Obama at the General Assembly: Sacrificing Palestine for Zionist Campaign Funds
By James Petras | October 9, 2011
Introduction
There are two views of Obama’s speech to the General Assembly on September 21, 2011, and his opposition to the recognition of Palestine as a sovereign state and its admission to the UN. The common opinion of foreign policy experts was that Obama led the US to an ignominious diplomatic defeat, deepening US isolation in the international system.
The White House’s blatant parroting of Israel’s position to continue bilateral negotiations, while Tel Aviv continued to colonize Palestinian land and forcibly evict its residents, alienated the 1.5 billion Muslims throughout the world. Obama’s refusal to even mention the return to the 1967 borders as a basis for a “peace settlement”, totally undermined any pretext that the US could act as an “honest broker” in Mid-East peace negotiations, even in the eyes of its most slavish supporters in the PLO. His one-sided reference to Israel’s minimal casualties in maintaining the Occupation, while omitting any mention of the 12,000 Palestinian political prisoners, thousands of assassinations, everyday humiliation, routine torture of suspects and frequent defacement of Palestinian religious centers (mosques and churches, cemeteries and shrines), undermined any US effort to win favor among the millions of people involved in the pro-democracy social movements sweeping the Arab world from Tunisia, Egypt to the Gulf states.
Washington’s insistence that its NATO allies line-up with it in supporting continued “bilateral” negotiations, has led to the German government’s public humiliation when it followed Obama’s line of pressuring Abbas back to ‘negotiations’ only to have the Israeli Prime MInister Netanyahu announce the construction of 1,100 illegal Jews-only housing units in occupied Palestinian East Jerusalem.
Obama’s blatant and overt pandering to Israel before the representative of 193 independent nations, which had followed the standing ovation for Abbas’ call for Palestinian recognition, highlights one of the greatest US diplomatic defeats since the founding of the UN over 60 years ago.
But was Obama’s groveling before Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu really a ‘failure’ in the eyes of the White House? Or was his speech really a carefully crafted appeal to a domestic audience in order to raise hundreds of millions of dollars from pro-Israel billionaires to finance his re-election campaign?
There is a wealth of documentary evidence showing that Obama deliberately and forcefully sacrificed US international standing, in order to satisfy the major American Jewish organizations who were demanding nothing less than total and unconditional backing for Netanyahu’s phony position of “peace negotiations” and colonization from Obama.
From the angle of satisfying the US Zionist power configuration (ZPC) and securing a massive flow of re-election financing, Obama’s UN speech was a smashing success.
Obama’s Rejection of World Opinion and the Zionist Payoff
Obama’s re-election campaign from April to the end of September has received tens of millions of dollars from wealthy pro-Israeli Jewish fund raisers and contributors, as well as endorsements from rightwing US Jewish and Israeli politicians.
In the run-up to Obama’s UN speech, Zionist lobbyists adopted “good cop bad cop” tactics. Liberal Zionist Democratic Party advisers emphasized that he was “losing the Jewish vote and funding”, highlighting the recent resignation of a disgraced Democratic Congressman from a district of Orthodox Jews because of his internet porno-exhibitionism as a sign of Obama’s growing unpopularity among Jews. Some campaign strategists emphasized the “crucial Jewish vote in swing states” like Ohio and Pennsylvania (where non-Jews, who represent well over 80% of the voters, are not “crucial” in the eyes of these election experts!).
The 52 Presidents of the Major American Jewish Organizations took turns accusing Obama of “slandering Israel”, for disobeying Netanyahu and “backing the Arabs” for protesting Israeli land grabs, even as Obama raised US government aid to Israel to an un-paralleled $3 billion per annum, in the midst of a US economic recession with 18% of American workers unemployed or underemployed. Obama’s pro-Israel critics overlooked his $205 million gift to Tel Aviv to build the Iron Dome rocket defense system together with the US military’s latest fighter jets. The Zionist power configuration demanded total surrender even as they extracted more political and economic concessions. They ignored the enormous military imbalances in the Middle East in Israel’s favor and the degradation of US standing in the region.
Hardball threats to end Jewish financial support by the rightwing Zionists was “complemented” by fund raising by liberal Zionists and promises of more to come if Obama ended his “public feuding” with Israel and vetoed Palestinian admission to the UN. Obama performed his well-rehearsed shuffle and song routine of the “absolute defender”, now and forever, of every Israeli violation of Palestinian human rights.
Obama’s Rush for the Gold
On June 20, 2011, months prior to Obama’s speech opposing Palestinian admission to the UN, a pro-Israel Washington fund raising event for his re-election campaign raised over $1.5 million, assuring Obama that “Jewish donors” were not wavering, as long as he followed Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s line of peace negotiations and land grabs (Forward, June 29 2011). During the fund raiser Obama reiterated his unconditional support for Israel’s policies, including the settlements in the Palestinian West Bank. Following the dinner he met behind closed doors to elaborate on how far he was willing to go in opposing the Palestinian initiative at the UN, (Forward, June 29, 2011). A month earlier on May 22, 2011, Obama spoke at the annual meeting of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), directly appealing for funds in exchange for the United States’ total submission to the AIPAC agenda.
Obama’s dependence on Zionist funding was evident between April to June 2011: Of the $68 million raised for his campaign, $37 million was raised by 244 “big cash bundlers” – individuals who round up multi-millionaire contributors. According to one count of the 244 bundlers approximately 120 were identified as pro-Israel Jews. Among the Zionist “bundlers” are Penny Pritzker bagging contributions between $100,000 – $200,000, Jeffrey Katzenberg putting the touch on contributors for $500,000 plus; Mark Gilbert $500,000 plus, and Mark Stanley $100,000 to $200,000.
Obama’s fund raising and organizational success among Israeli right wingers and US Zionists multiplied following his UN speech opposing the recognition of Palestine. As the New York Times (September 30, 2011) noted “. . . Democratic officials maintain that they do not think that Mr. Obama is in danger of losing the Jewish vote – particularly given the President’s muscular defense of Israel at the United Nations General Assembly last week”.
