EU and US slam Netanyahu building permit plan
Shavua tov, a good week to everyone.Not surprisingly, the EU and the US have slammed Prime Minister Netanyahu's plan to hand out building permits before implementing a 'settlement freeze.'
Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini told reporters the EU's 27 foreign ministers were all against the move, following similar criticism levied by the USAll Netanyahu is doing is handing out building permits so that when (not even if - but when) the 'negotiations' lead to nothing, the permits are in place to continue building. Virtually no one in this country is willing to make the 'freeze' permanent.
"The announcement made to build new buildings and new settlements exactly at the moment when all the international community is asking Israel for a freeze has been criticized by the ministers of foreign affairs," Frattini said after the ministers completed the first day of a two-day meeting in Stockholm.
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British Foreign Secretary David Miliband reiterated EU calls for a complete settlement freeze to spur the restart of peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians.
"Our position is absolutely clear and that settlements are illegal and an impediment to peace and that obviously anything in East Jerusalem is particularly difficult," Miliband said.
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The EU comments came after White House press secretary Robert Gibbs reacted strongly to Netanyahu's plan, with a bluntly worded statement condemning the move.
"We regret the reports of Israel's plans to approve additional settlement construction," it said. "As the president has said before, the United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued settlement expansion and we urge that it stop."
The plan "is inconsistent with Israel's commitment under the road map" outlining a path to Israeli-Palestinian peace, Gibbs said.
The bottom line - which has yet to penetrate Obama's thick head - is that there isn't going to be peace here in the foreseeable future. There is nothing that Israel can offer that would be acceptable to the 'Palestinians.' There is no one to negotiate on behalf of the 'Palestinians.' And the 'Palestinians' have yet to fulfill the most basic requirements for peace: Accepting Israel as a Jewish state (which ought to be a precondition for resuming talks) and dismantling the terror organizations. For those three reasons, peace is not on the horizon. In the best case scenario, the status quo is on the horizon - in the worst case scenario there is war.
Unlike Obama and the Europeans, Netanyahu is acknowledging reality.
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:07 PM
1 Comments:
We live in a world in which Jews building a few apartments in their own country is viewed as a threat to peace. No one is being harmed by construction. No Palestinian has been dispossessed or harmed by Jews living among them. Its not like the EU and the US have any real proof Israel's decision undermined the peace process and while they attack Israel, they overlook the Palestinian rejection of peace.
What could go wrong indeed
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