Krauthammer incinerates Obama's 'shameful legacy'
In the Washington Post, Charles Krauthammer explains what was different about that UN Security Council resolution, and how the Obama administration
stabbed Israel in the back by allowing its passage.
An ordinary Israeli who lives or works in the Old City of Jerusalem
becomes an international pariah, a potential outlaw. To say nothing of
the soldiers of Israel’s citizen army. “Every pilot and every officer
and every soldier,” said a confidant of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, “we are waiting for him at The Hague,” i.e. the International Criminal Court.
Moreover,
the resolution undermines the very foundation of a half-century of
American Middle East policy. What becomes of “land for peace” if the
territories that Israel was to have traded for peace are, in advance,
declared to be Palestinian land to which Israel has no claim?
The peace parameters
enunciated so ostentatiously by Secretary of State John Kerry on
Wednesday are nearly identical to the Clinton parameters that Yasser
Arafat was offered and rejected in 2000 and that Abbas was offered by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in 2008. Abbas, too, walked away.
Kerry
mentioned none of this because it undermines his blame-Israel
narrative. Yet Palestinian rejectionism works. The Security Council just
declared the territories legally Palestinian — without the Palestinians
having to concede anything, let alone peace. What incentive do the
Palestinians have to negotiate when they can get the terms — and
territory — they seek handed to them for free if they hold out long
enough?
Indeed. The Post can look back at
this column from 2009 and realize that the 'Palestinians' were correct.
Yet
on Wednesday afternoon, as he prepared for the White House meeting in a
suite at the Ritz-Carlton in Pentagon City, Abbas insisted that his
only role was to wait. He will wait for Hamas to capitulate to his
demand that any Palestinian unity government recognize Israel and swear
off violence. And he will wait for the Obama administration to force a
recalcitrant Netanyahu to freeze Israeli settlement construction and
publicly accept the two-state formula.
Until Israel meets his
demands, the Palestinian president says, he will refuse to begin
negotiations. He won't even agree to help Obama's envoy, George J.
Mitchell, persuade Arab states to take small confidence-building
measures. "We can't talk to the Arabs until Israel agrees to freeze
settlements and recognize the two-state solution," he insisted in an
interview. "Until then we can't talk to anyone."
And what the Post doesn't mention is that Netanyahu is reported to have
offered even more in 2013.
If Hillary Clinton had won November's election, Israel would now have its back to the wall. Fortunately, Donald Trump won the election, and if he is willing to go to the wall in Israel's defense, perhaps this disgraceful resolution can be mitigated.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: Abu Mazen, Barack Hussein Obama, Donald Trump, East Jerusalem, Jerusalem construction, John Kerry, Judea and Samaria construction, Middle East peace process, Palestinian terrorists, settlement freeze
#CHANGE Moderate Arab states ignore Obama-Kerry initiative
If the moderate Arab states were supposed to latch onto Secretary of State Kerry's 'peace proposal' and use it, along with United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 to pressure Israel, someone forgot to tell them that. Or, as is more likely, they have
read the handwriting on the walls, and have realized that they will have to work with Donald Trump for the next 4-8 years.
But the official responses in Cairo, Riyadh and Amman seemed
calculated to make an impression on the incoming Trump administration
rather than to impel any immediate or urgent follow up on the Kerry
proposals. That was not expected, given that Kerry and President Barack
Obama have only three weeks left in office and Donald Trump has signaled
there will be a friendlier approach towards the policies of Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
"Now, with the imminent change in the White House, Kerry's noble
views may very well remain a small footnote in the history books," the Jordan Times wrote in an editorial Thursday.
Jordan,
Egypt and Saudi Arabia are, to some extent, groping in the dark,
uncertain about what Trump policies that will strongly impact their
futures will look like. By giving essentially positive responses to
Kerry's proposals, "they are trying to show they are pro-peace, useful
and very relevant as mediators and mainstays of the process and trying
also to anticipate what the new administration in Washington wishes to
do," said Gabriel Ben-Dor, a Middle East specialist at Haifa University.
The countries also have their sights set on being relevant in advance
of the January 15 conference bringing together some 70 foreign ministers
in Paris whose goal is to reaffirm the necessity of a two-state
solution.
...
