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post from TPMCafe on 03 November 2009 09:17:00 AM. © TPMCafe

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Palestine Economy: Update

post from TPMCafe on 03 November 2009 09:17:00 AM. © TPMCafe

I spent the day in Ramallah yesterday, attending a meeting of information technology and telecom entrepreneurs, and catching up with some of the folks I reported on in last month's Harper's: Palestinian business leaders who are, slowly but surely, laying the ground for Palestinian civil society; people fighting the limitations of occupation at every turn just to keep their businesses afloat, while the Netanyahu government boasts about "economic peace."

I reported, for example, on the stalled efforts to launch Wataniya, the Palestine Investment Fund-backed cell phone provider, which had been promised 4.8 megahertz of spectrum by the Israeli government. (Wataniya was conceived by the PIF to compete with Jawal, in effect, the monopoly provider that had been started by the dominant PALTEL, and which now has a million and a half subscribers.) It is important to understand that Wataniya would be stiffening the spine of the Palestinian economy as a whole by inducing competition, and bringing down prices, for services every emerging business desperately needs.
Wataniya--so its Chairman, the PIF's head, Mohamed Mustafa, told me--was organized to offer Palestine's first 3G network. When I wrote my piece, Israel had released only 3.8 megahertz but kept the rest without explanation, suggesting Jawal share what it had. Mustafa was threatening to bury the entire deal, rather than launch Wataniya with one arm tied behind its back. Anyway, Wataniya finally launched a couple of days ago, a "soft-launch" Mustafa told me, not without good cheer, practicing his elevator speech. The company would not be able to offer all the services it had prepared for; it would focus instead "on customer service" while offering 2.5G services like text and messaging.

It is hard to imagine a management more persistent or forward-looking. The conference was buzzing with hopes engendered by the PIF's various investments, not only in telecom, but in commercial office parks and micro-lending. Yet PIF investments are hamstrung by, among other things, its being shut out of Jerusalem. One feature of competition in Palestine's telecom industry is customer poaching by Israeli providers. (Palestinian companies have exclusive rights in Area A, the centers of Palestinian towns and cities where the Israel Defense forces tend to stay out; but in Areas B and C, where the army and settlers operate freely, and in East Jerusalem--altogether, in two-thirds of the Palestinian territories--Israeli cell phone companies operate illegally but with impunity.) In East Jerusalem, Palestinian providers have no access whatsoever.
WHICH BRINGS ME to increasingly ominous economic trends in East Jerusalem, the once and historic hub of all West Bank cities, including Ramallah. The former economics minister of the Palestinian Authority, Bassim Khoury, recently sent me his summary of depressing data ferreted out of Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics. The conclusions suggest why Ramallah's business class may well lose the race to preempt a Bosnia-type violence that may engulf them and Jerusalem both:
Per capita income of Arabs in Jerusalem is less than half of Jews, who are on average the poorest in Israel. Unemployment among Arabs is 25%, 10% higher than in the West Bank as a whole. Infant mortality is almost double that of Jews, though the birthrate is about the same. About 85% of the municipal education budget goes to Jews, 15% to Arabs, though Arabs are about 30% of the grade school population. 50% of Arabs live under the poverty line, while 25% of Jews do so. This means both Arabs and Jews have about 125,000 people officially defined as "impoverished," but the Jews get 88% of the welfare budget. The city of Jerusalem spends about five times more on Jews than on Arabs per capita for municipal services of all kinds (sewage, garbage collection, etc.). Jews get 98% of the "cultural" budget.
Remember, East Jerusalem is now separated from the other West Bank cities by a wall. The idea was to fence out deadly violence. But the trajectory of social relations in the city suggest violence is only being fenced in. (This was predictable.) Last week's disturbances at Al-Aqsa suggest how it will start, which is pretty much the way violence has started in Jerusalem since 1920. Considering the Jewish people's past, it would be rude to call East Jerusalem a kind of ghetto. So let's just call it a walled-in, patrolled, increasingly impoverished enclave for people with diminishing political rights and unlimited encouragement to leave.
Yasir Barakat, among the most established merchants in the Old City, tells me he knows "nobody whose educated children are not planning to leave Jerusalem if they can." Yasir is one of my oldest friends in Jerusalem. He is not sleeping well. His daughter is now in Dubai, a son is studying in England, and another son, with a degree in network security from England, is working (for now) in Ramallah. "Let's be honest. There is no give-and-take anymore. The Jews think this all belongs to them and that's that."

