Annexing Judea and Samaria.

I was just reading the NY Times editorial, Sunday, May 31, to get their point of view.  It's the point of view of those against Israel annexing Judea and Samaria, land designated as Area C in the Oslo accord.  It was part of the land that was to be negotiated with the Palestinian Authority as part of a peace treaty.

First, let's be clear,  Arafat and then Abbas wanted nothing to do with any peace treaty despite the generous offers made by Israeli prime ministers.  My guess is that they figured they could make more money for themselves by leaving the matter unresolved.  From the funding they've received from Europe, Iran and the U.S. they may have been on to something.

But in the affairs of nations, nothing stands still.  We have come to a point where Israel offers far more to Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the UAE than do the Palestinians.  For Russia and China the analysis gets more complex, but working with Israel would seem to also offer more to them than working with the Palestinians.

So what's holding up Israel's annexation?

International Law?  That's what the NYTimes would argue, but they'd be wrong.

The international community and their organizations would be displeased and the UN would condemn it.  So argues the NY Times.  No kidding.  These world bodies condemn everything that Israel does  and for behavior far less egregious than that of other member nations.  The only time that Israel received a serious blow is when Obama failed to veto a Security Counsel resolution.  But, that was Obama.  Who knows?  Maybe Biden would follow in the footsteps of Obama.  This time, however,  Israel has more cards to play.

Could the Palestinians make trouble?  Sure.  But the days of bombing Israeli buses are over.  Today it's incendiary balloons launched by Hamas.  I think Israel will be able to cope.

The peace process is a unicorn that no longer exists.  And, truth be told, if Israel found itself having to find employment for the Palestinians in the land left to them, it would be the best thing that had ever happened to the Palestinians.  Suddenly  the Palestinians would find themselves freed of the yoke of corruption and from leaders who have no interest in their welfare.

Antifa: A Conspiracy Theoretical No More

When a society is weakened by forces unforeseen, viruses that are generally held in check are sometimes released that threaten the well being of its citizens.  That's what's happened in America.
The unanticipated force that suddenly buffeted America was the Corona virus.  This shocked the America's economy and led to a sudden surge in unemployment.  All that was now needed was a match.  And, that match was the murder of George Floyd by a police officer.

The man standing around with the gasoline was, as usual, Rev. Al Sharpton; the same Sharpton that gave us Tawana Brawley, the burning of the record store at 125th Street in Harlem, the riot in Brooklyn leading to the death of a Yeshiva student from Australia, and the Ferguson riots that burned out any number of black owned businesses.  It was the riot that gave birth to the Black Lives Matter movement.  The fact that in the Ferguson case, the youth that was shot and killed was Michael Brown. And, that in charging the police officer from whom he had earlier attempted to take his gun,.had invited his own death.

Instead of sitting down and working out a much needed code of conduct for police officers, we find Congressional Democrats sniping at Republicans instead of working with them to establish much needed guidelines for use in police work.

Now enter the anarchists, who go by the name of Antifa.  These are people drunk on their own righteousness, who would destroy one of the world's finest systems of government.  They mostly come from middle and upper class families, but have prepared themselves for no meaningful work.

The Antifa people are using a misguided and antisocial black youth to smash the windows of stores and  steal the merchandise.  Often they'll set fire to the building.  They attack police officers, burn the American flag and mindlessly take down statues of men they know next to nothing about.

Their message is that America is a corrupt and worthless country and must be brought to it's knees so that they, like Lenin before them, can build a righteous dictatorship to be guided by themselves.

For their funding we can most likely thank George Soros.

Righteous Demonstrations: The Achilles Heel Of Vandalism And Anarchy

There are times and places were demonstrations are appropriate.

However like any social tool, they must be done in ways that will not destroy innocent people.  Regrettably we have seen demonstrations sparked by the murder of George Floyd result in vandalism,  injury and even death.  Indeed, it took the life of an officer guarding a federal building in Washington D.C.

This can not be tolerated.  A demonstration held in a public space by more than 5 persons, should be registered as to time and location.  Without that, as we have seen repeatedly, a demonstration can morph into something very ugly.
 
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The Murder of George Floyd

Most of us know the story, recently covered in the press:
A black man, George Floyd, is on the ground, face down, and handcuffed.  A white cop rests on top of him with his knee on Floyd's neck.  Floyd begs the cop to get off; he can't breath.
The cop doesn't move and George Floyd dies.  More precisely, he's killed.

Three things can be extrapolated from this murder.

1. For justice to prevail,  the cop who murdered George Floyd must be prosecuted in a timely manner.  Not yet indicted, the cops who stood around doing nothing while Mr. Floyd's life was being taken.  Justice requires that they be indicted for having done nothing to save Mr Floyd from the officer who murdered him.

2. We, as a society, should review our race relations in America.  From a historical perspective, we have made considerable progress.  Yet it must be acknowledged that we started at a very low place; namely, slavery.

The path up from slavery was not easy.  It took the war between the states and the many lives lost in that war.  But we were still nowhere near where a civilized nation should be. We were now in the time referred to as Jim Crow, a terrible time of segregation; a time of blacks being lynched, especially in America's south. The road from Jim Crow to where we are today, was long and not easy.

But here we are.  Men of color can be found at the pinnacle of corporate America.  They also serve as judges and in our military where they have served with valor and distinction, side by side with white service men.  However cultural differences remain.  In housing, the Irish will often live in Irish neighborhoods, Italians in Italian neighborhoods, Jews in Jewish neighborhoods. and Koreans in Korean neighborhoods.  But even there, the times are changing, with the advent of more blended marriages.

Have we arrived at nirvana?  Hardly; but although more progress is called for in race relations, we have reached a good lever.  Nevertheless, further progress remains to be made.

3. Despite our progress, there are forces that would drive us apart.  Let me throw out a name: Al Sharpton.  His disreputable approach to race relations goes back years; to the Tawana Brawley affair.  Then there was the incident in Brooklyn were  a young child of color dashed into a street from between two parked cars.  A car that was going up the street had no chance to react to the child as he darted out from between the cars.  He was hit and died.  This was a terrible accident but it was no crime.  Sharpton whipped up a demonstration a day or so later fanning a hatred of the Jewish community.  A young Jewish student from Australia was knifed to death as he watched a demonstration occasioned by the child's death.

Then there was the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson, Missouri.  We won't dwell on the thieving ways of young Mr. Brown.  Suffice it to say, he punched an officer sitting in his patrol car, and reached over, attempting to take his holstered service pistol.  Failing in that, Mr. Brown, who was well over 6 feet, weighing roughly 230 pounds and built like a linebacker, began walking down the middle of the street.  The officer, getting out of his patrol car, ordered him to stop.  With that, Mr. Brown lowered his head and charged the officer.

The officer had no option.  He shot the charging Mr. Brown.  A witness testified that Mr. Brown walked towards the officer with his head and arms raised high.  However, an autopsy made clear that Mr. Brown's head was lowered like that of a charging bull.

From this event in Ferguson,  Rev. Sharpton spun the tale of an innocent young man shot dead by a rogue cop.  He lead demonstrations in behalf of the dead youth and created an organization, he called "Black Lives Matter."

As a society, despite the progress we've made, we must do more to improve relations between blacks and whites.  But one barrier yet to be overcome are people like the Reverent Al Sharpton.

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