Labels: hasbara, Israel is a Jewish state, Israel is my home, Israel's Foreign Ministry
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:56 PM
3 comments
The video statement, issued from an Islamic State stronghold in Syria, was a rare public challenge to Hamas, which has been cracking down on jihadis in Gaza who oppose its truces with Israel and reconciliation with the U.S.-backed rival Palestinian faction Fatah. "We will uproot the state of the Jews (Israel) and you and Fatah, and all of the secularists are nothing and you will be over-run by our creeping multitudes," said a masked Islamic State member in the message addressed to the "tyrants of Hamas". "The rule of shariah (Islamic law) will be implemented in Gaza, in spite of you. We swear that what is happening in the Levant today, and in particular the Yarmouk camp, will happen in Gaza," he said, referring to Islamic State advances in Syria, including in a Damascus district founded by Palestinian refugees.
Islamic State, also known as ISIS and ISIL, has also taken over swathes of Iraq and has claimed attacks in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Yemen. Hamas is an Islamist movement that shares the jihadis' hostility to Israel but not their quest for a global religious war, defining itself more within the framework of Palestinian nationalism. Deemed a terrorist group by Israel, the United States and the European Union, and viewed by neighbouring Arab power Egypt as a regional security threat, Hamas's struggle against ISIS-linked jihadis has not won sympathy abroad.
Israel's intelligence minister, Israel Katz, accused Hamas on Tuesday of partnering with Islamic State affiliates in the Egyptian Sinai - a charge long denied by the Palestinian group. "There is cooperation between them in the realm of weapons smuggling and terrorist attacks. The Egyptians know this, and the Saudis," Katz told a Tel Aviv conference organised by the Israel Defense journal. "At the same time, within Gaza, ISIS has been flouting Hamas. But they have common cause against the Jews, in Israel or abroad."It's all about tribalism folks. At the end of the day, these people have no loyalties outside their own families and clans. They will murder everyone else without a second thought.
Labels: Gaza, Hamas, ISIS, Islamic State, Israel is a Jewish state
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:23 PM
0 comments
.@RaniaKhalek "demographic death warrant for Israel AS A JEWISH STATE..." Why not quote accurately? @AliAbunimah pic.twitter.com/mcJKPXAv3t
— Jodi Rudoren (@rudoren) May 31, 2015
Does Jodi really think she's defending our 'right to exist' with comments like this? The reality is that for Jewish Israelis, there is very little difference between 'Israel as a Jewish state' and Israel. I doubt we'd last six months here with the Arabs in charge. Labels: Israel is a Jewish state, Jodi Rudoren, Palestinian state RIGHT NOW syndrome, two-state solution
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:15 PM
0 comments
A nationalities bill has long been sought by Israel’s right wing, and the initial draft they produced downgraded Arabic from an official language to one with “special status.” That and other antagonistic elements are likely to be dropped from the version that reaches Parliament.
But in this time of high tensions and violence between Jews and Arabs, incited by competing claims to the sacred site in the heart of Jerusalem — called the Temple Mount by Jews and Noble Sanctuary by Muslims — any measure that claims a pre-eminent status for Jews can only add fuel to the fire.
Mr. Netanyahu says that the nationality bill is necessary because there were so many challenges to Israel’s existence. But it is hard to see how a law would put a stop to that. There is also speculation in the Israeli press that the prime minister has been pushing the bill as a political sop to right-wing members of his fractious coalition — indeed, the cabinet vote was split 14 to 6 along ideological lines, with two centrist parties opposing it.
The political battle could yet bring the government down. Neither argument justifies a fundamental change to Israeli law and guiding principles.
Diminishes the rights of its people? How so? No one is going to be forced to be Jewish, to keep the Sabbath, or to keep the Jewish holidays any more so than they are today. What the law does is to instruct the 'supreme court' to stop intruding into areas where it doesn't belong by claiming to protect democracy at the expense of Jewish observance.Having experienced the grievous legacies created when a government diminishes the rights of its people, we know this not the path that Israel should take.