Following his UN speech Obama raised several million from wealthy Zionists in Manhattan and Hollywood at dinners ranging up to $35,800 a plate. The extremist right wing Israeli Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman (influential among billionaire US Zionists), signaled his enthusiastic support for Obama, as did Abe Foxman, the notorious Israeli Firster and head of the Anti-Defamation League, and former-New York City Mayor Ed Koch, another fanatical-Zionist (NY Times, Sept. 30, 2011). Thanks to pro-Israel bundlers and hustlers, Obama had out-fund raised the leading Republican candidate, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, by more than a 4 to 1 margin by September 2011, (Reuters, Sept. 27, 2011).
The Consequences of Obama’s Embrace of Netanyahu and Rejection of World Opinion
Immediately following Obama’s UN speech, Netanyahu announced that Israel would build 1,100 new ‘Jews-only’ housing units in occupied Arab East Jerusalem with additional plans to displace tens of thousands of Bedouins from their villages to make way for new Jewish settlements. With firm assurances that American Zionist Jews have the American Presidency and Congress in their pocket, Netanyahu feels free to advance his long-stated policy of ethnic cleansing. Violent extremist Jewish colonial settlers, funded by millionaire US donors to Obama, feel free to continue their practice of defacing and burning mosques and subjecting Palestinians to daily humiliations. The US Congress and AIPAC wrote legislation eliminating 200 million dollars in funding to the Palestinian Authority because of its ‘crime’ of seeking admission for the Palestinian people to the United Nations. Obama’s “muscular” knee bends for Israel at the UN have opened the door to more intense and brutal Israeli aggression against the Palestinians, new military threats toward Iran and increased pressure on Egypt’s military rulers.
The White House’s goal is to raise a billion dollars for the re-election campaign. This involves keeping the spigot open for big bucks from Zionist millionaires in Hollywood and Silicon Valley, as well as from smaller contributors among lawyers, dentists, doctors, professors and local business people in Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio and elsewhere. Obama’s strategy at the UN is designed to maximize Zionist loyalty and fund raising for his re-election. The White House has organized a campaign to delay any Security Council decision, removing the Palestinian issue from the limelight and putting it behind closed doors via procedural haggling. At the same time, Washington is pressuring Security Council members, especially Bosnia and Colombia, to block a three-fifths majority vote, which would then force the US to use its veto. If the White House does not secure the votes, Obama has promised Zionist fundraisers he will use the US veto to exclude Palestine from admission to the UN.
Obama will focus on his power to use the UN veto in order to increase fund raising among wealthy Zionists and to activate the Presidents of the 52 Major American Jewish Organizations to “get out the vote” among the electorate at large. The re-election campaign will remind Zionist mass media pundits (CNN, FOX, CBS, NBC) of how Obama “courageously stood up to” world public opinion – including that of leaders representing 90% of the world’s population – in order to “defend Israel”.
If foreign policy is an extension of domestic policy, as is clearly illustrated by Obama’s truckling to Zionist fund-raisers by acting on behalf of Israel in the United Nations, so too is domestic policy an extension of foreign policy. US overseas businesses cannot expect any “favored treatment” in Muslim countries. Increased political hostility to the US and Israel will result in greater military spending leading to more fiscal deficits and more painful cuts in domestic social programs for the American people. This will increase domestic social and political polarization. In the short-run, Obama’s sell-out to the Zionist power configuration has succeeded in filling the coffers of his re-election campaign. But in the near future it has raised insurmountable difficulties in dealing with overseas political conflicts and domestic economic crises.
Above all, Obama’s game of mutual manipulation with the Zionist Lobby has further degraded US democratic political institutions and our international standing as a free and independent country.
The Freeing of Jonathan Pollard and Obama’s Re-election: The Dirtiest Quid Pro Quo
In his gross servility to Israel and the American Zionist Lobby, President Barak Obama has surpassed all four of his predecessors with regard to the most egregious episode in Israel’s many violations of US security. According to recent news reports, Vice-President Joe Biden announced that “President Obama was considering clemency for Jonathan Pollard” (New York Times, Sept 30, 2011; Jerusalem Post, Oct. 2, 2011). While Biden originally claimed to have initially opposed this move, a week later, under intense pressure from Obama, he agreed to meet and discuss Pollard’s release with American Jewish leaders, including the executive vice chairman of the Presidents of the Major American Jewish Organizations, Malcolm Hoenlein (Globe, Oct. 8, 2011 – a major Israeli business publication.)
Reagan, Bush-Senior and Junior and Clinton, all refused to re-open the Pollard case because the confessed American spy for Israel (who was awarded Israeli citizenship and a high military rank while in US Federal prison) did more damage to US national security than any spy in our history. At his trial, the FBI and Naval Intelligence revealed the Pollard, then a High Security Naval Intelligence analyst, had turned over tens of thousands of classified documents to his Israeli handler. Many were ‘sold’ to the Soviet Union. For his ‘service to the Jewish State of Israel’, a building, illegally built in occupied Arab East Jerusalem, is named Beit Yonatan.
All Israeli leaders, from Rabin to Netanyahu, have pressed US Presidents to free their spy. But threats of mass protests and resignation from the US intelligence community prevented any serious discussion of releasing the traitor. Now, the entire spectrum of Zionist opinion – from ‘left to right’ – from ‘liberal’ Congressman Barney Frank to extremist Israel Firster, Alan Dershowitz of Harvard, and including hundreds of Rabbis are pressuring Obama to free their ‘hero’. Only a few prominent American Jews, like former US Navy Admiral Shapiro are outraged and chagrined by the “Jewish Community’s defense of a traitor“.
In a tight presidential election this 2012 we can expect Obama to trade on Pollard’s release, in exchange for a big cash injection by Zionist contributors to fund his last-minute media blitz. After all, if Obama can sell out US integrity in front of the 193 nations of the UN, what is to stop him from freeing a master Israeli spy, who imperiled US security, in order to gain a few thousand sound bites and TV slots in the run-up to the November 2012 elections?
Obama: The Assassination of Anwar Al-Awlaki by Fiat
By James Petras :: 10.06.2011
The killing of Anwar al-Awlaki a U.S citizen in Yemen by a CIA drone missile on September 30 has been publicized by the mass media, President Obama and the usual experts on al-Qaeda as “a major blow to the jihadist network founded by Osama bin Laden” US officials called Awlaki “the most dangerous figure in Al-Qaeda” (Financial Times Oct. 1 and 2, 2011).
