7/13/2022

My Dear Friend & POTUS, JRB,

            Another banner day for you in the news. You should go to the Mid-East more often. 6 of the 7 mentions in the NYT are about your trip. 8 of the 17 in the WP are, too. The G has the lowest ratio with only 4 of the 13 mentions being on the topic.

 I wish I had time to get fully informed about your voyage. The one piece I had time to read was in the Times of Israel piece with the header, “Tel Aviv Municipality okays banner for Biden displaying Palestinian flag: Municipality withdraws request to remove Peace Now billboard, which welcomes US president and proclaims support for two-state solution.” Apparently, the Knesset entertained a bill to ban the Palestinian flag, but it faced legislative hurdles. Now that the parliament has been dissolved, it has stalled. Did you see the banner? If so, what did you think?

The NYT notes that this is a “tricky’ time for the US & Israel, & includes a whole article which notes “the shadow of two slain journalists will hang over his trip …Jamal Khashoggi & Shireen Abu Akleh, the veteran Palestinian-American journalist for Al Jazeera.” Is that awkward for you?

            What say you to OHB’s guy, Ben Rhodes statement, “When the Biden visit is inevitably presented as advancing normalization between Israel and Gulf monarchs, we cannot ignore the uncomfortable reality that the accords have become a get-out-of-jail-free card for the brutal subjugation of democratic dissent?” 

            Wouldn’t it be nice if we could all just get along so we could work together on fighting climate change rather than wasting our resources fighting each other?

            I’m afraid that our misfits VVP & MAH had a positive meeting & Russia plans to “deepen defense cooperation with Burma.” VVP will run out of weapons at some point, but in the meantime, he sure is making a mess of things. WINTA!!!

            BYBS,