The critics of the “Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People,” bills coming from two places, liberal in observance and secular Jews who believe it is possible to separate Jewishness from the religion, and media sources that will criticize Israel for anything she does.Indeed.
Truth be told, Israel cannot demand that the Palestinians recognize her as the “Jewish State,” if Israel herself doesn’t recognize it as a Jewish State.
As long as the bill recognizes individual rights and freedom and continues to allow everyone equal voting rights, Israel will remain what it always has been a Democratic and Jewish State.
Labels: Israel is a Jewish state, New York Times, Supreme Court
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:34 PM
2 comments
Lapid recounted speaking with the family of Zidan Saif, the Druse police officer who was killed defending Jewish worshipers in the Jerusalem synagogue massacre last week.Funny you should mention that, because the Druze community in Israel is all in favor of Israel being a Jewish state.
“What will we tell them, that [Saif] is a second-rate citizen?” he asked.
Israeli Druze “are not Palestinians,” a Druze leader said regarding a proposed law to officially codify Israel’s status as a “Jewish state.”
As opposed to Muslim Arabs, members of the Druze community tend to be pro-Israel.
“We are not Palestinians and do not have religious or cultural connections with them, but are full Israeli citizens. I want the state to be a Jewish state and not one of ‘all its citizens,’” said Atta Farhat, the head of the Druze Zionist Council for Israel, according to the Jerusalem Post.
Farhat said Jews “respect others and their way of life.”
“We see what is happening in Iraq, Egypt, and other Arab countries. We don’t want to live under a government of darkness, but where we have freedom,” added Farhat.Hmmm.
Labels: Druze, Israel is a Jewish state, Yair Lapid
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:34 PM
0 comments
"On Sunday I will bring the Jewish State Law to the Cabinet, in order to provide a response to all those who doubt the right of Jews to have their own nation-state in the state of Israel. The Jewish State Law is a foundation in securing our rights in our country," Netanyahu said.
According to the Jewish State Law, which was proposed by MK Ze’ev Elkin (Likud) and is backed by the Jewish Home party, all Jewish schools will teach Jewish history as well as Jewish tradition and heritage. Hebrew will be recognized as the only official language in Israel. Arabic, which as of now is considered an official language in Israel, will instead be given special status.
The bill also declares that the State of Israel is the national home of the Jewish people, in which a Jew can exercise his desire for self-determination in accordance with his historical legacy. This right to exercise national self-determination will be provided to Jewish people only.
However, every resident, regardless of religion and nationality, will be entitled to preserve his or her heritage, culture and language.
The bill came before the Ministerial Committee for Legislation on Sunday, but Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, who opposes the law, removed it from the agenda by purposely wasting time at the meeting, leaving only the last few minutes for a hurried discussion of the law before announcing that the debate on it is to be put off for a later date.Livni has outsized influence on the government - or at least she has until now. She is Justice Minister, a position that is probably ministry number 5 on the totem pole (after the Prime Minister, and Defense, Foreign and Finance), despite the fact that the party she leads has only six seats in the current Knesset. It's long past time for that to stop.
Labels: Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel is a Jewish state, Politics, Tzipi Livni
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 5:52 AM
0 comments
In the background of the region’s disrupted demographics, a great demographic change overshadows the actions of all the contenders. That is decline of Muslim fertility, and the unexpected rise in Jewish fertility. The fall in Muslim birth rate is most extreme in Iran and Turkey, with different but related consequences. When Ayatollah Khomeini took power in 1979, the average Iranian woman had seven children; today the total fertility rate has fallen to just 1.6 children, the sharpest drop in demographic history. Iran still has a young population, but it has no children to succeed them. By mid-century Iran will have a higher proportion of elderly dependents than Europe, an impossible and unprecedented burden for a poor country. Iran’s sudden aging will be followed by Turkey, Algeria, and Tunisia.
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Israel is the great exception to the decline in fertility from North Africa to Iran, as I argued in a 2011 essay for Tablet magazine. The evidence is now overwhelming that a Jewish majority between the Jordan River and the sea is baked in the cake.