There is ample evidence to suggest that the publicity surrounding the killing of al-Awlaki has greatly exaggerated his political importance and is an attempt to cover up the declining influence of the US in the Islamic world. The State Department’s declaration of a major victory serves to exaggerate US military capacity to defeat its adversaries. The assassination serves to justify Obama’s arbitrary use of death squads to execute overseas US critics and adversaries by executive fiat denying the accused elementary judicial protections.
Myths About al-Awlaki
Al-Awlaki was a theological blogger in a small, poor Islamic country (Yemen). He was confined to propagandizing against Western countries, attempting to influence Islamic believers to resist Western military and cultural intervention. Within Yemen, his organizational affiliations were with a minority sector of the mass popular opposition to US backed dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh. His fundamentalist group was largely influential in a few small towns in southern Yemen. He was not a military or political leader in his organization, dubbed by the West as “Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula” (AQAP). Like most of what the CIA calls “Al-Qaeda”, AQAP was a local autonomous organization, meaning that it was organized and controlled by local leaders even as it expressed agreement with many other loosely associated fundamentalist groups. Awlaki had a very limited role in the Yemeni groups’ military and political operations and virtually no influence in the mass movement engaged in ousting Saleh. There is no evidence, documented or observable, that he was “a very effective propagandist” as ex-CIA and now Brookings Institution member Bruce Riedal claims. In Yemen and among the mass popular movements in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain or elsewhere his followers were few and far between. One “expert” cites such intangibles as his “spiritual leadership”, which is as good a way as any to avoid the test of empirical evidence: apparently a crystal ball or a tarot read will do.
Given the paucity of evidence demonstrating Awlaki’s political and ideological influence among the mass movements in North Africa, the Middle East or Asia, the US intelligence agencies claim his “real influence was among English-speaking jihadi, some of whom he groomed personally to carry out attacks on the US.”
In other words Washington’s casting Awlaki as an “important threat” revolves around his speeches and writings, since he had no operational role in organizing suicide bomb attacks – or at least no concrete evidence has been presented up to now.
The intelligence agencies “suspect” he was involved in the plot that dispatched bombs in cargo aircraft from Yemen to Chicago in October 2010. US intelligence claims he provided a “theological justification” via e-mail for US army Major Nidal Malik’s killing of 13 people at Fort Hood. In other words, like many US philosophical writers and legal experts like Princeton’s Michael Walzer and Harvard’s Alan Dershowitz, Awlaki discussed “just wars” and the “right” of violent action. If political writings and speeches of publicists are cited by an assassin as the bases for their action, should the White House execute, leading US Islamophobes like Marilyn Geller and Daniel Pipes, cited as inspiration by Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Brevik? Or does their Zionist affiliation provide them immunity from Navy Seal assaults and drone missiles?
Even assuming that the unsubstantiated “suspicions” of the CIA, MI 16 and the Al Qaeda “experts” are correct and Awlaki had a direct or indirect hand in “terrorist action” against the US, these activities were absurdly amateurish and abject failures, certainly not a serious threat to our security. The “underwear bomber” Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab’s effort to ignite bomb materials on a flight to Detroit, December 25, 2009, led to roasting his testicles! Likewise the bombs dispatched in cargo aircraft from Yemen to Chicago in October 2010 were another bungled job.
If anything the Yemenite AQAP’s hopeless, hapless operational planning served to highlight its technical incompetence. In fact according to Mutallab’s own admission, published on NBC news at the time, Awlaki played no role in the planning or execution of the bomb attack. He merely served to refer Mutallab to the Al Qaeda organization.
Clearly, Awlaki was a minor figure in Yemen’s political struggles. He was a propagandist of little influence in the mass movements during the “Arab Spring”. He was an inept recruiter of English-speaking would be bombers. The claims that he planned and “hatched” two bomb plots (Financial Times, October 1 and 2, page 2) are refuted by the confession of one bomber and the absence of any corroboratory evidence regarding the failed cargo bombs.
The mass media inflate the importance of Awlaki to the stature of a major al-Qaeda leader and subsequently, his killing as a “major psychological blow” to world-wide jihadists. This imagery has no substance. But the puff pieces do have a very important propaganda purpose. Worse still, the killing of Awlaki provides a justification for extra-judicial state serial assassinations of ideological critics of Anglo-American leaders engaged in bloody colonial wars.
Propaganda to Bolster Flagging Military Morale
Recent events strongly suggest that the US and its NATO allies are losing the war in Afghanistan to the Taliban: top collaborator officials are knocked off at the drop of a Taliban turban. After years of occupation, Iraq is moving closer to Iran rather than the US. Libya in the post-Gaddafi period is under warring mercenary forces squaring off for a fight for the billion dollar booty. Al Qaeda prepares battle against neo-liberal expats and Gaddafi renegades.
Washington and NATO’s attempt to regain the initiative via puppet rulers in Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain and Yemen is being countered by a “second wave” of mass pro-democracy movements. The “Arab Spring” is being followed by a “hot autumn”. Positive news and favorable outcomes for Obama are few and far between. He has run out of any pseudo-populist initiative to enchant the Arab-Islamic masses. His rhetoric rings hollow in the face of his UN speech, denying recognition of an independent Palestinian state. His groveling before Israel is clearly seen as an effort to bolster his re-election campaign financing by wealthy Zionists.
Diplomatically isolated and domestically in trouble over failed economic policies, Obama pulls the trigger and shoots an itinerant Muslim preacher in Yemen to send a “message” to the Arab world. In a word he says, “If you, the Arabs, the Islamic world, wont’ join us we can and will execute those of you who can be labeled “spiritual mentors” or are suspected of harboring terrorists.”
Obama’s defense of systematic killing of ideological critics, denying US constitutional norms of judicial due process to a U.S citizen and in blatant rejection of international law defines a homicidal executive.
Let us be absolutely clear what the larger implications are of political murder by executive fiat. If the President can order the murder of a dual American-Yemeni citizen abroad on the bases of his ideological-theological beliefs, what is to stop him from ordering the same in the US? If he uses arbitrary violence to compensate for diplomatic failure abroad what is to stop him from declaring a “heightened internal security threat” in order to suspend our remaining freedoms at home and to round up critics?
