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| Analysis
of Week's NewsBytes |
- July 29, 2001
- © 2001, Discerning the Times Digest and Newsbytes
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NEWS IN A NUTSHELL
 The
G8 including the US, has called for an international observer force to
monitor the violence in Israel, something DTT predicted would happen a
year ago. This represents a major setback for Israel who has strongly
resisted such a force. They are far more willing to accept CIA monitors
that they believe will not be as biased as international observers.
Meanwhile, Yasser Arafat has panicked over the rumored all-out attack by
Israel on the PA and himself and has begun to arrest terrorists in hopes
of demonstrating his good intention of implementing the Mitchell report
recommendations. However, the effort has backfired, rising the ire of the
rank and file Palestinians for arresting his own people. If Arafat
persists he risks a civil war among the Palestinians. EU Foreign Policy
envoy Javier Solana once again is up to his eyes in negotiating a peace
deal. Watch Solana closely over the coming months as he seems to be in the
center of everything around the world.
The
ink had hardly dried on the new Russia-China Friendship and Cooperation
Treaty that secured Russian-Chinese unity on opposition to President
Bush's missile defense plans when Russia seemed to reach an agreement with
Bush at the G8 meeting in Italy that the 1972 ABM treaty was negotiable if
the US made deep cuts in its strategic nuclear weapons stockpile. When US
National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice met with Putin and others a
week later Russia reversed itself again, perhaps in an attempt to
embarrass the US into making nuclear weapons cuts while not budging on
compromising the 1972 ABM treaty. It won't fly though. Rice also
reaffirmed that the US will unilaterally step out of the ABM treaty, even
if Russia and China do not support it.
The
EU is unraveling before the globalist's eyes, and they don't seem to know
why. Turns out the European citizens don't trust the EU and don't like it.
So EU Commission President Romano Prodi unveiled a plan to win back
citizens' hearts. Prodi issued an EU white paper that calls for greater
"transparency" and consultation. Transparency in globaleze
has come to mean that legislation is reduced from tens of thousands of
doublespeak words to a few thousand more concise doublespeak words.
Consultation means to give a little more wiggle room to national
governments to placate them while consolidating more power in the central
government, in this case the EU. What European citizens want is more
accountability to them, something the EU egalitarian elitists are
unwilling to do. Other than Ireland, no EU member allows their people to
vote on EU issues. Germany
announced that it was going to ratify the newly finalized Kyoto Protocol
(global warming treaty) the first week in August. After failing to force
the US to sign the economy killing treaty in November 2000, Germany is
trying to do it again by intimidating and embarrassing the US into
ratifying it. Germany will met the target carbon dioxide reductions with
ease because it can use the modernization of Eastern Europe to reduce
overall emissions. The modernization has to be done anyway and it will
yield huge reductions in carbon dioxide emissions at essentially no
additional cost. The language in the newly revised and watered-down Kyoto
Protocol will force the US to depend on committees made up of NGOs and
third world nations to determine if it is complying with the provisions of
the treaty. It is insane. But it puts Europe in the drivers
seat.
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ANALYSIS OF THE NEWS
ISRAEL & PALESTINE
Tension mounts as G8 demands observers, Israel prepares for major war
Tensions are mounting as Israel seems to be preparing
for a major war. The July
22 Jerusalem Post reported that Israel is making preparations
for a massive call-up of tens of thousands of Israeli reservists abroad in
the event of a major war. The IDF has set up recruitment centers in Los
Angeles, New York, Paris, London, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Bangkok, Bombay
and Johannesburg. If a major crisis erupts, army recruiters will reach out
to Israelis who live abroad or are vacationing. Israel is checking
embassies around the world to check that lists of Israeli soldiers and
officers living abroad are up to date.
As usual, the United Nations has blamed Israel for
blocking the implementation of the Mitchell plan because Israel continued
to build Israeli settlements in the West Bank. In doing so, the UN ignored
the fact that it was Sharon who initially called for a ceasefire and it
was the Palestinians who kept breaking it. It was not until stories began
to leak out that Israel was planning a huge offensive against Yasser
Arafat personally and his PA directly did Arafat suddenly start running
scared, trying to get the Palestinians to hold to a ceasefire. It hasn't
worked, and Arafat has begun to round up terrorists and imprison them.
The July
26 Dallas-Fort Worth Star reported that Arafat risks mutiny if
he continues to arrest the terrorists.