West Bank - Palestine - Business - Middle East - Ramallah

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This Week in Congress

post from Daily Kos on 03 November 2009 09:16:07 AM. © Daily Kos

(This week's edition is brought to you courtesy the compilation skills of Casual Wednesday and CABerkeleyWV. SusanG)

In the House, courtesy of the Office of the Majority Leader:

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2009 AND THE BALANCE OF THE WEEK

On Tuesday, the House will meet at 8:00 a.m. for Morning Hour debate. The House will then meet at 9:00 a.m. for legislative business and recess immediately. The House will reconvene at approximately 10:00 a.m. in a Joint Meeting with the Senate to receive Her Excellency, Doctor Angela Merkel, Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany. On Wednesday and Thursday, the House will meet at 10:00 a.m. for legislative business. On Friday, the House will meet at 9:00 a.m. for legislative business.

Suspensions (14 Bills)

H.R. 3639- Expedited CARD Reform for Consumers Act of 2009 (Rep. Maloney – Financial Services) (Subject to a Rule)

H.R. 2868 - Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Act of 2009 (Rep. Thompson (MS) – Homeland Security) (Subject to a Rule)

H.R. 3962 - Affordable Health Care for America Act (Rep. Dingell – Energy and Commerce/Ways and Means/Education and Labor) (Subject to a Rule)

Conference Reports may be brought up at any time.

Motions to go to Conference should they become available.

Possible Motions to Instruct Conferees.

In the Senate, courtesy of the Office of the Majority Leader:

Monday:

Convenes: 2:00pm
Morning Business until 4:00pm with senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

4:00pm resume H.R.3548, Unemployment Benefits Extension Act of 2009.

There is a 3:00pm filing deadline for first degree amendments and 4:00pm filing deadline for second degree amendments to HR3548.

5:00pm cloture vote on the Reid-Baucus substitute amendment to H.R.3548.

The Senate is in a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.There will be no further roll call votes during today's session.

Votes:
332: Motion to Invoke Cloture on the Reid-Baucus substitute amendment;
Invoked: 85-2

Unanimous Consent:
Adopted S.Res.331, a resolution congratulating the United States MIlitary Academy at West Point on being named by Forbes magazine as America's Best College 2009

Adopted S.Res.332, a resolution commemorating the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall

Tuesday:

Convenes: 10:00am
Recess from 10:15am until 11:30am to allow for a Joint Meeting of Congress.

At 10:30am, German Chancellor Angela Merkel will address a Joint Meeting of Congress. Senators are encouraged to gather in the Senate Chamber at 10:00am so that senators may proceed as a body to the Hall of the House at 10:15am.

Following the Joint Meeting, the Senate will resume consideration of H.R.3548, Unemployment Benefits Extension Act of 2009, post-cloture.

The Senate will recess from 12:30pm until 2:115pm to allow for the weekly caucus luncheons.

Same old song.

Tuesday. November. Suspensions.

Over in the Senate? More debate on yesterday's decision to end debate on the question of whether or not to begin actually talk about voting on extending unemployment benefits. Sen Kit Bond (R-MO) and Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) both said NO to that idea.

Awesome.

The committees at least have a little action going (full schedule appears below the fold). And the House Dems will roll out their merged health insurance reform bill. So we've got that going for us. Which is nice.

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Today's Alleged "Bellwether" Elections Aren't
Bellwethers & Don't Say Much About Nat'l Politics

post from Open Left - Front Page on 03 November 2009 09:15:00 AM. © Open Left - Front Page

I appeared on CNN American Morning yesterday to discuss today's highest profile elections. You can[...]

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Today's Alleged "Bellweather" Elections Aren't
Bellweathers & Don't Say Much About Nat'l Politics

post from Open Left - Front Page on 03 November 2009 09:15:00 AM. © Open Left - Front Page

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Foreign Policy as Snake Charming

post from TPMCafe on 03 November 2009 09:14:00 AM. © TPMCafe

A very good piece on President Obama's foreign policy worldview in yesterday's WaPo by Scott Wilson. Focusing on Obama's statements about the shared interests and responsibilities of nations, Wilson gathered assessments of the emerging Obama doctrine from many leading lights of the foreign policy world (one added source that would've been interesting is Richard Haass, whose 2005 book The Opportunity essentially previewed the shared interests approach).