We seriously understate our “Obama problem” if we think of this ordered killing merely as an isolated murder of a “jihadist” in strife torn Yemen … Obama’s murder of Awlaki has profound, long term significance because it puts political assassinations at the center of US foreign and domestic policy. As Secretary of Defense Panetta states, “eliminating home grown terrorists” is at the core of our “internal security”.
Occupying Wall Street
By Margaret Kimberley – Black Agenda Report – 10/04/2011
The Occupy Wall Street/99% movement has succeeded in demonstrating one important fact. There is a great deal of anger and frustration directed at the financial services mobsters and the political system that gives them such great power. Any mass effort directed against the prerogatives they now enjoy is a positive indication that there is still something left of what we call democracy.
The spread of the Occupy Wall Street movement around the country should be the beginning of a much needed political movement, but at the moment it isn’t clear that will take place. While the righteous and justifiable indignation is evident, organizing and the analysis which it should be based upon are not.
It isn’t really difficult to be angry with the bankster class which has ruined not just the American economy, but which has also devastated the lives of people around the world. It is much more difficult to think outside of the paradigm of the two parties which are both in fact servants of the plutocracy. Collapsing markets and rising unemployment are but symptoms of a larger and more worrisome disease.
In all likelihood the Democratic Party has benefited most from the votes cast of demonstrators at Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan. Do they know and are they ready to state that they must dump the Democrats if they are to have any opportunity to save themselves and what is left of democracy?
If the “spectrum of thinkable thought” is not done away with, some of these same protesters who are now so valiantly acting in opposition, will one year from now return Barack Obama and his policies of bailing out Wall Street, back to the White House.
The cry for change must include a cry in opposition to the Democratic Party. When Congressman Charles Rangel visited Zuccotti park, he was shouted down by one protester, but then received words of apology from others.
Certainly Charles Rangel is not himself the cause of all that ails American politics, but Democratic members of Congress and the Congressional Black Caucus have time and again been subservient to the dictates of their leadership and to the career trajectory of Democratic presidents. This subservience almost always takes precedence over the needs of the people. If protesters apologize for the righteous anger of one of their members, it is an indication that this movement is not quite ready to look outside of the thought spectrum which allows the economic elite to control both Democrats and Republicans.
The leaderless, mass-led nature of this action presents both benefits and problems. It is good that the corporate media cannot personalize these activities and designate any one person or group of people as leaders. Inevitably, those people are scrutinized in ways that render them useless or in the worst case scenarios are co-opted and bought off.
The down side to this non-organization is that there may not be anyone able to direct the mass action in any effective way. The movement may be doomed to become a permanent gripe session against an obvious villain, but with no means of planning how to end the system that increases income inequality, debt peonage and unemployment.
Make no mistake, Occupy Wall Street should be the beginning of fundamental changes in the political landscape. Whether it will be or not, will depend upon the willingness of activists to stand up for those changes. They must not succumb to fears about the latest Republican bogeyman or woman. Rick Perry or Michelle Bachman or Sarah Palin or Mitt Romney will be mocked as a fascist, charlatan, idiot who doesn’t believe in gay marriage/evolution/global warming and who is therefore unfit to serve as president.
But it is Barack Obama, a man no doubt supported by many of the occupiers, who backs offshore oil drilling and the wholesale resurrection of the nuclear power industry. It is Barack Obama who has forestalled efforts to require cleaner air standards. It is the constitutional law professor who decides that Anwar al-Awlaki or any other American citizen can be marked for death.
Some commentators have likened Occupy Wall Street to the actions at Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt which brought down president Mubarak. The Egyptian protesters had a clear demand, that Mubarak had to go. What is the clear demand in Zuccotti Park, that Obama and the Democrats go? That is to say, are they committed to end their support for them?
Right now this site has become a magnet for celebrities and gawking tourists. It ought to become the place where Democratic Party control of the left dies once and for all.
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Margaret Kimberley’s Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR. She can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgandaReport.com.
Obama Paraded on Netanyahu’s Leash
By Ahmed Amr / Dissident Voice / September 26th, 2011
The sight of Netanyahu parading Obama on a leash at the United Nations must gratify the egomaniacs lounging around the Israeli Lobby; it certainly ranks as one of the greatest stunts ever pulled by the American wing of the Likud party. But for many Americans, it was humiliating – even degrading. Watching Obama mouthing his Netanyahu scripted lines left little doubt as to who was the Alpha Dog in the American-Israeli ‘strategic’ relationship.
A lot of people felt genuine sorrow for Obama as he went through the motions of giving his speech at the General Assembly. He would pause, wait for applause and not hear the clap of a solitary pair of hands. The assembled delegates endured the president’s entire speech and only applauded politely when the farce was over and he stepped down from the podium. After the speech, the president groveled over to a pre-arranged press conference with Netanyahu and the supreme Israeli leader duly anointed him with a “badge of honor.”
Everybody — and I mean everybody — understood exactly what Obama was doing – he was capitulating to the Israeli Lobby to bolster his re-election campaign. It’s not easy to raise a billion bucks and the big Jewish donors had sent a clear message to the White House. They wanted to buy the American veto and the president was obviously willing to sell it.
Two days later, the Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas brought down the house with a moving speech calling for the establishment of a Palestinian state. The contrast between the performance of Obama and Abbas was a rare spectacle. Abbas has been called a lot of things but no one has ever mistaken him for a charismatic leader. And there he was bringing tears to the eyes of millions around the world with an eloquent plea for justice for his down-trodden people.
There was something else in Abbas’s message – a lot of truth. I challenge anybody to fact check Abbas’s description of Palestinian life under Israeli occupation. Obama is perfectly aware of the accuracy of Abbas’s depiction of the daily humiliations and privations visited on the Palestinians by their tormentors. For one thing, POTUS gets daily CIA briefings. Unlike Bush, he reads books and newspapers and, as a lawyer, he is quite familiar with international human rights conventions.
Now, let’s go back to Obama’s disgraceful performance before the United Nations Assembly. Obama didn’t just sell Netanyahu the American veto, he deployed brigades of State Department ambassadors to arm twist members of the United Nations Security Council, including France, Great Britain and other NATO allies. What favors were promised? What price was paid? How much respect did he lose? How much American dignity and prestige was squandered to appease Netanyahu?