"If he arrests them now, that could set the whole
place on fire," said Palestinian human rights activist Eyad El Serraj
of Arafat's new effort to convince Washington and Israel that he is
working to rein in violence. Earlier in the week, Arafat rushed back to
Gaza from Abu Dhabi due to a four-hour gunfight that had erupted outside
of his cousin's home, Moussa Arafat, head of military intelligence, after
his forces arrested five militants. The clash outside Moussa Arafat's
house pitted Yasser Arafat's security forces against Hamas as well as
members of his own PLO Fatah faction. The action indicates the Hamas
enjoys more popular legitimacy than Arafat's PA.
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| EU Foreign Policy chief Javier Solana
is once again in Israel negotiating UN peace observers with Yasser
Arafat and Ariel Sharon. Solana seems to be in the middle of every
peace effort from Israel to Macedonia. Keep your eye on him. |
Arafat is convinced Israel will launch its much rumored
offensive against the PA any day now. He has to demonstrate that he is
doing all he can to stop the violence, but by doing so he is alienating
his own people and turning their anger on him. He is almost at much at
risk of being assassinated by his own people as by Israel. Meanwhile, the July
24 Virtual New York reported that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon told European Union Foreign Policy envoy Javier Solana that Israel
would implement recommendations of the Mitchell fact-finding report only
if Palestinians completely end "violence, incitement and
terror."
Solana was meeting with Sharon to convince him to follow
the call by the G8 to place international observers into Gaza and the West
Bank as recommended by the Mitchell report. The G8, including the US, had
called on Israel on July
20 to accept "neutral" international monitors to be allowed
to observe the shattered Middle East truce. The official call for
observers was a major diplomatic setback for Israel, who had adamantly
opposed observers in the past and depended on US intervention to keep the
global hounds at bay.
The Palestinians have been pushing for these kinds of
observers as the first step in greater international intervention that
would yield them a Kosovo-like settlement that would critically weaken
Israel. The Palestinians have become masters at staging incidents that
appear to observers to be an overreaction by Israel. The US did eventually
come to the aid of Israel by suggesting CIA "monitors" rather
than international observers who would likely be biased against Israel. A
large international "observer" force being deployed to keep
peace between Israel and the Palestinians is anathema to most Israelis.
According to the July
23 BBC, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres
said "We were never against the idea that the CIA bring other
monitors to help their work, but we are against an international
force," he told Israel public television on Monday. If
it is a question of American monitors, we don't have a problem," he
added. In any event, Prime Minister Sharon
is running out of time. The Israeli people, the military, even his own
party are increasingly dissatisfied with Sharon's inaction and insistence
on following the Mitchell recommendations. The Likud central committee
meeting degenerated into a shouting match as supporters of Binyamin
Netanyahu angerly called for Sharon to take decisive action, according the
July
24 Jerusalem Post.
Where is all this going? DTT has for
the past year been warning that within a year, the international community
would demand that peace observers be sent into Israel as the first step
towards a forced agreement. That has now happened, a year after the
Clinton peace Summit at Camp David. While a peace agreement could come
without a major war, it is more likely that a major war event of some sort
will happen before the international community (most likely Europe)
imposes a forced peace agreement. When that happens, it just might signal
the fulfillment of Daniel 9:27 and the last seven years of Daniel's
Seventy Weeks of Years of history for the Jews and Jerusalem.
- Israel
denies plan to invade West Bank
- Israeli
army moves into West Bank
- US
backs Mid-East observers
- Israeli
attack expected
- Israel
under mounting pressure to accept UN troops
- Israel
demands details on observers
- Sharon
rejects calls for harsher military action
- US
focused on Mitchell plan, not observers
- Israel
making preparations for massive call-up of reservists around the
world
- Arafat:
Israel has planned invasion
- Israel
has rendered 'Mitchell committee' report ineffective, UN committee
told TOP
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| CHINA & RUSSIA
Russia
playing games with Bush and ABM treaty?
Just as the ink was drying on the Russian-Chinese
Friendship Cooperation Treaty that sealed Russia's support of China's
military buildup and seemingly united front to stop President Bush's
missile defense system, Russian President Vladimir Putin struck a deal
with Bush that seems to trade Russia's OK for the missile defense system
to reductions in US offensive missiles. Then by the end of last week,
Russia seemed to cool on the whole idea as it once again reaffirmed its
absolute support of the 1972 ABM treaty as being the as the cornerstone of
international security.
