RUTHFULLY YOURS

There is a dangerous madness afoot in the Murray-Darling Basin. With the lunacy of green alarmists now firmly wed to the self-interest of a money-soaking bureaucracy, a problem that did not exist is being “remedied” with policies guaranteed to create a genuine disaster.
Now the subject of a Senate inquiry, the Murray-Darling Basin Plan (MDBP) became law as a result of lobbying by environmentalists and the unquestioning support for their cause by most media organisations during the recent drought.

As the long Millennium Drought dragged on and stored water became scarce, authorities correctly rationed its use to ensure basic needs would be met, even if the drought continued. Annual-crop irrigators were getting little or, in most cases, no water at this time. But environmentalists used this naturally recurring situation to make sensational claims and blame irrigators, miners, even the building of dams, for environmental problems that did not exist. They failed to appreciate that, despite the drought being the longest in over two hundred years and our vastly increased water needs as a result of population growth, sensible water management had kept most of our rivers running and all basic water needs supplied throughout the drought. This was in stark contrast to the four droughts in the hundred years prior to 1915, when the rivers of the MDB ran bone dry.

More than 30 dead in Israel as Palestinians armed with knives attack innocents. What’s responsible? A campaign of incitement, which slanderously accuses Jews of intruding on the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem and murdering Arab children in cold blood.

And who is legitimizing this campaign? None other than Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, whom President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have long held up as a peacemaker. “I think nobody would dispute that whatever disagreements you may have with him, he has proven himself to be somebody who has committed to nonviolence and diplomatic efforts to resolve this issue,” Obama told writer Jeffrey Goldberg in 2014.

That’s a strange view of commitment. This is the same Abbas, remember, who rejected then–Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert’s absurdly generous 2008 peace offer. The same Abbas who resisted negotiations with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during the ten-month settlement freeze in 2010, which Obama demanded explicitly on the grounds that it would give Abbas the cover he needed to begin talks. Abbas finally relented to Saudi pressure and attended a few meetings with Netanyahu that September. But under no definition of what the word “negotiation” actually means were these meetings for real: The freeze was about to expire, the get-togethers were perfunctory, and nothing of significance was discussed. The farce ended soon after.

The next intifada is on, and the Obama administration, as one would expect, is on the wrong side.

There has been a spike in Palestinian terrorism over the past few weeks. One has to call it a spike because Palestinian terrorism is always thrumming — there’s never a real stop. About 70 Israelis have recently been mauled, and some killed, in over two dozen sneak attacks, mostly by stabbing.

The ultimate cause of the rampage is the Palestinian determination to eradicate Israel’s existence as a Jewish state by a two-track campaign of internal violence and international political pressure. As I’ve previously detailed, this is the “one-state solution” preferred by Islamists and Leftists. It is abetted, wittingly or not, by the “two-state solution,” a bipartisan Beltway obsession that entails pressuring Israel to accommodate next-door neighbors who will be satisfied with nothing less than burning its house down.

The proximate cause for the current bloodletting is incitement by Palestinian political leadership, particularly Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas (also known as “Abu Mazen”).

President Obama stressed at a press conference today that it’s “important for both” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas “to try to tamp down rhetoric that may feed violence or anger or misunderstanding” in the region.

At a press conference with South Korean President Park Geun-Hye, Obama — who’s made no secret of wanting a Mideast peace deal as one of his legacy issues — added that “I don’t think we can wait for all of the issues that exist between Israelis and Palestinians to be settled in order for us to try to tamp down the violence right now.”

“I think my views are well known that over time, the only way that Israel is going to be truly secure, and the only way the Palestinians are going be able to meet the aspirations of their people is if they are two states living side by side in peace and security. Those talks, which Secretary Kerry put an enormous effort in, and before that a number of our envoys and Secretary Clinton put enormous effort in, have stalled, and I think it’s gonna be up to the parties, and we stand ready to assist to see if they can restart a more constructive relationship,” he said.