Israel Matzav

Obama's kapo: Israel will say 'yes' to a 'settlement freeze'

We took the paper in this morning (yes, we still get a hard copy the JPost delivered) and on the front page with a banner headline is a picture of Bob Wexler (if I have to suffer, so do you) , who is currently in Israel for the third time since December, telling us that Israel 'will say yes' to a 'settlement freeze.' Mrs. Carl looked at the headline and said "why should we do that?" And I answered, "we won't. He can't vote here." Thankfully, neither of us has eaten yet, so there's no breakfast to be lost.

Israel would lose nothing, and potentially gain everything, by agreeing to a temporary moratorium on construction in the settlements for a short period of time, Congressman Robert Wexler, a close political ally of US President Barack Obama and a stalwart Israel supporter, told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday.

...

"A request for a moratorium or freeze in settlement activity that can be mutually agreed upon by the US and Israel in the next several weeks is a tiny, tiny gesture and down payment to make when you look at potentially what is on the other side of the equation," said Wexler.

It's not a 'tiny gesture' and in any event it's not what's on the table as far as the Obama administration is concerned. Maybe Wexler should get his talking points straight before blowing off to the media. For the record, here's what the Obama administration told Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post earlier this week.

"We have not changed our position at all," a senior administration official said yesterday after the Barak-Mitchell meeting. "Nor has the president authorized any negotiating room."

Not to mention that even a 'temporary freeze' is a slippery slope that is not in Israel's best interests.

On other side of the equation, he said, were 22 Arab countries being urged by the US to take significant steps now towards normalization with Israel.

And so far, they have just said no. What are you going to do about it? Refuse to sell them any more weapons after you've armed them to the teeth? Refuse to buy oil from them? Besides, as we will see below, the 'steps toward normalization' are a farce - the barest of bare minimums.

"I want to call their bluff," Wexler said. "I want to see, if Israel makes substantial movement toward a credible peace process, whether they are willing to do it. And if they are not, better that we should find out five or six months into the process, before Israel is actually asked to compromise any significant position."

Whether 'they' means the 'Palestinians' or the Arab states, their bluff has been called so many times that there's no point in calling it again. Ehud Barak called it in 2000. Ariel Sharon called it in 2005. Ehud Olmert called it in 2008. And that's just this decade. How many more times do we have to call their bluff to get a moron like Wexler to understand that the Arabs don't want peace? Insanity, said Albert Einstein, is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. How many more times do we have to do it?

Asked what would happen if Israel were to say no to the moratorium request, Wexler said, "I don't think Israel will say no. I don't see an equation where it is in Israel's interest to say no, so I believe Israel will say yes, under a certain set of qualifications that Israel will agree to. This is one hundred percent in Israel's national security interest."

Hey moron - you don't run this country. You're not part of the coalition. You're not even a citizen and you can't even vote. After the way you and your friend have dumped on us for the last six months, where the hell do you come off telling us what's in our interest? It's not in our interest and most Israelis understand that it's not in our interest. Deal with it.

Regarding the types of "qualifications," Wexler said that that was up to the Israeli prime minister to decide.

"Any process of discussion requires compromise, particularly amongst friends and allies if they are coming from different points," he said, adding that every reasonable actor in the process understands that in a political dynamic there must be give and take.

Go tell God Obama that. He thinks he can dictate to us.

Wexler bewailed that while the US demands on Israel were highlighted in the Israeli press, Washington's demands on the Arab world were not gaining similar attention.

According to Wexler, the Obama administration was making "equal, if not greater, demands on the Arab world in the context of starting the process and negotiations."

Wexler said that the demands on the Arab world - Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States and the North African Arab states - were quite substantial in terms of steps of normalization. He said what was being discussed were trade offices, direct economic links, cultural and educational exchanges and over-fly rights for Israeli air carriers.

What is this with the Obama administration and 'overfly rights'? Do they think we want to take pictures of El Al planes over Mecca? Who cares!?!

And why does anyone think any of these 'trade offices' and 'direct economic links' are going to be worth anything anyway? How much trade do we have with Egypt or Jordan? How many Jordanians or Egyptians are willing to set foot in this country? Do you want to get an idea? Google, "Jordan, normalization" and see how many results you get. Read some of the results - you'll be appalled. Remember Nancy?

Thirty years after Camp David, all of Egypt's war game scenarios involve Israel.

And Jordan and Egypt are countries with whom we have 'treaties.'

When asked why the Arab world couldn't first show signs of a willingness to normalize before Israel declares a moratorium, Wexler characterized such a demand as "childish."

No, you and your God President are childish. You have no notion of compromise or fair play. You break agreements pretend agreements don't exist when it suits you. That's how children play - they throw tantrums if they lose so if they're really smart, they fix the game so that they win.

You know who's childish? The Arab-Muslim world that's still stuck in the 8th century and is incapable of taking responsibility for its own problems and shortcomings. But if you keep treating them like spoiled children, they'll never grow up, will they?

"And if the Arab world fails to deliver," Wexler said, "you can rightly say that all bets are off."

The Arab world failed to deliver in 1937, 1947, 1967, 1978, 2000, 2005 and 2008. Among other times that it was given the opportunity. How many more chances do they get before all bets will truly be off?

Wexler dismissed concerns that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was waiting for Obama to "deliver" Israel while the PA made no conciliatory steps, saying that if he did believe that, he was disabused of the notion by Obama's positive response to Netanyahu's speech last month at Bar-Ilan University.

"If in fact the Palestinians believed that the American posture was that they didn't have to do anything, and the Americans would take care of this, then I think they learned the hard way," he said.

Funny, I haven't heard Abu Bluff say that. But I did read what he told Jackson Diehl of the Washington Post in May.

Abbas and his team fully expect that Netanyahu will never agree to the full settlement freeze -- if he did, his center-right coalition would almost certainly collapse. So they plan to sit back and watch while U.S. pressure slowly squeezes the Israeli prime minister from office. "It will take a couple of years," one official breezily predicted. Abbas rejects the notion that he should make any comparable concession -- such as recognizing Israel as a Jewish state, which would imply renunciation of any large-scale resettlement of refugees.

Instead, he says, he will remain passive. "I will wait for Hamas to accept international commitments. I will wait for Israel to freeze settlements," he said. "Until then, in the West Bank we have a good reality . . . the people are living a normal life." In the Obama administration, so far, it's easy being Palestinian.

So what exactly have they 'learned the hard way'?

Wexler was also dismissive of the notion that the US was pushing Israel hard on the settlement issue as a way of bringing down the Netanyahu government.

"The president of the US does not have a view, or an opinion, or either a tactical or strategic posture on the government of Israel," he said. "The idea that the president, or anyone in any position of responsibility in Washington, is designing a process to undermine the policy or position or standing of the government of Israel is absurd."

And I suppose the President never talked to Sarcozy about his little dump on Lieberman from the beginning of the week. Tell me about it.

Channel 1 reported last night that according to an Israeli source, Obama would be announcing his Mideast peace plan within a month.

Oh joy! Within one more month, we can officially write that we have a 'rift.'

Wexler is a pompous ass who has no business trying to dictate to Israel. If you leave now, Bob, you can get back to Washington before the Sabbath. GO HOME NOW!!!

UPDATE 8:41 AM

Paul Mirengoff has more comments here.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 6:57 AM