As Tel Aviv University Middle East scholar Bruce Maddy-Weitzman has
noted, close scrutiny of Cairo and Riyadh's reactions to Kerry indicate
that neither Arab country has the sense of urgency that Kerry conveyed
in his speech. Egypt's Foreign Ministry said that Kerry's principles
were "mostly consistent with the international consensus and Egypt's
vision but in the end what is important is the will to implement those
principles eventually."
Saudi Arabia welcomed the proposals,
according to an official at the Saudi foreign ministry, who said Riyadh
views them as being in accord with the majority of the resolutions of
international legality. Riyadh said that Kerry's proposals have elements
of the Arab Peace Initiative proposed by Saudi Arabia and adopted by an
Arab summit at Beirut in 2002. It added that the proposals represent an
"appropriate basis" for achieving a final settlement of the
Arab-Israeli conflict.
But, Maddy-Weitzman noted "there is no operative clause in the Saudi response to move forward fast and do this or that."
"This
suggests the Saudis understand there won't be significant movement any
time soon as a result of the speech," he said. "They recognize there is a
new administration coming in that is expressing itself differently on
Middle East issues. Saudi strategic priorities are elsewhere. There are
more acute issues occupying their thinking. The Palestinian-Israeli
issue is lower down. That doesn't mean they don't care and would go
along with anything the Israeli government would do."
"At this
point, the Saudis won't take the lead on Palestinian-Israeli diplomacy
unless the Trump administration takes the initiative or something forces
them to, like a new intifada." But Riyadh will try to persuade the US
not to move its Israel embassy to Jerusalem, Maddy-Weitzman predicted.
In its reaction to Kerry, Egypt was mindful of Trump's intervention a
week earlier against its sponsorship of the security council resolution
specifying that settlements have "no legal validity." Egypt withdrew its
sponsorship in deference to Trump and it formulated its response to
Kerry with Trump in mind, not wanting to appear to be confrontational
towards Israel.
Cairo, which viewed the Obama administration as
selling out Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak during the Arab spring
revolt in 2011 and of subsequently backing the Muslim Brotherhood, has
high hopes for closer ties with Trump. Egypt is relieved to have an
administration coming in that will not make an issue out of its human
rights abuses in crushing the brotherhood and other opposition. "The
leaders of this 'terrorist' organization and those regional and Arab
powers that lend them support should realize that the election of Donald
Trump will usher in new directions for US foreign policy, which will
discontinue the 'interventionist' policies of the two previous US
administrations," wrote Hussein Haridy, a former foreign ministry
official, in al-Ahram weekly. "If this happens, there will be
much more effective cooperation between the American and Egyptian
governments in dealing constructively and successfully with existing
challenges and threats across the Middle East."
I haven't felt this optimistic since 2008, despite Obama-Kerry's attempts to incinerate Israel over the past two weeks. They're called 'lame ducks' for a reason.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Donald Trump, Egypt, John Kerry, Jordan, Middle East peace process, our friends the Saudis, Saudi Arabia, United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334
It's not that Kerry doesn't get Israel - he's enraged he can't get rid of it
In an editorial this morning, the Wall Street Journal blasts John Kerry's 'marathon speech' on Wednesday in which he
reserved rage only for Israel in the entire Middle East.
We recite this history to show that it’s not for lack of U.S.
diplomacy that there is no peace—and that mishandled diplomacy has a way
of encouraging Palestinian violence. In 2000 then-President Bill Clinton
brought Israeli and Palestinian leaders to Camp David to negotiate a
final peace agreement, only to watch Palestinians walk away from an
offer that would have granted them a state on nearly all of Gaza and the
West Bank. That failure was followed by another Palestinian terror
campaign.
Israelis remember this. They remember that they elected leaders—Yitzhak Rabin in 1992, Ehud Barak in 1999, Ehud Olmert in 2006—who made repeated peace overtures to the Palestinians only to be met with violence and rejection.
In his speech, Mr. Kerry went out of his way to personalize his differences with current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,
claiming he leads the “most right-wing” coalition in Israeli history.
But Israelis also remember that Mr. Netanyahu ordered a settlement
freeze, and that also brought peace no closer.
The lesson is that
Jewish settlements are not the main obstacle to peace. If they were,
Gaza would be on its way to becoming the Costa Rica of the
Mediterranean. The obstacle is Palestinian rejection of Israel’s right
to exist as a Jewish state in any borders. A Secretary of State who
wishes to resolve the conflict could have started from that premise,
while admonishing the Palestinians that they will never get a state so
long as its primary purpose is the destruction of its neighbor.
