AT HOME AND ABROAD (ISRAEL)

To me it sounds like we're still sitting on square one. As noted in the last posting, President Obama proposes to have some tax increases as part of his plan to pay for his jobs program. And perhaps even bigger changes in the tax code to fund a long term plan for deficit reduction.


That having been said, GOP House Speaker Boehner said a few days ago that he would accept no tax increase proposals from the Super Committee set up about 7 weeks ago to reduce current deficit spending by $1.2-1.5 trillion and permit an equal increase in the national debt ceiling. To that amount Obama has proposed adding the $450 billion cost of his jobs program, pushing the Super Committee's target up to close to $2 trillion. The Committee is to send its plan to Congress by Thanksgiving. Boehner apparently has no problem with this as long as the Committee rejects any new spending and meets the target through cuts in expenditures only.


So it sounds like we are back to where we were in August, and before, when Congress was dealing with funding the federal government for the remainder of fiscal 2011 and then struggling with raising the debt ceiling to avoid a national fiscal default. In short, we can expect a rerun of the same deficit/debt/new revenues arguments that we heard all summer. The latest poll gave Congress a 12 percent approval rating. Can it go lower? And what about Obama's approval rating?


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If the above combination of fact and opinion isn't depressing enough, what seems to be lying ahead in the United Nations may be equally discouraging for U.S. policy and Israeli political isolation. The U.S. image in the Muslim world may suffer another downward slide when Palestinian President Abbas asks the U.N. Security Council to grant full U.N. membership to the Palestinians. That is certain to draw a U.S. veto and bring with it new denunciations from the Muslim world and some others about U.S. policy in the Middle East. That pro-Israeli policy has been a huge problem for the U.S. since Israel was established through a U.N. vote in l948.


The Palestinians plan to backup the certainty of a U.S. veto in the Security Council by going to the General Assembly for a majority vote there to upgrade its observer status. The change would permit it to participate in various U.N. organs and possibly bring legal action against Israel. Whatever action the U.N. may take, it involves the status of the Palestinians within the international organization. It does not involve establishment of Palestine as an independent state.

Adding to the sensitivity of the problem is Israeli Foreign Minister Lieberman, a far right member of the governing coalition, who threatened that the Palestinian U.N. strategy could lead to "dire consequences". What these consequences might be were undefined but formal annexation of Israeli settlements on Palestinian territory into the state of Israel is one possibility. Whatever the "dire consequences" may be, the end result of all of this will be some form of international condemnation by many countries of Israel and add further to the political isolation of that country.

The growing isolation was evidenced most recently by Turkey, a one time close ally of Israel, booting out Israel's top diplomats. The degrading of Turkish-Israeli relations is rooted in the killing of nine Turks during an effort by an international group to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza by trying to bring in a shipload of relief supplies. Others have suggested that the deterioration of relations is a sign that Turkey, governed by a Mulim based party, is sliding toward closer relations with Islamic fundamentalists.

Adding to the increasing isolation of Israel was the recent incident on the Egyptian-Israeli border when people from both sides were killed by gunfire. That was followed by an attack on the Israeli embassy in Cairo and Israel's withdrawing its diplomats. Israel has expressed regret for the border incident and is investigating but no apology has been made. The lack of an apology to Turkey for the blockade-running incident is the ostensible reason for the breakdown in those relations.



And just last week Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan visited Cairo, along with Tunisia and Libya, to demonstrate Turkey's growing role in that part of the Arab world. The Cairo meeting might also fortell further problems between Israel and both Egypt and Turkey. Israel's relations with Egypt were already in trouble following the ouster of President Mubarak who supported Israel in a variety of ways and stood by the peace treaty between the two countries.


So at home and in the Middle East, there seems to be more more clouds gathering.