In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, former Israeli Ambassador to the United States and current MK Michael Oren (Kulanu) criticizes Prime Minister Netanyahu's handling of his relationship with President Hussein Obama, and then rips Obama for abandoning Israel. More after the lengthy excerpt (someone was kind enough to send me the full article by email).
[M]any of Israel’s bungles were not committed
by Mr. Netanyahu personally. In both episodes with Mr. Biden, for example, the
announcements were issued by midlevel officials who also caught the prime
minister off-guard. Nevertheless, he personally apologized to the vice
president.
Mr. Netanyahu’s only premeditated misstep was
his speech to Congress, which I recommended against. Even that decision, though,
came in reaction to a calculated mistake by President Obama. From the moment he
entered office, Mr. Obama promoted an agenda of championing the Palestinian
cause and achieving a nuclear accord with Iran. Such policies would have put him
at odds with any Israeli leader. But Mr. Obama posed an even more fundamental
challenge by abandoning the two core principles of Israel’s alliance with
America.
The first principle was “no daylight.” The U.S.
and Israel always could disagree but never openly. Doing so would encourage
common enemies and render Israel vulnerable. Contrary to many of his detractors,
Mr. Obama was never anti-Israel and, to his credit, he significantly
strengthened security cooperation with the Jewish state. He rushed to help
Israel in 2011 when the Carmel forest was devastated by fire. And yet,
immediately after his first inauguration, Mr. Obama put daylight between Israel
and America.
“When there is no daylight,” the president told
American Jewish leaders in 2009, “Israel just sits on the sidelines and that
erodes our credibility with the Arabs.” The explanation ignored Israel’s 2005
withdrawal from Gaza and its two previous offers of Palestinian statehood in
Gaza, almost the entire West Bank and half of Jerusalem—both offers rejected by
the Palestinians.
Mr. Obama also voided President George W. Bush’s
commitment to include the major settlement blocs and Jewish Jerusalem within
Israel’s borders in any peace agreement. Instead, he insisted on a total freeze
of Israeli construction in those areas—“not a single brick,” I later heard he
ordered Mr. Netanyahu—while making no substantive demands of the
Palestinians. Consequently, Palestinian President Mahmoud
Abbas boycotted negotiations, reconciled with Hamas and sought statehood in the
U.N.—all in violation of his commitments to the U.S.—but he never paid
a price. By contrast, the White House routinely condemned Mr. Netanyahu for
building in areas that even Palestinian negotiators had agreed would remain part
of Israel.
The other core principle was “no surprises.”
President Obama discarded it in his first meeting with Mr. Netanyahu, in May
2009, by abruptly demanding a settlement freeze and Israeli acceptance of the
two-state solution. The following month the president traveled to the Middle
East, pointedly skipping Israel and addressing the Muslim world from Cairo.
Israeli leaders typically received advance
copies of major American policy statements on the Middle East and could submit
their comments. But Mr. Obama delivered his Cairo speech, with its unprecedented
support for the Palestinians and its recognition of Iran’s right to nuclear
power, without consulting Israel.
Similarly, in May 2011, the president altered 40
years of U.S. policy by endorsing the 1967 lines with land swaps—formerly the
Palestinian position—as the basis for peace-making. If Mr. Netanyahu appeared to
lecture the president the following day, it was because he had been assured by
the White House, through me, that no such change would happen.
Israel was also stunned to learn that Mr. Obama
offered to sponsor a U.N. Security Council investigation of the settlements and
to back Egyptian and Turkish efforts to force Israel to reveal its alleged
nuclear capabilities. Mr. Netanyahu eventually agreed to a 10-month moratorium
on settlement construction—the first such moratorium since 1967—and backed the
creation of a Palestinian state. He was taken aback, however, when he received
little credit for these concessions from Mr. Obama, who more than once publicly
snubbed him.
The abandonment of the “no daylight” and “no
surprises” principles climaxed over the Iranian nuclear program. Throughout my
years in Washington, I participated in intimate and frank discussions with U.S.
officials on the Iranian program. But parallel to the talks came administration
statements and leaks—for example, each time Israeli warplanes reportedly struck
Hezbollah-bound arms convoys in Syria—intended to deter Israel from striking
Iran pre-emptively.
Finally, in 2014, Israel discovered that its
primary ally had for months been secretly negotiating with its deadliest enemy.
The talks resulted in an interim agreement that the great majority of Israelis
considered a “bad deal” with an irrational, genocidal regime. Mr. Obama, though,
insisted that Iran was a rational and potentially “very successful regional
power.”
The daylight between Israel and the U.S. could
not have been more blinding. And for Israelis who repeatedly heard the president
pledge that he “had their backs” and “was not bluffing” about the military
option, only to watch him tell an Israeli interviewer that “a military solution
cannot fix” the Iranian nuclear threat, the astonishment could not have been
greater.
Oren doesn't go far enough. His claim that Obama was 'never anti-Israel' doesn't square with the facts that we knew long before Obama was elected President. The fact that the one example Oren gives of 'significantly strengthened security cooperation' under Obama relates to a natural disaster and not to a military action is telling.
Oren seems to be placing the burden of restoring the US-Israel relationship to what it was on both the US and Israel. But clearly, one party here (the US in the person of the Obama administration) initiated the hostilities. The actions that Obama took immediately on taking office - the introduction of 'daylight' between the US and Israel, the Cairo speech, the Buchenwald visit in which he adopted the 'Palestinian' narrative of Israel's sole right to our land being based on the Holocaust, and the disavowal of the Bush letter - set the tone for the relationship, and it's up to Obama - more likely to his successor - to reset that tone.
