What have you been reading?
This weeks quotation:
“If we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find that we have lost the future”
Winston Churchill
VACCINE DIPLOMACY BOOSTS RUSSIA’S AND CHINA’S GLOBAL STANDING
It is a way to reward old friends and win new ones
The America Alone policies of the last US administration created vacuums. If China and Russia now have more global influence and power, it is courtesy of ignorant foreign policy. This article provides another example of how China and Russia are taking advantage of the missing US presence to gain a foothold where Western influence is declining. Extract:
Many have turned to China and Russia for help. A report published on April 28th by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), a sister company of The Economist, shows how the two countries are filling a “vaccine vacuum” by helping poor economies secure doses. They have shipped millions of jabs to developing countries stuck at the back of the global queue.
The Economist – April 29, 2021
ONLY NEGOTIATIONS CAN BRING LASTING PEACE TO ISRAEL AND PALESTINE
Managing the Conflict is No Solution
The Trump / Netanyahu showtime peace agreements with the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco exposed for what they are. Shameless attempts to add to their respective election platforms. Did anyone seriously believe that those agreements were anything more than for election credentials. There is no Middle East peace without resolving the Palestinian question. Extract:
Yet Israeli politicians ignore the conflict. The Palestinian issue did not feature in any of the four elections Israel has recently held. Most Israelis are comfortable with the “anti-solutionism” of Binyamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, who shows little interest in pursuing a permanent settlement with the Palestinians. His domestic rivals are edging closer to a deal that would push him out of power. But, before the recent violence, they said little about how they would handle the conflict.
Palestinian leaders have made it easy for Israel to give up on peace. Hamas is more interested in firing rockets than improving the lives of Gazans. Its rival, Fatah, has not done much better in the West Bank. The party’s leader, Mahmoud Abbas, is in the 17th year of a four-year term as Palestine’s president. He seems concerned mainly with preserving his own power. On April 29th, blaming Israel for restricting voting in East Jerusalem, he indefinitely postponed elections that Fatah was likely to lose.
The New York Times newsletter of Tuesday, May 18 lays out the arguments that both sides are making in a succinct fashion. Follow its hyperlinks for more background. I like the applicability of the Churchill quotation above to this enduring conflict.
The Economist – May 12, 2021
AND HAVE YOU BEEN WATCHING:
This series tells the story of Crown Princess Martha’s lobbying efforts to obtain US assistance for Norway during World War II. The series spends a lot of time on the personal relationship between her and Franklin Roosevelt and infers that the relationship was intimate. Also, the program seems to credit Roosevelt with thinking up the Lend-Lease concept . It was, in fact, a Winston Churchill proposal from December 1940.
I usually enjoy Masterpiece Theatre presentations. I keep waiting for Atlantic Crossing to improve but it doesn’t. It portrays FDR as a lazy, lascivious man and Martha as, well, just blah! If anyone comes across well, it is Eleanor Roosevelt.
