The Obama administration's position is that Israel should stop building new settlements in occupied Palestinian territory including East Jerusalem. Israel refuses. So what happens to the Palestinians in the near and medium future, given that the Likud-led government has no intention of allowing a Palestinian state--the Israeli right, whether religious or secular, has no interest in a two-state peace---and there is now no place to put one?

Netanyahu government is filled with hard-line opponents of a two-state solution, many of whom also believe that East Jerusalem is an integral part of Israel, and it is hard to see how Netanyahu’s coalition could survive if he agreed not to build those 1600 housing units...In the end, there is likely to be a rather muted, protracted dispute between the two sides over those housing units and the many others that the Netanyahu government plans to build in East Jerusalem. This ongoing conflict will be a constant reminder to Americans that Israel and the United States have conflicting interests on a very important issue.

Therefore, it will be difficult to disguise the fact that most pro-Israel groups are siding with Israel against the US president, and defending policies that respected military leaders now openly question. This is an awful situation for the lobby to find itself in, because it raises legitimate questions about whether it has the best interests of the United States at heart or whether it cares more about Israel’s interests. Again, this matters more than ever, because key figures in the administration have let it be known that Israel is acting in ways that at best complicate US diplomacy, and at worst could get Americans killed.

Is a two-state solution is impossible at this point? Is a ‘greater Israel’ is going to end up an apartheid state? Is that the trajectory of the Netanyahu government with its Avigdor Lieberman's far-right party, Yisrael Beiteinu, and Eli Yishai's fundamentalist Shas Party? The latter seems to think it is okay for Israel to keep expanding its control over Palestinian lands and that the United States should back Israel's actions no matter what it does. If the two-state solution fails, then the Palestinians will be occupied forever, and a greater Israel will become an apartheid state.

Though this opposition gives more bargaining power to the cross-bench senators, Senator Steve Fielding continues to oppose the reform, the legislation, which was rejected by the Senate, has been withdrawn until ---when?

The NBN Co has begun its network rollout in Tasmania and is on its way to become the dominant 'access' network provider. However, as expected, the negotiations with Telstra on the question of how much Telstra should be paid to co-operate with the network's construction are going b nowhere---as expected. Malcolm Maiden says that:

The commercial equation is unchanged: there is a maximum price NBN Co can commercially justify paying Telstra in return for access to Telstra ducts and pipes down which the new broadband fibre will run, and for the progressive adoption of Telstra customers as Telstra's existing network is overrun. That price is significantly less than Telstra says it can accept.

If you want to find out what is happening in Australia’s cities today, don’t go to the well-doctored planning glossies. You would be much better advised to attend a major railway station at peak hour, sit in a freeway traffic jam thirty kilometres out of town, bid at a house auction or inspect the abandoned excavation for a failed inner-city office block or apartment tower. Thank goodness the “Rudd Bank” never got up, otherwise we’d have an even greater rash of energy-intensive buildings that require us to burn coal merely to allow their occupants to move from floor to floor.

In South Australia water is an issue in the forthcoming state election. The current catchcry is “waterproofing” our city, which means cutting Adelaide's dependence on the dying River Murray. The Rann Government's water proofing strategy is desalinisation plants whilst the Liberal's waterproofing strategy is storm water retention. And so they fight and squabble over which is the best plan.

We do not hear much about creating more public spaces for reflection, for gathering, for contemplation; more trees and greenery in Adelaide's inner city; Victoria Square being better used as a public space; less cars in the city; or making the city area the vibrant cultural heart of the city. The future of Adelaide is a green economy hub – with renewable energy and good public transport at the centre.

The argument is that policy reforms instituted by the Rudd Government (dismantling border protection) are operating as a “pull factor”. The rhetoric is one of creating an image of an “invasion” by the world’s dispossessed, attracted towards us by a perceived weakening in our determination to keep them out, and that some unauthorised arrivals could possibly pose a threat to the security of the Australian community.

It's border security in the context of the war on terrorism.

It's all about being tough on border protection, given the public anxiety this issue has historically had in middle Australia, but there appears to be little indication of public groundswell for a harsher border security regime in a liberal society. Australia does not have refugee “crisis” or a border protection “crisis” and so we have experienced a sterile political debate about whether the recent increase in boat numbers is the result of pull factors or push factors rather than both.

