Mr. Bragg's Homework Blog |
Saturday, November 30, 2002
So, what does this mean for the next Isreali government? Sharon is in the driver's seat, having won a landslide in the Likud primary against Netanyahu. Taking the Haaretz results as the election results, Likud would have 41 seats, National Union 7, the "religious-national-center" bloc (NRP, UTJ, Isreal Ba'aliyah, Shas) 20, Shinui 13, and Labor 20. National Union has been calling for Arafat to be expelled immediately and for Isreal to declare against the creation of a Palestinian state for all time. Sharon will not expel Arafat until doing so will not cause a rupture with Washington, so he cannot agree to National Union's demands. In addition, Sharon was happy to have Labor's support, and it would be inconcievable to include National Union and Labor in the same coalition. Meanwhile, Labor's new leader Mitzna has been wants a unity government to negotiate with Arafat. Mitzna seems to want to be the Leader of the Opposition, so he will not accomodate his policies to Sharon's. Shinui will not sit in a government with avowedly religious parties. That leaves Likud with a very thin coalition of 61 MKs including the Likud, Shas, United Torah Judaism, Yisrael Ba'aliyah and the National Religious Party. Sharon and Shinui could easily reach a working agreement, however, whereby Sharon does not push any religious legislation and Shinui gives Sharon a parliamentary cushion. If Shinui announces that they will vote for the government's budget, then Sharon has a much stronger hand in facing down demands of the religious parties in his coalition. Thus, Shinui can play a role in shaping the government's behavior and in restraining the religious parties without formally joining the government.
Likud is unlikely to bring Shinui formally into the government in preference to Shas, UTJ and the NRP because much of Likud's base is religious and would see the exclusion as an insult.
Link. Haaretz Daily has a poll out. Likud is projected at 41 seats (up 22), Labor at 20 seats (down 6), Shinui at 13 (up 7), the Arab parties at 10, Shas at 8 (down 9), Meretz 7 (down 3), National Union 7 (down 1), United Torah Judaism 5, Ysrael Ba'aliyah 4 (down 2), National Religious Party 3 (down 2), One Nation 2.
48.6% "Definitely oppose" or "oppose" negotiations with Arafat, plus another 13% who would "possibly support" negotiations with Arafat. So there is a solid majority, under almost any circumstances, opposing negotiations with Arafat. Wednesday, November 27, 2002
Link, login aaaaaa314 password aaaaa. Salman Rushdie, the man who made Fatwa a household word for Islam-driven savagery, is in the New York Times today. He writes about his name becoming a household word for victims of Islamic savagery. Go read it. Update: Link works now. Credit to OxBlog
Link, login aaaaaa314 password aaaaa Thomas Friedman's pretty good today. Letter from GWB patiently lecturing rulers of Islamic states that they must decapitalize their posteriors. (Learn your Latin roots, folks--capita for head, post for after).
Link. Colbert King in Saturday's Washington Post on the Saudis. Thanks to OxBlog for the heads up. Email to Colbert King: I applaud you for your column on the one-sidedness of the Saudi relationship with the United States. Saudi Arabia is a standing afront to American values of democracy and freedom, and the "realist" argument that Saudi policies serve our interests is increasingly untenable, despite the protestations of the White House. Could a future column detail the publicly-available information on Saudi financial connections to the Bush family? It is not that an American President can be bribed, but that human nature disinclines us to think ill of our friends, and investigation only follows suspicion. The Bushes (and most of our foreign policy elites) find the Saudis to be affable, reasonable people, at home in the West and with international relations, and so are not suspicious of the Saudis and do not watch them closely.
--John Bragg
Link. The Washington Post has a story about Saudis unhappy over US treatment of Saudis since September 11. I think this is the first time I'm bloggin while angry.
Less noticed in Washington, though, was the changing view on this side. The United States now looks ungrateful and unwelcoming, so willing to toss aside decades of friendship that it rousts Saudi students from their classrooms, inflicts humiliating interrogations on one-time business partners and ignores slow but steady reforms here.UNGRATEFUL? We should be grateful? Grateful for what? The Twin Towers? The Saudis funding the Taliban? The 1973 oil embargo? "Allowing" us to defend them against the Iraqi threat? For "letting" us buy their oil. Grateful my Aunt Fanny. And slow but steady reforms--what, they only cut off 4 fingers now for stealing a camel? Stoning adulteresses with smaller rocks? Only banning paperback Bibles? Smaller sticks for the mutawwa'in religious police to beat people with?
Saudi is, always has been, and remains a cultural, moral, and intellectual desert, as well as a real-live desert.
Tuesday, November 26, 2002
The previous article does again reference one of the fundamental facts of the Isreali-Palestinian situation. By some time around 2010, there will be an Arab majority in Isreal-Palestine.
Link. Yossi Beilin, leader of the extreme peace wing of the Labor Party, and not a member of the government, has been meeting with Palestinian Information Minister Rabbo and negotiating a pretend peace agreement. Which, I suppose, is less surprising than it ordinarily would be--Beilin negotiated pretend peace agreements with Palestinian cabinet ministers all the time.
Link. Jerusalem Post on the National Religious Party. The NRP largely represents settlers in the West Bank. Since their party leader died in 1998, the party has been increasingly under the control of their Chief Rabbi Mordechai Eliahu and went from 9 seats to 5. Last year, the party picked up a new chairman, General Effi Eitam, who had big ideas about using the NRP as a springboard to realign Isreali politics and become prime minister. The NRP rank and file, however, are much more moderate, and have been giving him problems.
Link. Haaretz Daily on the real issue of the campaign--how Netanyahu and Sharon will interact in a Likud government together. Remember, kiddies, Sharon is currently Prime Minister, Netanyahu is Foreign Minister. Netanyahu has promised that Sharon will be his Foreign Minister, but Sharon has only said that he'd be happy if Netanyahu continues as Foreign Minister. Which means that Sharon will have Netanyahu as Foreign Minister--on Sharon's terms of not doing anything to alienate the United States. The article refers to a big (20-point) Sharon lead in the Likud primary polls, no citations. Sunday, November 24, 2002
Link. I'm sure you've all seen this through Instapundit, but for anyone that didn't follow the link, MSNBC reports that U.S. intelligence has information that the wife of Saudi Ambassador to the U.S. Prince Bandar was passing money to Saudis in the US who were paying rent and/or living expenses for the September 11 hijackers. Is it time to investigate the Bush family's financial dependence on the Saudis? What Saudi involvement was there in G.W.'s businesses whose failure was cushioned by investment by friends of Sr.? (In W.'s defense, the businesses he ran into the ground were almost all before he went into rehab and cleaned up his act.) |
