Insändare. Abbas & Olmert ska samarbeta.

Jag reagerade på en av TT:s massprodukter i går. Jag brukar söka på Eniro för att se vad den svenska pressen säger om Israel. Ett utskick från TT ger dussintal hits där, och det föranledde denna insändare till tidningar:

TT:s nyhetsval angående Israel är alltid intressant. I svensk press syntes på lördagen: ”Rysslands utrikesminister Sergej Lavrov kräver en undersökning av Israels bruk av klusterbomber” i ett flertal tidningar.

Samtidigt säger den ryska nyhetsbyrån Interfax http://www.interfax.ru/e/B/politics/28.html?id_issue=11583811 att Peres just i Echo Moskvy radio meddelat att de hittade många av Hezbollahs vapen i Libanon med ryska markeringar. Inget hos TT.

Hezbollahs raketer som gick till Israel med mängder av kullagerkulor och annat metallskrot enbart avsett att såra, skada och döda människor – vem kräver undersökning av det? TT berättar ej.

Och de facto – vem ser till att Hezbollah avväpnas enligt Resolution 1701? http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2006/sc8808.doc.htm Iran har redan börjat flyga vapen till Hezbollah via Beirut utan protester från Persson eller FN http://www.debka.org/headline.php?hid=3238 och båtarna som seglar i solgasset i havet utanför Libanon stoppar inte masstrafiken över landgränsen Syrien-Libanon, ej heller motsvarande uppladdning av Gaza, vars terrorister under veckan via den EU-kontrollerade gränsen till Egypten bl.a. tagit emot 400 anti-tankvapen och 15 Grad-missiler http://www.debka.org/headline.php?hid=3232 Israels försvarsmakt har definitiv information om minst ett dussin vapenleveranser till Hezbollah de senaste tre veckorna http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=51877 . TT har missat informationen och Persson har inte lagt pannan i några djupa veck. Anledning?

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Områdena som hade kunnat vara ett Palestina de senaste 50 åren men som konstant har sagt nej, senast år 2000 i försök till fredsförhandlingar för att avsluta den legala ockupationen, förlorar alltfler utbildade människor och affärsmän tack vare Hamas:

Brain Drain in Palestinian Authority
11:13 Sep 10, '06 / 17 Elul 5766
by Hillel Fendel
http://israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=111701

The spokesman for Fatah in the PA-controlled city of Tul Karem says that the difficult economic situation in the Hamas-led PA has led to the emigration of many academics to the Persian Gulf.

The spokesman, Samir Naifa, indirectly blamed Hamas for the situation.

He said the information he has indicates that some 20 engineers from the Tul Karem region alone (east of Netanya) have left recently for the Persian Gulf states. In addition, he said, many doctors have left Judea and Samaria, seeking work elsewhere, as have many Palestinian Authority employees. The latter have not been paid for several months.

Naifa, whose Fatah party was ousted from power by the Hamas in the PA elections eight months ago, said that many businessmen have stopped their projects. The reason, Naifa says, is because of the many obstacles placed in their way by the Hamas government, and the general lack of confidence in the economy.

An Israeli defense source confirmed the above. He told Arutz-7's Haggai Huberman, "Whoever can leave, runs away. Many factories have closed and money is not coming. Businessmen who came to Judea and Samaria are leaving."

Huberman recently reported on similar criticism coming from within Hamas itself. Hamas spokesman Razi Hamed wrote in a daily PA newspaper two weeks ago that the Palestinian Authority leadership and populace has failed to turn Gaza into a functioning society.

"Walking the streets of Gaza," Hamed wrote, "you get the feeling that you have to close your eyes: anarchy everywhere, policemen who don't care about public order, boys carrying guns, people setting up condolence tents in the middle of the street, and murders between rival families. Gaza has become a garbage dump, with a stink everywhere and sewage everywhere. The government can't do a thing, the opposition watches, the two sides fight between them, the Presidency is helpless; we have caught the bug of apathy..."

Vilka som finns kvar? Dessa:

Så vad göra för att klara det? WOW – Olmert och Abbas ska samarbeta för att med gemensamma ansträngningar stödja sina sammanfallande riken! Trots

Tens of Thousands Protest Olmert Government 16:09 Sep 10, '06 / 17 Elul 5766 by Ezra HaLevi

Tens of thousands of Israelis joined a protest against the Olmert government in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square Saturday night. The protest was under the banner of “State Commission of Inquiry Now!”

