Watchman Newsletter

6 in 10 Palestinians reject 2-state solution, survey finds

The Jerusalem Post (Link) - Gil Hoffman (July 15, 2011)

Only one in three Palestinians (34 percent) accepts two states for two peoples as the solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to an intensive, face-to-face survey in Arabic of 1,010 Palestinian adults in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip completed this week by American pollster Stanley Greenberg.

The poll, which has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points, was conducted in partnership with the Beit Sahour-based Palestinian Center for Public Opinion and sponsored by the Israel Project, an international nonprofit organization that provides journalists and leaders with information about the Middle East.

The Israel Project is trying to reach out to the Arab world to promote “people-to-people peace.” The poll appears to indicate that the organization has a difficult task ahead.

Respondents were asked about US President Barack Obama’s statement that “there should be two states: Palestine as the homeland for the Palestinian people and Israel as the homeland for the Jewish people.”

Just 34% said they accepted that concept, while 61% rejected it.

Sixty-six percent said the Palestinians’ real goal should be to start with a two-state solution but then move to it all being one Palestinian state.

The fate of the euro is in the hands of Germany

The Telegraph UK (Link) (July 14, 2011)

The Italian parliament’s endorsement of a £40 billion austerity package has temporarily eased the turmoil in the eurozone but will not end it.

Yesterday’s vote in the senate, to be confirmed by the lower house today, marked a truce in the political in-fighting in Rome that had placed the debt reduction strategy in peril.

A successful, if expensive, sale of Italian government bonds also helped steady nerves amid fears that the eurozone contagion was spreading to one of its biggest economies.

Speculation that the European Central Bank stepped in to buy Italy’s debt has not been confirmed, but would be significant if true.

It would suggest that the ECB is finally trying to put together a strategy to contain the crisis. The piecemeal approach it has so far adopted is simply not good enough.

Europe’s Moment of Truth

The Trumpet (Link) - Brad Macdonald (July 14, 2011)

Maybe it lacks the pizazz that surrounds the downfall of a global media baron, or the urgency of America’s debt ceiling debate. But let’s set aside all the other headlines and dwell a bit on the most underreported yet most important story of the moment.

That is, Europe’s sovereign debt crisis.

After months of focusing primarily on Greece, the spotlight this week turned on Europe’s third-largest economy, Italy. This doesn’t mean Greece’s problems have been solved. Au contraire. Despite the endless “emergency meetings,” the bailouts and the austerity measures, Athens continues to edge toward bankruptcy. And European officials this week hinted that they may even be prepared to let Greece default.

All eyes turned on Italy last Friday, when fears of a contagion set in and resulted in the plunge of Italy’s stock market and a significant rise in the interest rate on Italian bonds. When markets opened Monday, the crisis worsened. Spooked investors continued to flee Italian bonds, causing yields to jump to 5.6 percent. The bond crisis was compounded by investors dumping stocks of banks exposed to Italian debt, which sparked the largest global run on stocks since March.

U.S. national debt: dancing on the brink of a world crisis

Ria Novosti (Link) - Barak Ravid (July 14, 2011)

Budget and debt problems are once again racking America. Barack Obama has failed to persuade the Republican majority in Congress to raise the national debt ceiling. That much is nothing new, and similar attempts will be unlikely to succeed in the future. Since July 10, the White House has been holding daily consultations on raising the ceiling. The current ceiling of $14.3 trillion must be raised by several hundred billion, or the Department of the Treasury will run out of money by August 2.

Looming crisis

The Americans raise their debt ceiling on a regular basis. Since 1993, they have come close to defaulting 16 times. In 1995, the government even shut down for a week. In the past, the world perceived these exercises as a matter of course, whereas now the unwritten rule of the U.S. budget is increasingly becoming a sore subject.

The times have changed, and the national debt and deficit have become too astronomical to be treated as an American eccentricity, especially considering the U.S.-bred financial crisis of 2008 and the backdrop of failing finances in Greece, Ireland, and Portugal (likely to be followed by Spain and Italy) and the patently pre-crisis condition of the Euro.

Dollar in full retreat, NZD storms 30-year peak

Reuters (Link) - Wayne Cole (July 13, 2011)

The U.S. dollar was on the run in Asia on Thursday after a ratings warning from Moody’s and a hint of further policy easing from the Federal Reserve unleashed a wave of panic selling, much to the relief of the hard-pressed euro.

The New Zealand dollar was a stand out performer, soaring to 30-year highs after data showed the economy grew far faster than expected in the first quarter.

The kiwi flew to $0.8491, a rise of 3.7 percent in just two sessions, as the upbeat news revived the chance of a rate hike before year-end.