Mandatory detention remains the default position for adult asylum seekers who reach Australian territory without a valid entry visa with mandatory detention being located on the offshore Christmas Island.What Labor has done is make processing of asylum claims far more efficient. A core problem is that people smugglers run a business and that business will expand where there are opportunities to make money. Peter Mares observes that today:

sovereignty is expressed more than ever in controlling the flow of people across borders. The primary organisational system in the world today remains the nation state, and in liberal democracies like Australia it is the citizens of those bounded territories who elect governments and shape policies. This makes the call for open borders a political impossibility. The citizens of an individual state have the power, through their elected representatives, to determine who comes into their country and the circumstances under which they come – though this power is not absolute [as it is] constrained by international agreements freely entered into – the Refugee Convention and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

What then? Where do the intercepted refugees go?

In Tasmanian Election 2010: Cynicism as Virtue in the Tasmanian Times Peter Henning comments about the latest scare campaigns against the Greens from the corrupt Lib-Lab alliance:

Certainly, the unity of the four former Labor-Liberal Tasmanian premiers is telling in one way, for it shows the electoral contest between Labor and Liberal is a hollow confection, with no basis in real differences in policy. In other words, the election itself is a deception, both parties exaggerating the minor differences they have to appeal as real alternatives to each other, when they are merely rivals for power within the same committee. The only thing that separates Labor from Liberal is the matter of personal self-interest, of competition for the perks of office. Nothing else.

the Bartlett Labor Government is set for a very serious trashing at the state election next Saturday. It will do well to keep the swing below double figures, is struggling to hold any of its four most vulnerable seats, and could even do so badly that others come into play.....One way of looking at it is to see the pre-2006 Labor government of Bacon and Lennon as a broadly centrist regime capturing both centre-left and centre-right votes. With the many failures and scandals of the last four years, and deliberate repositioning of both the other parties towards the centre, both wings seem to have fallen off the Labor aeroplane at once.

The good news is that Gunns are in a bad way these days.

For most individuals, their superannuation simply won't be enough, particularly for all those baby boomers closing in on the end of their working lives. All the dire warnings about this haven't changed a result that is about to become obvious.Forget all those images of relaxed, sprightly grey-haired couples strolling around shops and golf courses and cruise ships, figuring out how to enjoy their tax-free, carefree money. To sustain even a modest lifestyle, about 80 per cent of people over 65 are still reliant on a part or full aged pension to supplement their super savings, and that percentage is not expected to drop much during the next several decades.

It doesn't form part of the debate in the theatre of question time in Parliament, and is on the policy fringe of the various tax reviews that lie in the background.

Many say that spin is here to stay on the basis that it's a fact of political life.Tony Blair, for instance, observed that one cannot be a modern day politician without being versed in the black arts of spin---not to have a proper press operation nowadays is like asking a batsman to face bodyline bowling without pads or headgear.

Sushi Das in Political spin undermines democracy in The Sydney Morning Herald says that:

spin takes various forms. Bad news is released late in the day or on a heavy news day to reduce the negative fallout. Chosen journalists are given information exclusively to secure a positive slant. Unattributable background briefings are used to fabricate allegations or smear people. Exclusive stories are released as part of ''official leaks'' to set the agenda.

The Canberra Press Gallery rely on the patronage of Canberra insiders, many of whom depend on the spin masters for their stories. The problem is that despite their intense dislike for spin, these journalists depend on the spinners for information. This chummy media/government relationship explains why news management has been so successful for so long.

When spin becomes a matter of public comment, its usefulness is thereby reduced.This requires its exposure by a press that fights back against the manipulation from within government (state and commonwealth). Those journalists who desire to be watchdogs for democracy can ensure that spin gradually becomes most loathed and help public opinion identify politics as media management as nothing more than spin.

Once exposed, as Peta Duke spectacularly was in Melbourne, the public grows more cynical about politics.They perceive politics as a shadowy exercise in which truth is concealed and deception is practiced.

Health and hospitals policy is Kevin Rudd's King Kong and it could cause him as much damage as Kong did to the Empire State Building... These complex health changes will be a slow burn politically. The electorate has at least six months to pore over them and uncover any defects. The dearth of new money up-front will not help the medicine go down. When does the system start to improve? Paradise postponed yet again.

