On the heels of more Obama administration meddling in the middle east, Palestinian Authority officials, are going to move ahead aggressively to show the world that it’s the fault of Israel that there is no 2 state solution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

According to a Ynet report: Senior Palestinian Authority officials believe that now is the time to exert massive international pressure on Israel, following US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit to the region and ahead of the establishment of a new Israeli government led by Benjamin Netanyahu. “There is an opportunity for the world to strongly enter the diplomatic negotiations and impose the two-state solution on Israel,” a senior PA official told Ynet on Friday. “The world did not intervene when Israeli had a convenient government in which Kadima and Labor made the decisions, claiming that this was the Israeli peace camp bargaining on marginal issues. “Here the world will understand that this Israeli government opposes the peace process and its current form in principle and ideologically, and therefore we anticipate that this is the best timing for the world to intervene and force Israel to implement the agreements.”

So the Palestinians want to paint themselves as the peace loving people. Humm. I guess using a tractor to ram a bus full of school girls on their way to volunteer at a hospital to cheer up sick patients, is a good way of showing just how peace loving you are.

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For those of you who still don’t think that new US Prez. Barack Obama is going to be pressuring Israel to make all kinds of concessions, you had better wake up. According to an article in Globes, Obama plans on getting directly involved in trying to shape the new Israeli government. According to Globes: “US President Barack Obama reportedly may urge Israeli political leaders to form a national unity government, according to British newspaper “The Daily Telegraph.”

To be fair, the article says that PM wannabe Benjamin Netanyahu may enlist Obama to lean on another PM wannabe Tzipi Livni, to have her join a national unity government that Netanyahu would head. I hope that this is not true but if it is, it doesn’t speak much of Netanyahu. Are we already seeing the ‘old Netanyahu’ surface? He may be the best finance minister in Israel, and he make the best Foreign minister as well, but the jury is out on his ability as a PM. It almost seems at this point that his only drive is to become PM. After all, he ran a pretty bad election campaign, basically trying to run out the clock and not make any slip-ups in order to win the election. His strategy came at the expense of his own Likud party who managed to win only 27 seats, when the potential existed for somewhere in the mid-30’s.

Now he is gonna to enlist/succumb to US pressure in order to become PM? What are the ramifications of this? Are there any Israeli politicians left that won’t do anything for power? Pretty sick. And what about Obama? Shouldn’t he leave the make up of the next Israeli government to Israeli’s? Doesn’t he have enough domestic issues to deal with?

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Go figure. The Israeli government’s emergency plan to tackle the water shortage has failed. When will people learn that the government can’t solve our problems. Anyway with the driest January on record, Israel is in desperate need of about 100 million cubic meters of water for 2009.

According to a report in Globes:” Shani added that the Water Authority’s emergency plan, designed to rescue the water economy from its difficult crisis, was being implemented, but that it was inadequate. “We are currently working on a further emergency plan, in partnership with other government ministries, to cope with the worsening drought,” he said.”

Once again I am baffled as to how a country that leads the world in water technology and exports it to countries in need, can’t deal with its’ own water problems.

Aside from implementing technology and preaching conservation, I think that the only real solution will be through prayer. We basically need everyone to pray for rain in the holy land.

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In a surprise move, S&P has kept Israel’s credit rating at ‘A’ and the forecast rating at ’stable’. This comes as surprise to many market participants who expecting a rating cut on the heels of the Israel war with Hamas, and the deteriorating economic situation.

In a report by Globes: “S&P economists wrote, “approval of the rating reflects the Israeli government’s commitment to fiscal discipline and the strength of the Israeli economy after five years of strong growth at the rate of about 5%, despite the tense political and fiscal atmosphere which currently reins.” Regarding the war in the south the S&P economists explained that events in Gaza were not expected to significantly damage Israel’s ability to raise capital and they added, “the war with Hamas will only influence Israel’s economy in the short term, although the deterioration of the geo-political situation, including an armed conflict with Iran, would put heavy pressure in the direction of lowering Israel’s credit rating.”

I think that S&P’s view vis-a-vis the war in Gaza is very interesting. They believe that the war was a temporary blip. That means that if we were to see a new flare up the rating of Israel may be in some jeopardy. Only time will tell.

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