The article highlights what I consider the United States' central foreign policy challenge: getting other nations moving in the direction we desire. As NSC communications strategist Ben Rhodes put it, if nations were already inclined to live up to their responsibilities, "this would be easy."

So despite being a huge fan of Lee Hamilton, I have to quibble with a description he gave of Obama's approach -- that the president is putting "a lot of faith in his persuasiveness." The narrative of persuasion is one of the great misconceptions of this debate. The diplomacy of shared interests and responsibilities isn't an attempt to overcome skepticism via mesmerizing rhetoric and the force of our arguments. The administration isn't waiting for the Iranian government to tell us "you're right, our uranium enrichment is bad for global security." In a case like Iran, the real objective of tough-minded diplomacy is to offer a stark choice between cooperation and continued pressure from a unified front of powerful nations, as Secretary Clinton stressed in rejecting Iran's attempt to reopening the nuclear deal (via Politico).

With respect to gaining the cooperation of others more broadly (including to maintain pressure on Iran), my own tack is to ask what the alternative is. If the only hope for international cooperation lies in those areas where traditional national self-interests converge, this would all be easy. More to the point, international politics as usual would leave many problems -- nuclear proliferation, global warming, poverty, Israel-Palestine -- on a very negative trajectory.

It shouldn't take a lot of enlightenment to see the enlightened self-interests on these issues. A little statesmanship is all we're asking. After all, that's why they're called world leaders.

Barack Obama - Foreign policy - Iran - Washington Post - United States

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Just Wondering

post from Talking Points Memo on 03 November 2009 09:09:00 AM. © Talking Points Memo

Hmmm. Close race, state with big African-American population, election day, Fox/Drudge right-wing news machine ... isn't about time for the phony vote fraud allegations to start flying? That's what I thought. [...]

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Market Updates: Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRKA),
Burlington Northern Santa Fe (NYSE: BNI), Bank of America (NYSE: BAC), Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ),

post from Jutia Group on 03 November 2009 09:06:59 AM. © Jutia Group

Shares of Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) shot up 1.7 percent to $60.50 in premarket trading today, after the company stated that it would cut roughly…

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Cheers and Jeers: Election Day '09

From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE...

Just Another Tuesday

[Yawn]

Oh yeah, that's right...it's election day! I should've known by the 200,000 people standing in my living room holding ballots and magic markers, trying to decide if my being---soul, id, ego, spirit, whatever you wanna call it---is "equal enough" to deserve entry into the world of civil marriage. They're checkin' my teeth, smellin' my pits, making me turn my head and cough, and asking me if I recite the Red Sox Loyalty Oath every day. (Well, duh!)

I've been through a bunch of these referendums and they never become any less insulting. But, to paraphrase Don Rumsfeld, "You go to the voting booth with the referendums you have, not the referendums you might want or wish to have at a later time." Or something like that. And so today Maine's GLBT residents will once again be hoisted up on a jack (quit shoving!) and inspected for quality and purity, hoping that the "Grade A Equal Citizen" tattoos applied to our butts by the legislature and the governor last spring won't suddenly be scrubbed off by the voters. (They use Brillo Pads---Owie! Owie!)

So how did the 'No on 1' campaign perform? Well, let me put it this way: win or lose, I hereby nominate Jesse Connolly for Governor. The organization is amazing. I'm sure there were times of massive internal frustration and crisis, but the campaign has had this constant, reassuring hum to it. They stayed on message, responded to the right's lies quickly and unequivocally, raised lots of dough, and creatively recruited volunteers with campaigns-within-the-campaign like Calls for Equality and "volunteer vacations." Their ads were crisp and featured dozens of real Maine families. (The other side featured a few glum conservative Christian teachers from Maine---the rest of their cast consisted of out-of-staters and stock footage they rented that'll probably turn up one day in commercials for life insurance and laxatives.) And their ground game, with several regional offices, could well be the silent secret weapon that puts us over the top.