Obama didn’t stop there. He adopted the Likud’s narrative of the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – the mythology of a ‘peace loving’ Israel surrounded by ‘hostile war mongering Arabs.’ Is that so? I think the British and French could enlighten the president on the 1956 Suez war and how they teamed up with Israel to attack Egypt. It was an American president, Eisenhower, who intervened to end the Tripartite Aggression against Egypt. Look it up.
How about the six-day war which started with an Israeli attack and resulted in the occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, Jerusalem, Sinai and the Golan Heights? The Israelis claimed it was a ‘pre-emptive’ strike and then immediately proceeded to annex Jerusalem and build settlements in the West Bank, the Golan Heights, Gaza and Sinai with the explicit aim of changing the demographics of the region. It was a blatant land grab. The inhabitants of these exclusive Jewish settlements are not there for ‘security’ reasons – they believe God wanted them to ‘redeem’ the land from the Palestinian ‘squatters’ who just happen to be the indigenous people of the Holy Land. The irony is that the Palestinians are the only nation on earth that can establish a definitive link to the ancient people of the Holy Land – including the ancient Israelites.
And let’s not forget the 1973 war. It was fought on occupied Arab land. Egypt and Syria had every legal right to recover the lands stolen from them in 1967 by any means necessary. These were internationally recognized sovereign Egyptian and Syrian territories under belligerent Israeli occupation.
I imagine Obama was old enough to process the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982. If he can’t recollect the details, he should Google “Sabra and Shatilla” and order up some old footage of the siege of Beirut. Even Reagan was outraged and that alone should give Obama a clue about who has been in on the attack for the last 63 years.
I’m sure the state department can give Obama casualty statistics on the 2006 war in Lebanon and the 2008 invasion of Gaza. They can also confirm that no Arab Army has ever breached the 1949 Armistice line. Since the end of the 1948 war, no Israeli city has ever been bombed by an Arab air force and, in the last 38 years, no hostile military actions have taken place on Israel’s border with Egypt, Syria or Jordan. The Israelis preferred to pick on the weakest and most fragile Arab country in the region – Lebanon.
Which takes us back to 1948 which actually started in 1947 with the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian towns and villages. Contrary to Zionist mythology, the Arab armies did not intervene until hundreds of thousands of Palestinians had been unceremoniously evicted from their homes and the battles they fought were largely confined to the areas allocated to the Palestinian state by the 1947 Palestinian partition plan. That’s the verifiable historic record that has been confirmed by dozens of Israeli academics and historians; everything else is Likudnik mythology. Consult the work of Israel Shahak for a complete list of the Palestinian villages and towns that were obliterated from the face of the map.
I’m not even going to go into the Israeli Lobby’s role in marketing the WMD scam and ensnaring Americans in the Iraq war or how they used their substantial influence in Washington to back up their favorite Arab dictator, Mubarak.
To coin a phrase, Israelis are the most dangerous people in a dangerous neighborhood. A tally of the amount of damage they have inflicted on the Palestinian people and other Arabs over the last six decades helps explain Arab hostility to their belligerent neighbor. In what was perhaps his most inflammatory remark, Obama vilified Arabs by claiming that the conflict was a result of Arabs teaching irrational hatred to their children. Anyone vaguely familiar with the roots of the conflict can explain to the president that Arab grievances are a natural result of their memories of the sons and daughters that were murdered, imprisoned, dispossessed and humiliated by the so-called Israeli ‘Defense’ Forces. But Obama doesn’t need any explanations; he knew that already. He was just sending a coded signal to Netanyahu’s lobby that he had capitulated to all their demands.
The bottom line is that Israeli security issue is a bogus issue. It’s the Palestinians and Arabs who need security guarantees and American commitments to restrain a nuclear armed Israel from invading their lands and dispossessing their people.
Of course, Obama knew he was lying about the history of the conflict and so did every other knowledgeable delegate in the audience. Fortunately, these diplomats don’t get their information from FOX, CNN or the New York Times. They are very well versed in the historic roots of the conflict. In fact, there are professionals at the State Department who could very easily have fact-checked Obama’s Likudnik narrative and saved the President from making a sorry spectacle of himself. I suspect some of them tried but were overruled – by Obama and Netanyahu.
Why would Obama stoop to lie to a bunch of delegates who were too sophisticated to believe a word he was saying? Because he wasn’t lying to them – he was talking to Americans – Jewish Americans. He was swearing allegiance to Netanyahu to raise cold cash for his second presidential campaign. What he really sold out was American national interests and that ought to be a crime.
Obama challenged the 193 nations of the General Assembly to “face the truth” and then proceeded to deliver a diatribe of half-truths and outright lies. You want the truth? The president can’t face the truth because the truth would strain his campaign finances.
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Ahmed Amr is the former editor of NileMedia.com and the author of The Sheep and The Guardians – Diary of a SEC Sanctioned Swindle. He can be reached at: Montraj@aol.com.
Obama-Style Deficit Reduction
By Stephen Lendman | September 22nd, 2011
On September 8, Obama’s “American Jobs Act” address to Congress was a thinly veiled campaign speech. More on it below.
On September 19 came Act Two to enlist support for “Living Within Our Means and Investing in Our Future” by cutting $4 trillion over 10 years (for starters with more to come) from Medicare, Medicaid, public pensions, veterans’ benefits, unemployment insurance, the US Postal Service, and other social benefits.
It’s part of a bipartisan plan to destroy America’s middle class, good-paying jobs and benefits, the dream of homeownership for millions, and a nation once fit to live in but no longer.
Economist and regular Progressive Radio New Hour contributor Jack Rasmus commented on the minimum $4 trillion deficit reduction plan, saying:
It’s “not only the consensus deficit target but also the amount by which taxes have been cut for the rich and corporations.”
Moreover, it equals the amount banks and other large corporations “have been hoarding in cash since the bailouts,” instead of using it for economic growth and job creation.
In addition, out-of-control war spending and bailouts applied productively would make austerity cuts unnecessary.
“Who’s going to pay the next $4 trillion (and more trillions after that)….is the central issue,” according to ruling elites?
“It’s not jobs (not created), foreclosures, broke states and cities, students indentured for life, or seniors struggling to stay alive.”
At a time stimulus is needed to revive productive growth, infighting focuses on what more to cut, hitting working households, the poor, retirees and disabled hardest.
Notably, 25 million Americans wanting jobs have none. Nothing is being done to create them.
