Ducks and the Beavers do, and
they were talking about this on KPOJ this morning. In fact this conversation was more
interesting than what Ed Schultz had on today.
But Stanford and UCLA and USC all have a role to play in this
complicated outcome. Meanwhile the
exclusive domain of men has been conquered by a woman named “Christmas”. She is a young attractive member of an auto
racing pit crew. The experts agree that
she performs her duty within milliseconds of the best of the men. Meanwhile young teenage boys are buffing out
more ad some ninety percent say that they regularly work out now. And sixteen percent have experimented with
steroids. We already told you about that
new testosterone deodorant that you can buy over the counter now,
apparently. Meanwhile women are holding
‘shirt sniffing parties” because sniffing a man’s shirt is using what they
believe is the truest way to find true love – using the sense of smell.
I went down to the med
line and Judy locked the room up just before she got to me because of some
emergency down the hall. She said she
would only be three minutes, and for once she was right. She came back just after three minutes had
passed. I got a tuna sandwich, which
should keep me from starving. Then I
went out to the west bench and looked all around and Andy, who was lying on a
bench - - offered me a cigarette and I accepted. This whole ten percent of your brain myth has
been exploded. I’ve been hearing since
the ‘sixties that you don’t use ninety percent of your brain, but scientists
have shown that’s not true. You use ALL
of your brain. In fact if there are
brain cells you DON”T use, the die. Just
think- the saying “Use it or lose it’ is accurate. Also the allusion to right wingers being
“brain dead’ is also accurate. Of course
Rush Limbaugh had admitted going out the gate he only uses half of his brain,
which means that the other fifty percent of his brain has long since died. I think the reason why I still feel the same
about my “interveners” during my alcoholism is that my brain cells did NOT die,
and I still bear the bad memories of all those jerks around me who were doing
more harm than good by their actions tword me.
Of course Thom Hartman had his “demylanizsation” theory, in which case a
woman who has just given birth to a child- - “usually” forgets how awful it was
once she sees the baby. But if I were a
woman, I’m probably remember it all, and just how awful it was to go through-
and vow it was something I’d never go through again.
Now there is a group
called YELP that is kind of a “watch dog” pardon the pun, of other computer
outfits that for a fee will give a company a glowing business review. Of course this shouldn’t bother people as
ethically impared as Mitt Romney or anyone on Wall Street. But now they say that criminal investigations
may be in order, and the more riff-raff we can get out of commerce, the better,
in my opinion. The news featured their
annual bit about “the total cost of a Thanksgiving dinner, with all the
trimmings” at various food markets. They
say they are mistreating their “butter ball turkeys” because they shove and
bash them around. What would the turkeys
prefer- - a butler in a tuxedo escorting them to their cages? In Monte Carlo you need a foreign passport to
gamble, because the native citizens aren’t allowed to gamble. What kind of poetic justice is that??? Bay leaves used to be chewed in olden
times. I knew cumin was used in chili
powder. That’s what made mom’s chili
better than so many others.
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