Yesterday, I met with the Washington correspondent of a US-based newspaper. She asked me how Israelis feel about the United States. I told her 'Israelis love the United States and the American people. Israelis hate Obama. For good reason.'
Israeli official: 'No Palestinian state in our generation'
Confirming reports that the Obama administration had been part of a concerted effort to oust Prime Minister Netanyahu, a 'senior Jerusalem official' has told the Times of Israel that there will be 'no Palestinian state in our generation,' and that everyone knows it.
The Jerusalem official took Netanyahu’s
disavowal of Palestinian statehood further, claiming that a two
state-solution would be out of reach “in our generation,” due to
Palestinian rejections of Israeli proposals and US-led agreements.
“[Obama] continuously warns of a deteriorating
state of chaos in the [Palestinian] territories, when he knows that the
only place that truly manages to maintain stability in the Middle East
right now is [Israel],” the official said. “Netanyahu said there will no
agreement [with the Palestinians] during his term in office.”
A Palestinian state “won’t even happen in our generation,” the official added.” Everyone knows it.”
“They come and accuse us of torpedoing
negotiations even though they know that Palestinian Authority President
Mahmoud Abbas himself said no [to a deal], twice — once to
then-secretary of state Hillary Clinton in 2011, and once to Secretary
of State John Kerry last year.”
The official went on to refer to two
“framework documents, designed to jump-start the process” that were
accepted by Israel and rejected by the Palestinians, and accused the
administration of devoting too much energy to the Palestinian issue, to
the detriment of other, more pertinent regional challenges.
“Look at what we did about settlement
construction. We took upon ourselves all the restrictions laid forth
during the Sharon-Bush era, which allowed for building to accommodate
natural population growth, but not for building new settlements,” the
official continued, referring to an arrangement in the last decade
between then-prime minister Ariel Sharon and president George Bush. “But
the [current] administration does not recognize the Sharon-Bush
understandings. They’re working according to a ‘no-brick’ policy and it
doesn’t make any sense.”
Obama rejected the Bush letter in June of 2009. It was about a week before Netanyahu's Bar Ilan speech. Netanyahu's second government (the first of the Obama administration) was formed on March 31, 2009. Anyone not think Obama had it in for Israel from Day One.
Khaled Abu Toameh writes that 'moderate' 'Palestinian' President Mahmoud AbbasAbu Mazen is afraid to cut a peace deal with Israel.
[US Secretary of State John] Kerry failed to acknowledge that Palestinian Authority [PA] President
Mahmoud Abbas does not have a mandate from his people to negotiate, let
alone sign, any agreement with Israel. Abbas is now in the tenth year
of his four-year term in office.
Nor did Kerry listen to the advice of those who warned him and his
aides that Abbas would not be able to implement any agreement with
Israel on the ground. Abbas cannot even visit his private house in the
Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, and he controls less than 40% of the West
Bank. Where exactly did Kerry expect Abbas to implement any agreement
with Israel? In the city-center of Ramallah or Nablus?
What Kerry and other Western leaders do not want to understand is that Abbas is not authorized to make any
concessions for peace with Israel, and has even repeatedly promised his
people that he would not make any concessions for the sake of peace
with Israel.
In a speech in Ramallah on November 11, marking the tenth anniversary of the death of his predecessor, Yasser Arafat, Abbas declared: "He who surrenders one grain of the soil of Palestine and Jerusalem is not one of us."
This statement alone should be enough for Kerry and Western leaders
to realize that it would be impossible to ask Abbas to make any
concessions. Like Arafat, Abbas has become hostage to his own rhetoric.
How can Abbas be expected to accept any deal that does not include 100%
of his demands -- in this instance, all territory captured by Israel in
1967?
Abbas himself knows that if he comes back with 97% or 98% of his
demands, his people will either spit in is face or kill him, after
accusing him of being a "defeatist" and "relinquishing Palestinian
rights."
This is precisely why Abbas chose to walk out of Kerry's nine-month
"peace process." Realizing that Israel was not going to offer him 100%
of his demands, Abbas preferred to abandon the peace talks last summer.
For Abbas, it is more convenient to be criticized by the U.S. and
Israel than to be denounced by his own people for achieving a bad deal
with Israel.
Abu Toameh seems to believe that there are circumstances under which Abu Mazen might agree to a deal with Israel if Israel were to give him 100% of what he demands. Sadly, even that is not true. And even if Israel were to agree to 100% of Abu Mazen's demands and Abu Mazen were to sign on the dotted line, there is virtually no chance that he would keep to his side of the bargain, and there is even less chance that whoever succeeds him would keep to Abu Mazen's side of the bargain (a precedent that has sadly been encouraged by the Obama administration's behavior). This is not about a return to the 1949 armistice lines. It's about Israel's continued existence as the Jewish homeland in the region.
That's the reality in the Middle East and most Israelis have come to realize that over the last 14 years. The only chance of it ever changing is if the 'Palestinians' were to some day wake up and realize that they will never have a 'state' unless they reach and keep to a deal. And that will never happen so long as the one consequence of not making a deal - losing out to on the ground reality - is consistently thwarted by the international community's obsession with Israeli 'settlement building.'
Much of my conversation with Clinton focused on the Gaza war. She
offered a vociferous defense of Israel, and of its prime minister,
Benjamin Netanyahu, as well. This is noteworthy because, as secretary of
state, she spent a lot of time yelling at Netanyahu on the
administration's behalf over Israel’s West Bank settlement policy. Now,
she is leaving no daylight at all between the Israelis and herself.
“I think Israel did what it had to do to respond to the rockets,” she
told me. “Israel has a right to defend itself. The steps Hamas has
taken to embed rockets and command-and-control facilities and tunnel
entrances in civilian areas, this makes a response by Israel difficult.”