Instead, proposals focus on tax cuts for the rich, corporate handouts, and austerity to pay for them.
Welcome to America.
Obama’s America.
Land of permanent war, disproportionate wealth extremes, and spiraling debt.
With growing millions unemployed and impoverished.
With 11 million homes foreclosed and another 20 million under water.
Where 44 million seniors will soon pay double for Medicare and get no cost of living Social Security increases.
Where millions of poor children will lose Medicaid.
Where millions of students are debt entrapped for life.
Welcome to a land where most one day will be better off by leaving because no homeland opportunities exist.
Ask millions of downsized middle class Americans heading for working poor status.
Ask political Washington why members sworn to serve instead betray.
Expect no answer because you’ll get none.
Refuse to take anymore and resist, including about Obama’s shameless new wealth transfer scheme to corporate favorites and super-rich elites called “stimulus.”
On September 8, a New York Times editorial headlined, “The Jobs Speech,” saying:
Obama’s proposal was more “ambitious….robust and far-reaching than expected – that may be the first crucial step in reigniting the economy….”
“(H)e was authoritative in demanding that Congress pass his plan quickly….We hope Mr. Obama keeps his promise to take his proposals all over the country. The need to act is urgent.”
Only the last statement had merit in an editorial best rebuked for not explaining who benefits at whose expense.
On September 20, a Times editorial headlined, “A Call to Fairness,” saying:
Obama “issued an unabashed call for economic fairness in cutting the federal deficit, asking as much from those on the economy’s upper rungs as from those lower down whose programs may be slashed.”
Fact check
Programs for working Americans will be slashed en route to gutting them entirely in out years. “Economic fairness” won’t happen because Republicans and many Democrats won’t tolerate it. Neither will Obama.
Taxes for the rich won’t be raised because he opposes it. His plan, in fact, backs comprehensive “pro growth” tax reform.
It involves cutting top individual and corporate rates in exchange for eliminating loopholes clever accountants can devise ways to keep.
Yet Times editors call his austerity plan “a well-proportioned mix.”
In fact, it benefits corporate favorites and America’s aristocracy at the expense of working households.
A previous article called it a combination left hook, right cross haymaker, decking workers when they need help.
“It pays for desperately needed jobs” that won’t be created because tax cuts create none.
Recall last December. Despite pledging opposition to extending tax cuts for households earning over $250,000, Obama capitulated.
On December 6, a White House press release said:
While “disagree(ing)” with Republicans, he argued that “without a willingness to give on both sides, there’s no reason to believe (the current) stalemate won’t continue well into next year….I am not willing to let that happen….it would be the wrong thing to do.”
“As a result, we have arrived at a framework for a bipartisan agreement.”
Everyone got a tax cut on income, capital gains, dividends, and the Bush enacted federal estate tax that lapsed at the start of 2010, including the super-rich (who deserve higher, not lower taxes).
As expected, Obama caved to Republicans and deep-pocketed donors who’d likely give less if they paid more.
“Shared sacrifice” for him is transferring maximum wealth from working Americans to Wall Street, other corporate favorites, and super-rich elites already with too much.
Rhetoric aside, he’s got more of the same in mind now.
Times editors love it, saying only that “this plan was far too late in coming. But the public is listening now, and has demanded shared sacrifice. The burden is now on Mr. Obama to sell his plan, and on Congress to buy it.”
Fact check
He and Congress will indeed agree on a destructive austerity plan harming working Americans most to assure elitist interests know he’s the gift that keeps on giving.
It showed in his September 8 stimulus plan. It includes a laundry list of handouts instead of measures to create jobs, generate growth, reinvigorate Main Street, strengthen America’s middle class, and help growing millions of impoverished, disadvantaged households most in need.
No matter how it’s directed, $447 billion proposed won’t create jobs. It’s more of the same too little, too late for nation in serious trouble in the context of a sinking global economy.
In February 2009, when Obama proposed $787 in economic stimulus, unemployment was about 25 million. Two and a half years later, it’s the same. How then can half a loaf do now what double it earlier couldn’t. It won’t nor is that its intention.
In fact, it’s more a reelection than jobs plan if voters are foolish enough to buy it. Hopefully they’ll understand how it harms them.
Tax cuts can’t create jobs, yet they comprise about 60% of his plan. Despite well over $1 trillion for them in the last two years, zero jobs were created.
In fact, they’ve been less than zero when factoring in the replacement of full-time higher-paying jobs for uncertain lower wage/low or no benefit temporary or part-time ones.
Obama also proposed state subsidies as in 2009 to create jobs. Notably since then, hundreds of thousands of state and local government layoffs followed. They continue monthly.
In 2009, $100 billion was allocated for infrastructure spending to create four million jobs. It didn’t happen. In June 2009, 6.4 million construction workers were employed. Today it’s less than 5.5 million.
Obama’s new plan is no better. Immediate job creation is needed. Construction and infrastructure jobs are long-term and won’t help over any duration when boosted by minimal funding.
Moreover, Washington’s too-big-to-fail bailout didn’t restart lending. Major banks and other corporate giants are hoarding trillions of dollars instead of using them to stimulate growth and create jobs.
Today’s political Washington doesn’t prioritize them so expect none, Obama’s rhetoric notwithstanding. His agenda focuses on permanent wars and shifting maximum wealth to corporate favorites and America’s top 1%.
His new plans are old wine in new bottles, socking it to the constituencies that elected him.
Maybe next time they’ll have second thoughts and reject America’s duopoly entirely.
Unless they do, they’ll keep getting same old, same old no matter which party holds power.
Both represent institutionalized depravity responsible for turning America into a moral swamp.
Changing that is job one for people wanting something better.
It requires tearing down what doesn’t work and starting over.
What better time to start than now.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com
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See also:
Supercommittee choice: hurting their donors or cutting your social security
Democrats on the committee have received far more money from Pentagon contractors
… Since 2007, Democrats on the supercommittee have received more than $1 million in defense industry donations, while contributions to the Republicans added up to only $321,000. Panel co-chair Sen. Patty Murray, for example, has received more defense industry dollars over that period than the combined total of the top four Republican recipients on the supercommittee. Even so, her haul from the Pentagon’s weapons-makers isn’t the largest by a panel Democrat, a distinction held by her colleague from South Carolina, James Clyburn.
