Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process
This weekend The Guardian, Al Jazeera, and Haaretz all had posts dealing with the apparent movement toward preliminary talks in the long stalled Israeli-Palestinian final status negotiations. The Guardian post noted that the Israelis had agreed to the release of Palestinians held in Israeli jails: "Yuval Steiniz, Israel's minister for international relations, said a prisoner release would be carried out in stages. 'I don't want to give numbers but there will be heavyweight prisoners who have been in jail for tens of years,' he told Israel Radio." Somewhat more pessimistically they noted that Steiniz "said Israel would balk at agreeing on the pre-1967 border as the parameter for territorial negotiations. 'There is no chance we will agree to enter any negotiations that begin with defining territorial borders or concessions by Israel, nor a [settlement] construction freeze'. " As for the Palestinian position, The Guardian reported "A senior Palestinian official said President Mahmoud Abbas had signed up 'not to a resumption of negotiations but only talks about talks'. The Palestinians would demand a written statement that the 1967 border would be the basis for territorial negotiations, he said, but the expectation was that Israel would refuse." Al Jazeera also noted the prisoner release although they quoted Steiniz that the number would be limited. " 'There will be a limited release of [Palestinian] prisoners,' Steinitz, the minister in charge of international relations and strategic affairs, told public radio on Saturday without giving numbers." Al Jazeera's Rosalind Jordan, reporting from Washington, said "There's been concern about the number of settlements being built in the Occupied West Bank and a growing sense of dread that the prospect of a two state solution was slipping away. It could be said that, if nothing else, Kerry has made a full throated effort to try to keep the two state solution alive." Haaretz reported on the role of European sanctions against the illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian land in getting the parties to at least be at the same table: "The officials said the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas felt that the EU sanctions supported his position and therefore encouraged him to give up on his demand for a complete settlement freeze. Netanyahu, on the other hand, was alarmed by the sanctions’ effect on Israeli markets and on its international standing; furthermore he feared that Israeli public would blame him personally for Israel’s isolation."
Stand Your Ground
Florida's "stand your ground" law, which played a major role in the acquittal of George Zimmerman has been the object of rightful outrage in the past week. In The Daily Show’s take on it, "acting-host John Oliver cuts to the quick, beginning with this:
“… According to Florida law, you can get a gun, follow an unarmed minor, call the police, have them explicitly tell you to stop following them, then choose to ignore that, keep following the minor, then get into a confrontation with him, and if at any point during that process you get scared, you can shoot the minor to death and the state of Florida will say, ‘Well, look, you did what you could.’”Meanwhile, Mother Jones debunks the conservative argument that the stand your ground law did not play a role in the acquittal. From the Florida authorities' early mishandling of the case to the judge's instructions to the jury, the existence of the law was clearly the determining factor in the acquittal. The July 19 post concludes that, in spite of the defense team not raising the issue of the statute, "in the end the statute still helped the defense. In a follow-up statement to CNN after her interview sparked criticism, Juror B-37 said: 'My prayers are with all those who have the influence and power to modify the laws that left me with no verdict option other than 'not guilty' in order to remain within the instructions.' And she and her fellow jurors may never have had to endure the trial if it weren't for Stand Your Ground, suggests [Laura] Cutilletta, [a senior attorney at the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence]. "The increased paranoia that comes with being armed combined with the sense of legal entitlement to kill at will, we think, all contributed to the incident even occurring in the first place."
In The Daily Show’s take on it, "acting-host John Oliver cuts to the quick, beginning with this:
ReplyDelete“… According to Florida law, you can get a gun, follow an unarmed minor, call the police, have them explicitly tell you to stop following them, then choose to ignore that, keep following the minor, then get into a confrontation with him, and if at any point during that process you get scared, you can shoot the minor to death and the state of Florida will say, ‘Well, look, you did what you could.’” THIS IS CHILLING AND UNFORTUNATELY HOW IT PLAYED OUT.