I asked her if she believed that Israel had done enough to prevent the deaths of children and other innocent people.
“[J]ust as we try to do in the United States and be as careful as
possible in going after targets to avoid civilians,” mistakes are made,
she said. “We’ve made them. I don’t know a nation, no matter what its
values are—and I think that democratic nations have demonstrably better
values in a conflict position—that hasn’t made errors, but ultimately
the responsibility rests with Hamas.”
Hillary appeals to the ADL crowd:
When I asked her about the intense international focus on Gaza, she
was quick to identify anti-Semitism as an important motivating factor in
criticism of Israel. “It is striking … that you have more than 170,000
people dead in Syria. … You have Russia massing battalions—Russia, that
actually annexed and is occupying part of a UN member-state—and I fear
that it will do even more to prevent the incremental success of the
Ukrainian government to take back its own territory, other than Crimea.
More than 1,000 people have been killed in Ukraine on both sides, not
counting the [Malaysia Airlines] plane, and yet we do see this enormous
international reaction against Israel, and Israel’s right to defend
itself, and the way Israel has to defend itself. This reaction is
uncalled for and unfair.”
She went on, “You can’t ever discount anti-Semitism, especially with
what’s going on in Europe today. There are more demonstrations against
Israel by an exponential amount than there are against Russia seizing
part of Ukraine and shooting down a civilian airliner. So there’s
something else at work here than what you see on TV.” Clinton also
blamed Hamas for “stage-managing” the conflict. “What you see is largely
what Hamas invites and permits Western journalists to report on from
Gaza. It’s the old PR problem that Israel has. Yes, there are
substantive, deep levels of antagonism or anti-Semitism towards Israel,
because it’s a powerful state, a really effective military. And Hamas
paints itself as the defender of the rights of the Palestinians to have
their own state. So the PR battle is one that is historically tilted
against Israel.”
But when it comes to Judea and Samaria, she doesn't offer much. Let's go to the full transcript for this part.
JG: Several years ago, when you were in the Senate,
we had a conversation about what would move Israeli leaders to make
compromises for peace. You’ve had a lot of arguments with Netanyahu.
What is your thinking on Netanyahu now?
HRC: Let’s step back. First of all, [former Israeli
Prime Minister] Yitzhak Rabin was prepared to do so much and he was
murdered for that belief. And then [former Israeli Prime Minister] Ehud
Barak offered everything you could imagine being given under any
realistic scenario to the Palestinians for their state, and [former
Palestinian leader Yasir] Arafat walked away. I don’t care about the
revisionist history. I know that Arafat walked away, okay? Everybody
says, “American needs to say something.” Well, we said it, it was the
Clinton parameters, we put it out there, and Bill Clinton is adored in
Israel, as you know. He got Netanyahu to give up territory, which
Netanyahu believes lost him the prime ministership [in his first term],
but he moved in that direction, as hard as it was.
Bush pretty much ignored what was going on and they made a terrible
error in the Palestinian elections [in which Hamas came to power in
Gaza], but he did come with the Roadmap [to Peace] and the Roadmap was
credible and it talked about what needed to be done, and this is one
area where I give the Palestinians credit. Under [former Palestinian
Prime Minister] Salam Fayyad, they made a lot of progress.
I had the last face-to-face negotiations between Abbas and Netanyahu.
[Secretary of State John] Kerry never got there. I had them in the room
three times with [former Middle East negotiator] George Mitchell and
me, and that was it. And I saw Netanyahu move from being against the
two-state solution to announcing his support for it, to considering all
kinds of Barak-like options, way far from what he is, and what he is
comfortable with.
Now I put Jerusalem in a different category. That is the hardest
issue, Again, based on my experience—and you know, I got Netanyahu to
agree to the unprecedented settlement freeze, it did not cover East
Jerusalem, but it did cover the West Bank and it was actually legitimate
and it did stop new housing starts for 10 months. It took me nine
months to get Abbas into the negotiations even after we delivered on the
settlement freeze, he had a million reasons, some of them legitimate,
some of them the same old, same old.
So what I tell people is, yeah, if I were the prime minister of
Israel, you’re damn right I would expect to have control over security
[on the West Bank], because even if I’m dealing with Abbas, who is 79
years old, and other members of Fatah, who are enjoying a better
lifestyle and making money on all kinds of things, that does not protect
Israel from the influx of Hamas or cross-border attacks from anywhere
else. With Syria and Iraq, it is all one big threat. So Netanyahu could
not do this in good conscience. If this were Rabin or Barak in his
place—and I’ve talked to Ehud about this—they would have to demand a
level of security that would be provided by the [Israel Defense Forces]
for a period of time. And in my meetings with them I got Abbas to about
six, seven, eight years on continued IDF presence. Now he’s fallen back
to three, but he was with me at six, seven, eight. I got Netanyahu to go
from forever to 2025. That’s a negotiation, okay? So I know. Dealing
with Bibi is not easy, so people get frustrated and they lose sight of
what we’re trying to achieve here.
I don't know when this interview was conducted but it's a pity that Goldberg didn't ask her whether her views have changed as a result of the 'discovery' of the terror tunnels (I put 'discovery' in scare quotes because it's been known here since 2006-07 - only the extent of them was unknown). Most Israelis are much less willing to make 'compromises for peace' than they were even a year ago. Sure, you'll still see polls that Israelis believe in the 'two-state solution,' but when you get into specifics they're willing to give up a lot less than what Arafat (2000) or Abu Mazen (2008) were offered and turned down.
Clinton also claims that Iran has no 'right' to enrich uranium and that Obama's failure to help the Syrian rebels early on left a vacuum into which the Islamists stepped.