An analysis of official government data paints a disturbing picture of big money, cozy relationships and potential influence that, alongside a concerted lobbying effort by the Pentagon and its powerful defense contractors, makes substantial reductions to the Department of Defense’s budget improbable and steeper cuts to entitlement programs, like Medicare and Medicaid, more likely. …
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Call committee co-chairs Sen. Patty Murray (202.224.2621) and U.S. Rep. Jeb Hensarling (202.225.3484). Tell them that war spending costs jobs, and we expect them to cut the war budget.
International Day of Peace
By Mazin Qumsiyeh | Popular Resistance |September 21, 2011
In his first speech at the UN, President Obama stated that he prohibited torture and ordered Guantanamou prisons closed. He also said he will work to cut the nuclear arsenal of the US and Russia and move towards a world without nuclear weapons. He said that peace must be pursued by actions of all nations working together and that the era of unilateralism is finished. He said he will work aggressively to advance peace based on two states: Israel and Palestine. He said, “America does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements”. All were big fat LIES. And now comes Obama with new lies in front of the UN and at this International day of peace. Here he shows Palestinian leaders did not give him any briefing on history. I hope any Palestinian leaders should object strongly and with facts and figures to these misstatements [my brief comments in brackets]:
“Let’s be honest: Israel is surrounded by neighbors that have waged repeated wars against it. [false] Israel’s citizens have been killed by rockets fired at their houses and suicide bombs on their buses. [correct but this should be balanced by explaining that 10 times more Palestinians were butchered] Israel’s children come of age knowing that throughout the region, other children are taught to hate them. [Israelis teach hate 100 more times than the other way around and hate of the colonizer to the colonized is not the same as the reverse]. Israel, a small country of less than eight million people, looks out at a world where leaders of much larger nations threaten to wipe it off of the map. [That is nonsense; Israel wiped Palestine including 530 villages and towns and now is the fourth strongest country plus having you Obama and Congress as its lackeys]. The Jewish people carry the burden of centuries of exile, persecution, and the fresh memory of knowing that six million people were killed simply because of who they were. [Irrelevant and highly emotional: just study the history of Nazi-Zionist collaboration to see how absurd to link Apartheid Israel with “The Jewish People”, itself a mistaken term no more valid than concepts of “The Christian People” or “The Muslim People”]. These facts cannot be denied [they are regurgitation of Zionist myths, irrelevant facts, and half truths]. The Jewish people have forged a successful state in their historic homeland [a racist apartheid state based on land theft and ethnic cleansing; is that your definition of success?]. Israel deserves recognition [no it does not, Israel deserves to be faced with the truth and pressured to transform just like Apartheid South Africa]…
All who meet with him to go back and read his first speech in the UN should level with Mr. Obama. Perhaps they should give him a gift: a copy of Prof. Naseer Aruri’s excellent book titled “Dishonest Broker” about the destructive role of the US.
Perhaps what might awaken some sense of shame in Obama is for him to be given his own words uttered less than 2 years ago:
“The choice is ours. We can be remembered as a generation that chose to drag the arguments of the 20th century into the 21st; that put off hard choices, refused to look ahead, and failed to keep pace because we defined ourselves by what we were against instead of what we were for. Or, we can be a generation that chooses to see the shoreline beyond the rough waters ahead; that comes together to serve the common interests of human beings, and finally gives meaning to the promise embedded in the name given to this institution: the United Nations.”
Hypocrisy and double standards are standing naked and exposed more than ever thanks to the Arab spring and the corruption of political leaders from Netanyahu to Obama to the Arab leaders that do not follow their conscience. In Palestine and the rest of the Arab world, the forces of status quo fight the forces of change tooth and nail. Human rights and democracy cannot be used as tools in some countries and violated in others. The US administration for example says the leadership in Syria lost its legitimacy and must step aside. In Yemen and Bahrain the same politicians merely mumble useless words like “different parties should resolve their differences”. The reason is obvious: the Israel lobby. The Arab people hate what the Zionists had done and continue to do to fellow Arabs (7 million of us Palestinians are now refugees or displaced people). Arabs are prevented by their own dictatorial governments from providing direct help to liberate Palestine. The US thus acts not in its own interests or in defense of any liberal or democratic ideals but largely in defense of apartheid and racism that is distilled in this state called Israel.
Hypocrisy will be more evident at the United Nations these coming few days. It is already evident in the use of bullying by the US administration to other countries to force them to not vote for a Palestinian state. This bullying will remind us of how they bullied in 1947 to get the unjust resolution recommending partition of Palestine against the wishes of its people (contrary to UN Charter and the right of self-determination). Hypocrisy will also be evident in Netanyahu’s speech in the UN that will say to the world: Israel wants peace and “why are we at the UN when Israel and the Palestinians can negotiate directly.” After decades of direct negotiations between slaves and heavily armed masters, excuse the world for not believing you. Mr. Abbas (whose term as president of the “Palestinian authority” long expired) will give a speech where he will again reiterate that Palestinians renounced violence and want their own state on the borders of 1967 under the US government parameters (which recognize demographic changes including that 500,000 colonial settlers sit on the best parts of the West Bank). Here in Palestine, the people want him to 1) consult with them and rebuild the PLO with direct elections to the PNC, 2) that if and when he then goes to the UN as a real representative to the Palestinian people that he tells them about our concerns and the historic and current injustice that we are subjected to. I am afraid neither will happen. In fact he explicitly stated that he does not want to “delegitimize Israel”; this means he accepts the racist Zionist project as legitimate. Netanyahu will present a false/concocted history that mixes a religion with nationality and claims rights while delegitimizing Arabs and Palestinians at every turn. Abbas’s speech will likely validate that narrative. Netanyahu will talk about security (for the colonial occupiers) while Abbas may not even touch on security for the native people but will again emphasize we are “peaceful in protesting/gatherings.” Indeed today there were hundreds of gatherings throughout the West Bank cities that organizers said would show support for Abbas.
Who will address the fact that the Palestinian people were subjected to the largest armed robbery in the last 100 years accompanied by massacres and ethnic cleansing? Who will mention that the value of hard assets alone stolen by the Zionist project exceed $30 trillion? Who will speak of the over 60,000 Palestinian civilians massacred or the hundreds of thousands who were injured or jailed? Who will explain to those gathered in New York that International law recognizes the right of such native people to resist including by armed means? Who will explain to world leaders that 99.99% of the people resisted by methods of popular unarmed resistance (see my book “Popular Resistance in Palestine: A history of hope and empowerment”, Pluto Press)?