The CIA World Factbook estimates total fertility of Arabs in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza at just 2.83 in 2014, versus 3.05 in 2011. The total fertility of Israeli Jews, meanwhile, has risen above three children per female. Yakov Faitelson reported in the Middle East Quarterly:
From the beginning of the twenty-first century the TFR of Israeli Muslims decreased considerably, from 4.7 in 2000 to 3.5 children per woman in 2011. The TFR of all Arabs decreased still further to 3.3 children per woman, very close to the 3.09 for Jews born in Israel. In November 2011, a new comprehensive ICBS projection was published in which the government office admitted that in the past it had overestimated Israeli Arab fertility and underestimated Jewish fertility.Jewish immigration is consistently positive and accelerating, while Palestinian emigration, at an estimated 10,000 per year since 1967, is reducing the total Arab population west of the Jordan River. Palestine Authority data exaggerated Arab numbers in Judea and Samaria by about 30 percent, or 648,000 people, as of the 1997 census. As Caroline Glick observes in her 2014 book The Israeli Solution, Jews will constitute a 60 percent majority between the river and the sea, and “some anticipate that due almost entirely to Jewish immigration, Jews could comprise an 80 percent majority within the 1949 armistice lines and Judea and Samaria by 2035.”
Israel therefore has little fear demographically from annexation. Net Jewish immigration and net Arab emigration will combine with higher Jewish fertility to establish a Jewish supermajority over time. The character of the West Bank population is changing: It is becoming older and more educated, and increasing numbers of Arabs are benefiting from the strong Israeli economy. Over time, West Bank Arabs may embrace Israeli citizenship—when it is offered—as firmly as their counterparts inside the Green Line. The so-called apartheid issue is a canard. Israeli Arabs lived under martial law between the end of the War of Independence in 1949 and 1966, and no one spoke of apartheid. Israel’s most pressing problem in the near future may be Arab refugees trying to get in.
As a non-Israeli, I do not wish to recommend a particular course of action to Israel’s government. But the notion that the Palestinians could stay clear of the riptide that has engulfed their neighbors was fanciful to begin with and has now been trampled by events. Over the past two decades, since the Oslo agreements were signed, the Palestine Authority shown little ability to govern anything. After Egypt’s military government suppressed the Muslim Brotherhood, it turned viciously against the Brotherhood’s Palestinian wing, Hamas, and blockaded Gaza. If the PA were capable of ruling the West Bank, it would have allied with Egypt and Saudi Arabia to further isolate Hamas: Instead the PA formed a national unity government with Hamas. Events have shown that the PA cannot rule without Hamas, and it cannot rule with Hamas; it can neither support nor suppress terrorism on the West Bank. The inability of the Palestine Authority to govern, the inability of Hamas to distance itself from its patron in Tehran, and the collapse of the surrounding states eventually will require Israel to assume control over the West Bank. This time the Israelis will stay.
Israel can’t rely on the PA to conduct counterterrorism operations against Hamas, its coalition partner. Israel’s border with the Hashemite Kingdom in the Jordan Valley, meanwhile, has become a strategic pivot. ISIS is now operating in strength at the common border of Israel, Syria, Jordan, and occupied Iraqi-Syrian border towns close to the common frontier with Jordan. Jordan’s own security requires a strong IDF presence on its western border.
When Israel absorbs Judea and Samaria—and it is a when, not an if—the chancelleries of the West will wag their fingers, and the Gulf States will breathe a sigh of relief.
The historical homeland of the Jewish people will pass into Israeli sovereignty not because the national-religious will it to be so, or because an Israeli government seeks territorial aggrandizement, but because Israel will be the last man standing in the region, the only state able to govern Judea and Samaria, and the only military force capable of securing its borders. It will happen without fanfare, de facto rather than de jure, at some moment in the not-too-distant future when the foreign ministries of the West are locked in crisis session over Iraq or Syria. And it will happen with the tacit support of Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia.
