What The Palestinians Want; What They'll Likely Get

The Palestinians aren't stupid people.  But, having said that, it's clear that they've taken many a wrong turn.  How is that?  Well, first and foremost, it's probably their clan culture.  You conform to the mores of your culture or  your finished.

Okay, so all cultures have a clan element.  The British nobility and aristocracy has elements that can be viewed as being clan-like.  In America's egalitarian culture, what fraternity you belonged to, or what golf club has extended  you a membership, can make a difference.  No culture is entirely egalitarian, but America has done a pretty good job of rewarding merit without favor.

Okay, so what does this have to do with the Palestinians?  For them the larger clan circle is Islam and while there are some Muslims who are good folks,  most harbor cultural prejudices.  Especially strong is their prejudice against Jews.  A degree of this prejudice stems from the Koran where can be read how Mohammad murdered a number of Jewish tribes.  More of this hatred of Jews stems from the fact that the Jews, many a polyglot of Holocaust survivors, succeeded in defeating Egyptian, Jordanian, Lebanese, Syrian and Iraq armies -- all Muslim.

Truly a Nakbah!  The Arabs in Palestine were used to being lorded over by fellow Muslims, but to have Jews planting a flag on what they viewed a Islamic soil -- unthinkable.

But, the Jews still had a problem.  What could they do to make friends of their neighbors?  The answer, in a word, nothing.  To have Jews leave Gaza, where they had established legal homes and businesses and had raised their children, meant nothing.  Actually, it did mean something.  It meant that the Jews were weak.  For one people to give up something to another people was a clear sign of their weakness.  Being friends with the Jews?  Never.  And, if they harbored even the slightest inclination towards friendship, powerful Islamic nations in the region rewarded the Hamas leaders royally to have them inculcate hostility in their people towards the Jews.

Fatah had much in common with Hamas, but also differed in certain respects.  For Hamas the religious aspects of the struggle with the Jews was paramount.  The Jews were to be nowhere on what was once Arab soil.  Fatah was more corrupt, which is why they lost to Hamas in Gaza.  They had to be satisfied with a base in the West Bank.  Had they negotiated with the Jews, they could have improved their people's fortunes considerably.  But, it was not their people they thought of.  It was their own fortunes made by maintaining a hostility to Israel that determined their behavior.  They personally profited as long as they could maintain hostility towards Israel, hence their disinterest in negotiating any sort of peace agreement.

It took a long time for the Israelis to get this.  Arafat was offered considerably more than what his Palestinians now have, or are ever likely to get.  Olmert, for example, offered to take into Israel thousands of Palestinians under the rubric of "the right of return."  The offer was rejected.  Do the Palestinians realize that such an offer will never again be extended to them.

There had been some talk of ceding a portion of Jerusalem to Palestinian rule.  Today, no such thoughts would ever again be entertained by any Israeli other than the most left-wing of politicians and whatever minuscule following might support them.

The Palestinians are quite aware how their bargaining position has eroded. But, do they realize how much they have lost by their own behavior?  It's hard to tell.  But, they do know that they will never get what at one time might have been thinkable.  And, that's why they are now turning to the U.N., a place ever hostile to Israel and the Jews.  Although Obama has been wonderful at raising doubts among America's friends as to the strength of America's support of their needs,  those who love Israel remain confident that the American people will continue to support them and that this support will be reflected in the American Congress.

The News: What You'll Learn And What You Won't

This morning 11/23/14, I heard on a respected new show, political analysts cogitating over where the country will go from here now that the Republicans won the Senate.  On analyst suggested that now the Republicans will make a strong effort to show the American people that they can make the Congress work.  They will now reach out to their Democratic counterparts and come up with legislation that can be agreed upon by both political parties.  Areas on which progress should now be possible include immigration, taxes, and more important areas.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.  Yes, the Congress might now finally do the things they have been unable to do in the past -- important things, things that really do need doing.  However, road blocks in the past were not, for the most part, put up by the Republicans.  They were created by Obama and his hit man, Harry Reid,  who permitted no discussion on bills sent to the Senate by House Republicans.  And, the press ran with that narrative.  They pushed aside entirely, any discussion of the bills sent to the Senate by the Republican House.  In this matter, Obama and Harry Reid won.  Congress was to blame for its inability to act and that was largely the fault of the Republicans.

Now it becomes more complicated -- for the Democrats --  not for the Republicans.  Some bills will fly through the Congress, e.g. the XL pipeline bill.  Will Obama be able to veto it.  Maybe, but I believe that in this case the Congress will easily over ride his veto.

A comprehensive immigration bill should also be possible.  Sure, there are different voices among the Republicans.  But, the Republican Party has a number of Latinos.  They know what's to be gained and what will be lost if they don't come up with something creative -- something that includes a sealing of our border with Mexico;  something that relies not on the alligators suggested in one of Obama's moments of sarcasm, but rather on technology.  Congressional bills, once passed, get the kind of attention unavailable to bills that don't make it out of the Congress.  This now becomes a problem for the Democrats.  Before the Republicans won the Senate, all the negative remarks as regards the Congress were assigned to either (1) a dysfunctional Congress as opposed to the President,  or (2) to the Republicans for having made the Congress dysfunctional.   Those story lines will no longer work.
The possible winner: the American people.

Figuring Out Obama

Okay, there are parts of Obama that are easy to figure out.  He's a man of the left.  (The Federal government knows best.)  He also subscribes to cultural equivalency.  (We're no better than any other nation.)

But, let's get down to specifics.  What's he doing usurping the authority of the Congress?

That question is not all that complicated.

He has no interest in working with the Congress.  There are two reasons for this, in my opinion.

First, it's not his style.  He's got the mindset of a community organizer.  Congress, in his mind, represents the fat cats who run the city and state.  He sees himself as a Saul Alinsky, someone who's going to get what he wants by kicking them in the shins.

Second, he sees himself as a lame duck and maybe he is.  If so, he sees no point in building bridges with Congress -- especially now that the American electorate has just turned its back on him by turning the Senate over to the Republicans.  His best bet, as he sees it, is to narrow his objectives  down to trying to ingratiate himself with those groups he thinks he has a chance of dropping into his pocket.  Labor is already pretty much in his pocket.  African-Americans are, of course, also in his pocket.  But, even they are becoming discouraged by his ever more tarnished image.  The group he is now focused on are Latinos.

He may, however, run into some problems.  First, is the enterprising nature of most immigrants.  They know where they came from.  They came here because  here they can find opportunities not available to them in the countries they just left.  Do they want a country that is leaning in the direction of the one they just came from?

They know the nature of the governments they just left.  Do they want their new country to become a mirror image of the place they just came form?

Obama's nightmare?  That Latinos will vote Republican.