The protest was organized by IDF reservists as well as the Movement for Quality Government (MQG), a private group that has been running a separate protest alongside the reservists in Jerusalem’s Rose Garden. The reservists have been calling for the resignation of the top government officials for their management of the recent war in Lebanon, while the MQG is calling for a state commission to examine the government’s actions. “The Prime Minister must open his eyes and realize that a state commission of inquiry is needed,” the group’s chairman, Eliad Shraga, said. Also speaking at the protest were former Defense Minister Moshe Arens of the Likud, retired Meretz Party chairman Yossi Sarid, senior reserves officers and relatives of soldiers who fell during the war. “It is unacceptable that those under investigation appoint the investigators,” Arens told the crowd. “Only a state commission of inquiry will examine in a thorough manner the decision of the government in the last war in Lebanon. Never have there been such confusing and contradictory orders issued in the handling of a war.” “If we continue to remain silent, we will be hit with another bomb,” Movement For Quality Government spokesman Shuki Levanon said. He added that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had been invited to the protest, “to declare from this podium that he has heard the will of the people and will establish a state commission – but the chicken didn’t even answer.” Though most protestors held signs accusing the government of not allowing the IDF to act strongly enough, some Meretz members joined as well – protesting the decision to go to war in the first place. Though the rally’s organizers number the participants at 40,000, police said 25,000 attended. Musicians and composers took part in the demonstration as well. Nimrod Lev, Danny Linti, Miki Gavrielov, Pablo Rosenberg, Etti Ankari and Yankele Rotblitt, the composer of Shir HaShalom, the Song of Peace embraced by Israel’s left-wing and sung publicly by Yitzchak Rabin just prior to his murder. Shraga closed the rally by calling on those present to join the struggle more actively. “The struggle is not over. Don’t go home and think you have done enough – speak out and join us at our protest vigil in Jerusalem,” he said.

Ska Olmert fortsätta att beväpna Abbas, och tala vänligt till honom som han gör till sina andra gubbar bakom buskarna – det kan ju ge lite goodwill hos Blair, som också ser sin tron falla sönder:

Olmert Pushing Road Map Plan

By Hillel Fendel Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, in a joint press conference with British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Saturday night, announced he plans to meet - unconditionally - with Abu Mazen in the near future.

Blair arrived in Jerusalem late Sabbath afternoon, meeting with Mr. Olmert on what many feel is his farewell tour of the region before his expected resignation next year.

Olmert told reporters that he plans to meet with PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) in the near future. Though just last week he said he would not meet with Abbas before captive soldier Gilad Shalit is released, he no longer has set any preconditions for such a meeting.

Olmert expressed his willingness and intention to advance the Quartet's Road Map Plan between Israel and the PA. He announced that the Realignment Plan, his main election campaign platform, was no longer relevant.

The Road Map plan, initiated in 2002, calls for an end to terrorism, an end to Israel's settlement activity, and the formation of a Palestinian state. Ex-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said that the U.S. guaranteed that Israel could retain major settlement blocs in the Shomron, but this has not been borne out by the relevant documents. The plan has not yet made it to its first step.

The British leader told reporters that events taking place in the Mideast directly impact his country, as well as the entire world community. Blair expressed his willingness to do whatever possible to advance negotiating efforts between Israel and the PA (Palestinian Authority).

Prime Minister Olmert has said that he now realizes that his Realignment Plan, calling for the dismantling of most of the communities in Judea and Samaria and the handing over of most of the territory to Hamas, is no longer realistic. The Road Map Plan is all Olmert has left on the political horizon, analysts say.

Olmert placing the focus of his Saturday night remarks not on Lebanon or Iran, but on the PA. PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah, who still retains his position despite the fact that Hamas controls the Parliament, is also willing to talk unconditionally with Olmert. Both leaders apparently feel they need each other in order to stay in power. [häromdan sa Nasrallah att HAN ville att Olmert skulle kvarstå….]

The Deputy Director of the GSS (Israel's domestic security service), whose name is not known to the public, says that Abbas also needs Hamas cooperation in order to survive. The official told the Cabinet today that Fatah is continuing to crumble in the face of increasing Hamas strength and influence within the internal PA security agencies. Efforts continue to create a unity government of both Hamas and Fatah. ,[och Kadima]

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Folkrätt

The Fantasy World of International Law
The criticism of Israel has been "disproportionate."
by Jeremy Rabkin
08/21/2006, Volume 011, Issue 46

Då det senaste kriget i Libanon startade, protesterade de europeiska regeringarna att Israels svar var "oproportionerligt". FN:s commissioner för mänskliga rättigheter, Louise Arbour, höll med och talade dystert om israeliska "krigsbrott". Jag råkade vara på en konferens mitt i juli som vesöktes av ett antal militära advokater. Jag frågade en, som undeervisar i militäårlag vad allt detta tal om "proportionalitet" egentligen betyder. Svaret var kort och bestämt: "Det betyder att de inte tycker om Israel."Läs vidare på länken ovan!