But
that Secretary isn’t Mr. Kerry. Though he made passing references to
Palestinian terror and incitement, the most he would say against it was
that it “must stop.” If the Administration has last-minute plans to back
this hollow exhortation with a diplomatic effort at the U.N., we
haven’t heard about it.
Contrast this with last week’s Security Council resolution, which the Obama
Administration refused to veto and which substantively changes
diplomatic understandings stretching to 1967. Mr. Kerry claimed
Wednesday that Resolution 2334 “does not break new ground.”
The
reality is that the resolution denies Israel legal claims to the
land—including Jewish holy sites such as the Western Wall—while
reversing the traditional land-for-peace formula that has been a
cornerstone of U.S. diplomacy for almost 50 years. In the world of
Resolution 2334, the land is no longer Israel’s to trade for peace. Mr.
Kerry also called East Jerusalem “occupied” territory, which contradicts Administration claims in the 2015 Supreme Court case, Zivotofsky v. Kerry, that the U.S. does not recognize any sovereignty over Jerusalem.
The
larger question is what all this means for the prospects of an eventual
settlement. Mr. Kerry made a passionate plea in his speech for
preserving the possibility of a two-state solution for Jews and
Palestinians. That’s a worthy goal in theory, assuming a Palestinian
state doesn’t become another Yemen or South Sudan.
But the effect
of Mr. Kerry’s efforts will be to put it further out of reach.
Palestinians will now be emboldened to believe they can get what they
want at the U.N. and through public campaigns to boycott Israel without
making concessions. Israelis will be convinced that Western assurances
of support are insincere and reversible.
It's not that Kerry doesn't get all those things. He does. It's that in Kerry's 60's radical mind - like his boss' -
Israel is a
neo-colonialist creation of the West that has no right to exist among the '
natives' of the Middle East.
The only reason Kerry doesn't come right out and say it is because while that kind of talk is
acceptable in Europe, it's not acceptable (yet) in the US. Thanks to Donald Trump defeating Hillary Clinton in last month's election, it may never become acceptable in the US.
And that is the source of Kerry's rage.
Labels: anti-colonialist, Barack Hussein Obama, John Kerry, Middle East peace process, settlements, two-state solution, United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334
This is rich: Frequently anonymous source blasts Beacon's Kredo for using anonymous sources
On Monday, Martin Indyk took to Twitter (which is not just a tool of the Trump campaign) to blast the Washington Free Beacon's Adam Kredo for using
anonymous sources to attack Vice President Joe Biden for
pressuring Ukraine to vote against Israel in last Friday's Security Council vote on 'settlements.'
Typical 'liberal' that he is, Indyk maintains a double standard: When he's the anonymous source, he wants to be protected, but when someone else uses an anonymous source, that's not okay.
Here are a couple of the instances in which it's come out over the last few years that Martin Indyk, now head of the Brookings Institution, which
took $14 million from Qatar, and formerly US ambassador to Israel, has been caught being an anonymous source.
April 2014: Indyk orchestrates campaign to collapse peace talks
Meanwhile, the Washington Free Beacon's Adam Kredo blames it on the
Americans, saying that the White House has had a secret campaign to scapegoat Israel for the 'talks' failure.
Multiple sources told the Washington Free Beacon that top
Obama administration officials have worked for the past several days to
manufacture a crisis over the reissuing of housing permits in a
Jerusalem neighborhood widely acknowledged as Israeli territory.
Senior State Department officials based in Israel have sought to lay
the groundwork for Israel to take the blame for talks collapsing by
peddling a narrative to the Israeli press claiming that the Palestinians
were outraged over Israeli settlements, the Free Beacon has learned.
These administration officials have planted several stories in
Israeli and U.S. newspapers blaming Israel for the collapse of peace
talks and have additionally provided reporters with anonymous quotes
slamming the Israeli government.
The primary source of these multiple reports has been identified as
Middle East envoy Martin Indyk and his staff, according to these
insiders, who said that the secret media campaign against Israel paved
the way for Secretary of State John Kerry to go before Congress on
Tuesday and publicly blame Israel for tanking the talks.