'No on 1' has a contagious buoyancy about it---a grassroots energy that I haven't felt in my bones like this since the heady days of Howard Dean's campaign, circa late 2003. Yesterday, for example, they put up an Act Blue "thermometer" and broke their fundraising goal three times in just a few hours. Jesse literally ran to the bank before it closed to wire money to TV and radio stations for more ad time. The guy's a friggin' George Bailey. (And now that I think about it, the head of the opposition has the same black-hearted soul as Mr. Potter.)

There were no trip-ups by 'No on 1' during the campaign. No slip-ups. No scandals (though the 'Yes on 1' campaign clumsily tried to create some). Just the occasional little brushfire that typically burned itself out in a news cycle. The question on everyone's lips around the country during this campaign was, "Did they learn from the mistakes of the anti-Prop. 8 campaign?" Yes. Yes Yes Yes.

Meanwhile, with one exception (the Lewiston paper, which stayed neutral), Maine's newspapers strongly endorsed a 'No' vote. As much as we appreciate the larger ones (The Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram, The Bangor Daily News), I think the wisdom in the smaller ones is even more gratifying. Like, for instance, the Lakes Region Weekly:

At the heart of the issue of same-sex marriage, past all the very public rhetoric of faith, morality and tradition, is the very private love and commitment between two adults, and society's duty to recognize that. [...]

And, no, domestic partnerships will not do. To many gay couples, they are an embarrassment, an indication that the love they feel so clearly is simply not up to par with that between a man and a woman. It implies a lower status, a lesser commitment. Separate but equal can never really be equal. [...]

Nothing would change, except throughout Maine, in gatherings large and small, all people who love each other enough to commit to a life together, with all its ups and downs, could do just that.

Amen. To the legislators and campaign organizers, volunteers and advocates, donors and phonebankers, bloggers and pastors, carpoolers and canvassers, Bishop Gene Robinson and Governor John Baldacci and 87 year-old internet star Philip Spooner (go ahead---watch him again), families and friends and complete strangers from here and away, and of course the Daily Kos community---all of you who helped our state get this close to upholding our historic marriage equality law:

Thank you. You've made this demeaning ritual rather inspiring.

Good lord willin' and the creek don’t rise, we'll have good news to report tonight.

Cheers and Jeers starts in There's Moreville... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]

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David Vitter Confronted by Rape Victim at Town
Hall Meeting Over Franken Amendment Vote

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From Think Progress-- Rape Victim Confronts Vitter Over His Vote Against Franken?s Amendment Holding Contractors Accountable:

Last month, Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) proposed an amendment to the 2010 Defense Appropriations bill that would withhold defense contracts if companies ?restrict their employees from taking workplace sexual assault, battery and discrimination cases to court.? Although the amendment passed, 30 Republican senators voted against it.
One of the Republicans singled out for especially harsh criticism following the vote was Sen. David Vitter (R-LA), who has a track record of siding against women?s rights. The Huffington Post?s Sam Stein reports that at a town hall meeting this past weekend, a constituent confronted Vitter about his vote. The woman, a rape victim, demanded that he explain why he opposed Franken?s amendment. Vitter refused to give her a straight answer.

As Sam Stein noted at the HuffPo--"The exchange was contentious, heart wrenching, and potentially damaging."

WOMAN: It meant everything to me that I was able to put the person who attacked me [behind bars]. And what allowed me to do that was our judicial process. I showed up in court every day to make sure that happen.
VITTER: And I'm absolutely supportive of any case like that being prosecuted criminally to the full extent of the law.
WOMAN: But there are rape victims who are being kept silent.
WOMAN: But how can you support [a law] that tells a rape victim that she does not have the right to defend herself?
VITTER: Ma'am The language in question did not say that in any way shape or form.
WOMAN: But it is unconstitutional to have a law that says a woman does not have a right to defend herself.
VITTER: You realize Mr. Obama was against that amendment that his administration was against that amendment
WOMAN: But I'm not asking Obama. I'm asking you.
VITTER: Do you think he's in favor in rape?
WOMAN: I'm asking you Senator. What if it was your daughter who was raped? Would you tell her to be quiet and take it? Would you tell your daughter to be silent?