That stood in stark contrast to the United States, where Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke had canvassed the idea of further quantitative easing should the economy stall.

Alan Greenspan: It’s the Gen-Xers Fault They’re Out of Work

Fox Business (Link) - Elizabeth MacDonald (July 13, 2011)

Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan said in a recent interview that the U.S. is suffering from an unproductive youth movement in the labor force, and that companies don’t want to hire these young folk. Greenspan also said that U.S. companies would be better off hiring immigrants.

I yield the floor to FOX Business Director of News Ray Hennessey:

Apparently the problem with the American jobs picture is the American worker.

At least that’s what Alan Greenspan thinks.

We are, he says, too young, dumb and unproductive as a workforce. The Baby Boomers were better, finding ways to do more with less, but they are retiring in droves. As they hit the links, their ranks of replacements don’t measure up.

Israel and Palestinian sources to Haaretz: U.S. peace efforts have failed

Haaretz (Link) - Barak Ravid (July 12, 2011)

The intensive U.S. efforts to create an agreed outline for renewed negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians have failed, Israeli and Palestinian sources have told Haaretz. The sources said the Palestinian leadership is more determined than ever to pursue the recognition of an independent Palestinian state at the United Nations in September.

An Israeli source who was close to talks held by the U.S. administration with both Israeli and Palestinian officials told Haaretz the Americans was unable to find a formula that both parties could accept and take to the negotiating table. He said the Americans were working on a formula that would combine President Barack Obama’s speech at the State Department on May 19 and his speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee on May 22. Such a formula would offer the Palestinians the 1967 border with territorial exchanges while promising Israeli recognition of Israel as the national home of the Jewish people.

Both parties raised numerous objections to Washington’s proposal, leading the administration to conclude that neither was ready to resume talks. The Americans therefore decided to settle for a generic Quartet statement containing only a single bit of real news - announcing the dispatch of a team of senior diplomats to hold another round of talks in Jerusalem and Ramallah and report back to Obama personally.

Steel On Steel Persecution Update

Steel on Steel - Donald McElvaney (July 11, 2011)

1. Muslim Mobs in Egypt Attack Christian Homes, Threaten Priest

2. Chinese Authorities Expel Shouwang Church Member from Beijing

3. Beleaguered Chinese Church to Provide Legal Aid to Members

4. Messianic Christian Couple in Israel Accused of Converting Minor

5. Pastor’s Father Beaten Unconscious in Attack in Rajasthan, India

6. Pakistan’s Christian Sanitation Workers Swept into Societal Gutter

7. Cuban Pastor, Family Arrive in U.S. after Suffering under Regime

8. Imprisoned Lao Pastor ‘Extremely Weak,’ Family Says

Drought Spreads Pain From Florida to Arizona

The New York Times (Link) - Kim Severson & Kirk Johnson (July 11, 2011)

The heat and the drought are so bad in this southwest corner of Georgia that hogs can barely eat. Corn, a lucrative crop with a notorious thirst, is burning up in fields. Cotton plants are too weak to punch through soil so dry it might as well be pavement.

Farmers with the money and equipment to irrigate are running wells dry in the unseasonably early and particularly brutal national drought that some say could rival the Dust Bowl days.

“It’s horrible so far,” said Mike Newberry, a Georgia farmer who is trying grow cotton, corn and peanuts on a thousand acres. “There is no description for what we’ve been through since we started planting corn in March.”

The pain has spread across 14 states, from Florida, where severe water restrictions are in place, to Arizona, where ranchers could be forced to sell off entire herds of cattle because they simply cannot feed them.

Ships and Planes of Fools Pick Wrong Target

Hudson New York (Link) - Alan M. Dershowitz (July 11, 2011)

The recent attempts by anti-Israel extremists to break Israel’s naval blockage of Gaza and to flood Israel’s airports with troublemakers have failed.

The ships of fools, knaves hypocrites, bigots, and supporters of terrorism that tried to sail from Greece have now apparently been run aground. Most of the hard-left extremists have gone home following a decision by the Greek government to prevent the boats from leaving Greek ports. And those who tried to flood Israel’s airports are being deported. The resulting fiasco, which was designed to discredit Israel, has succeeded only in discrediting the Israel bashers on the boats and planes by exposing their true purpose.

The alleged purpose of the ships was to feed the starving Arabs of Gaza. The problem is that the Arabs of Gaza are not starving. Nor are they in need of outside help.

According to reporting by The New York Times, Gaza has been thriving recently. Luxury hotels are being built; stores are stocked with food; beaches are filled with children; and life is far better than in neighboring Al Arish, which is across the border in Egypt.