“The Palestinians didn’t even know they were supposed to be
abandoning negotiations because of these housing permits, which are
actually old, reissued permits for areas everyone assumes will end up on
the Israelis’ side of the border anyway,” said one senior official at a
U.S. based pro-Israel organization who asked to remain anonymous
because the Obama administration has in the past retaliated against
critics from inside the pro-Israel world.
“Then Martin Indyk started telling anyone who would listen that in
fact the Palestinians were angry over the housing issue,” the source
said. “Eventually, the Palestinians figured out it was in their interest
to echo what the Americans were saying.”
We've known for a long time what a shmuck Indyk is, haven't we? He's also a member of the board of the New Israel Fund. Back to Kredo.
One former Israeli diplomat familiar with Indyk’s tactics said that
he is a crass political player who has a history of planting negative
stories about Israel in order to undermine the Netanyahu government and
bolster his hand in the talks.
“I’ve seen this before and see his fingerprints,” said the source,
who referenced a separate story two weeks ago in which U.S. government
sources implied that newly installed Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer was
not performing his job effectively.
“It’s certainly in Indyk’s interest now [to undermine the Israelis],
but this was a game he also used to play when he was ambassador twice,”
said the former diplomat. “This is part of Indyk’s playbook.”
“There was only one person who would do this kind of thing and it’s Martin Indyk and his staff,” the former diplomat added.
Another Washington-based source familiar with the talks said that
Kerry’s peace team has a track record of trashing Israel anonymously.
“It’s one of the worst-kept secrets in Jerusalem that Kerry’s team
leaks anti-Netanyahu quotes and claims to the Israeli press—not that is
should be a mystery why Israeli reporters based in Israel keep producing
anti-Bibi quotes from ‘American officials,’” the source said.
“But just imagine the outrage if the roles were reversed and Bibi had a team on the ground in D.C. trashing Obama to the Washington Post on background,” the source said.
May 2014: Indyk forced to resign after being pegged as anonymous source blaming Israel for collapse of peace talks
Martin Indyk is going to resign from the leadership of the Obama-Kerry
State Department's 'negotiating team' for the 'peace process' after
being exposed as the source for Nachum Barnea's YNet story blaming Israel for the failure of the 'peace talks.'
The Israeli daily Haaretz reported that Indyk
is considering resigning in light of President Barack Obama’s intention
to suspend US involvement in seeking a negotiated end to the conflict,
citing unnamed Israeli officials “who are close to the matter.” Indyk
has informed the Brookings Institute that he will soon return to his
vice president post, from which he took a leave of absence during the
negotiations, Haaretz reported.
It also said Indyk is being identified in Jerusalem as the anonymous source in a report by Yedioth Aharonoth columnist Nahum Barnea on Friday in which unnamed American officials primarily blamed Israel for the failure of the peace talks.
“There are a lot of reasons for the peace
effort’s failure, but people in Israel shouldn’t ignore the bitter truth
– the primary sabotage came from the settlements,” the official told
Barnea.
He's a bitter old man, isn't he?
In May 2014, Indyk went on a
drunken tirade blaming Israel for the talks' collapse.
US chief Middle East negotiator bottle washer
Martin Indyk went on a 30-minute anti-Israel rant at a Washington bar on
Thursday night just before meeting with former Defense Minister and
Prime Minister Ehud Barak.
Indyk—who has been identified by the Washington Free Beacon as the
source of a recent series of anonymous quotes in the press condemning
Israel—was caught openly lashing out at Israel over drinks with several
members of his staff and wife, Gahl Burt.
The conversation took place in the hotel bar at the Ritz-Carlton on
Thursday night, shortly after Indyk finished delivering remarks at the
Washington Institute for Near East Policy’s (WINEP) annual gala.
While Indyk was critical of Israel in his public remarks, he and his
staff are said to have let loose on the Jewish state over drinks before
Indyk was scheduled to meet with former Israeli Defense Minister Ehud
Barak.
“The tone was nasty,” according to the source who overheard the conversation.
Indyk and his staff “openly blamed” conservative Israeli politician
Naftali Bennett and others for “sabotaging the [peace] negotiations” by
issuing permits for new Israeli housing blocks in Jerusalem.
“In the 30 minute conversation, no one at the table mentioned a single
wrong thing the Palestinians had done,” according to the source who
overheard the conversation. “There was no self-criticism whatsoever.”