Let's just say that I have a hard time trusting Hillary or any Democrat after the past eight years. Here's part of the reason why.
Hillary Clinton decides she needs the pro-Israel crowd
Hillary Clinton has decided that she cannot be elected President without money donated by the pro-Israel crowd. Therefore, her biography, to be published this week, tries to distance her from many of the anti-Israel actions of the Obama administration.
Speaking about the 2009 building freeze that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu submitted to, Clinton wrote "in retrospect, our early, hard line on settlements didn't work." The book, entitled "Hard Choices," was received by AP ahead of its release on Tuesday.
Clinton added that the pressure to freeze building exerted by the
Obama administration was "one mistake of many" by the US, Israel and the
Palestinian Authority (PA) in the talks.
According to her, the freeze made PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's
position more entrenched, and led him to reject the talks, demanding an
official freeze in eastern Jerusalem as well.
...
In the new autobiography, Clinton also said she was in favor of arming the Syrian rebels, but that Obama refused the move.
The Bush letter, ten years on, or why the 'peace process' went poof
Rick Richman takes note of the fact that Monday is the 10th anniversary of the Bush letter.This is from the first link.
The Obama administration, when it took
office in 2009, repeatedly refused to answer whether it was bound by the
Bush letter. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton denied
there were any “enforceable” understandings with Israel. The day before
Palestinian President Abbas met with President Obama, Clinton told the press Obama had been “very clear” with Prime Minister Netanyahu that he “wants
to see a stop to settlements – not some settlements, not outposts, not
natural growth exceptions”–and that this had been “communicated very
clearly, not only to the Israelis but to the Palestinians and others.”
The same day, Abbas told the Washington Post
he would do nothing but watch the Obama administration pressure
Netanyahu. The administration eventually got a ten-month construction
freeze, which both Clinton and Obama envoy George Mitchell called
“unprecedented.” It produced nothing from the Palestinians other than a
demand in the tenth month that it be continued.
Now flash forward five years, to Secretary of State Kerry’s April 8,
2014 Senate Foreign Relations Committee testimony, in which he said
“both sides … wound up in positions where things happened that were
unhelpful,” but that “when they were about to maybe [resume
negotiations], 700 settlement units were
announced in Jerusalem, and poof, that was sort of the moment.” Kerry
knew the 700 “settlement units” [sic] were in a longstanding Jewish area
in the capital of the Jewish state; that the area will be retained by
Israel in any conceivable peace agreement; that Israel had made no
commitment to Kerry to stop any construction there; and that Israel was
working on an expanded prisoner release when the Palestinians went to
the UN.
The peace process went “poof” not
because of 700 units in Jerusalem, but because–for the third time in
three years–the Palestinians violated the foundational agreement of the
process, which obligates them not to take “any step” outside bilateral
negotiations to change the status of the disputed territories. For the
third time, the Palestinians went to the UN; for the third time, there
was no American response; for the third time, there was no penalty for
the violation; and on April 8, there was not even an honest assessment
of the situation by the secretary of state.
Read the whole thing. Sad but true: An American commitment to Israel is not worth the paper on which it is written.
US Secretary of State Kerry remembers 'my friend Arik'
US Secretary of State John Kerry remembers 'my friend Arik.'
"Ariel Sharon's journey was Israel’s journey. The dream of Israel was
the cause of his life, and he risked it all to live that dream.
"I remember reading about Arik in the papers when I was a young lawyer
in Boston and marveling at his commitment to cause and country. I will
never forget meeting with this big bear of a man when he became prime
minister, as he sought to bend the course of history toward peace, even
as it meant testing the patience of his own longtime supporters and the
limits of his own, lifelong convictions in the process. He was prepared
to make tough decisions because he knew that his responsibility to his
people was both to ensure their security and to give every chance to the
hope that they could live in peace.
"During his years in
politics, it is no secret that there were times the United States had
differences with him. But whether you agreed or disagreed with his
positions — and Arik was always crystal clear about where he stood — you
admired the man who was determined to ensure the security and survival
of the Jewish state. In his final years as prime minister, he surprised
many in his pursuit of peace, and today, we all recognize, as he did,
that Israel must be strong to make peace, and that peace will also make
Israel stronger. We honor Arik’s legacy and those of Israel’s founding
generation by working to achieve that goal.
At an April 9 press conference
in Tel Aviv, Bow Shapira from Israeli TV (Channel 1) told Kerry he
wanted to ask about “a guarantee from the past”–the 2004 Bush letter,
which he described as “telling that blocs of settlements can stay,
cannot [be] removed from the territory.” His question about the
guarantee was straightforward: “well, does it exist?” Kerry responded in
part as follows:
I remember that commitment very well because I was running for
president then, and I personally have supported the notion that the
situation on the ground has changed, and obviously, we’re talking about
blocs that are in a very different status. I’m not going to get into
telling you what ought to happen with respect to any particular piece of
geography today because that’s for the parties to decide in their
negotiation. But I have certainly supported the notion publicly myself
that we need to deal with the ’67 lines, plus the swaps that reflect
some of the changes that have taken place since then.
It is not surprising that Kerry remembered the commitment so well. He
appeared on “Meet the Press” on April 18, 2004–four days after the Bush
letter was issued–and was asked directly about it by Tim Russert:
MR. RUSSERT: On Thursday, President Bush … said that Israel
can keep part of the land seized in the 1967 Middle East War and
asserted the Palestinian refugees cannot go back to their particular
homes. Do you support President Bush? SEN. KERRY: Yes. MR. RUSSERT: Completely? SEN. KERRY: Yes.
