Happenings

So many things are happening in the world that it is difficult to make sense of them all and see any kind of pattern.

The Bulgarian Government finished its investigation into the suicide bombing last month at the airport in Burgas that killed 5 Israeli tourists and a Bulgarian bus driver.  They concluded that the whole thing was planned and executed by Hizbollah.  Enough reason to place Hizbollah on the list of terrorist organizations you'd think, except that the EU doesn't want to do this, since it hopes to "negotiate" with them.  What nonsense!

Pres. Obama's office has announced that he will visit Israel in the near future, after the coalition talks have produced a new government here.  Perhaps he is hoping to influence the compositon of the coalition or its polices towards a more liberal centrist position.  Since he did not visit Israel during his first term and has on several occasions shown his disdain for our Prime Minister, Bibi Netanyahu, I am not sure I welcome him.  But, on the other hand we must be nice to a superpower, even if it is on its way down.

Turkey has criticized Syria for not reacting militarily to the attack last week by the IAF on Syrian facilities and an arms convoy.  Turkey criticized Israel for attacking another country.  Turkey does not hesitate to attack Kurdish rebels ove the border in Iraq and Turkey unilaterally invaded Cyprus and occupied a third of the island and still does.  It established an illegal state there that noone in the world recognizes except Turkey, and they have the gall to criticize Israel, what hypocrisy.

Pres. Ahmedinejad of Iran is in Egypt for the meeting in Cairo of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC).  Although Pres. Morsi was very friendly towards Ahmedinejad, as one Muslim (Sunni) extremist to another (Shia), nevertheless his visit was not popular in Egypt, ca. 78% of the population was opposed to his visit to Egypt, even more than those Americans (68%) who were against his visit to the US for the last UN General Assembly.

In Tunisia last Weds the opposition political leader Shokri Belaid was assassinated by an Islamist extremist.  This has resulted in major demonstrations in Tunisia and the effective downfall of the mildly Islamist Government of the Ennhada Party. It has always been the case that political opposition is not tolerated by Islamic movements, they only know how to use violence and murder to achieve their aims.  What will happen next, whether Tunisia will go the way of Egypt, with constant demonstrations against the government, or of Syria, with an all-out civil war, can only be guessed.

The French Army is busy mopping up the forces of the Islamist-Tuareg rebels in northern Mali after capturing most of the towns. Pres. Hollande when confronted by the imminent downfall of the Malian Governemnt and the capture of the capital Bangui was quick to order his forces into action, and they moved quickly with aerial support to destroy the insurrection.  However, the French forces are now being replaced by West African forces and it is unclear whether they are capable of holding the gains and preventing a resurgence of the Islamist and Tuareg forces that have melted into the Sahara desert. 

Israel has resigned from the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva that has sponsored many anti-Israel resolutions, while ignoring the truly terrible human rights offenses of other countries, for example, Syria, China, Korea, Sudan, etc.  Specifically Israel refused to cooperate with a pre-determined investigation of the impact of Israeli settlements in the West Bank on the Palestinians.  We know in advance that Israel will be censured, since the UNHRC regard the Israeli settlements as illegal, which according to international law they are not!  The problem with this is that the UNHRC might then vote for sanctions against Israel.  What form these could take remains to be seen.

What this selection of events means in terms of Israel and the future remains to be seen, but generally speaking it is not a good prospect.