Subsidizing private health insurance is a classic example of the neo-liberal policy of the diverting of public funds to private industry, but Sinodinos talks in terms of "choice". Patrick Brownlee in Politics is a messyanic business in the Australian Review of Public Affairs digs beneath "choice" between public and private sectors. He says that subsidisation of private health (and education) should be recognised as part of the desiccation of the social contract that is transforming a collectivist to an individual incentive model of service delivery and created or pandered to a faux middle class sensibility.

The privatisation of education and health are dear to a neoliberal heart, where quality service is provided to those who have; while the idea that funds be collectively held and distributed by government for any such service causes at least mild reflux in your average neoliberal stomach.

So the Coalition's strategy messing with the system by throwing anything at the Rudd Government that comes to hand continues. It doesn't matter about the contradictions --introducing a big tax when the promise is no new taxes---as it is about getting noticed and destabilisation with whatever-it-takes to oppose the Rudd Government on everything.

The [commonwealth] government is challenging, quite correctly, the special interests of state governments and their health bureaucracies. What is needed next is for the government to find the political will to challenge other stronger special interest groups, particularly among the providers - the AMA, the Australian Pharmacy Guild, pharmacy companies and the private health insurance funds. They have legions of lobbyists who dominate the public debate at the expense of a community that is effectively excluded and disenfranchised.

Menadue's solution to the closed shop that excludes the community is for our health system to have its own independent body - a Reserve Bank for health--- an independent health commission with strong economic capabilities is necessary to facilitate informed public discussion, counter the power of special interests and determine programs and distribute Commonwealth health funds across the country.

By any measure, the crisis was a consequence of extraordinarily reckless behavior—by banks and other financial institutions, by governments and their financial regulators, and by consumers—behavior that continued even in the face of a widely shared sense that serious trouble was brewing...The failure of central bankers and regulators to rein in leverage—the practice of borrowing as much as thirty or more times one's equity capital to increase investment potential —and excessive risk-taking owes much to complacency that had developed over the preceding twenty to twenty-five years.

The central argument is that the FDA' s monetary policy of keeping interest rates low for so long encouraged the housing bubble and the explosion of borrowing throughout the economy. This helped to create a false sense of security and stability that enticed financial institutions and investors to leverage their investments enormously, borrowing sums that dwarfed the capital they committed. The second argument is that the regulatory mechanism failed to mitigate boom/bust cycles of the “casino economy” and only tinkered around the edges. Hence the need for reform of the international financial system.

The implication is that financial firms faced crises largely of their own creation and that government's needed to protect major financial institutions from system-threatening disasters. This insurance to keep the whole game going encouraged the financial firms to ever more risk-taking to enhance their profitability. Because of the benefits the big banks have accrued from a number of government programs/subsidies, the big banks are profitable again and now dictating the terms of financial “reform”. We have “asset price driven recovery", attempts to reinstate financial institutions as the motor force of the economic system, and bubble-driven economic growth.

What we have is the emergence of an unprecedentedly huge and fragile financial superstructure subject to stresses and strains (ie., financial bubbles that threatened to burst) that increasingly threaten the stability of the economy as a whole. If what has emerged since the 1980s is the shift in the center of dynamic core of the capitalist economy from production to speculative finance, then the normal economic situation is going to be an unstable one of more financial crises

There is not much enthusiasm for the politicians because they are not offering much in terms of policies and vision. Nothing about rejuvenating the inner city, nothing about mental health in South Australia or aged care; not much on climate change and rising sea levels. The only excitement is the sad faced, bully boy Treasurer (Kevin Foley) getting all hairy chested about his budget surpluses and eagerness to slash and burn the state bureaucracy to protect the state's AAA ratings.

What is offered so far is a worn out version of the same old policies and lots of heated bickering over nothing in particular (costings and dirty deals). The big issue, from what I can make out, is whether to spend $1.7 billion on a new hospital (the ALP on old railway yards in the city and return the present site to parklands); or to do up the old public hospital (Royal Adelaide Hospital) on the cheap ($700 million) and spend the rest ($1 billion) on a new sports stadium (the Liberals) on the site the Rann Government wants to use for the hospital.

Why anybody would want to retain the dilapidated Royal Adelaide Hospital (RAH) ----and, surprisingly many medical professionals do---is beyond me. The RAH is just too run down to rebuild whilst the clinical facilities are far from world class. I have never really understood the politics of those who want to retain the old RAH. Nostalgia?

