If the so-called peace talks between Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Makhmoud Abbas fail, as they surely must, it will have nothing to do with Israelis building in parts of Israel that the rest of the world does not want Israel to have. We were not born yesterday: Of course we know that the land in question is touted as "occupied Arab" or worse yet "occupied Palestinian" land. We are well aware that several incompatible realities are overlain on these lands. However, if the talks fail it will not be because of the decisive--and constructive--activities of Jews in Israel. Nu? we like to build where we live--nothing new. The building freeze always had a limited time period, and an explicit expiration date, well known to their excellencies Abbas and Obama. For whom was the resumption of building a surprise?
NO ONE!
Abbas didn't have to linger so long over his whine-and-cheese waiting for most of the freeze period to run out before heading for the table. Bibi sat there staring at his watch and smoking cohibas, worried to death over Abbas. Was he hurt? Did he lose his way? Was he short of bus fare?
Now, over the years the Arabs have painted themselves into so many corners on the matter of Israel that we must soon revise the basic paradigms of the geometry of one-dimensional shapes (how many corners can one square contain?). They rioted once because the British Mandatory government said hence forth they would be called Palestinians, G-d Forbid! "We'll have none of that, sir!" they cried out. "We are Syrians!" Even the infamous Azmi Bishara, no friend of the Jewish state, is on record as saying that there is no such thing as a Palestinian. Probably why he went home to Syria. All righty then. Jews in the Palestine Mandate were Palestinians, Arabs were Syrians, except Druse who were (and still are) Druse, and Bedouin who couldn't give a rat's arse.
Something like that.
The UN partition gives these Syrians-not-Palestinians all of Gaza, and a heck of a lot more than just bits of Samaria and Judea. But the independant British-created eastern Palestinian state of Trans-jordanian Palestine marches into Judea and Samaria and unilaterally annexes the land.
Who complained?
Egypt marches into Gaza and takes the strip.
Who complained?
Of course there were terrorist attacks against Israel off and on throughout this period when Israel was shut out of all these parts of the Holy Land. So wanting to destroy Israel had nothing to do with "occupation" so much as it had to do with Israel's very existence.
By the mid-1960s Arafat and friends created the Palestinian People out of thin air. And now for my latest trick... Tiny Israel facing tens of millions of Arabs looked brave, and the Arabs a little bullyish, thus a small, defenseless Arab people called The Palestinians was spoken into existence. All right out of the Protocols of the Elders of Islam. Now Israel, increasingly wealthy, modern, and hi-tech, with an awesome army called the Guardian Host of Israel, looked like the Big Bully.
You get the picture...
Or you don't.
Either way, this show won't go on forever. It does have an ending, folks, and nothing important about this ending will have been decided in Washington or Brussels or Moscow.
Not clear.
Genuine aliens as in outer space folk of interstellar origin probably still tops the list, to which we must add inter-dimensional beings, and, slightly related to the later, good old fashioned demons. There are many types of aliens, by the way, and they don't all get along with each other by some accounts. Aliens are held to be evil by many, as saviours of mankind by others, and of mixed intentions depending on which alien race we are talking about. You had to know that this wasn't going to be easy or simple.
A good deal, perhaps the majority, of this alien material is propounded in what some call the "alternate" media, the media that is real and true and honest, that tells it "like it is," as opposed to the "mainstream" media which is deceptive, and controlled by International Zionism and/or the New World Order, or just run and controlled by stupid, conventionally-minded eedjits. Never mind all those conventionally-minded eedjits, the so-called alternate media is very suspect itself, full of racists and anti-Semites, and demanding that its gospel be swallowed whole by the self-claimed independent thinkers just as much as middle America accepts the nightly network news. The rugged individualists are in fact soft and squishy groupies moving in lock-step with their self-appointed leaders.
Conventional wisdom is absolutely useless in thinking this through. Governments have a reputation for deception and cover-up, and institutional academia makes fun of any PhD faculty interest in such things as aliens, except, of course, as part of a study in popular culture. It is a dilemma, as it is way too easy to either accept uncritically the reality of alien contact, or to dismiss it all with humour and condescension.
And don't even think about claiming the middle ground--it is a killing zone of credibility as bad as either extreme.
So necessary to leave the absurd, artificial construct of day-to-day life and return to reality once and a while!
No big deal--just wanted to know.
Oh, and about your hasty evacuation of that "Helen Thomas-occupied" front row and center seat in the White House press room: Are you going back to Lebanon any time soon?
Well Helen, you may not be shy, but you are retiring!
A NATO member, once with aspirations to be accepted as a part of Europe, now looking to the east and currying favours with its former Ottoman Arab subjects. Slowly, the supposed political advancements of the post-World War II era, and of the post-Cold War era, are dissolving into ancient alliances with future plans.