Israeli authority will replace the feckless regime of the Palestine Authority in order to maintain public order and ensure that the electricity works, and the roads are secure, and that bands of jihadist marauders or Shiite terrorists do not massacre entire villages; this action will elicit the reflex condemnation from bored and dispirited Western diplomats. The realization of the Zionist dream will then be consummated not with a bang, but a whimper; the bangs will be much louder elsewhere.Read the whole thing.
Labels: demography, Egypt, Iran, Israel is a Jewish state, Jordan, Judea and Samaria, Libya, one-state solution, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:26 PM
3 comments
The initiators of Oslo and the process' supporters saw the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a conflict between two national movements, and believed - as I believed - that in direct negotiations between Israel and the PLO, a solution could be found to the territorial and strategic issues that are the source of the dispute between the two movements. It was not simple to persuade Israelis - and even the Labor party - that there was a national movement on the other side, and that although it had terrorist aspects, at heart it is entitled to fulfill its independent national self-definition, just like Zionism. The viewpoints of Golda Meir on the subject ("there is no Palestinian nation") have not been forgotten, and the fact that the initiators of Oslo managed to overcome this tradition of denial, to which even the Labor party was a partner, was an accomplishment.Wow. What an epiphany!
But the basis of this concept had a mistake. All of those who supported the Oslo process believed that we were talking about a dispute between two national movements, and that the other side felt the same way.
We were mistaken.
The Palestinian side does not believe that we are talking about a dispute between two national movements: It believes that we are talking about a dispute between one national movement - the Palestinian - and a colonial imperialistic entity that will eventually die off. Therefore, the parallel that appears in the Palestinian textbooks is Algeria. It isn't the Israeli presence on the West Bank that is Algeria, but rather the entire Israel is Algeria, and the Israelis will disappear one way or the other, just like the French settlers were expelled from Algeria.
This is the reason why the Palestinian title for the two-state solution is different than the Israeli version. The Israeli stance talks about "two states for two peoples" but in the Palestinian version the phrase "for two peoples" does not appear. It only talks about "two states." If someone thinks that this is just poor phrasing, he should ask his Palestinian counterpart to express an opinion about the "two states for two peoples" version and he will sooner or later get the answer that there is no Jewish people. This is also the reason why the Palestinians refused the version suggested by [John] Kerry "an agreement between two nation states."
The truth is - and every Oslo supporter must recognize it - that in the Palestinian narrative, the Jews are not a people or a nation, but only a religious group, and therefore they are not entitled to a state. This is also the reason for the across-the-board and uncompromising opposition of the Palestinian side to recognizing the State of Israel as the State of the Jewish People. Even those who believe that Benjamin Netanyahu raised the topic only to complicate the negotiations, must contend with the fact that the Palestinian refusal to contend with the topic derives from the simple reason that the Palestinians believe that there is no Jewish people.
The source of the dispute is not borders, settlements or even Jerusalem. And of course, this is connected to the Palestinian refusal to waive the principle of the right of return. There are good reasons to criticize the Netanyahu government's behavior during US Secretary of State John Kerry's efforts to revive the negotiations, but to ignore these deep-seeded views constitutes a lack of intellectual honesty.
Labels: Israel is a Jewish state, Israeli Left, Middle East peace process, Oslo accords, two-state solution
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:33 PM
2 comments
Labels: Arnon Soffer, demography, Israel is a Jewish state, Yoram Ettinger
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:25 PM
0 comments
Labels: Abu Mazen, Israel is a Jewish state, Tzipi Livni
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:22 PM
0 comments
Labels: Israel is a Jewish state, Moshe Feiglin, one-state solution
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 5:25 AM
0 comments
Labels: Israel is a Jewish state, Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, Judea and Samaria, settlement freeze, two-state solution
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:07 PM
2 comments
"Israel didn't release the Palestinian prisoners on the day they were supposed to be freed, and another day passed, and another day, and then another 700 settlement units were announced in Jerusalem, and 'poof'...that was sort of the moment," remarked Kerry before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Kerry further blamed Israel for demanding recognition as the Jewish state. Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas brought talks to a standstill by adamantly refusing to recognize Israel as the Jewish state.
