Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Predictable Piffle

My old paper the Chicago Tribune had an editorial this morning about the vote on Monday to admit the Palestinian Authority to membership in Unesco. Predictably, the editorial deplored Unesco's decision and approved the automatic (by law) withholding of further United States support for the organization. Equally predictably it gave as the reason for all this the fact that the Palestinian bid for Unesco membership was "pure political theater, symbolism without substance," and that it "undercuts attempts to restart Middle East peace talks."

Puh-leeze! I wonder how my former colleagues can write this sort of piffle with straight faces. By now everybody knows that the Tribune is going to disapprove whatever the Palestinians do on grounds that it "undercuts attempts to restart Middle East peace talks." And, of course, we'll read in a day or two that Israel's announced intention to speed up more construction in its illegal West Bank settlements was, well, just something that was forced on that poor, beleaguered little state by those meanies at the Palestinian Authority. What's a tiny, nuclear-armed bully to do?

Come on, Tribune. Surprise us! Say something other than the tired, AIPAC-inspired foolishness that insults the intelligence of any thinking reader. Get brave!

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