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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dennis O'Bell who wrote (104331)	7/9/2003 2:03:30 AM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Ambassador Kurtzner has few illusions about the roadmap or the adequacy of the hudna. He does say - this is the first I've heard of it - that US pressure induced the EU and Saudi Arabia to cut the funding they give to Hamas, and that helped motivate the hudna. Hamas still thinks they can outmaneuver the PA, Israel and the US, though. Kurtzer says Palestinian PM is a 'relatively weak man' By Shoshana Kordova, Haaretz Correspondent United States Ambassador to Israel Daniel Kurtzer has called Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) a "relatively weak man" who tends to "run away from problems." Speaking Monday evening to some 150 rabbis and Jewish lay leaders in Jerusalem, Kurtzer said Abbas is "doing a little bit better," in part due to U.S. pressure. "It's not easy to change behavior patterns after that many years," he told the group, which is attending summer seminars at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. American support of Abbas is secondary to the U.S. desire to remove Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat from power, Kurtzer added. "Our objective was not to empower an individual named Abu Mazen; our objective was to disempower an individual named Arafat." The ultimate goal, Kurtzer said, is to see the recently created prime ministerial structure institutionalized in "a serious Palestinian constitution that will outlive its incumbent." "Abu Mazen, we know, is a relatively weak man," who tends to "run away from problems rather than try to solve them," Kurtzer said. Abbas' perceived weakness could make it difficult for the PA to subordinate groups such as Hamas under a national governing body, which Kurtzer said the PA must do if the Palestinians want to "get their act together." "The analytical assumption," Kurtzer said, "is that it has to happen in the next few months." The fragile temporary cease-fire agreement could still be undone by what Kurtzer called "a game of chicken" between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority to see "who can do better as a result of this hudna (truce)." He said Hamas does not believe it will be dismantled, and that there is a concern that it could try to use the cease-fire to become stronger. "Hamas believes it can outsmart and outfox the PA, Israel and us," Kurtzer said. One of the reasons compelling Hamas to join the Palestinian cease-fire was a cut in the funding it received from Saudi Arabia and Europe, a move that came about due to pressure from the United States, Kurtzer said. He added that the U.S. was still fighting European resistance to reduce direct and indirect financial aid to the militant organization. The U.S. is also maintaining "very strong pressure" on Syria and Iran, which have been implicated in sponsoring terror and create "the most problems when it comes to stirring up trouble in this region," the ambassador said. Kurtzer repeated U.S. President George W. Bush's assertion that the U.S. is not interested in an internal Palestinian cease-fire except as a means to dismantle terror groups, and that the U.S. will not accept a potential breakdown of the hudna as an excuse for failing to do so. In addition, the U.S. is pressing for a return of the Egyptian and Jordanian ambassadors to Israel as a signal to other countries in the region that normal Arab-Israeli relations exist, Kurtzer said. The U.S., he added, would like to see a resumption of regional conferences that include Israel and Arab countries on shared issues such as water and the environment. The most hopeful element of the nascent peace process is the bilateral political track that has developed between key Israeli and Palestinian leaders, Kurtzer said. The ambassador said that while Abbas and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had informed the U.S. of their meeting last week, "they did it themselves." "We didn't hold their hands, we didn't give them statements, we didn't give them incentives," Kurtzer said. He also pointed to the follow-up meetings that took place Sunday between Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz and Palestinian Minister for Security Affairs Mohammed Dahlan, and Monday between Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom and Palestinian Information Minister Nabil Amr, as a signal that direct political negotiations are moving forward. "It is a very interesting development that we certainly did stimulate," Kurtzer said. "But the fact that they've taken this and run on their own is, I think, one of the best hopes this process has." haaretzdaily.com

To: Dennis O'Bell who wrote (104331)	7/9/2003 4:29:51 AM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

I sometimes represent local members of the postal workers' union. After many years of interaction with postal workers, my perception is that the working environment is peculiarly dehumanizing with a lot of daily degradation and humiliation - which I find incomprehensible. Not many work environments simultaneously contain the worst of working for the government, belonging to a union, and working for private industry. Martin Marietta is probably similar but not as bad. I know engineers at Martin Marietta who like the place, but that's very different from being an assembly line worker. The US post office has developed a zero tolerance program for violence. If someone is threatening violence, they're out the door, immediately, and can't come back until they've passed a fitness for duty exam which includes a psychological evaluation. This is because postal workers are typically members of some labor union, and also many of them are in the civil service, with Veteran's preferences, so they have rights that workers in private industry don't have. This policy was put into place after a number of incidents of mass murder by a postal worker. In private business, if you aren't producing, you're out the door. In this quasi-private, quasi-public environment, postal workers typically can fight for months while still getting pay until they are finally terminated - or, sometimes, get their jobs back. I think the "mad as hell and not gonna take it anymore" syndrome arises in part from a sense of entitlement. For postal workers, if the boss looks at them funny, they go running to file grievances with the union, and civil rights claims with the EEOC. Sometimes justified, more often than not, completely unjustified. Last year I kept a guy on the payroll for more than a year before I ran out of viable options and persuaded him to let me pull the plug, and I probably could have kept it going longer if I had been willing to be dishonest. The scenario you suggest, shootings at town council meetings, puzzles me. What is the motivation? Here, it seems that males are most vulnerable when they are teenagers in high school, getting pushed around and subjected to daily degradation and humiliation by more athletic men, and rejected by women, and when they are middle-aged, and being shoved aside by younger men. In other words, there is a strong component of damaged ego.