Easter Sunday briefs

Happy Easter, my Christian friends and readers!

CNN now publishes Iranian propaganda: Apparently, CNN wants to be just like the New York Times. It’s publishing an op-ed favorable to Iran by members of NIAC. NIAC is an arm of the Iranian government, though its members like to pretend it isn’t. So of course they would think that the Iranians are negotiating in good faith and it’s those evil, warmongering Israelis that are messing things up.

It’s a chess move: Mahmoud Abbas is threatening to dismantle the Palestinian Authority and let Israel run all of the West Bank by itself. Of course he will. Because Abbas is going to willingly give up the source of billions in aid from which he steals hundreds of millions of dollars, just like his predecessor, Yasser Arafat. But here’s the real reason:

Such a move would annul the Oslo Accords and revoke the status of the PA as a sovereign authority, leaving Israel with full responsibility of the Palestinian population in the West Bank.

If the plan proceeds, the Palestinian leaders will [lose] their official authority, but settlements will be significantly more vulnerable to litigation in international courts.

It’s a hollow threat, because I’m pretty sure Abbas doesn’t want the money that crosses his bank account to go directly to Israel and the Palestinians instead. But watch for the news media to freak out at the prospect. Oh, and the other reason it’s a hollow threat? He made it three years ago and didn’t follow through then, either–even though Robert Serry (see below) was pretty sure he was serious.

Of the foreign diplomats serving in Israel and the PA, Serry, who is from the Netherlands, is considered one of the closest to Abbas. The Mideast envoy, who also serves as the UN secretary-general’s personal representative to the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority, meets with Abbas almost every week, and like other diplomats, Serry has heard from Abbas that he intends to resign within a few months if no progress is made in negotiations.

UN “envoy” now making stuff up to blame Israel: Robert Serry, who just happens to be Mahmoud’s Abbas closed UN buddy (see above), is claiming that he was treated badly while trying to attend the Christian “Holy Fire” eremony yesterday. And while the story is racing around the world, you would think that there might be pictures, what with the ubiquity of phone cameras. And yet, there are none, leading me to believe that Serry is, shall we say, exaggerating. Or perhaps, he just doesn’t like hobnobbing with the riff-raff.

Serry added in separate remarks to Reuters he had waited with Italian, Norwegian and Dutch diplomats for up to a half hour, crushed by a crowd against a barricade, while Israeli officers ignored his appeals to speak with a superior.

“It became really dangerous because there was a big crowd and I was pushed against a metal fence the police put up there, the crowd tried to push really hard,” Serry said, adding they might have been trampled had police not finally let them pass.

“I don’t understand why this happened,” he added. “I’m not saying I felt my life was in imminent danger, but this wasn’t something you associate with a peaceful procession for Easter.”
[…]
An Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman denied Serry’s charges and accused him of displaying “a serious problem of judgment” as there was no reported violence during the prayers and a customary torch-lit “Holy Fire” ritual held at the church.

He also called Israelis terrorists. Because some of them cut down Palestinian olive trees. Yeah, that’s just like going onto a bus and murdering people with a bomb.

Yeah, it was a hoax: The rabbi of the congregation that was the target of a letter saying Donetsk Jews would have to register under new Russian rule says it’s a hoax and that the Russians and Ukrainians should leave Jews out of the conflict. Oh, like that’s going to happen. Not in these internet days, when the media war is as important as boots on the ground. But fuck you, whoever wrote that note and fuck you, people who handed it out. You terrified the Jews of Ukraine, if you accomplished nothing else.

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