Obama and those “new democracies.” They have to loosen up, chill out, get down and let if flow. But what about the old dogs in the area, or are they granted a free pass, a get out of jail card, or simply beneficiaries of the grandfather clause that excludes them from the burden of an open and liberal society. What was good for Iraq is not apparently ideal for Oman and Saudi Arabia and Quatar. After all, they hold gobs of American treasuries. True, reforms have been made and the public hangings and flogging have lost much of the festive character that recalled London’s Tyburn square lynchings and Hyde park lashings as public entertainment in the eighteenth century. By the same token our erstwhile “freedom fighters” in Syria, the FSA seem dominated more by thugs, hoods, and Islamic kooks than the original spin of artists, secularists, and engaged Leftists.
And what about Mahmoud Abbas? A puppet as many such as Noam Chomsky insist? Would he dine at a naked restaurant like Mohamad Morsi, and who would pick up the tab? That’s always the important question. Still, the Dershowitz Formula? ….
(see link at end) …According to Dershowitz and other participants in a Monday night meeting with Abbas in New York, the Palestinian president also promised to make “a positive statement” about the connection between Israel and the Jewish people during his Thursday address to the United Nations General Assembly….
—Morsy, who completed his Ph.D. in materials science at USC in the early 1980s and whose two sons are U.S. citizens, has a complicated relationship with the United States. He told the Times that he “learned a lot” during his time in California, but then quickly clarified that he meant “scientifically.” California’s laid-back attitude about cohabitation, gang problems, and preponderance of “naked restaurants” all made him uneasy.—Read More:http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/09/24/gameday_with_egyptian_president_mohamed_morsy
Sources at the meeting also revealed that Abbas has assured U.S. President Obama’s Administration that he would not press for a General Assembly vote on the Palestinian request for non-state recognition before the upcoming November 6 presidential elections.
They also said that Abbas had asked Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to stop referring to “wiping Israel off the map” and to replace that incendiary formulation with a call to “put Palestine on the map” instead.
Emerging from the meeting, Dershowitz told Haaretz last night that he came away from his discussion with Abbas convinced that “if Abbas and Bibi Netanyahu sit down and have serious talks, they will find their positions much closer than is widely believed.” Former U.S. Congressman Robert Wexler, who is president of the S. Daniel Center for Middle East Peace and who also took part in the New York meeting, agreed with Dershowitz and said that participants in the meeting came away with the impression that “the actual differences on core issues are not that great, they are not insurmountable.”
But what about Saudi Arabia? The beheadings are more civiized and they buy a heck of a lot of arms but….UNITED NATIONS — President Obama on Tuesday used his last major address on a global stage before the November election to deliver a strong defense of America’s belief in freedom of speech, challenging fledgling Arab and North African democracies to ensure that right even in the face of violence. image:http://www.flickr.com/photos/94393434@N00/4816147715/sizes/o/in/photostream/
In the meeting, Dershowitz secured Abbas’ confirmation in writing to a sequential resumption of talks that may come to be known as the “Dershowitz Formula”, first published by the famed Harvard jurist in a June 3, 2012 article in the Wall Street Journal. The formula states that “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should now offer a conditional freeze: Israel will stop all settlement building in the West Bank as soon as the Palestinian Authority sits down at the bargaining table, and the freeze will continue as long as the talks continue in good faith.”
Dershowitz, who said that he views himself as someone who can serve as “an honest broker” between Israel and the Palestinians, told Haaretz that he hopes the new formula will be able to break the stalemate that has prevented the resumption of peace talks, by allowing Israel to view Abbas as having come to peace talks without preconditions while enabling Abbas to proceed with the talks with a settlement freeze in place. Though he would not confirm it, Dershowitz is likely to present his new formula to Netanyahu during the prime minister’s upcoming visit to New York….
NYT: He returned to that subject at the United Nations on Tuesday. “There are no words that excuse the killing of innocents,” Mr. Obama told the General Assembly. “There is no video that justifies an attack o
embassy. There is no slander that provides an excuse for people to burn a restaurant in Lebanon, or destroy a school in Tunis, or cause death and destruction in Pakistan.”
It was the president’s first truly expansive response to the unrest …Image:http://www.autoblog.com/2012/07/13/seinfelds-comedians-in-cars-getting-coffee-long-promo-released/
According to press reports, several Jewish leaders who had been invited to the meeting, including Malcolm Hoenlein of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, cancelled their participation at the request of the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem. Nonetheless, about 10 Jewish leaders attended the meeting, held at the Hyatt Hotel in Manhattan, including Wexler and Dershowitz.
According to some participants, Abbas appeared despondent during parts of the meeting. He raised the issue of the Palestinian Authority’s financial difficulties, saying that perhaps the time has come to revoke the Oslo Accords, and for him to retire with his family in Ramallah.
Wexler told Haaretz that Abbas “was asked some tough questions” during the meeting. He said that Abbas showed the participants articles in both English and Arabic in which he had explicitly recognized Israel’s right to exist. Abbas also said that by adopting the Arab Peace Initiative’s formulation for a “just and agreed” solution to the refugee problem, he and most West Bank Palestinians had implicitly accepted the fact that only a fraction of the Palestinian refugees would be allowed to return to Israel proper, and only if the Israeli government agreed to it.
Abbas told the participants that he had instructed Palestinian ambassadors abroad to participate in ceremonies marking the Holocaust. “I know there was a Jewish Holocaust,” he said. Read More:http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/abbas-adopts-dershowitz-formula-for-resuming-talks-with-israel.premium-1.466794
ADDENDUM:
(see link at end)…MANAMA, Bahrain (AP) — The daughter of a jailed rights activist in Bahrain was sentenced Wednesday to two months in prison for damaging property at the police station, including tearing a picture of the Gulf nation’s king, officials said.
Rights groups denounced the court’s decision. They accused authorities in the tiny, but strategically important Gulf kingdom of escalating crackdowns on protesters from the Shiite majority, which is seeking a greater political voice in the Sunni-ruled nation.
More than 50 people have died in the unrest since February 2011 in Bahrain, the host of the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet.Read More:http://news.yahoo.com/daughter-bahrain-opposition-leader-sentenced-091003610.html
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