Sunday Round-Up - August 25, 2013

This is the weekly selection of articles and opinion from sources outside the US mainstream media.  Today we look at the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, Syria, and the growing disenchantment with the Eurozone's austerity measures in the Netherlands, heretofore a supporter of those policies.  Sources are Haaretz, Al Jazeera America, and The World Policy Blog. 


Haaretz reported on Thursday on a meeting between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and a delegation from Meretz, an Israeli left-wing party.  According to the report, Abbas "wants a negotiated peace agreement to include a clause stating that the conflict with Israel is over."  Abbas further clarified that "in any peace settlement the Palestinian state would agree to be demilitarized."  There apparently has been no progress during the last three rounds of negotiations according to Abbas.  He hoped to accelerate the meetings "to take place every day or every second day, and not once a week or every 10 days like the Israelis want. I don’t know why they don’t want to. We don’t have much time.”  Abbas wants the talks to lead to a final agreement, not an interim one and "noted that the negotiations have to deal with future borders of the Palestinian state. He said that Palestinians would accept changes to the 1967 borders as part of land swap agreements and left the door open to some Jewish settlements remaining under Palestinian sovereignty.  For their part, Meretz leader Zahava Gal-On "told Abbas that Meretz would provide Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with a 'safety net' if he makes progress toward the establishment of a Palestinian state."

On Friday, Al Jazeera America reported on Russia's call for a UN probe in the alleged Syrian gas attack earlier this week and on UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's request that the inspection take place without delay.  "Russia -- one of the most tenacious allies of the Syrian regime -- has called on the government of President Bashar al-Assad to allow a mission of United Nations inspectors to investigate alleged chemical attacks in the suburbs of Damascus and guarantee safe passage for U.N. workers entering the country, according to Reuters.  Russia has also called on forces opposed to Assad's government to guarantee the investigators' safety. Russia's appeal to Syria comes after months of warnings from Moscow against foreign intervention in the two-year civil war that has left more than 100,000 people dead and displaced nearly 2 million Syrians, including 1 million children....Syria's government, which has repeatedly denied the use of chemical weapons, offered no public response to the U.N. calls for its team to inspect the site of the attack."

Get ready for another round of Republican attempts to politicize the debt ceiling and threaten a government shutdown - this time in order to defund the Affordable Care Act.  The deficit/austerity hawks responsible for forcing the sequester on the country in a time of recession may have cost the US as many as 1.6 million jobs.  A government shutdown or threat to default on our debt would take another hammer to the still struggling economy.  So it was interesting to read that people in the Netherlands, who are among the strongest supporters of the austerity policies being applied in the European Union, are becoming fed up with the results.  The World Policy Blog had a post earlier this month on the growing opposition to the economic policies that have been unsuccessful in returning Europe to economic growth.  "The euro zone’s fifth largest economy is in its worst recession since the 1980s due to a sharp downturn in its property markets and high private sector debts following the global financial crisis of 2008. Last year the economy contracted by 0.9 percent and this year it could contract by another 1.4 percent."  Further austerity is not having a positive impact on the country's public sector debt, which "has grown from 45.3 percent in 2008 to an estimated 71.2 percent for 2013, according to Eurostat. The disenchantment is widespread across all parts of the population.  "Dutch economic policymakers must be exceedingly frustrated that austerity measures are not bringing about a reduction in the country’s debt burden or stimulating growth. The country’s debt-to-GDP level has actually risen over the past several years."