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Nyheter

Nasrallah har rekommenderat Olmert att stanna kvar som israels ledare. Önskvärd reklam eller klarsynthet?

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England, Italien, Spanien, Portugal och Tyskland har förenat sina ansträngningar att begränsa Israels möjlighet att försvara sig.

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FN glänser i klarsynthet. KoffikAnnan har utropat att Israel måste sluta stoppa Hizbollah från att skaffa sig vapen. Att Säkerhetsrådets Resolution 1706 hela tiden talar om att denna tillförsel måste stoppas, men att ingen annan gör det, räknas inte. 1706 säger också att de kidnappade israeliska soldaterna ovillkorligen ska lämnas tillbaka, men KoffikAnnan anser sig behöva medla i fallet trots allt??? Han, med alla foton i pressen om hur han skakar tass med Nasrallah, är inte den lämpliga. Israel har dessutom knappt motsvarande fångar, däremot en libanes som illegalt tog sej in i Israel, krossade skallen på en liten flicka och avlivade hennes far - är det jämförbart? Men det är klart - Olmert har på sistone deklarerat att en israel är ungefär lika mycket värt som 800 araber, så . . . . .

UNIFIL, som inte har upptäckt och rapporterat en enda av de bortåt 15.000 raketer och missiler som Hizbollah har införskaffat, är tyvärr som en stor fet padda som kan göra exakt vad de vill - när de hjälpte Hizbollah år 2000 att tillfångata och döda israeler, inte har det någonsin ordentligt utretts.

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Spengler

Jag har upptäckt en fascinerande skribent, som jag för övrigt inte vet något om, Spengler. Han skriver artiklar i Asia Times och har alltså distans till vårt närområde - Eurabien och USA. Här en av hans fascinerande artiklar som berättar om Irans framtid, och som kanske kan förklara en del. Jag har försökt kopiera två artiklar hit, med rätt misslyckat resultat, och du kan hitta hans artiklar om du går till http://www.atimes.com/atimes/others/spengler.html

Den första behandlar Iran om 50 år, den andra behandlar Europa nu och framåt.