Kerry’s response to the Israeli reporter last week is significant,
because he recognized: (1) that the Bush letter was in fact a
commitment, subsequently endorsed by both the Senate (95-3) and the
House (407-9) in concurrent resolutions; and (2) that he supported it at
the time, in unambiguous terms.
Perhaps Kerry could better remember his 'friend, Arik' by pushing the administration whose foreign policy he leads to live up to its commitments to his 'friend.'
Evelyn Gordon points out how President Obama's failure to take to task his best friend forever (BFF), Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, over Erdogan's failure to abide by the agreement the two of them made with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, is weighing heavily on the 'peace process.'
As Jonathan noted
yesterday, Israeli pessimism about renewed Israeli-Palestinian peace
talks stems from certain important facts that Americans like to ignore
but Israelis find impossible to forget. I’d like to add another fact to
his list. You might call it the Turkey problem–specifically, President
Barack Obama’s blithe disregard of Turkey’s violation of a deal with
Israel that he himself brokered.
Any Israeli-Palestinian agreement would presumably involve certain
American guarantees, particularly on security. Washington even assigned a
very prominent retired general, former commander in Afghanistan John
Allen, “to consult with the Israelis about how the United States can
help them meet security challenges posed by a Palestinian state,” as the
Washington Post’s David Ignatius put it.
But America can’t offer this kind of guarantee anymore, because under
Obama, U.S. promises to Israel have repeatedly proven worthless. The
Turkish deal is a classic example.
Read it all. If Obama cannot get Erdogan, whom he has described as his best friend in the region, to abide by a deal made with Israel, why should anyone think he can get 'moderate' 'Palestinian' President Mahmoud AbbasAbu Mazen or his unelected successor to abide by a deal?
And by the way, what if Obama's successor disavows this agreement the way Obama disavowed Bush's agreement with us on building in the 'settlement blocs'? Actions have consequences, and unfortunately, thanks to Obama, the United States' word just isn't what it used to be.
Former Foreign Ministry legal adviser Alan Baker sent a letter to US Secretary of State John Kerry this week, reminding Kerry that any US guarantee that the upcoming 'negotiations' would be based upon the 1967 lines1949 armistice lines would violate an explicit written commitment from George W. Bush to the State of Israel.
The group
quotes from US president George W. Bush’s letter to Sharon on April 4, 2004,
which it said was given as a political quid pro quo, in return for Israel’s
withdrawal from Gaza.
According to that letter, “As part of a final peace
settlement, Israel must have secure and recognized borders, which should emerge
from negotiations between the parties in accordance with UNSC Resolutions 242
and 338. In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing
major Israeli population centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome
of the final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the
armistice lines of 1949, and all previous efforts to negotiate a two-state
solution have reached the same conclusion.”
These commitments were later
affirmed by a large majority of the US House of Representatives, and – as Baker
and Fuchs wrote to Kerry – was “also given legal affirmation as part of an
Israeli governmental decision and attached to the disengagement implementation
law of October 27, 2004.”
Baker, who wrote the letter with fellow attorney Yossi Fuchs on behalf of the Legal Forum for Israel, also pointed out that the Oslo Accords specifically made no reference to the 1949 armistice lines.
“In the various documents comprising the ‘Oslo Accords’ (1993-99) the PLO and
Israel agreed to conduct negotiations on the issue of ‘borders.’ The term
“pre-1967 lines” has never been a factor in these agreements, nor has it figured
in other accompanying documentation such as the 2003 US sponsored ‘Performance-
Based Roadmap to a Permanent Two-State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian
Conflict.’”
We all know, of course, that as soon as the Obama junta took power, they reneged on the commitments contained in the Bush letter.
American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton claimed on Friday that there
is no record of the Bush administration having agreed to Israel keeping
the 'settlement blocs'.
Hillary says
the Bush administration never agreed to Israel expanding West Bank
communities; insists there is no record of 'any informal or oral
agreement' to that effect. The Israelis say the US position was laid out in a 2004 letter from Bush to then Israeli premier Ariel Sharon. Clinton rejected that claim, saying any such US stance was informal
and "did not become part of the official position of the United States
government." OK now we are back to Clinton word-parsing time.
Well, not only does the letter exist, it even got a Congressional endorsement shortly after it was written in 2004.
The
Bush Administration clearly understood that the borders of the two
states would NOT look like the 1949 armistice lines (the so-called
“Green line” and never the “1967 borders”), and referred back to UNSC
Resolution 242 which called for Israel to receive, “Secure and
recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force.” There was
wisdom in the formulation, “Any final status agreement will only be
achieved on the basis of mutually agreed changes that reflect these
realities.”
And far from being the work of a single man, or
single administration, Congress took up the Bush letter in June 2004,
passing H. Con. Res. 460 by vast margins in both Houses by both parties:
Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That Congress–
1.
strongly endorses the principles articulated by President Bush in his
letter dated April 14, 2004, to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
which will strengthen the security and well-being of the State of
Israel; and
2. supports continuing efforts with others in the
international community to build the capacity and will of Palestinian
institutions to fight terrorism, dismantle terrorist organizations, and
prevent the areas from which Israel has withdrawn from posing a threat
to the security of Israel.
If an allied, democratic government
cannot rely on continuity in the word of an American President for
policy specifically supported and endorsed by the Congress of the United
States, on what can that – or any other – government rely?
Someone ought to ask Secretart of State Clinton that question. She was
the one who claimed she 'couldn't find' the letter, even though she was
in the Senate when that resolution was passed.
Hmmm.
Clearly, the Obama administration is breaking a commitment made by President Bush to Israel. Of course, we all know that the Obama administration regards George W. Bush as illegitimate, so that's not so surprising.
