UN Palestine Vote Gives PA Access to International Criminal Court

Both Israel and the U.S. fear legal accountability. They care less about moral responsibility.  After all, Palestine is now a “state,” giving it the power to join the International Court should they wish to do so.  And they should at some point propitious down the road.

UN General Assembly adopts resolutions supporting Palestine | Maan News Agency

UN General Assembly adopts resolutions supporting Palestine | Maan News Agency

.The usual suspects voted against these measures to help Palestine, among whom we can now include the Harper Regime, who appears to be consistently obstinate for different reasons from the others since it is only indirectly - through trade - dependent on the U.S. The others must bow and lick to the U.S. wishes to receive financial foreign aid support.

#Palestine #Canada

Israel seizes $120m in Palestinian tax revenue over UN vote | World news | guardian.co.uk

Israel seizes $120m in Palestinian tax revenue over UN vote | World news | guardian.co.uk

Palestinian official accuses Israel of desperation after second punitive response to UN vote recognising state of #Palestine

Israel has seized more than $120million in tax revenues it collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority in resp

onse to last week’s overwhelming vote at the UN general assembly to recognise the state of Palestine.

The move came as the PA president, Mahmoud Abbas, returned to cheering crowds in Ramallah in the West Bank following Thursday’s vote, in which 138 countries backed enhanced “non-member state” status for Palestine. Only nine countries opposed the move and 41 abstained.

The financial sanction is Israel’s second punitive response to the vote. On Friday, it announced a big settlement expansion programme.

This is an outrageously unjust and vindictive act of retaliation. It would seem Israel under the current hard-liners could care less what the world thinks since it appears to do nothing meaningfully interventionist, and as long as the U.S. continues to back Israel more or less right or wrong, why should it, Israel appears to say.

I support the lawsuit against the Bank Of Canada|Strikes meaningfully at the core of #neoliberalismfacebook.com/Support.lawsui… #cdnpoli #cdnecon
— Barry Cameron (@AppalledBC) December 2, 2012

Palestine: Harper Regime's Utter Stupidity

For Palestine it's one thing to vote against its elevation to statehood. That remains a respectable decision. It's quite another to campaign aggressively against admission to statehood as the Harper Regime has done in one of its darkest moments of utter stupidity. Baird was one of only three foreign ministers to speak on the issue before the vote and the only one to speak against the motion. With that audacious performance, Harper's personal threats, and other forms of bullying prior to the vote, the Regime has invited the emerging organized, targeted enmity of the Arab world and no doubt profound distrust in much of the Muslim world as well. 

As we all know, Canada's prestige across the Globe has been disintegrating at an extraordinary rate over the past six years. It's close to the nadir now, and, with this latest failure, we are bound to suffer in terms of not just diplomacy but trust and goodwill, political power, and most of all where it really hurts - trade and economics. 

Canada’s economy in a stall, StatsCan reports

There’s every chance we’ll have at least a technical recession in the fourth quarter given these statistics:

“The economy slumped to 0.6 per cent in the third quarter — below even the gloomy 0.8 consensus and about one-third what the Bank of Canada had predicted as recently as the summer — as trouble loomed on the export side, housing and business investment….

In addition, Statistics Canada revised downward the second quarter one notch to 1.7 per cent and September, the last month, was flat, meaning the handoff to the current fourth quarter was weak… The big shock in the third quarter report was that business investment, which the central bank has been counting on to support the economy, fell two per cent per cent annualized, and residential construction dived 4.4 per cent…As expected, net trade also weighed heavily on the economy in the third quarter as exports plunged 7.8 per cent on weak global demand and soft commodity prices.”

Only Christmas consuming will save the economy, he said facetiously. It will be amusing to see what propagandistic spin Flaherty and Co. put on this one. One thing's for sure: he won't ever admit that the neoliberal growth model is failing.

Canada’s economy in a stall, StatsCan reports

Canadian aid to Palestinians may be on chopping block after UN vote

For bully boy Baird, international front man for the Harper Regime, to consider cutting off or freezing aid to Palestine is unadulterated, childish vindictiveness should he choose to follow through with such a threat (with apologies to children everywhere). How can such a wicked act be construed even remotely as a form of diplomacy? Want to invite the wrath of the world? Such an act might do it.

Contrast this diplomatic statement from the PLO: “The Palestinian Liberation Organization fully respects the votes cast by all member states in the General Assembly, irrespective of whether they were in favour of, abstained from, or were cast against the resolution.” 

Aid on Chopping Block