Israel and the Palestinians
• Let’s give the Palestinians a state anyway. This from AP:
The World Bank says the Palestinian economy’s recent growth is unsustainable because of its heavy reliance on foreign aid . . .
The study’s author, John Nasir, said the Palestinian Authority has made steady progress toward establishing a future state, “but the economy is currently not strong enough to support such a state.”
Iranian Atomic Urgency
• Iran announced it now has “11,000 centrifuges active in enrichment facilities.” The Daily Telegraph points out:
That was more than the 10,000 centrifuges Iran was last said to have had operating, according to a May 25 report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
• You know Iran’s slacking off on “The Resistance” when you see comments like this in the NY Times:
One Qaeda operative, a 56-year-old known as Abu Thuha who lives in the Hawija district near Kirkuk in Iraq, spoke to an Iraqi reporter for The New York Times on Tuesday. “We have experience now fighting the Americans, and more experience now with the Syrian revolution,” he said. “Our big hope is to form a Syrian-Iraqi Islamic state for all Muslims, and then announce our war against Iran and Israel, and free Palestine.”
Arab Spring Winter
• Thirty feared dead in Ramadan mosque massacre. Assad loyalists in Hama sprayed worshippers with gunfire. Imagine the outrage if Israel did this.
• Reuters reports that Syria’s ambassador to the UAE defected.
• An Alawite rump state can be viable (and good news for Israel) because
. . . the farming is good, there’s an airport at Latakia, a naval base at Tartus and an oil terminal at Baniyas. Several strategically located military bases could contribute to the state’s defense. “Assad could continue to count on support from Iran, and the Russian Navy would retain is docking rights at Tartus.” No doubt Israel wouldn’t mind either that its powerful, less-than-friendly neighbor would end up balkanized into a handful of identity-based statelets.
• An Alawite rump state cannot be viable because it would be too closely tied to the success and failure of the dominating Assad family:
. . . Mr Al Assad and his close-knit regime may own up to 70 per cent of the country’s assets, land, licences and businesses. What would make ordinary Alawites think that in a new state, where they would be completely reliant on the Assads’ protection, the family would be more willing to share the spoils?
• The New Republic finds that Vladimir Putin’s critics and the Russian media favor support for Assad. Why are the Americans supporting an Islamic revolution? they wonder:
“The Russian press is more accurate than the Western press, because the West, in painting [the Free Syrian Army] as freedom fighters, doesn’t understand that these guys, are blood-sucking vampires and if they come to power there will be hell to pay, and for the Americans, too,” says Maxim Yusin, the deputy editor of the foreign affairs section of the daily newspaper Kommersant, Russia’s largest and among its more liberal . . .
“The Americans came to terms with the Arab Spring because they think that this is something they can understand, that democracy works the same way in America as it does in the Arab world,” Yusin goes on. “But it’s not how democracy works in the Arab world,” he says, pointing out that, in Gaza, a democratic election brought Hamas to power. “Russians understand it better,” Yusin explains. “They understand that this is a conflict between the civilized world and the suicide bombers who cry ‘Allahu akbar!’”
• Sinai jihadis filmed themselves blowing up the Egypt-Israel gas line.
Rest O’ the Roundup
• Israel’s charm offensive with the Turkish media continued. The Prime Minister talked to a delegation of visiting journalists from papers like Hurriyet and Zaman about fixing Israel-Turkey ties. Back in Ankara, however, AP reported that Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan broke his Ramadan fast with an iftar meal featuring special guest Khaled Mashaal.
(Image of Cronin via YouTube/sternchenproductions)
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