While Baker and Fuchs' letter was a prerequisite to other action, it ought not to be the end of mention of the Bush letter. It is clear that any agreement - if one is ever reached - between Israel and the 'Palestinians' will be dependent upon US guarantees And any such agreement will also have to be approved by Israel's voters in a referendum.
One would hope that in any campaign over a referendum, it would be pointed out repeatedly that no one can count on anything said by the United States and that in the United States, one administration's commitments are meant to be broken by the next administration just like in any other banana republic. Sad but true. Even if Obama is replaced (whether in January 2017 or by impeachment) we cannot be sure that another President as wicked as Obama will not arise and ignore American commitments to Israel.
America doesn't have friends, it has interests. It doesn't have commitments, it has suggestions. What could go wrong?
Prime Minister Netanyahu is promising that if he forms the next government, he will not uproot 'masses of Jews.' Will he keep that promise? What's a 'mass'?
As he sought to stop voters leaving Likud Beytenu for Naftali Bennett’s Bayit
Yehudi party on his right, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told The Jerusalem
Post this week that a “real and fair” accord with the Palestinians cannot
include driving masses of Jews from their homes in settlement blocs beyond the
Green Line.
“I think that there is recognition that ultimately there has
to be a real and fair solution, and that certainly doesn’t include driving out
hundreds of thousands of Jews who live in the suburbs of Jerusalem, and in the
suburbs of Tel Aviv, in the Ariel bloc,” Netanyahu said in an interview in his
Jerusalem office.
“I think that is unrealistic.”
It's unrealistic because it won't satisfy the 'Palestinians' - who seek the extirpation of the Jewish state - anyway. But what's a 'mass' of Jews? The number of Jews who live outside the 'settlement blocs' is ten times or thereabouts the number of Jews who lived in Gaza. Are they considered 'masses of Jews'? Would Netanyahu try to force them from their homes?
Meanwhile, Bibi continues to live with the delusion that the 'international community' is going to silently accept Jewish construction in 'east' Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria.
Asked whether Israel
could withstand the intense international pressure against building in east
Jerusalem and the settlements, Netanyahu said, “I think that many recognize that
while there are differences inside Israel, there is a common acceptance that the
so-called settlement blocs will remain part of Israel in any settlement, and
that’s where the majority of construction is taking place.”
That should be 'recognized.' Until the schmuck in the White House disavowed the Bush letter and told the 'Palestinians' and the 'international community' that America was going to stand by and let them have it all. I'm all in favor of construction, but we have to be realistic that we are going to take a lot of abuse because of it and that we have to ignore the abuse and just go on doing our thing.
When asked how Likud Beytenu, with Feiglin No. 23
on its candidates list, could throw the “extremist” epithet at Bayit Yehudi, he
said: “I think everybody knows what the Likud list consists of. And to be
honest, I think Feiglin is an exception. All our people support military
service, reject military disobedience, and oppose vehemently separation of
women.”
That's harsher than what he had to say about Naftali Bennett.
Netanyahu – who knows Bennett well from when the Bayit Yehudi
leader served as his chief of staff from 2006- 2008 – dodged a direct answer
when asked whether he thinks Bennett is “extreme.”
“I’m not rating
anyone, and I am not disqualifying anyone,” the prime minister said. “But I
think it’s important for people to realize that the only way we can lead the
country is to have a very strong ruling party.”
All evening, Hamas' Ayman Taha has been telling anyone who will listen that a cease fire would be announced at 9:00 pm and would take effect at midnight. But at 10:00 pm, Israel radio reported that an agreementhad yet to be reached and that Prime Minister Netanyahu was meeting with Secretary of State Clinton at 11:00 pm. And CNN is now reporting that the Egyptian government says that it has no intention of announcing a cease fire on Tuesday night.
Here's Prime Minister Netanyahu meeting with German Foreign Minister Guido Westerweille.
Let's go to the videotape.
It sure doesn't sound like a cease fire is in the immediate offing.
By the way, I read somewhere today that we have 30,000 troops on the Gaza border. To put this in perspective, Operation Cast Lead involved 10,000 troops, and the government has the authority to call up 70,000 or 75,000 (I've seen two different versions) reserves.
If Israel does go into Gaza, as has been noted before, it will look more like Operation Defensive Shield (the 2002 operation in which Israel retook control of the 'Palestinian' populated cities of Judea and Samaria) than like Operation Cast Lead. That means that if the IDF goes into Gaza, they plan to stay there for a while.
More and more people are acknowledging that leaving Gaza in 2005 was a mistake. One who came out quite prominently today is Bret Stephens, the former JPost editor who now writes for the Wall Street Journal (full article for those who do not have access to the Journal here). Stephens doesn't think a cease fire is a great idea either. He's right - this time.
My error was to confuse a good argument with good policy; to suppose
that mere self-justification is a form of strategic prudence. It isn't.
Israel is obviously within its rights to defend itself now against a
swarm of rockets and mortars from Gaza. But if it had maintained a
military presence in the Strip, it would not now be living under this
massive barrage.
Or, to put it another way: The diplomatic and public-relations benefit
Israel derives from being able to defend itself from across a "border"
and without having to get into an argument about settlements isn't worth
the price Israelis have had to pay in lives and terror.
...
In 2004, the last full year in which Israel had a security presence in
Gaza, Gazans fired 281 rockets into Israel. By 2006 that figure had
risen to 1,777. The Strip became a terrorist bazaar, home not only to
Hamas but also Islamic Jihad and Ansar al-Sunna, an al Qaeda affiliate.