"The government of the United States and the president supports the notion of Israel being defined as a Jewish state," Kerry noted. "We believe that that should happen. But when it happens, and how it happens, has to be part of the negotiations. It's not going to happen in the beginning."
Noting the intensive energy that he has put into pushing the talks forward since last July, Kerry noted "there's a limit to the amount of time that (US) President (Barack) Obama and I can invest in this topic with consideration to other challenges around the world, especially if the sides aren't willing to show seriousness."
Nevertheless, Kerry stressed the importance of the peace talks, saying "if we won't deal with this now, it won't be easier in the future to achieve a peace agreement. This issue has an influence on our lives here in the US."Kerry also admitted that Iran is two months away from having a nuclear weapon.
Iran will be able to develop a nuclear weapon within two months, acknowledged Kerry, commenting that he was "agnostic" regarding the outcome of the Vienna talks.What great accomplishments for the Obama/Kerry administration. /sarc
In comment to The Jerusalem Post, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki rejected the notion that Kerry's remarks on the timing of the settlement units placed the onus of the crisis on Israel.
"Secretary Kerry has been crystal clear that we are not interested in playing the blame game," Psaki said, "that both sides have taken unhelpful steps and that it is up to the parties to determine the path forward."
In his opening remarks to the committee, where he was to discuss the priorities of the State Department for the year as reflected in its annual budget, Kerry said that the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians is an issue "first and foremost among leaders all over the world."
"Everywhere, it has an impact," he said, including "on life in the United States."Netanyahu should announce that there will be no more 'talks' while Kerry is Secretary of State. But he won't....
Labels: Abu Mazen, Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel is a Jewish state, Jen Psaki, John Kerry, Middle East peace process
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:24 PM
3 comments
Tens of thousands of Arabs gathered in Jerusalem’s Old City and several speakers began firing up the horde, including the nefarious Haj Amin al-Husseini, who would subsequently be appointed the city’s Mufti.Read it all.
Amid chants of “Palestine is our land and the Jews are our dogs!” the crowd descended into a violent frenzy and went on the offensive.
Arab assailants proceeded to attack innocent Jewish men, women and children on the streets, punching, kicking and beating them, as well as hurling stones and other objects.
They broke into Jewish homes, raped Jewish women, and plundered property. Cemeteries and yeshivot were also attacked, with tombstones and Torah scrolls falling victim to the Arab mob’s fury.
Arab policemen, whose task was to maintain order, instead joined in the fray, while the British Mandatory authorities responded with their characteristic lethargy and incompetence.
Over 100 Jews were injured in just the first few hours, and the rioting intensified the following day, leading the British to impose martial law. Finally, after several more days of unrest, the violence was finally quelled.
When the dust had settled, a total of five Jews had been killed and more than 200 wounded, while four Arabs were dead and 25 injured.
Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann along with a senior British military officer insisted that the British Mandatory authorities had actively encouraged Arab leaders to incite the violence due to their hostility towards Zionism.
One month later, in May 1920, the British government dispatched a commission of inquiry, known as the Palin Commission, to investigate.
In predictable fashion, the final report sought to place blame on both sides, criticizing the Zionists for “impatience to achieve their ultimate goal,” as if that would somehow justify an Arab pogrom.
Nonetheless, the commission did note that it was clear that “the incidence of the attack was against the Jews and… was made in customary mob fashion with sticks, stones and knives. All the evidence goes to show that these attacks were of a cowardly and treacherous description, mostly against old men, women and children, and frequently in the back.”
Labels: Arabs, Israel is a Jewish state, Palestinian riots, Palestinians
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 5:34 PM
0 comments
The Arab League announced on Wednesday a full backing of a Palestinian refusal to meet Israel's demand to be recognized as a Jewish state, a condition Jerusalem says it required for peace.
