A Beautiful Sentiment

In their joint statement, US President Barack Hussein Obama, Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu, and Mahmoud Abbas set forth their vision. President Obama, as might be expected, spoke of delivering a world at peace for our "children and grandchildren"- a noble notion indeed. And equally eloquent in expressing hopes for peace was Israel's elected leader, who also expressed himself in flawless English. Then Abbas spoke in Arabic and threw in a sour note calling Israel's creation there in the White House more than sixty years ago, "the nakba" which is Arabic for "the catastrophe". Does this characterization of your negotiating partner's beginnings seem to indicate a commitment to the quest for peace? In any event, Abbas can not deliver as any promises he makes will not be kept by the Palestinian people who are represented by Hamas' more hard line positions and would follow Hamas' more militant dictates and ignore whatever pledges Abbas might eventually make. Then there is Obama's talk of the future about those "children and grandchildren" which is curious coming from the American leader who is saddling his own nation's future generations with more debt than any nation (In fact, all previous nations and generations in human history combined have not spent so much so fast.) has ever had to contend with and which those future Americans will be dealing with having to endure debt service payments higher than budgets for defense and having a substantially lower standard of living than Americans enjoy today. Under Obamaism, there can be no greater inheritance of peace and prosperity. Socialism unleashed can never create better futures.