This morning's key headlines from
GenerationalDynamics.com:
- Israel tries desperately to dilute Abbas' bid for state of Palestine
- Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood seeks to consolidate power on Thursday
- Iran tells its people to marry younger and have babies
Israel tries desperately to dilute Abbas' bid for state of Palestine
Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas has arrived in New York
City, and on Thursday he's expected to win a vote in the United
Nations General Assembly on a resolution that will create a state of
Palestine, giving it non-member-state observer status. Israeli
officials had been hoping to build a block of 40-50 "quality" nations
would either abstain or vote against the resolution, but that is now
unlikely. The US, Canada, Germany and the Czech Republic are expected
to oppose the resolution, but France, Spain, Denmark, Ireland,
Switzerland and numerous non-"Western" countries will support the
resolution. At the last minute, Israeli officials are trying to
dilute the vote by asking countries that vote in favor of the
resolution to "submit an explanation with their vote [saying] it is a
political statement confined to the UN system, and does not constitute
true recognition of an actual state in Palestine."
As we reported yesterday, Hamas
has reversed itself, and is now in favor of the U.N. resolution.
Once the resolution passes, Hamas will be pressuring Abbas's
government to use his new status as the head of the state of Palestine
to bring war crimes charges against Israel in the International
Criminal Court. Israel indicates that, if that happens, then it will
bring its own charges against Palestine. The West is hoping that once
the vote is over, Palestine will resume the "peace process" talks with
Israel. Jerusalem Post and LA Times
Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood seeks to consolidate power on Thursday
In a move that's certain to spark deep outrage, Egypt's Muslim
Brotherhood dominated Constituent Assembly announced that they are
rushing the completion of the country's new constitution, and will put
it to a vote on Thursday morning. The announcement shocked everyone,
because they were scheduled to work on it until February 12, 2013.
Apparently the change was made for completely cynical reasons.
Furious judges in Egypt's Supreme Constitutional Court have announced
that they "won't be blackmailed" by president Mohamed Morsi's recent
decree giving himself dictatorial powers, and reportedly they were
planning to rule on the legality of Morsi's decree as well as the
actions of the Constituent Assembly as early as Sunday. So the
writing of the constitution was sped up to get it completed before the
court could rule. Once it passes the Constituent Assembly vote, it
will go to a nationwide referendum in a week or two. The new
constitution is expected to be strongly Islamist. Protesters have
continued to fill the streets, and the new constitution, when it
becomes public on Thursday, is liable to be extremely inflammatory.
Al-Ahram (Cairo) and LA Times
Iran tells its people to marry younger and have babies
Sunni Muslim countries have had explosive birth rates in the last 60
years. I attribute this to some kind of community decision that,
after the destruction of the Ottoman Empire in 1921, Sunni Muslims
should have as many babies as possible, in order to win the next war.
Iran, a Shia Muslim country, has not been a part of this "community
decision," and its birth rate has been more typical of the West. But
now Iranian officials are encouraging people to marry younger and have
more babies. The authorities have scrapped all population-control
programs that had been in place for decades, and even the Supreme
Leader Ayatollah Khamenei apologized to the people for having
instructed them in the past to bear fewer children. Radio Zamaneh
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