Indyk’s staff also weighed in on the peace process, saying that while
the press may believe that peace negotiations broke down over
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ unilateral bid for
statehood at the United Nations, “they knew the truth and that [talks
had broken down] way before that due to settlements,” according to the
source.
“The staff relished how critical Indyk was of Israel in public speech,” the source said. “They laughed about it.”
Indyk also took aim at WINEP executive director Rob Satloff, who had
moderated a question-and-answer session with Indyk earlier in the
evening.
Indyk “was incredulous” that Satloff had offered an alternate
explanation of the settlement issue, one that applied less blame to
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Indyk told his crew that
Satloff’s explanation “was just false” and that no one he knows believes
it.
The conversation then turned to Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians,
according to the source, who additionally provided a hand-drawn map of
the bar area pinpointing Indyk’s location.
Indyk did not respond to emails requesting comments, and the State
Department is denying that the conversation took place. But there are
far too many details in this story.
Oh, by the way, in his younger days, Indyk was known as
Arafat's yes-man, and the 'Palestinians' continually
sought his participation in the last round of talks against
Israeli opposition.
Thankfully, he is unlikely to play any role in a Trump administration. Good riddance.
Labels: Martin Indyk, Middle East peace process, two-state solution
Dennis Ross rips Obama over abstention, says it's not likely to matter
Former peace processor par excellence Dennis Ross has
ripped President Obama for failing to veto Friday's UN Security Council resolution.
If there is one issue on which the President has been consistent
vis-à-vis Israel, it has been settlement construction in the territories
that Israel occupied after the 1967 war. From the outset of his
administration, he called for a freeze on the building of Israeli
settlements to include natural growth. Even when he vetoed a settlements
resolution in 2011, he had his then UN ambassador, Susan Rice, make a
tough statement about our opposition to settlements even as she
explained that the one-sided nature of the resolution left us little
choice but to veto.
Perhaps, President Obama felt this resolution was more balanced. Truth
be told, resolutions in international forum about Israel are rarely, if
ever, balanced.
This one creates the veneer of balance by referring to the need to stop
terror and incitement, but of course it never names the Palestinians so
this effectively refers to stopping all such actions by both sides.
Moreover, the resolution is criticizing only Israel and calling on it to
cease all its activity beyond the June 4, 1967, lines — which is
defined as a violation of international law. Nothing is asked of the
Palestinians.
Sounds just like Obama administration policy all along, doesn't it? Nothing asked of the 'Palestinians.' But Ross also has some good news for the Israelis.
While the Israelis clearly opposed the resolution and hoped it would be
vetoed by the U.S., one can ask: Does this resolution create a
precedent? It is hard to see how. President-elect Trump was clear about
his opposition to it and has already tweeted in response to the
resolution that things will be different in his administration.
Even in UN terms, the fact that the resolution was considered under
Title 6 and not Title 7 means it cannot serve as a predicate for
imposing sanctions later on — clearly a path the Palestinians would like
to go down.
If there is one area in the resolution that may be potentially
problematic for the future, it is the reference to the settlements being
illegal. That could create problems for the one possible formula for
resolving the border at some point: settlement blocs and territorial
swaps. One way to absorb a significant number of settlers is to permit
settlement blocs which are on a small part of the West Bank to become
part of Israel; in return the Israelis would swap territory as
compensation to the Palestinians. Will that not be more difficult if all
settlements are deemed illegal?
Killing what was left of the 'two-state solution' through his bumbling is clearly right up Obama's alley. The mamzer.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Dennis Ross, Middle East peace process, settlement blocs, settlements, two-state solution, United Nations Security Council
#Wikileaks: Clinton: 'A Potemkin process better than nothing,' exploit Bibi's apology to Israeli Arabs
You might recall that in the final days of the 2015 election, as he was panicked that the Obama administration was
underhandedly attempting to remove him, Prime Minister Netanyahu urged Right wing voters to come out and vote to prevent the Arab population from causing the Left to win the election. Later, Netanyahu walked back those remarks.
Here, courtesy of Wikileaks, is
Hillary Clinton's reaction.
And you want to put her in charge?
Labels: Binyamin Netanyahu, Hillary Clinton, Israeli Arab, John Podesta, Knesset elections 2015, Middle East peace process, V-2015, Wikileaks
Obama's legacy: Criminalizing Israeli citizenship?
