What a week to be in Los Angeles. As if watching the impeachment proceedings in the Senate isn’t bad enough, the breaking news of Kobe’s death hit like a thunderbolt. That is all anyone talked about. Kobe. Not impeachment. Not politics and not the long awaited Middle East Peace Plan.
On Monday morning, the day after Kobe’s tragic death, there was no L.A. Times or N.Y. Times to be found anywhere. Every supermarket and newsstand I went to look for a paper was sold out.
“Everyone buying the paper with Kobe’s death on the front page. Unbelievable! We never sell out like this” I was told more than once by newspaper stand vendors.
The Middle East Peace Plan announced on Tuesday by President Trump in the presence of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu played third fiddle to Kobe’s death and the impeachment proceedings.
The long awaited plan with its surprise announcement of a “Two State Solution” was quickly shot down by political pundits and experienced diplomats as futile, DOA. Dead like Kobe!
How sad. Even before the 80 page details of the plan are released next week, it is given little chance of success because the Palestinians refused to participate in its planning because of its pro-Israel stance.
“After the nonsense we heard today, we say a thousand no’s,” Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said of the deal.
The Peace Plan does create an independent Palestinian state for the first time in history with parts of East Jerusalem as its capital. The economic proposals include $50 billion in infrastructure spending and investment over 10 years.
Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Arab countries consulted about the plan over the last three years, supposedly support it and have told President Abbas to accept it. “Enough, is enough already,” is what Crown Prince MBS is alleged to have told Abbas. The Arabs, like the Israelis, are tired of supporting a Palestinian dead end cause at the expense of peace — and focusing on Iran and its Shiite threat to dominate the Middle East — through its proxies, including Hamas in Gaza.
Rest in Peace Kobe and may peace be upon us in the Middle East.