Middle East Sep 13, 2005

Demographics and Iran's imperial design By Spengler Aging populations will cause severe discomfort in the United States and extreme pain in Japan and Europe by mid-century. But the same trends will devastate the frail economies of the Islamic world, and likely plunge many countries into social chaos. By 2050, elderly dependents will comprise nearly a third of the population of some Muslim nations, notably Iran - converging on America's dependency ratio at mid-century. But it is one thing to face such a problem with America's per capita gross domestic product (GDP) of $40,000, and quite another to face it with Iran's per capita GDP of $7,000 - especially given that Iran will stop exporting oil before the population crisis hits. The industrial nations face the prospective failure of their pension systems. But what will happen to countries that have no pension system, where traditional society assumes the care of the aged and infirm? In these cases it is traditional society that will break down, horribly and irretrievably so. Below, I will review the relevant numbers. In a recent essay, I argued that declining Muslim population growth rates give the Islamists just one generation in which to strike out for their goal of global theocracy (The demographics of radical Islam, August 23). Muslim birth rates are collapsing as literacy rises, that is, as the modern world intrudes upon traditional society. Islamic traditional society is so fragile that it crumbles as soon as women learn to read. But the Islamists will not wait for traditional society to unravel. I grossly underestimated Iran's new president Mahmud Ahmadinejad in a report on the Iranian elections (Iran: The living fossils' vengeance, June 28). In programs made public on August 15, Ahmadinejad revealed a response worthy of Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin to the inevitable unraveling of Iran's traditional society. He proposes to reduce the number of villages from 66,000 to only 10,000, relocating 30 million Iranians. That is a preemptive response to the inevitable depopulation of rural Iran, in keeping with a totalitarian program for all aspects of Iranian society. As Amir Taheri wrote in Arab News on August 20, "He [Ahmadinejad] wants the state to play a central role in all aspects of people's lives and emphasizes the importance of central planning. The state would follow the citizens from birth to death, ensuring their health, education, well-being and leisure. It will guide them as to what to read and write and what 'cultural products' to consume so as not to be contaminated by Western ideas." Reengineering the shape of Iran's population, the central plank of the new government's domestic program, should be understood as the flip side of Iran's nuclear coin. Aggressive relocation of Iranians and an aggressive foreign policy both constitute a response to the coming crisis. Iran claims that it must develop nuclear power to replace diminishing oil exports. It seems clear that Iranian exports will fall sharply, perhaps to zero by 2020, according to Iranian estimates. But Iran's motives for acquiring nuclear power are not only economic but strategic. Like Hitler and Stalin, Ahmadinejad looks to imperial expansion as a solution for economic crisis at home. Iran wants effective control of Iraq through its ascendant Shi'ite majority, and ultimately control of the oil-rich regions of western Saudi Arabia, where Shi'ites form a majority. As Pepe Escobar reported from Tehran (Iran takes over Pipelineistan , Sep 10), Ahmadinejad wants to make Iran a regional power not only in production but in transmission, through a proposed oil pipeline through Iraq and Syria. This may appear to be a desperate gamble, but conditions call for desperate gambles. Ahmadinejad is not a throwback, as I wrote with a dismissiveness that seems painful in hindsight. He has taken the measure of his country's crisis, and determined to meet it head-on. Washington, from what I can tell, has no idea what sort of opponent it confronts. Iranian dissidents were supposed to push their country toward democratization, following the glasnost model of Soviet deterioration, and contagion from the new democracy in Iraq was supposed to hasten the process. Ahmadinejad's ascendancy took Washington by complete surprise. Now there is nothing obvious the US can do to reduce Iran's influence among Iraqi Shi'ites, or to prevent Iran from pursuing its nuclear ambitions. The rising elderly dependent ratio, that is, the proportion of pensioners in the general population, has given rise to a genre of apocalyptic literature in the West: governments will raise taxes, debase the currency, cut pensions and flail about hopelessly as the cost rises of supporting the rising number of aged. In the US, pensioners now are 18% of the population, but will become 33% by 2050, according to the United Nations' medium forecast. In other words, a full additional 15% of the population will require support from the remaining population. Shifting a full 15% of the population from the ranks of the working to the ranks of the retired will place an uncomfortable burden on American taxpayers, to be sure. But the shift in the case of Muslim countries is much worse. Between 2005 and 2050, the shift from workers to pensioners will comprise 21% of Iranians, 19% of Turks and Indonesians, and 20% of Algerians. That is almost as bad as the German predicament, where the proportion of dependent elderly will rise from 28% in 2005 to 50% in 2050. Each employed German worker will have to support a pensioner in 2050. A simple way to express the problem is that German productivity must rise by 0.8% per year between now and 2050 simply to maintain the same standard of living, for that is the rate of productivity growth that would allow a smaller number of German workers to produce the same amount of goods and services. That is not inconceivable; during the 1990s, German productivity grew at such levels. Productivity growth in the Arab world and Iran has been low or negative, and is not likely to improve. As I observed in my June analysis of Iran's presidential election, "From an economic standpoint, Iran is a changeling monster, an oil well attached to an iron lung, as it were, maintaining with subsidies a rural population that is no longer viable. Oil and natural gas earn $1,300 a year for each Iranian, roughly a fifth of per-capita GDP. The Islamic republic dispenses this wealth to keep alive a moribund economy. Government spending has risen by four-and-a-half times during the past four years, financed via the central bank's printing press, pushing inflation up to 15% pa [per annum], while unemployment remains at 11%." Iran's ultra-Islamist government has no hope of ameliorating the crisis through productivity growth. Instead it proposes totalitarian methods that will not reduce the pain, but only squelch the screams. Iran envisages a regional Shi'ite empire backed by nuclear weaponry. And Washington, from what I can tell, has not a clue as to what is happening. Apart from