In late 2008, Israel finally tried to put a stop to attacks from Gaza
with Operation Cast Lead. The limited action—Israeli troops didn't go
into heavily populated areas and refrained from targeting Hamas's senior
leadership—was met with broad condemnation, including a U.N. report
(since recanted by its lead author) accusing Israel of possible "crimes
against humanity."
Nor did the reality of post-occupation Gaza do much to dent the appetite
of the Obama administration for yet another effort to broker
Israeli-Palestinian peace. That included a settlement freeze in the West
Bank (observed by the government of Benjamin Netanyahu, to zero
benefit) and calls by President Obama for Israel to withdraw to its 1967
lines "with mutually agreed swaps."
In 2009, Hillary Clinton disavowed the Bush-Sharon exchange of letters,
saying they "did not become part of the official position of the United
States government." Even today, the Obama administration considers Gaza
to be "occupied" territory, a position disavowed even by Hamas.
Put simply, Israel's withdrawal from Gaza yielded less security, greater
diplomatic isolation, and a Palestinian regime even more radical and
emboldened than it had been before. As strategic failures go, it was
nearly perfect.
Now Israel may be on the cusp of purchasing yet another long-term
strategic failure for the sake of a short-term tactical success. The
Israeli government wants to bomb Hamas into a cease-fire—hopefully
lasting, probably orchestrated in Cairo. That way Israel gets the quiet
it seeks, especially on the eve of elections in January, and the
Egyptians get the responsibility for holding the leash on Hamas.
That is largely how it played out during Cast Lead. But as one leading
Israeli political figure told me in January 2009, just as the last
cease-fire had been declared, "Notwithstanding the blows to the Hamas,
it's still in Gaza, it's still ruling Gaza, and the Philadelphi corridor
[which runs along Gaza's border with Egypt] is still porous, and . . .
Hamas can smuggle new rockets unless [the corridor] is closed, to fire
at Israel in the future."
That leading political figure was Benjamin Netanyahu, just before he
returned to office as prime minister. He might now consider taking his
own advice. Israel can afford to watch only so many reruns of this same,
sordid show.
To hear Jennifer Rubin tell it, Dore Gold was a fascinating speaker at an on-the-record luncheon on Tuesday.
The real issue is whether the United States, its Quartet partners, the United Nations and Russia will live up to the commitment made in U.N. Resolution 242 ( which provided for “Termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgment of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force” )and by presidents of both parties to ensure that Israel has defensible borders. The U.N. commitment to secure borders was reiterated by the Clinton administration in a January 1997 letterfrom then-Secretary of State Warren Christopher to the Israeli prime minister:
Mr. Prime Minister, you can be assured that the United States’ commitment to Israel’s security is ironclad and constitutes the fundamental cornerstone of our special relationship. The key element in our approach to peace, including the negotiations and implementation of agreements between Israel and its Arab partners, has always been a recognition of Israel’s security requirements. Moreover, a hallmark of U.S. policy remains our commitment to work cooperatively to seek to meet the security needs that Israel identifies. Finally, I would like to reiterate our position that Israel is entitled to secure and defensible borders, which should be directly negotiated and agreed with its neighbors.
That promise was repeated in an April 14, 2004, letter from President George W. Bush to the Israeli prime minister [which you can find in full with commentary here. CiJ]:
...
These commitments were made as part of the U.S. inducement to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to put forth the Gaza disengagement plan and to agree to withdraw some military installations and settlements in the West Bank. It was a commitment by the U.S. government that was in keeping with bipartisan U.S. policy. Moreover, Gold pointed out that this arrangement was endorsed by both houses of Congress. The House voted 407-9. In the Senate the vote was 95-3. Voting to back the April 14 letter were, among others, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.). The Obama administration has repeatedly refused to indicate whether it is repudiating or standing by that commitment. One additional note: a unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood would also violate the Oslo II Interim agreement signed by the PA and Israel and witnessed by the U.S., the EU, Norway, Egypt and Jordan. (This would be pretty much the same set of characters now pressuring Israel to recognize a Palestinian state.) Article XXXI contains these provisions:
Permanent status negotiations will commence as soon as possible, but not later than May 4, 1996, between the Parties. It is understood that these negotiations shall cover remaining issues, including: Jerusalem, refugees, settlements, security arrangements, borders, relations and cooperation with other neighbors, and other issues of common interest.
Nothing in this Agreement shall prejudice or preempt the outcome of the negotiations on the permanent status to be conducted pursuant to the DOP. Neither Party shall be deemed, by virtue of having entered into this Agreement, to have renounced or waived any of its existing rights, claims or positions.
...
Gold did not want to comment on the role Congress might play. However, it seems that the House Foreign Affairs Committee does have a role to play. It should consider why we are continuing to fund the Palestinian Authority while it is in breach of its obligations to negotiate with Israel and to abide by the rest of the Oslo II interim agreement (for example, “Israel and the Council shall seek to foster mutual understanding and tolerance and shall accordingly abstain from incitement, including hostile propaganda, against each other and, without derogating from the principle of freedom of expression, shall take legal measures to prevent such incitement by any organizations, groups or individuals within their jurisdiction.”) The House controls the purse strings and can certainly put that leverage to good use. Moreover, Congress can pass a resolution reminding the Obama administration of its obligations to adhere to the Christopher and Bush letters and reaffirming that a unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state violates international agreements and U.S. commitments. And finally, some probing oversight can take place. The United States is a member of the Quartet, so why aren’t we using our power to block a unilateral declaration of recognition?
Read the whole thing. The real issue here is if the US, the UN and the 'Palestinians' are not going to live up to their commitments (which seems readily apparent based on past experience), why should Israel degrade its position based on those commitments? And if, as seems obvious, Israel should not degrade its position based on those commitments, then why is it doing so?