"We express our total rejection of the call to consider Israel as a Jewish state," read a statement from the final day of the Arab summit in Kuwait.
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Palestinians fear the label would lead to discrimination against Israel's sizable Arab minority, while Israelis say it recognizes Jewish history and rights on the land.What's really behind this question is that the 'Palestinians' refuse to say that giving them a Judenrein (free of Jews) 'Palestinian state' while leaving Israel with over a million 'Israeli Arabs' will not be the end of the conflict. In other words, the 'Palestinians' reject the entire premise of a 'two-state solution' which is that the establishment of a 'Palestinian state' (dividing the land for a second time) will spell the end of the conflict.
Labels: Abu Mazen, Arab League, Israel is a Jewish state, two-state solution
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 4:24 PM
2 comments
Obama, as he made clear in the Goldberg interview, perceives Abbas as the golden key to Mideast peace — “the most politically moderate leader the Palestinians may ever have,” as Goldberg paraphrased it — and Netanyahu as the potential spoiler. “I believe that President Abbas is sincere about his willingness to recognize Israel and its right to exist,” the president said. “You’ve got a partner on the other side who is prepared to negotiate seriously . . . for us not to seize this moment I think would be a great mistake.”
But is Obama right about Abbas? Netanyahu, like most Israelis, doesn’t think so — and with some reason. The Palestinian president — who was elected to a four-year term in 2005 and has remained in office for five years after its expiration — turned down President George W. Bush’s request that he sign on to a similar framework in 2008. In 2010, after Obama strong-armed Netanyahu into declaring a moratorium on Jewish settlement construction in the West Bank, Abbas refused to negotiate for nine of the designated 10 months, then broke off the talks after two meetings.
Abbas agreed to Kerry’s proposal for another nine-month negotiating window last year in exchange for Israel’s release of more than 100 Palestinian prisoners, including many convicted of murdering civilians. Abbas hailed them as heroes. Then he embarked on a public campaign to deep-six the two principal provisions Israel has sought in the U.S. framework, both of which have had Washington’s support. One would allow Israeli soldiers to remain along the Palestinian-Jordanian border during an extended transition period; the other would involve Palestinian recognition that Israel is a Jewish state.
The “Jewish state” question is hard for many non-Israelis to understand: Who cares what Arabs call Israel, so long as they accept it? But for Netanyahu and his followers, the question is essential. Arab leaders have never conceded that a non-Arab state can hold a permanent place in the Middle East, they say. Until they do so, there will be no real peace, because Palestinians will keep pressing to weaken and eventually eliminate Israel’s Jewish majority.
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Why does Abbas dare to publicly campaign against the U.S. and Israeli position even before arriving in Washington? Simple: “Abbas believes he can say no to Obama because the U.S. administration will not take any retaliatory measures against the Palestinian Authority,” writes the veteran Israeli-Palestinian journalist Khaled Abu Toameh. Instead, Abbas expects to sit back if the talks fail, submit petitions to the United Nations and watch the anti-Israel boycotts mushroom, while paying no price of his own.The problem is that to Obama, that's an acceptable outcome. At least it's an acceptable outcome until the 'Palestinians' are God forbid strong enough to extirpate the Jewish state and eliminate all of us. That's something the American media and most American Jews have a hard time admitting. But until the baby is called by its name, nothing will change.
Labels: Abu Mazen, Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel is a Jewish state, Jackson Diehl
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:05 AM
1 comments
Communications minister Gilad Erdan told Israel Radio that it was unfortunate that the top US diplomat made the comments ahead of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's arrival to Washington on Monday.
Erdan charged that Kerry had erred in marking the statements and said they put pressure on the wrong side.
Meanwhile, Deputy Foreign Minister Ze'ev Elkin told the radio station that Kerry's remarks represented a pattern that had developed over the past 20 year, in which the international community finds it easier to pressure Israel rather than the Palestinians, despite who it believes is in the right.
Elkin called for Israel to stand up for its principles and bring an end to the "sad tradition."