The meeting between US President George Bush and Russian
President Vladimir Putin was reported by the July
23 Scotsman to have "struck a historic deal to link George W
Bush’s controversial missile defence system plan to major reductions in
the two countries’ nuclear arsenals." Putin was reported to have
said, "As far as the ABM treaty and the issues of offensive
arms ... we’ve come to the conclusion that two of these issues have to
be discussed as one set." Such a deal would leave its new friendship
partner, China, out in the cold.
But by July 27 Moscow seemed to be playing a different
tune. After meeting with US National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice,
Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko said "We have heard no
new arguments from Rice that would convince us to re-examine our
principled position toward the 1972 treaty." Yakovenko said Russia
had not moved towards scrapping the ABM treaty. He did suggest, however,
that Moscow was still very interested in continuing the discussions
started by Bush and Putin at the G8 meeting to make deep cuts in the two
sides' nuclear arsenal.
Moscow seems to be playing both ends against the middle.
By not following through with the voice agreements between Bush and Putin,
Russia is embarrassing Bush by hedging on what seemed to be a breakthrough
on the ABM treaty. It is well known that Russia is desperate to reduce
bilateral nuclear stockpiles of weapons because Russia simply cannot
afford to maintain or replace its aging stock. However, to unilaterally
reduce its own stockpile would seem to be a capitulation to US superiority
– something that Russia doesn't want to do. The
seeming progress on the ABM treaty may have been nothing more than a hook
to get the US to agree via embarrassment to reducing its own nuclear
stockpile and save face for Russia.
It isn't working, however. Condoleezza Rice
said following the meeting that the US was prepared to withdraw from the
treaty unilaterally if Moscow did not change its position. It will have to
very shortly as the US is about to go into a testing phase that definitely
violates the ABM treaty. The bait and switch tactic may have actually been
concocted by Putin and Chinese President Jiang Zemin when they signed the
friendship treaty earlier in July as one last effort to stop the US from
continuing its missile defense system before they move to the next level
of brinkmanship with the US. That move might have already been made by the
US by seeming to accept Taiwan President Chen's idea of creating a
US-Japan-Taiwan missile defense pact, reported by the July
26 Taipei Times. Look for China to began to ratchet the stakes to
stratospheric levels by once again directly threatening the US and her
citizens.
- Putin
and Bush agree missile deal
- Russia
'unconvinced' on missile defense
- Bush
may include Taiwan in Star Wars plan
TOP
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| EUROPE
EU
officials make desperate attempt to form EU federation without the
people's support
Typical of tyrants throughout history, the
EU made a desperate plea "to boost its powers, saying it cannot get
things done because of restrictions imposed by European Union members,"
according to the July
24 London Electronic Telegraph. Following the stunning defeat
of the new EU treaty by Ireland hammered out in Nice last December and the
demonstrations against the EU leaders' meeting in Gothenburg, it seems
that EU leadership can't figure out why the European people don't love
them. They are totally baffled. Of all the reasons put forth so far, none
address the obvious. European citizens don't want to give up their
sovereignty and are highly suspicious and resentful of the EU because,
other than the Irish, the people have absolutely no say in EU decisions
that dramatically affect their lives. All decisions in the EU are made by egalitarian
elitists.
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| Trust us! EU Commission President
Romano Prodi explains how the EU can win the love of European
citizens--by giving the EU more unaccountable power. |
Instead, July
19 Financial Times reported that "The Brussels-based
executive believes greater transparency and increased consultation could
help overcome the sense of alienation that resulted." But what is
transparency? And, how does consultation work? Transparency in globalese
has come to mean that legislation is reduced from tens of thousands of
double meaning words to a few thousand more concise double meaning words.
Consultation means to give a little more wiggle room to national
governments to placate them while consolidating more power in the central
government, in this case the EU. That seems to be exactly what Romano
Prodi, President of the European Commission proposes to do in an EU
Commission white paper, according to the July
25 BBC.
"The public is not convinced that its
voice is being heard," said Prodi. The white paper lays out five
guiding principles: openness, effectiveness, participation, coherence and
accountability. Openness and effectiveness is apparently to be achieved by
slashing 80,000 pages of what Prodi called "complex and obscure"
treaty legislation by simplifying jargon. The EU will also make more
"broad brush" laws giving national governments more flexibility
in how they are implemented. At the same time, Prodi said, the EU had to
be given more enforcement power, if its ideas are to work and regain the
confidence of the people. Oh, by the way, he said, "consultation over
EU matters would be widened."