I've already written a couple of times about the fears here in Israel of what President Hussein Obama might try to do to us in his final days in his office. Here's a really disturbing Wall Street Journal piece from Jonathan Schanzer about
some of the possibilities.
The Middle East has few
bright spots these days, but one is the budding rapprochement between
Israel and its Sunni Arab neighbors, including Saudi Arabia and the
United Arab Emirates, thanks to shared threats from Iran and Islamic
State. Now the Obama Administration may have plans to wreck even that.
Israeli diplomats gird for the possibility
that President Obama may try to force a diplomatic resolution for Israel
and the Palestinians at the United Nations. The White House has been
unusually tight-lipped about what, if anything,
it might have in mind. But our sources say the White House has asked
the State Department to develop an options menu for the President’s
final weeks.
One possibility would be to sponsor, or at
least allow, a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Israeli
settlement construction, perhaps alongside new IRS regulations revoking
the tax-exempt status of people or entities involved
in settlement building. The Administration vetoed such a resolution in
2011 on grounds that it “risks hardening the position of both sides,”
which remains true.
But condemning the settlements has always been
a popular way of scoring points against the Jewish state, not least at
the State Department, and an antisettlement resolution might burnish Mr.
Obama’s progressive brand for his postpresidency.
Mr. Obama may also seek formal recognition of a
Palestinian state at the Security Council. This would run afoul of
Congress’s longstanding view that “Palestine” does not have the
internationally recognized attributes of statehood,
including a defined territory and effective government, though Mr.
Obama could overcome the objection through his usual expedient of an
executive action, thereby daring the next President to reverse him.
Both actions would be a boon to the bullies in
the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, while also subjecting
Israeli citizens and supporters abroad to new and more aggressive forms
of legal harassment. It could even criminalize
the Israeli army—and every reservist who serves in it—on the theory
that it is illegally occupying a foreign state. Does Mr. Obama want to
be remembered as the President who criminalized Israeli citizenship?
The worst option would be an effort to
introduce a resolution at the U.N. Security Council setting “parameters”
for a final settlement between Israel and the Palestinians.
The French
have been eager to do this for some time, and one
option for the Administration would be to let the resolution pass
simply by refusing to veto it. Or the U.S. could introduce the
resolution itself, all the better to take credit for it.
As the old line has it, this would be worse
than a crime—it would be a blunder. U.S. policy has long and wisely been
that only Israelis and Palestinians can work out a peace agreement
between themselves, and that efforts to impose
one would be counterproductive. Whatever parameters the U.N.
established would be unacceptable to any Israeli government, left or
right, thereby destroying whatever is left of a peace camp in Israel.
The Palestinians would seize on those
parameters as their birthright, making it impossible for any future
Palestinian leader to bargain part of them away in a serious
negotiation. Arab states would find their diplomatic hands tied,
making it impossible to serve as useful intermediaries between
Jerusalem and Ramallah. It could refreeze relations with Israel even as
they finally seem to have thawed.
President Obama may be the last man on earth
to get the memo, but after decades of fruitless efforts to end the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict it might be wiser for the U.S. to step back
until the Palestinians recognize that peace cannot
be imposed from the outside.
If Mr. Obama is still seeking a Middle
East legacy at this late stage in his presidency, his best move is do
nothing to make it worse.
A few comments. First, it is longstanding US policy that peace between Israel and the 'Palestinians' can only come through direct negotiations between the parties. Obama has done much to undermine that policy through his insistence on
international peace conferences and
other ways of allowing the 'Palestinians' to
avoid direct negotiations, including his support for
preconditions to negotiations. Perhaps that's why Obama has zero influence in Israel, where the government once again spat in his face on Monday, announcing that it would
build 98 new homes in Shilo, which is well outside the 'settlement blocs.'
On Monday the state informed the High Court of Justice it awaited
final bureaucratic approval to develop the site within six months as a
relocation option for the 40 families from the Amona outpost.
It, therefore, asked the HCJ to delay by seven months the mandated December 25 demolition of the outpost.
Alternatively,
the state said, it was also pursuing the option of using the abandoned
property law, so that it could relocate the outpost to land adjacent to
the community’s current location.
Washington has rebuked Israel
for both plans, but the State Department issued a particularly sharp
statement in which it said the Shiloh project was tantamount to the
creation of a new settlement, something Israel had promised the US it
would not do.
