A newly revealed tape shows Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu once openly discussed his intent to attack the Palestinian government, undermine the Oslo peace accords, and manipulate the United States to ensure its approval. The 2001 recording shows Netanyahu meeting with Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank. Netanyahu was then out of government after serving his first stint in office. Apparently unaware he was being recorded, Netanyahu talks openly of a “broad attack” on the Palestinian government, saying, “The main thing, first of all, is to hit them. Not just one blow, but blows that are so painful that the price will be too heavy to be borne.” Netanyahu also outlines how he would undermine the 1993 Oslo accords, he said, which established the basis for Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, by declaring any West Bank land that Israel wants to retain as “military” and “security zones.” Addressing potential US opposition to Israeli expansionism, Netanyahu says, “I know what America is. America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction. They won’t get in the way.”

One can only assume, off camera, he added, “MUUUAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!”, for effect.

“Hamas resists Israel’s military occupation and its illegal and violent actions in the occupied territories. It is accused of refusing to recognize Israel (political parties do not recognize states). In contrast, the U.S. and Israel not only do not recognize Palestine, but have been acting relentlessly and decisively for decades to ensure that it can never come into existence in any meaningful form. The governing party in Israel, in its 1999 campaign platform, bars the existence of any Palestinian state—a step towards accommodation beyond the official positions of the U.S. and Israel a decade earlier, which held that there cannot be “an additional Palestinian state” between Israel and Jordan, the latter a “Palestinian state” by U.S.-Israeli fiat whatever its benighted inhabitants and government might believe.

Hamas is charged with rocketing Israeli settlements on the border, criminal acts no doubt, though a fraction of Israel’s violence in Gaza, let alone elsewhere. It is important to bear in mind, in this connection, that the U.S. and Israel know exactly how to terminate the terror that they deplore with such passion. Israel officially concedes that there were no Hamas rockets as long as Israel partially observed a truce with Hamas in 2008. Israel rejected Hamas’s offer to renew the truce, preferring to launch the murderous and destructive Operation Cast Lead against Gaza in December 2008, with full U.S. backing, an exploit of murderous aggression without the slightest credible pretext on either legal or moral grounds.“

There was only one other Canadian city in the running. Regina was also in the survey, but didn’t rank. My guess is that, since the list is technically intended for expatriates, Mercer figures there are more international job transfers to/openings in the cities they do survey. Either that, or somebody isn’t doing a very good lobbying job on behalf of the city. Calgary is their number #1 ranked “eco-city”, for chrissakes…

-Franklin Einspruch, Boston.