In an interview that aired Saturday on Channel 2’s Meet the Press, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon disputed Kerry’s contention that Israel erred in demanding Palestinian recognition of its Jewish character.
Ya’alon said that Abbas has persistently refused to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, and it is this refusal that makes it impossible to arrive at a final-peace deal.And Netanyahu (and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman for that matter)? It remains to be seen whether they have the backbone to stand up to Kerry. Because I would not bet on Abu Bluff making any concessions nor would I bet on Kerry or Obama being honest enough to blame the 'Palestinians' when the 'talks' collapse.
Labels: Abu Mazen, Avigdor Lieberman, Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Gilad Erdan, Israel is a Jewish state, John Kerry, Moshe Yaalon, Zeev Elkin
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:51 AM
0 comments
"I think its a mistake for some people to be raising it again and again as the critical decider of their attitude toward the possibility of a state, and peace, and we've obviously made that clear," Kerry told the House Foreign Relations Committee, in a hearing on budget matters.The Jewish state may have been mentioned in the 1947 resolution, but the 'Palestinians' didn't recognize it then and don't recognize it now. Arafat said a lot of things between 1993 and 2004, but the bottom line is that he never amended the PLO charter. Does Kerry really want to go there? And as to the difference between the 'Palestinians' and Jordan and Egypt, at the end of the day, we had a border dispute with Jordan and Egypt. The 'Palestinians' are insisting they have rights in our heartland.
Yesterday, Kerry told a Senate panel that Israel and the Palestinians had less trust in one another than at any point in over nine months of negotiations.
"'Jewish state' was resolved in 1947 in Resolution 181 where there are more than 40-- 30 mentions of 'Jewish state,'" Kerry continued. "In addition, chairman Arafat in 1988 and again in 2004 confirmed that he agreed it would be a Jewish state. And there are any other number of mentions."
Netanyahu has said that the PLO's public recognition of Israel as a Jewish state is a "minimal requirement for peace," and considers the issue fundamental to the conflict: Arab refusal to accept a permanent Jewish presence in the region.
Palestinian negotiators say that no other Arab nation that has made peace with Israel has had to declare it the Jewish homeland.
Kerry dampened expectations surrounding a visit by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to Washington next week, warning that trust between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators had hit a low point.
Labels: Abu Mazen, Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel is a Jewish state, John Kerry, Middle East peace process, PLO, two-state solution
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:18 PM
3 comments
The United States believes there is no need for the Palestinian Authority (PA) to recognize Israel as a Jewish state as part of a peace agreement, State Department Spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Saturday.
Psaki, who spoke to the PA-based Arabic-language Al-Quds newspaper, said, “The American position is clear, Israel is a Jewish state. However, we do not see a need that both sides recognize this position as part of the final agreement.”
Is there any more Obama could do to undermine Israel's position?Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has been adamant on the PA recognizing Israel as a Jewish state, explaining that the Arabs’ refusal to recognize Israel stands at the heart of the conflict.
Labels: Abu Mazen, Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel is a Jewish state, Palestinian state RIGHT NOW syndrome
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:07 AM
1 comments
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said there is "no way" he will recognize Israel as a Jewish state and accept a Palestinian capital in just a portion of Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, rebuffing what Palestinians fear will be key elements of a U.S. peace proposal.
Abbas' comments signaled that the gaps between him and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu remain wide after seven months of mediation efforts by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.
Abbas, whose remarks were published on Friday by the Palestinian news agency WAFA, said he withstood international pressure in the past, when he sought U.N. recognition of a state of Palestine over Washington's objections.
Speaking to youth activists of his Fatah party, he suggested he would stand firm again, particularly over the demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
"They are pressing and saying, 'no peace without the Jewish state'," he said, though not spelling out who is applying the pressure. "There is no way. We will not accept."US Secretary of State John FN Kerry has until April 29 to reach an increasingly unlikely agreement.
Labels: Abu Mazen, Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel is a Jewish state, John Kerry, Middle East peace process
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:36 PM
1 comments
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
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