“This settlement's location deep in the West Bank…
would link a string of outposts that effectively divide the West Bank
and make the possibility of a viable Palestinian state more remote,” the
State Department had said.
Second, as much as I will never vote for Hillary Clinton (#NeverHillary), it is clear to me that this sort of scorched earth strategy from the Obama administration is far more likely if Donald Trump wins next week's election than if Clinton wins it. After all, it was Netanyahu who set up Clinton's illegal private server, and it was he that caused it to be used for government business (/sarc). Obama would have far more interest in trying to tie Trump's hands than in trying to tie Clinton's.
All in all, the outlook is bleak with the 'most pro-Israel administration evah' set to extract revenge from an Israeli government that has not been willing to surrender to Obama's wishes over the past eight years.
Labels: Abu Mazen, Amona, Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Middle East peace process, Obama's legacy, Shilo, United Nations Security Council, US presidential campaign 2016
Obama asks Abu Mazen to wait until after November 8
If anyone out there doesn't yet believe that President Hussein Obama is planning a
nasty November surprise for Israel, please consider
this:
On
the surface, the latest message to the Palestinian Authority from the
Obama administration is no different from the past two decades of
American policy: the U.S. will veto any resolution attacking Israel or
demanding Palestinian independence without them first making peace with
the Jewish state. But, as Haaretz reported, there
was one significant caveat to the warning. They were told not to push
for any such resolution until after the presidential election next
month.
The “senior Palestinian official” who spoke of this message to Haaretz
said PA leader Mahmoud Abbas had “no illusions and no expectations”
that the U.S. wouldn’t veto any resolution they put forward. They also
thought Washington might not have any plan of its own ready. “All we
know is that there are ideas.” But the significance of those “ideas” is a
function of the time frame enunciated by the administration.
If
President Obama had no plans to use his last two months in office to
launch some kind of a diplomatic initiative on the Middle East or to
stick it to the Israelis and his longtime antagonist Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu, then why would he even mention the election? Were
the U.S. to keep faith with the Israelis, the Palestinians would just be
told that there would be no change in American policy. Period. Abbas
and the PA would be put on notice that, if they actually had any desire
for peace or hope of future independence, they should do what they
promised to do in the Oslo Accords: head back into direct negotiations
with the Israelis.
...
Yet nothing the
Palestinians have done has been enough to cause Obama to rethink the
mistaken assumption he brought with him into the White House in January
2009. He still thinks creating more daylight between the U.S. and Israel
is the best path to peace, or, at least, is the stance that reflects
his personal inclinations. That’s why he’s still flirting with the idea
of using the lame duck period between the presidential election and the
inauguration of his successor to put forward some kind of plan to
pressure Israel, or even going as far as betraying the Jewish state at
the UN by allowing a pro-Palestinian resolution to pass without an
American veto. Earlier this month, Secretary of State Kerry told Netanyahu that the administration was still thinking about it. Now they’ve told the Palestinians to hold their fire until November 9th.
You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to connect the dots and
realize that there is an excellent chance that Obama will finally make
good on this threat. The president may make a gesture before leaving
office that will damage the U.S.-Israel alliance in a way that even a
less hostile president won’t be able to completely undo.
Asking
the Palestinians to wait until after the election is a reflection of the
fact that Obama knows any move against Israel would hurt Hillary
Clinton. But with only 18 days to go until the election, friends of
Israel–both Republicans and especially Democrats–need to use this time
to speak up against any last minute betrayal of Israel.
Which Democrats will speak out against any last minute betrayal of Israel? Surely not Hillary Clinton.
Labels: Abu Mazen, Barack Hussein Obama, Hillary Clinton, Middle East peace process, two-state solution, United Nations, US presidential campaign 2016
3 'Palestinians' arrested for visiting Israeli Sukkah... by 'Palestinian Authority'
Moadim l'simcha - a happy holiday, and pithka tava - a good note - to all of you as it's Hoshana Rabba night.
On Thursday evening, three 'Palestinians' were arrested for visiting an Israeli Sukkah.
Let's go to the videotape.
Sorry, but no, that was not the 'Palestinian' arrested for visiting an Israeli Sukkah. Here's the
real story.