Before 1991, Israel was largely ostracized around the world for committing these injustices against the native Palestinians. But unfortunately, acceptance of Israel mushroomed when Mr. Yasser Arafat listened to people like Mahmoud Abbas and went down the path of the disastrous Oslo accords. Dozens of countries then established diplomatic, business, scientific and even military cooperation with the apartheid state. Israel just also joined CERN, the European nuclear organization. Is it possible to abandon the trap of Oslo that legitimizes colonialism? Is it possible to stop begging for a statelet in parts of the West Bank and Gaza by going to the UN to marginally improve bargaining positions between a jailer and a jailed people? Is it possible to build-up boycotts, divestments, and sanctions and real popular resistance (not mere gatherings in Al-Manara square) to apply pressure that insists on the right of return for all refugees first and foremost? Politicians worry that admitting mistakes and changing course would bring them down or they lose privileged positions. But let me ask you how a position of a key Palestinian leader like Abbes would be if he gave a speech with total honesty telling his people something along these lines:
“We went into Oslo with good intentions, it was supposed to last for five years and give us a state in all of the West Bank and Gaza. For the past nearly 20 years it did not work, our refugees are still refugees and Israel doubled its settlement activities and killed the two-state solution. Now I recognize that we lapsed in our judgments not only about our colonizers but also about the US and some other Western Countries who have strong Zionist lobbies. Because of this, I am stepping down soon. My fate will be up to the Palestinian people and I will work hard to obey their just demands for change. In the coming few weeks we in Fatah will work together with all political factions to create a transition body to prepare and run elections for the Palestinian National Council to represent all Palestinians around the world (in diaspora and on both sides of the Green line). This PNC council will be bound by the original charter of the PLO that calls for a democratic pluralistic state in all of Palestine among other things unless the new representative PNC decides to change elements of such a charter. By going back top the people, we join the era of the Arab spring…”
Or imagine if Obama got the courage to go to the American people and say that he has demanded a settlement freeze and rollback based on International law to achieve real and just peace but that a strong lobby in Washington ensures that US foreign policy is held hostage to Israel. What will happen to the statute of such politicians? What happened when President Nasser admitted mistakes and took responsibility for the Naksa of 1967? What happened to president Eisenhower when he asked Israel to get out of Gaza and the Sinai in 1956 (and Israel complied)? While we are not the same it is also good to reflect on our own history. What happened between 1929 and 1939 to the 30+ Palestinian factions then in operation (some of them had tried and failed in their accommodationist/moderate stances with the British)? Decency can be done by political parties and by politicians but it seems to be absent at the UN this week. But history shows that peace is achieved in spite and not because of politicians. We will have to again rely on ourselves (the people) to change history. Starting a new chapter on this International day of peace may not be such a bad idea.
On failure of us Palestinians to challenge “leaders”
http://www.mediamonitors.net/edward33.html
When will the Arabs Resist? A panorama of desolation. By Prof. Edward Said
http://www.counterpunch.org/said01252003.html
As a reminder: the PLO charter
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/plocov.asp
State of recognition: Whether the UN grants the PA status as a state or refuses to do so, either outcome will be in Israel’s interest
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/09/20119158427939481.html
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Professor Mazin Qumsiyeh teaches and does research at Bethlehem and Birzeit Universities in occupied Palestine. He serves as chairman of the board of the Palestinian Center for Rapprochement Between People and coordinator of the Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements in Beit Sahour He is author of “Sharing the Land of Canaan: Human rights and the Israeli/Palestinian Struggle” and “Popular Resistance in Palestine: A history of Hope and Empowerment”
Ashrawi and Tibi say Obama made it sound like Palestinians are occupying Israel
By Ira Glunts | Mondoweiss |September 21, 2011
Hanan Ashrawi, who is part of the Palestinian delegation at the UN, reacted angrily to President Obama’s UN address. Here are some quotes from a Ha’aretz interview in Hebrew that took place immediately after the speech (Barak Ravid, “Palestinian Anger Over Obama Speech at the UN” (original title), Ha’aretz (Hebrew))
I did not believe what I heard, it sounded as if the Palestinians were occupying Israel. There was no empathy for the Palestinians, he only spoke of the Israeli problems.
He told us that it isn’t easy to achieve peace, thanks, we know this. He spoke about universal rights – Good, those same rights apply to Palestinians.
[The Americans] are applying enormous pressure on everybody at the UN, they are using threats and coercion. I wish they would invest the same energy in an attempt to promote peace, not threats.
Ahmad Tibi, a Palestinian member of the Israeli parliament, who is in NYC with the Palestinian delegation, was also interviewed by the newspaper. He echoed Ashrawi when speaking about the Obama address:
It is possible to think after hearing the President’s speech today, that the Israelis were demanding a state from their Palestinian occupiers.
Avoiding [mentioning] the ’67 borders was biting and clear.
His message is continued suffering for the Palestinians, accompanied by long and perpetual negotiations with Netanyahu.
The fact that Tibi, who is an Israeli politician, traveled with the PA delegation to the UN is viewed by many as controversial in Israel. Many Israelis take a very dim view of cooperation between Palestinians from Israel, with officials in the territories; they see it as disloyalty to the state. I know it sounds crazy, but that’s the way they think.
Both Tibi and Ashrawi insisted that despite the pressure, the Palestinians will go forward with the UN resolution as planned. According to an AP report, Mahmoud Abbas says that he will not agree to a delay in voting for the statehood resolution despite pressure from the US and France.
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A low-fat, high-carb diet has been the largest public health experiment in history. It’s past time for a rethink.
By Malcolm Kendrick | RT | November 25, 2020
New research suggests that four billion people globally will be overweight in 2050. This trend can be traced back to the ‘low-fat, high-carb’ guidelines first issued in the 70s, and should prompt a major U-turn on dietary advice.
A recent report from the Potsdam Institute predicts that by 2050 there will be four billion overweight people in the world, with one-and-a-half billion of them obese. This is not entirely surprising. The world has been getting fatter for years, and things do not seem to be slowing down.
Why is this happening? … continue
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