By the way, the luncheon that Jennifer attended was a lead-up to Gold's testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee. You can find the full text of Gold's statement to the Committee here.
Can Israel sue Obama for breaching the Bush letter?
In June 2004, President Bush wrote a letter to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in which he promised
“Third... In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli population centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final-status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949... It is realistic to expect that any final status agreement will only be achieved on the basis of mutually agreed changes that reflect these realities.”
We all know that upon taking office, one of the first actions President Obama took was to disavow that letter, which had been the basis upon which Prime Minister Sharon expelled more than 10,000 Jews from their homes in Gaza, and which had been endorsed by a large majority in Congress.
Recently, it has been reported that President Obama promised the 'Palestinians' that he endorses a 'Palestinian' state based on the borders between Jordan and Israel before the 1967 Six Day War. Clearly, that commitment is inconsistent with President Bush's 2004 commitment to Prime Minister Sharon. Can Israel sue Obama for violating Bush's commitment? Malvina Halberstam, formerly Counselor on International Law in the State Department's Office of the Legal Adviser, strongly implies that the answer is - theoretically - yes.
Although the US Constitution only provides for treaties ratified by the president with the advice and consent of two thirds of the Senate, executive agreements have been used since the beginning of the United States, and most agreements between the US and other countries today are by executive agreement rather than by treaty.
In two cases decided over 70 years ago, the US Supreme Court held that executive agreements are constitutional, and that, like treaties, they supersede inconsistent state law. Those cases involved an exchange of letters between president Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Maxim Litvinov, the people’s commissar for foreign affairs of the Soviet Union, in which the US agreed to recognize the Soviet Union and the Soviet Union assigned its claims against US nationals to the US.
More recently, the Supreme Court held constitutional an executive agreement in which Iran agreed to free US embassy personnel it had taken hostage and the US agreed to dissolve a freeze on Iranian assets and nullify attachments against such assets, including those based on judgments by US courts. The Supreme Court has even ruled that the term treaty in a statute applied to executive agreements as well.
While there is, of course, no way Israel, or any other country, can compel the US to honor its treaty commitments, the US has generally done so. If Obama fails to honor agreements made by his predecessor, it would not only tarnish the US reputation internationally, it would seriously impair America’s ability to negotiate future agreements, as other states would wonder whether any US commitments they received in return for concessions would be honored.
I'm afraid that Obama has done the damage already. All we can do is hope and pray that the bumbling, incompetent chief executive doesn't make things worse.
National Security Adviser Uzi Arad told Channel 2 news on Saturday that the United States has made a written commitment not to ask that any 'settlement freeze' extension be extended beyond 90 days.
"A commitment not to ask an additional freeze after 90 days was written by the Americans," National Security Advisor Uzi Arad said Saturday afternoon to Channel 2.
Arad also told the channel that the F-35 stealth fighter jets are not a gift and that Israel will be buying them. "Payment agreements need to be worked out," he said.
...
The US proposal would mean Israel would cease settlement building for 90 days in return for US pledges to veto anti-Israel resolutions at the United Nations and a fleet of next-generation stealth fighter planes.
The proposal does not include a freeze on building in east Jerusalem.
Netanyahu has asked for the assurances in writing in part to appease some members of his cabinet who oppose the deal.
Israel and the Palestinians are supposed to try to and work out a deal on their future borders during the 90-day freeze period. Once borders are settled on, Israel could then resume building on any territories it expects to keep under a future peace deal.
Obama already broke a written commitment made by Bush, so why wouldn't he break one made by Obama. After all, if it's his commitment, he can just 'reinterpret' it.
I want to point out a couple of things from this article about the debate among the Likud ministers over the 'settlement freeze.'
"What is at stake," argued Shalom at the start of the cabinet meeting, "is not a three-month building freeze, but in fact the beginning of negotiations over the borders of a Palestinian state."
It's worse than that. It's negotiations over the borders of a 'Palestinian state' in isolation from anything else. It's taking the one area in which all Israel can do is give - and receive nothing in return - and making it the sole focus. (Yes, it says here "and other core issues," but don't believe that - nothing else will be discussed in those three months) And it takes upon itself the impossible task of deciding borders within three months, because if they're not decided within three months, you can bet there will be American pressure for another extension.
Shalom also criticized Netanyahu, noting, "It is a strategic error to condition an American veto [in the United Nations Security Council] and diplomatic support from Washington upon the continuation of a building freeze."
"It is something that should go without saying, based on the special relationship between our countries," he added.
Yes, it should. But what's worse is that many of the texts I have seen of the proposal promise that veto and diplomatic support for only one year. What happens when the year is up? Obama screws us by not vetoing a Security Council resolution for a 'Palestinian state'?
"If we freeze [construction] for three months, the pressure on us to decide our permanent borders will be unbearable," Shalom told Israel Radio after the meeting. "Unfortunately, if that happens, it will be a huge mistake."
Yes, it will be, especially in isolation from all other factors.
Despite the apparent widespread opposition to the deal, Shas chairman Eli Yishai told the cabinet that under certain circumstances, his party would not reject an extension of the settlement moratorium.
"If arrived a letter from the president of the United States stating that there could be immediate construction in Jerusalem, and that after 90 days there could be unlimited construction anywhere, we would think about abstaining," he said.
I've seen two other versions of Shas' demand. One just says unlimited building in Jerusalem. The other says that when the 90 days are up, Israel can build in the 'settlement blocs.' That last sentence is even more outrageous than the freeze extension itself.
And in any event, do we really want to trust a letter from Obama who could then deny its existence or binding effect like he did with the Bush letter?
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
