World View: Israel Scrambles to Weaken UN Vote on Palestinian Status

This morning’s key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com:

• Israel tries desperately to dilute Abbas’ bid for state of Palestine
• Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood seeks to consolidate power on Thursday
• Iran tells its people to marry younger and have babies

Israel tries desperately to dilute Abbas’ bid for state of Palestine

Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas has arrived in New YorkCity, and on Thursday he’s expected to win a vote in the UnitedNations General Assembly on a resolution that will create a state ofPalestine, giving it non-member-state observer status. Israeliofficials had been hoping to build a block of 40-50 “quality” nationswould either abstain or vote against the resolution, but that is nowunlikely. The US, Canada, Germany and the Czech Republic are expectedto oppose the resolution, but France, Spain, Denmark, Ireland,Switzerland and numerous non-“Western” countries will support theresolution. At the last minute, Israeli officials are trying todilute the vote by asking countries that vote in favor of theresolution to “submit an explanation with their vote [saying] it is apolitical statement confined to the UN system, and does not constitutetrue recognition of an actual state in Palestine.” 

As we reported yesterday, Hamashas reversed itself, and is now in favor of the U.N. resolution.Once the resolution passes, Hamas will be pressuring Abbas’sgovernment to use his new status as the head of the state of Palestineto bring war crimes charges against Israel in the InternationalCriminal Court. Israel indicates that, if that happens, then it willbring its own charges against Palestine. The West is hoping that oncethe vote is over, Palestine will resume the “peace process” talks withIsrael. Jerusalem Post and LA Times

Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood seeks to consolidate power on Thursday

In a move that’s certain to spark deep outrage, Egypt’s MuslimBrotherhood dominated Constituent Assembly announced that they arerushing the completion of the country’s new constitution, and will putit to a vote on Thursday morning. The announcement shocked everyone,because they were scheduled to work on it until February 12, 2013.Apparently the change was made for completely cynical reasons.Furious judges in Egypt’s Supreme Constitutional Court have announcedthat they “won’t be blackmailed” by president Mohamed Morsi’s recentdecree giving himself dictatorial powers, and reportedly they wereplanning to rule on the legality of Morsi’s decree as well as theactions of the Constituent Assembly as early as Sunday. So thewriting of the constitution was sped up to get it completed before thecourt could rule. Once it passes the Constituent Assembly vote, itwill go to a nationwide referendum in a week or two. The newconstitution is expected to be strongly Islamist. Protesters havecontinued to fill the streets, and the new constitution, when itbecomes public on Thursday, is liable to be extremely inflammatory.Al-Ahram (Cairo) and LA Times

Iran tells its people to marry younger and have babies

Sunni Muslim countries have had explosive birth rates in the last 60years. I attribute this to some kind of community decision that,after the destruction of the Ottoman Empire in 1921, Sunni Muslimsshould have as many babies as possible, in order to win the next war.Iran, a Shia Muslim country, has not been a part of this “communitydecision,” and its birth rate has been more typical of the West. Butnow Iranian officials are encouraging people to marry younger and havemore babies. The authorities have scrapped all population-controlprograms that had been in place for decades, and even the SupremeLeader Ayatollah Khamenei apologized to the people for havinginstructed them in the past to bear fewer children. Radio Zamaneh

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