November 19, 2002

KRON.com has an expose of the latest communist plot against the United States and the free world, Vietnam is flooding the market with low quality coffee that tastes bad and contains items like, "sticks, twigs, chafe". 11:35:27 PM

The Israeli Labor Party picked Haifa mayor Amram Mitzna to be its leader and potential Prime Minister if Labor can form a governing coalition following the upcoming January 28 elections in Israel. As part of his election platform, Mitzna said he would immediately pull Israeli troops and settlers out of the Gaza Strip and if negotiations with the Palestinians don’t produce an agreement pull out of much of the West Bank in a year’s time. While Mitzna becoming Prime Minister would certainly shutup people like Eric Alterman (at least for a while) it is by no means clear that this plan would help. It does not force the Palestinians to accept Israel as a state in the Middle East, nor does it solve the issue of their demand for a "right of return’ and can be seen as an unilateral withdrawal that is a sign of weakness. If Israel does begin negotiations or conduct a withdrawal; international pressure is needed to force the Palestinians to use the opportunity for peace, not for violence as a way of advancing their demands. 11:00:50 PM