Iran, the population dynamics described above will lead to more rather than fewer terrorist demonstrations. A school of thought represented by Daniel Pipes, for example, holds that "terrorism obstructs the quiet work of political Islamism", as Pipes wrote on August 3 in the New York Sun. "In tranquil times, organizations like the Muslim Council of Britain and the Council on American-Islamic Relations effectively go about their business, promoting their agenda to make Islam dominant and imposing dhimmitude (whereby non-Muslims accept Islamic superiority and Muslim privilege). Westerners generally respond like slowly boiled frogs are supposed to, not noticing a thing." Here I think Pipes is wrong; the Islamists have to strike quickly and decisively, not only to advance their cause in the West but also to consolidate their power in home countries where conditions will become unstable before long. * * * En annan skrämmande artikel av honom beskriver Europa på det sätt ingen europeisk politiker skulle våga presentera det: Middle East Aug 22, 2006 The peacekeepers of Penzance By Spengler Like W S Gilbert's cowardly policemen in The Pirates of Penzance, Europe's prospective peacekeepers have decided that "a policeman's lot is not a happy one". Europe's serious exercise in peacekeeping led to the massacre of Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica, when Dutch soldiers turned over Muslims in their charge to Serb death squads. France offers no more than 200 engineers to join the peacekeeping force that the United Nations Security Council has mandated as a buffer on the Israeli-Lebanese border. The last time French peacekeepers ventured into Lebanon, a Hezbollah suicide bomber killed 58 paratroopers. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has appealed to Italy to lead the 15,000-strong UN force. The last time an Italian army confronted a well-armed and determined force in the region, at the Ethiopian battle of Adwa in 1896, the Italians suffered 70% casualties. Otto von Bismarck pronounced the Balkans unworthy of the bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier, and Europe's governments seem unwilling to sacrifice a single soldier to maintain the peace in southern Lebanon. This raises the question: What is Europe's interest in the Middle East? The answer appears to be: To disappear and be forgotten with the least possible fuss. A people without progeny will not accept a single military casualty. If this generation is the last, there will be no children for whom to sacrifice. Today's Europeans value their distractions and amusements more than they do prospective children. Germany's 2005 birth rate of only 8.5 per 1,000 inhabitants indicates that Europe is following the low variant of UN population estimates. These guarantee the virtual disappearance of the Europeans by the end of the present century. Only 300 million Europeans, nearly half of them geriatric, will remain at the end of the present century against more than 700 million (including all of Eastern Europe) today. Europeans younger than 60 years of age now number about 560 million; that number will fall by only 150 million by the year 2100. This number excludes immigrants, overwhelmingly from the Middle East and Africa, who show no signs of assimilating as Europeans. The number of Americans will exceed the number of Europeans, Russia included, by around the year 2080, although the aggregate numbers mask the true extent of the catastrophe, for nearly half of Europe's survivors will have reached retirement age. A fifth of Europeans are past 60 now; by 2050 more than a third will be above 60; and by the end of the century nearly half. The United States' elderly will number about 30%, so that the number of Americans younger than 60, at 280 million, will be close to double the number of young and working-age Europeans. It might be objected that Europe's demographic catastrophe lies a generation hence, and that it need not determine European policy today. Just the opposite is true: it is Europe's present attitudes that dictate the demographic catastrophe. Europe began to die in the 1990s when deaths outnumbered births. It seems unlikely that French diplomats deceived the world by promising French leadership and boots on the ground to enforce the latest UN ceasefire resolution. It simply is difficult to find volunteers to bell the cat. From this we should conclude that the so-called "international community" is an empty construct. The Europeans, Russia included, are the walking dead. Europe wants a quiet transition to the cemetery, while Russia plays spoiler indifferent to future consequences; whatever those consequences might be, very few Russians will be alive to see them. The United States is the only superpower not because no other Western country will have sufficient people to act like a superpower a century hence; the United States will have more people a century hence precisely because Americans think and feel like citizens of a superpower. All that matters is the coming confrontation between the United States and Iran. Iran's own demographic future resembles that of Europe more than it does the United States. By mid-century, Iran's aged will compose nearly a third of its population, and its population pyramid will invert. Social and economic catastrophe threatens Iran, persuading its present leaders to establish a regional empire while they still have the opportunity. The Israeli-Hezbollah ceasefire came into effect because Washington threatened Tehran with something extremely unpleasant if it continued to enrich uranium. Iran is not sure how far the United States will go, or how it should respond, and wants to buy time. That is why it kenneled its dogs in southern Lebanon, at least for the moment. Israel shrank before the number of casualties required to neutralize Hezbollah, and was happy to let the United States have a heart-to-heart conversation with the dogs' master. The rest of the matter, notably France's buffo part, is light farce. What happens next is entirely up to Iran. I have predicted that Iran will remain intransigent, for it cannot abandon its last chance for a new Persian Empire. The Persians have been an annoyance since the Battle of Marathon, and it will not displease me to see them fail again. If Iran refuses to change course, nothing short of force of arms will keep it from building nuclear weapons, something the US is reluctant to employ. That would bury what is left of America's nation-building exercise in Iraq, and possibly throw the world economy into recession through much higher oil prices. The two protagonists are circling each other, while their proxy warriors - Hezbollah and Israel - lick their wounds and watch. In the end, I believe the US will attack Iran's nuclear facilities. But the outcome is in Iranian hands. Even Nineveh repented and was saved after hearing Jonah's prophecy that it would be destroyed otherwise; who can tell if Washington's threats are as potent as the execution? (Copyright 2006 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing .)