Opuscula Why don't Israeli Politicians listen To constituents?

 

BECAUSE THEY DON'T HAVE TO; their loyalty - if they have any - is to the party bosses, not the voters.

ONE OF THE REASONS I came back to the States is because in the U.S. I have local representatives to the state and federal governments.

Admittedly, some representatives to the U.S. congress - such as Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (¹) - only represent Big Bucks contributors (²), but as I learned, there are other representatives to whom her constituents can turn. Every U.S. citizen also can turn to their state's senator.

The "American way" may not be the best, but at least the person "representing" the constituent must - at a minimum - pretend to live in the district they are supposed to represent.

IN ISRAEL, the majority of Members of Knesset (MKs) live in or around Jerusalem or Tel Aviv's "better" sections. (When last checked, none resided in South Tel Aviv near the illegal immigrants who terrorized the neighborhood.) In my time, one lived in Bet Shean in the Jordan Valley, another lived in Kiryat Shmona in the north. (I had a positive personal experience with David Levy, but I had to travel to Bet Shean to meet with him. I had "Vitamin P" from my father-in-law who lived in the same sekun.)

Rather than having a local representative to Knesset, citizens have to find a like-minded - read "same party" - MK or know what "portfolio" the MK holds or wants to hold. True, as in the U.S., money talks, but most Israelis - myself included - are not Rothchilds who can afford to rent - if not buy - an Israeli politician.

Israel tried, and the politicians quickly discarded the idea, having the prime minister candidates run separate from the party lists.

In Israel, before the attempt and again now, the party functionaries determine who will lead their party's 60-member list. There need not be any connection between what the rank-and-file want and that the party leaders want (much like the 2016 pre-convention GOP leadership that wants (wanted?) to "Dump Trump" even though he is (was) popular with the rank-and-file (³). If, on the eve of the election, the party's most popular vote-getter displeases the party power brokers, the once "top of the list" candidate may slip to the bottom of the list - number 60.

Unlike the U.S. president, until today there are no term limits for prime minister, albeit there is talk among the "out" parties of trying to set a two-term limit. There is no term limit for MKs; the perks are too good for such a bill even to reach discussion stage.

Another difference I found disconcerting was the mingling of powers. Unlike the U.S. where there is - at least in theory - separation of the executive (president, vice president, and cabinet) and the legislative (U.S. House and Senate). The Supreme Court in both counties seems to want to make laws on its own even though that is not its prerogative.

1. DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ is an American politician. She is the U.S. Representative for Florida's 23rd congressional district, a member of the Democratic Party and the Chair of the Democratic National Committee.

2.

AN ISRAELI-AMERICAN couple turned to Wassermann Schultz for assistance. Her office ignored them; not even acknowledging their appeal. A letter to then-Representative Allen West produced an immediate response and a rapid resolution to the couple's problem.

3. PROVING DIRECT ELECTIONS need to replace the current "convention" and "electoral college" republican form of government for a truly democratic directly elected government. Note both "republican" and "democratic" are lower case and NOT to be confused with the political parties of the same names.

Opuscula 1000s at Kotel hear Cohenic blessing: What’s the big deal?

 

I'M SURE I'M MISSING SOMETHING, but what's the big deal of the cohenim doing what the Torah obliges them to do?

In Sefardi congregations, cohenim bless the people at every Shabat and hag.

Why the Ashkenazi don't follow the Torah re cohenim is beyond me. (I have heard several explanations.)

דבר אל-אהרן ואל-בניו לאמר תברכו את-בני לשראל אמור להם
Numbers 6:23)

I'M NOT CERTAIN WHY hearing the cohenic blessing at the Western Wall is such a big deal - the same words are spoken at every Shabat and hag morning minyan even when the congregation lacks a real cohen*
Yes, Leonard Nimoy, "Mr. Spock," was Jewish, albeit not a cohen.

I don't know about less observant or "non-traditional" synagogues, but in Sefardi and Mizrachi congregations the cohenim head for the Ark during the Amedah, a/k/a shmonah esray (18). In cohen-less congregations the reader recites the cohenic blessing.

According to Chabad, the reason the cohenic blessing is recited by cohenim only on festivals - vs., being read by whomever is leading the repetition of the Amedah - is because the recitation has to be done at a "joyous" mood, i.e., the festivals.

Bear in mind that since the Torah fails to specify exactly how the cohenim are to hold and wave their hands and there is no mention in Torah that listeners must cover their heads, different traditions will be observed, often within the same congregation.

halachipedia.com explains birkat hacohenim (cohenic blessing) for most - or at least many - Ashkenazi congregations. It notes that

The Ashkenazic minhag outside Israel is not to do Birkat Cohenim except at Mussaf of Yom Tov because Birkat Cohenim should be done when people are relaxed and not bothered by work. Throughout Jewish history, some have made a great effort to change this minhag (in order to fulfill this biblical Mitzvah) and were unsuccessful.

Some have the practice not do Birkat Cohenim when Yom Tov falls out on Shabbat, however, the poskim strongly disapprove of this and urge to discontinue this practice without causing conflict.

Rabbi Ben Hassan of the Sephardic Bikur Holim Congregation in Seattle, on his Ask Rabbi Hasssan notes that while he is Mizrachi, his studies of birkat cohenim explain why Ashkenazim omit the practice.

He starts off asking When we look at the formulation of the mitzvah of Birkat Cohenim it looks very clearly that it is a mitzva De'oraita - a positive mitzvah from the Torah for the Cohenim to bless the Jewish People every day. This is how it is codified by the Sefer HaHinuch. So how did the custom of not doing Birkat Cohenim daily start in the Diaspora? and then offers some answers.

In addition to the Ashkenazi reasoning, he discusses birkat hacohenim in Sefardic and Mizrachi congregations. He notes conflicting customs in Morocco; in Moroccan congregations in the U.S. birkat hacohenim is done every day.

* "Real cohen" In the U.S., and perhaps other Western countries as well, when Jews arrived at the immigration centers, they were asked for their family name.

Most Jews were known as "Peloni ben Peloni" until Napoleon controlled most of Europe and demanded that every citizen have a last (family) name. Jews, like other citizens, took names that reflected their trade, location, or interest.

Some of the names spoken were tongue-twisters for the immigration officials; some simply ignored the immigrant's answer and "assigned" what they considered a "Jewish" name - cohen, levi, aaron/aaronovitch, etc. Consequently, there are many "Cohens" in America who are not cohenim; not even levi'im. After several generations of being a "Big C" Cohen, their actual status might be forgotten.

Opuscula 3 state Solution

 

FORGET ABOUT A "TWO-STATE" SOLUTION to the Israel-"Palestinian" problem.

It's an imaginary problem anyway.

Consider the facts.

WHEN THE ENGLISH MANDATE was in force, "Palestine" included what now is Jordan and Israel.

Then the English, as they are wont to do, carved out a chunk of the their Mandate area - not to be confused with the French Mandatory area to the north - to pay off a Saudi family, England established the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan.

England then divided Transjordan into two unequal parts; the part on the east side of the Jordan River lost the "Trans" and became, simply, "Jordan." The part of Transjordan on the west side of the river (hence "West Bank") became "Palestine."

A little history on the name "Palestine." According to Wikipedia, Roman Emperor Hadrian changed the name of the province to Syria Palaestina and Jerusalem to Aelia Capitolina, which certain scholars conclude was done in an attempt to remove the relationship of the Jewish people to the region.

Additional references:
Is the name Palestine an accurate name for Israel?
Origin of the Name Palestine
Palestine Since The Romans

Search for "Hadrian" in each of the above articles.

After the Romans sacked the Temple c 70 CE, to further demoralize the Jews the conquers renamed the area "Palestine" a name that was never known when government was in Jewish hands. Even during the Babylonian exile (from 598/7 to 587/6 BCE) the name remained Judea and Israel.

In 1948, the UN partitioned the land west of the Jordan River (hence "West Bank"). Partition plans had been offered to both Muslims and Jews; the former rejected all proposals. When Israel declared its independence, five Arab states joined in the invasion of Israel (Palestine): Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq; while the two contingents came from Saudi Arabia and Yemen. This in addition to attacks from Palestinian irregulars and volunteers from the Arab world.

Also see The War of 1948

Many Muslim Arabs either left Israel at the urging of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Grand Mufti Hajj Amin El Husseini, to escape the fighting, or were chased out by Jews who feared they were fifth columnists. (Meanwhile, Jews were forced out of Muslim countries that had been their homes for generations. Unlike the Muslims who left Israel, the Jews were absorbed by the state and not left in UN camps.)

According to the US Consul in Haifa, ". . . local mufti-dominated Arab leaders" were urging "all Arabs to leave the city, and large numbers did so." (Aubrey Lippincott, U.S. Consul General in Haifa, April 22, 1948 )

Jordan occupies, abandons the "West Bank"

A History Today entry titled Jordan Formally Annexes the West Bank states that In 1948 King Abdullah’s Arab Legion, trained and led by British officers, took the Jewish quarter of Old Jerusalem and seized control of the West Bank area on the western side of the Jordan, which included Jericho, Bethlehem, Hebron and Nablus.

The annexation of the West Bank, which more than doubled Jordan’s population, was chewed over in talks with Israel which petered out in March 1950. In April, 1950 Jordan held an election for a new parliament to represent both banks of the Jordan. The newly elected parliament passed a resolution affirming support for ‘complete unity between the two sides of the Jordan and their union into one state’ and formally incorporating the West Bank into the Hashemite Kingdom of the Jordan.

A Palestine Facts entry titled Jordan Renounced Claims to West Bank, 1988 details the trials and tribulations Jordan had with the PLO.

According to the resource, Arab and international recognition of the PLO as "the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinians," the overwhelming PLO victory in the 1976 municipal elections in the Territories, and the fact that seventy percent of the Jordanian population is of Palestinian origins, made it impossible for Jordan to compete with the PLO over representation of the Palestinians in the Territories without jeopardizing its domestic stability. In July 1988, in response to the accumulated pressures and the months of intifada demonstrations by Palestinians in the West Bank, King Hussein of Jordan ceded to the PLO all Jordanian claims to the territory.

The "birth" of the West Bank as a Political Entity, "Palestine," was 1988.

Egypt Gaza

According to a Wikipedia entry Occupation of the Gaza Strip by Egypt , Egypt "occupied" but did not "annex," Gaza.

The occupation of the Gaza Strip by Egypt occurred between 1948 and October 1956 and again from March 1957 to June 1967. From September 1948, until its dissolution by Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1959, the Gaza Strip was officially administered by the All-Palestine Government. Although largely symbolic, the government was recognized by most members of the Arab League. Following its dissolution, Egypt did not annex the Gaza Strip but left it under military rule pending a resolution of the Palestine question.

While many suggest that Sadat refused to accept Gaza as part of the Sinai deal, there seems no concrete evidence of this. To the contrary, Sadat apparently wanted to support a PLO presence in Gaza.

Three states?

Israel is not going away. It seems prepared to accept a "Palestinian" presence in a limited portion of the so-called West Bank.

Israel would prefer that the "Palestinian" enclave on the West Bank be reincorporated into and ruled by Jordan as it was until Jordan washed its hands of the "Palestinian" problem (Arafat) and that Gaza be controlled by Egypt.. The majority of Jordan's population is Palestinian.

Jordan, as a stable political entity with an established peace agreement with Israel would be, at least in Israel's point of view, the ideal owner, or at least manager, of "Palestine" areas A and B. A cross-border connection, perhaps initially manned by a joint Israel-Jordan-"Palestinian" guard, would assure that "Palestinian" terrorists are kept in "Palestine" and prevented from entering Jordan or Israel.

A note on Areas A and B. These areas contain places holy to both Muslims and Jews. Under PA control, these areas will be forbidden to Jews (and possibly Christians, too), and unlike Israel with its large Muslim population, no Jews will be allowed to reside in "Palestine."

Egypt, given that Hamas and the Islamic Brotherhood rule Gaza, probably doesn't want the strip, even if most Gazans are Egyptians, but a Gaza divorced both geographically and politically from the "Palestine" of the West Bank, cannot survive. It needs to make peace with Israel or Egypt - preferably both - to develop a deep water sea port and to repair its airport.

A "two state" solution simply won't work. Neither Gaza nor "Palestine" can survive economically - even with all the foreign aid pouring in each year - without a cohesive state.

A "two state" solution might be possible involving Israel and "Palestine" or between Israel and Gaza, but neither is likely given the continuing attacks and counter-attacks.

A "three-state" solution has the best chance of success; one that puts sensible heads in control of the "Palestinians" of the West Bank and Gaza.

Opuscula Hard Impossible To believe the UN

 

אִם-אֶשְׁכָּחֵךְ יְרוּשָׁלִָם

If I forget thee, O, Jerusalem - Psalm 137, composed during the Babylonian exile, 598/7 to 587/6 BCE*; by comparison, Mohammed lived from 571 to 632 CE** - 1,157 years from end of the Exile to the birth of Mohammed.)

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the United Nations body responsible for protecting historical and archeological sites throughout the world, has changed its language for the Temple Mount, acquiescing last week to a request by the Palestinian Authority that it refer to the site using the term "Al-Aqsa mosque" only.

The place place in Jerusalem formerly known as "The Temple Mount" is actually "Al-Aqsa" and is strictly an Islamic site.

Never mind the archeological facts..

Never mind that Mohammed's Koran never mentions Al-Aqsa or even Jerusalem.

Never mind that the Tanak (Torah, Prophets, Writings) - mentions the Temple and Jerusalem hundreds of times. All those times must be coincidental "bubbe meise ***" or "sepuray savta" - grandma stories..

Never mind that "It also stands in denial of Islam itself, and the official statements of the ‘Supreme Moslem Council (sic),’ the Muslim Waqf which administers the Temple Mount.. In the English-language booklet ‘A Brief Guide to Al-Haram Al Sharif’ published by the Waqf in Jerusalem in 1924, it states: Its identity with the site of Solomon’s Temple is beyond dispute. This, too, is the spot according to the universal belief, on which ‘David built there an altar unto the Lord, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings’ (II Samuel 24:25)."

The prophet Samuel is believed to have lived between 931 and 877 BCE.

THE UN NEVER has dealt with Israel with an even hand.

UNESCO in 2015 declared Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem and the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron as Muslim sites that are part of a Palestinian state.

According to CNS News

UNESCO in 2011 became the first U.N. agency to admit “Palestine,” a decision that triggered a U.S. funding cutoff mandated by a 1990 law barring financial support for “the United Nations or any specialized agency thereof which accords the Palestine Liberation Organization the same standing as member states.”

Until then, American taxpayers accounted for 22 percent of UNESCO’s operating budget, and the cutoff sparking a financial crisis for the Paris-based agency.

Since then the Obama administration has repeatedly sought waiver authority to enable it to resume funding, without success.

The Jewish Week, obviously a blatantly biased publication, notes that

There’s a kind of parlor game in pro-Israel circles, one usually accompanied by a player’s roll of the eyes or knowing sigh: How unfair to Israel can the United Nations be?

Of course, there’s the infamous “Zionism Equals Racism” declaration from 1975. Then there’s the fact that Israel continues to be effectively barred from membership on the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva, a prestigious body that monitors human rights around the world. And last summer there was the U.N.’s claim that Israeli troops deliberately targeted both Palestinian civilians and U.N. facilities during the conflict with Hamas in Gaza.

According to Abu Mazen (a/k/a Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas) the

“Al-Aqsa is ours and so is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. They have no right to desecrate them with their filthy feet. We won’t allow them to do so and we will do whatever we can to defend Jerusalem.”

Look at a map of the ancient Middle East - say from Roman times. Is the City of David shown as "Jerusalem" of "al-Quds"? The following map, titled "The Califate in 750 (CE)" clearly shows Jerusalem - NOT "al-Quds" as one would suspect on an Islamic califate map. (There are links to additional maps at the end of this exercise.)

Click on image to to enlarge

Islamist themselves discuss the Temple and that Israel was given by God to the Jewish people. Somehow UNESCO and Obama refuse to acknowledge what Jews, Christians, and Muslims (chronologically) know to be truth.

Dig this

Finally, if all other literary evidence is cast aside as wishful thinking, there is archeology.

Professional archeologists as well as children have been finding archeological evidence that Jews were present in what is the current political Israel since well before either Christians or Muslims walked the land.

While it is harder for those who insist that "Israel never was Jewish," they somehow manage to close their eyes to reality and science, claiming any artifacts were "planted" by the Jews.

The Jewish Virtual Library provides an abbreviated list of archaeology finds since 2004.

Additional links to archeological resources are found below.

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* BCE=Before Current Era = BC
** CE=Current Era = AD

*** BUBBE MEISE, alt: bubbe-myseh, bubbe-meiseh, bubbe-meise, bubbe mayseh, bobe mays = "Something of little importance, an inconsequential thing or minor happening."

Other map resources

https://www.bergbook.com/htdocs/Cache317.htm

In David's time

Ottoman Empire, c 1481 (CE)

Alexander G. Findlay, F.R.G.S. 1849

Other archeological resources

Jerusalem Even Older Than Thought: Archaeologists Find 7,000-year-old Houses

Biblical Archaeology News 2016

Biblical Archaeology Society

List of artifacts in biblical archaeology

Rare 3,000-year-old King David era seal discovered by Temple Mount Sifting Project

Opuscula אל תקרי

 

Near the end of the morning prayers - daily and Shabat - we read two paragraphs where the rabbis (תנא דבי אליהו and רבי חנינא) say to read something written one way in another way.

I think there ought to be another אל תקרי

In the morning korbanote we read a list of אשמות (guilt offerings*). These אשמות include
אשם שפחה חרופה (the guilt offering for a betrothed maid servant*) that I think should read אשם שיחה חריפה, "guilt for harsh words."

I think we are much more likely to be guilty of using harsh words, hurtful words, than we are likely to molest an engaged servant girl.

In many sedurim שפחה is translated "female slave," at least in the beginning of the morning blessings. I base this on the blessings in which a man praises G-d for not making him a slave and a woman praises G-d for the same thing; only the term עבד is changed to שפחה. The Artscroll does not make the distinction, although it does separate the sexes for another blessing.

My ancient Megiddo two-volume dictionary lists the English translation of שפחה as (in order) maidservant, handmaid; female slave, BUT it translates שפחות as (again in order) status of a female slave, bondage, serfdom.

Granted, Hebrew is stingy with words and in many cases is downright ambiguous, but my point is that while some maids are molested (as anyone who watches English period pieces on tv knows), it is a great deal more likely to hurt someone with "a tongue sharp as a sliver of obsidian" (from Three Sisters (Charlie Moon Series #12)).

Besides, how many of us have maids, and the אשמות are a collection of possibilities much like the list of sins we recite on Yom Kippur.

* Indicates translation from the Artscroll Seder Ahavat Shalom for Ashkenazim

Hebrew is from the Moroccan
סדור וזרח השמש

Of mountains & molehills Talk about Thin skinned

 

I'M SURE MY FELLOW JEWS will consider me a בוגד, but the Arutz 7/Israeli National News article Interior Minister Jan Jambon compared the Muslim terrorists who were hiding in Brussels with the Jews who hid in World War II. is "journalism" at some of its worst.

According to the article, the person being quoted, Belgium Interior Minister Jan Jambon compared the Muslim terrorists who were hiding in Brussels with the Jews who hid in World War II.

If someone stopped reading right there, the reader would indeed equate the terrorists with Jews.

HOWEVER

Read a bit farther into the relatively short - only six paragraphs - story and discover that Jambon's comparison is absolutely correct.

What Jambon actually said was to compare the terrorists to the Jews who hid here during the Nazi occupation: “There are Jewish people who went into hiding for years... and (the Nazi) regime never found them.”

It was Antwerp City Council member Claude Marinower who took exception to Jambon's remark, saying "It’s inconceivable, it’s shocking for all those who hid Jews during the occupation while endangering their lives. How can you compare the jihadist criminals who are hiding today with the innocent Jews who wanted to flee from the Nazi manhunt?," said Marinower to Jewish news website Regards."

Smells of politics.

Jambon's obvious point was that Jews were hidden from the nazis by non-Jews, even though if caught both they and the Jews they were hiding would suffer.

In the same vein, Muslims hid Muslim terrorists; assuredly some hid them willingly, but possibly some hid them because they feared for their lives. Some non-Muslim anti-Semites - Jews and non-Jews - probably also offered hideouts to the terrorists.

As a former honest print reporter and editor, I resent the Hitlerian half-truths some Israeli and some pro-Jewish publications worldwide disseminate.

Jewish "journalists" should focus on combating the lies of anti-Jewish media rather than lowering themselves to their level of half-truths, innuendos, and yellow journalism headlines.

"Journalism" has come a long way since I wrote my last newspaper story; unfortunately, the "long way" has been down, down, and farther down.

The story on the Arutz 7/Israeli National News was a non-story that, in my opinion, didn't deserve the time spent to lift it from Belgian’s VTM News.

Opuscula Round about Peace process

 

THE (SAUDI) KINGDOM WON'T SIGN A PEACE AGREEMENT with Israel, but it WILL keep to the Egypt-Israel pact for the sake of two islands.

In a deal between Egypt and the kingdom, Egypt surrendered two islands to its "across the gulf" neighbor, Saudi Arabia, the "kingdom."

ACORDING TO A NUMBER of reports from Israel, Israel was informed of, and is on board with, the swap of flags over two islands at the confluence of the Gulf of Aqaba and the Gulf of Suez (merging to become the Red Sea).

The reports ALSO stated that the Saudis will honor the terms of the Egypt-Israel agreement. This basically means that Israel-flagged ships, such a ZIM freighters, will continue to pass the two islands - Sanafir and Tiran - at the southern end of the Gulf of Aqaba unmolested.

Some reports, notably Arutz Sheva/Israel National News would have readers believe that the islands were off the coast of Eilat. The islands are, according to Google Maps, 134.5 miles (167.93 km) from Eilat, hardly "off the coast." (As with U.S. "journalists," facts are a minor inconvenience to be overlooked.)

According to the Arutz 7 article, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir told Egyptian editors in comments published Monday that Cairo would not cooperate with Israel following the transfer, and that there will be no coordination between the sides. However, he made clear that Saudi Arabia "will honor all of Egypt's legal and international commitments in regard to the two islands."

I suspect that "Cairo would not cooperate with Israel" regarding the two islands" not that the island swap would prevent continued Cairo-Jerusalem communicatons.

Saudi Arabia has also promised not to use the islands for military purposes, the Egyptian daily Al Ahram reported.

For years Israel's neighbors, including the PA and Hamas-in-Gaza, have quietly been doing business with the "Zionist occupiers." Israeli-made air conditioners and refrigerators have been popular in the kingdom for decades. The fact the products are made in Israel loses out to pragmatism and reliability.

Still, the kingdom has, by the backdoor, made a perhaps politically awkward peace with Israel by agreeing to maintain the status quo of the islands.

Opuscula Hands off May be Best plan

 

SOME ISRAELIS AND SOME U.S. JEWS are upset because at least one Oval Office candidate had the nerve to suggest a hands off approach to the Israel-PA "problem."

In the past, the White House has mouthed a pro-Israel stance, but acted to the PA's benefit.

The State Department ALWAYS has been not just "pro-PA", but anti-Israel and anti-Jewish. This is nothing new.

OVER THE YEARS, this official two-facedness has done nothing, nada to ensure tranquility between Israel and the PA.

True, Rabin and the then PA boss were more or less - mostly "more" - pushed to the agreement by then-President Wm. Clinton, Hillary's spouse.

Everyone knows how the Oslo Accord worked out.

Rabin, Peres, and the then-leader of the PA got Nobel Peace Prizes for their signatures.

One-time President Jimmy Carter provided the meeting place for the Begin-Sadat discussions that led to The Camp David Accord that in turn led, again "so far," to a lasting peace between Israel and Egypt. Since then Carter has become a leader in the "Blame everything on Israel" crowd

Carter may deserve more recognition than he got; he also was behind an initiative called "A Framework for Peace in the Middle East" that dealt with the Palestinian territories; he wisely forgot to invite the PA. Based on post-Oslo, had the PA signed an agreement it would be worth less than the paper on which it was printed.

Interestingly, neither Clinton nor Carter got a Nobel for their efforts; Obama, however, was given a Nobel after only 12 days in office "for his "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between people."

Does the term "Arab Spring" conjure up thoughts on Obama's efforts to "strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between people"?

The U.S. is just one of many letting their good intentions pave the road to hell.

A headline in the Jul 20, 2015 issue of the Wall Street Journal reads: EU Exploring Broad Coalition to Push for Renewed Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations.

The article starts off

BRUSSELS—The European Union, which played a key role in securing the Iran nuclear deal, on Monday said it was now turning its attention to reviving peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians.

The effort comes after U.S.-led negotiations collapsed in spring 2014 amid squabbles over Israeli settlements and Palestinian demands for prisoner releases.

There has been growing frustration within the EU and elsewhere that the Middle East Quartet—a grouping of the EU, the U.S., Russia and the United Nations—has been unable to relaunch serious negotiations, fearing tensions in the region were intensifying.

If nothing else, trying to pressure either Israel or the PA into an agreement is a waste of energy. Likewise, being pro-either party - either blatantly or secretly - has proved equally worthless; once an "honest broker" is unmasked, any progress comes to an immediate halt.

Even "shuttle diplomacy" has proven of no value, possibly due to the shuttling diplomat's known sympathies with one party or the other.

Israel HAS in-place formal peace agreements with Egypt and with Jordan. It has "under-the-table" relations with a number of Muslim countries in the region, none of which was "brokered" by anyone from outside the region. These agreements primarily are trade vs. acceptance of Israeli passports.

Let the Israelis and the PA Arabs find their own grounds to lead to a true, mutually beneficial peace. I suspect such a peace will be based on both populations' non-political requirements - health care, food, housing, jobs with decent compensation.

After all these years and all these heavy-handed attempts to force a true - unlike Oslo - peace agreement between Israel and the PA, maybe the "hands off" approach suggested by one candidate is really the best answer.

'Course the knee jerking jerks on both sides of the political fence will rail against the candidate and claim he is anti-this or pro-that.

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More on Obama's Nobel

Nobel panel saw Obama peace prize as ‘mistake,’ new book claims

The Truth About Obama’s Nobel Prize