Mike Rann has given the federal government’s health plans enthusiastic support saying he was “prepared to strongly support the direction of these reforms”. On the other hand, Isobel Redmond said she “would not be interested in handing over our health system to a federal Labor Government that has so badly mismanaged the home insulation scheme”.

They then suggest that "shifting health care governance and funding to regional agencies that are more responsive to the needs of communities would improve both equity and effectiveness in Australian health care."

They propose that all current health care funding from local, state and federal governments be pooled within a national agency and equitably distributed to local Regional Health Organisations (RHOs ) on the basis of evidence about health care needs.

To achieve more efficient and equitable outcomes it is not enough simply to shift resources from hospitals to health centres; we must address the social determinants of health and the inequalities of health in that the rich, urban, and healthy access more health care resources and services than the poor, rural, and sick.

Is it a tactical move---a circuit-breaker? Maybe. Maybe not. Stephen Leeder gives Rudd credit.

At least the criticism has resulted in steps taken towards health reform--- to get back to shaping the political agenda again shift. The reforms aim to shift away from Australia's heavy dependency on hospitals; to establish a new "independent umpire" at arm's lengths from government; to set "efficient national prices" of health services to be paid for by federal and state governments; the federal government taking over full funding responsibility for primary health care outside the hospital system; and new "Local Hospital Networks" paying for services, replacing the traditional model of Commonwealth grants to the states and territories.

However, what has been tabled in the reform agenda is two systems of government talking to one another with the commonwealth saying its gonna be xyz. Will the states concur? Will they reject it? No doubt more bribes (extra money as bait says Michelle Grattan) will be required to get them to accept national performance standards and the historic shift of power to Canberra on health care.

Update
I've re-read Rudd's Better health, better hospitals speech more closely. The core emphasis is that this fundamental reform is about improving hospitals. Rudd says this is:

Reform that for the first time enables eight state-run systems to become part of a single national network, using consistent national standards to drive and deliver better hospital services. Funded nationally. Run locally.The National Health and Hospitals Network contains seven major reforms. For the first time, the Australian Government will take on the dominant funding responsibility for all Australia's public hospitals from the states because the states simply cannot afford to fund the future growth of the system.

The Australian Government's funding share will almost double, from 35 per cent today to 60 per cent into the future - equating to an additional $11 billion per year from next year.The Australian Government will take clear financial leadership in the hospital system, permanently funding 60 per cent of the efficient price of every public hospital service provided to public patients.We will fund 60 per cent of recurrent expenditure on research and training functions undertaken in public hospitals.We will fund 60 per cent of capital expenditure - both operating and planned new capital investment - to maintain and improve public hospital infrastructure.

No previous Australian Government has accepted any responsibility for the funding of hospital infrastructure - let alone 60 per cent.Over time, we will also pay up to 100 per cent of the efficient price of 'primary care equivalent' outpatient services provided to public hospital patients.These reforms will permanently reverse the decline in the Australian Government funding contribution for public hospital services over the last decade.They will put an end to the tiresome cycle of the blame game between the Australian Government and the states over hospital funding.

The rhetoric is that this world class national curriculum is critical to maintaining Australia's productivity and quality of life. This set of educational goals and actions aims to better prepare young people for their participation in a changing and increasingly globalised world. Though it places Aboriginal and Asian ways of seeing the world into almost every subject, this is a ''back to basics'' approach with an emphasis on grammar and phonics on spelling, on sounding out letters, on counting, on adding up, on taking away.

Despite the three cross-curriculum dimensions of Indigenous history and culture, Asia and Australia's engagement with Asia and sustainability the "Australian Curriculum" is hardly an education revolution in a digital world, information society, and a visual world. The back to basics rhetoric is at odds with the 10 general capabilities of literacy, numeracy, information communication technology, thinking skills, ethical behaviour, creativity, self-management, teamwork, intercultural understanding and social competence.

However, the back to basic building blocks don't give much space to critical thinking in the sense of developing the knowledge and skills to be active and informed citizens who know how to think critically about contemporary issues of public concern. History is not the same as economics, the other social sciences, or ethics. Why should sustainability be taught in history?

This is not a world-class curriculum.