Britain's Foreign Secretary Jack Straw
warned in the July
27 BBC that the EU must make itself "better liked"
by its own citizens, which means it should concentrate on practical help
for its people, not on consolidating power. However, Jack Straw (imagine
defending yourself with that name as a kid), was even being less than
forthright in his speech. He casually dismissed accusations that EU
leaders were trying to create a United States of Europe (superstate). To
make such a statement in the face of an avalanche of in-your-face
statements to the contrary is ludicrous. He then goes on to say that
"we cannot build a state called Europe. Our citizens do not want
that. And I doubt if they will be ready for that a hundred years from
now."
What Straw says is true. The people will
never want it, not in 100 years. Why is it then that his denial of what is
obviously happening make him sound like it is inevitable. Perhaps he and
Romano Prodi believe the British and European people have jackstraw for
brains.
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| ENVIRONMENTALISM
Germany
announces it will ratify Kyoto treaty next week
Germany announced on July 28 that it will ratify the
revised Kyoto Protocol that was hammered out on July 20 at the Sixth
Conference of the Parties (COP6) for the Framework Convention on Climate
Change in Bonn Germany. Environment Minister Jurgen Trittin said that he
was convinced other states would follow suit, according to the July
29 Virtual New York. The watered down treaty agreed to at COP6 would
allow carbon sinks to be used to offset some of the carbon dioxide
emissions a nation emits. It was on this very point that caused the
collapse of negotiations at the Hague during COP5 in November, 2000
according to Henry Lamb, Chairman of Sovereignty International, in WorldNetDaily
on July 28. Just when everyone thought an agreement had finally been
hammered out allowing 25 percent of a nation's carbon sinks to be used to
offset its emissions, Germany and France implemented a power play and
refused to accept it.
At the time no one knew why Germany and France would
refuse this compromise last November. It doesn't make sense until it is
realized that Germany and France are the leaders in Europe in trying to
create a European superstate that would allow Europe to compete directly,
head to head, with the US in the global marketplace. But, Germany and
France got greedy. They wanted to put a stranglehold on the economy of the
US and not allowing any carbon sink credits would force the US to reduce
its energy consumption by 30 percent by 2012, devastating the US economy.
Europe would be in far better shape because the East block European
Nations are included as a European whole. Since these nations were
scheduled to undergo modernization of its industrial plant anyway
following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Europe could meet its target
reductions with no real additional cost. It was a win-win for Europe and a
lose-lose for the US.
Even President Clinton was not so foolish as to
capitulate to an agreement that was going to devastate the US economy and
benefit Europe, so Clinton said no, which effectively killed the Kyoto
Protocol. President Bush seemed to have administered the last rites last
March. But during the July COP6, Germany and France agreed to allowing
even more carbon credits than was negotiated in November of last year at
COP5. Why?
Germany and France accepted an even more watered down
version of Kyoto in July than they would in November of last year for one
reason only – to force the US into the treaty through
intimidation and embarrassment. Most of the watered down amendments to the
Kyoto Protocol expire after implementation, when the full force of the
original treaty kicks in. If they can force the US to ratify the treaty,
Europe can still get its cake and eat it too! Worse, the treaty now calls
for committees, dominated by NGOs and developing nations not even bound by
the treaty, to determine compliance issues. Says Lamb:
The Bonn agreement on Kyoto establishes three new
international authorities: The ten-member Executive Board, who will decide
on what is, and is not, an acceptable project considered in implementing
the Protocol; a new 20-member "Expert Group," which includes
only seven members from developed countries, while the majority –
including three representatives from "relevant international
organizations" [NGOs] – will dictate which technology may be
transferred from developed to developing countries; and a new nine-member
"Compliance Committee," consisting of only two members from
developed countries. Think about it. These three
groups of un-elected, self-appointed bureaucrats will have the power to
approve or disapprove various transactions between the U.S., or industries
in the U.S., and other countries, should the U.S. ever ratify the
Protocol.
The new provisions of the treaty are insane. Why should
the US agree to allow third-world nations to determine its future? Yet,
that is what the treaty now demands. It is ludicrous, but that is what
Germany is hoping for. Europe can meet its compliance targets with ease,
so it has nothing to lose. If the US ratifies this treaty it has
everything to lose. Expect tremendous pressure to be put on President Bush
and the US Senate to get back in step with the rest of the world and
ratify this abhorrent treaty. TOP
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