The Palestinian Authority’s (PA) security forces arrested three
Palestinian Arabs from the Gush Etzion area who “dared” to visit the sukkah of Oded Revivi, mayor of the town of Efrat.
Channel 2 News reported on Thursday evening that the Arabs
who were arrested were questioned over allegations they met with
"baby-killers", an apparent reference to General Nitzan Alon, the head
of the IDF's Operations Directorate, and the Shai District Police
Commander, who were also guests in the same sukkah.
Revivi said on Thursday evening, “Yesterday we sat in the sukkah -
Jews and Muslims. We ate, drank and talked about common themes and our
hope for a better neighborhood and for peace. Today the PA summoned some
of the Muslim guests for questioning.
“All those who pressure the Israeli government to enter a peace
process with the Palestinian Authority should be reminded that they
behave in a way that does the opposite of encouraging peace with their
Jewish neighbors,” continued Revivi. “An authority which names squares
after suicide bombers and summons for questioning citizens who drink
coffee and talk about peace with their Jewish neighbors is not one that
promotes peace.
“I salute my neighbors who were not afraid to come to our sukkah
yesterday, to talk about peace, who asked to be photographed and to show
the world that they are brave enough to stand up for peace,” he
stressed.
Indeed. But none of that will stop President Hussein Obama from trying to give them their 'state' before he leaves office. Post on that coming soon.
Labels: Middle East peace process, Palestinian Authority, Succoth, two-state solution
Hillary Clinton's 'facade of a peace process' would require releasing real terrorists
Shavua tov, a good week to everyone.
The latest Wikileaks email dump discloses that Hillary Clinton believes that a '
facade of a peace process' would be better than no peace process at all.
Democratic Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton wrote to her senior advisors, a few days after the Israeli elections, that she believes that a "Potemkin" peace process between Israel and the Palestinians (meaning a peace process that was only for show) was better than no peace process at all, a Clinton campaign email posted on WikiLeaks shows.
On March 23, 2016 at 8:56 P.M. Clinton's senior foreign policy advisor Jake Sullivan emailed Clinton and John Podesta, chairman of her presidential campaign. If Clinton is elected, Sullivan is likely to be appointed White House National Security Advisor. The email sent by Sullivan included a link to a New York Times article discussing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's apology for his Election Day statement that “Arab voters are coming in droves to the ballot boxes." By the link to the article, Sullivan wrote Clinton and Podesta "Unsurprisingly, Pragmatic Bibi makes an appearance."
Seven minutes later Clinton responded positively to Netanyahu's comments quoted in the article. She wrote that Netanyahu's apology was "an opening that should be exploited," and tied it to the promoting of the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians. "A Potemkin process is better than nothing," and referred her advisors to another New York Times article published a few days earlier in which Netanyahu's next moves as prime minister were described.
A 'Potemkin' peace process would not come without cost. Without a price in Jewish blood, the 'Palestinians' won't show up.
We had one of those during the Obama administration. We released 78 terrorists with Jewish blood on their hands to pay for it. It ended badly, with our Defense Minister under attack (and apologizing) for calling US Secretary of State John Kerry a messianic (a fair description especially if you consider
this). Thanks, but no thanks.
Labels: Binyamin Netanyahu, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Middle East peace process, Palestinian terrorists, Wikileaks
'Senior Israeli official' told Clinton campaign they fear Clinton Presidency would be '4-year Saban forum'
Shavua tov, a good week to everyone.
Wikileaks dumped another 2,000+ Hillary Clinton emails on Friday night, one of which contains what might be the Netanyahu government's view of a possible Clinton administration. The email is based on a discussion with a '
senior Israeli official,' who may be Israeli Ambassador to the United States
Ron Dermer. The email was written by Stuart Eizenstadt on December 7, 2015 to Dan Schwerin.
This is from the first link.
Dear Dan, Jake and Laura,
I had a breakfast meeting with a senior Israeli official who is very
close to the Prime Minister, and knows his thinking. He had the
following insights:
1. The Prime Minister always had a “surprising good relationship” with
Hillary; she is “easy to work with”, and that she is more instinctively
sympathetic to Israel than the White House. Even during their “famous 43 minute phone call, when he felt like slamming down the phone, he felt
she was simply heavily scripted and reading from points prepared by the
White House.
2. While the Prime Minister favors a two state solution, neither a
majority of the Likud Party nor Bennett’s party does. Indeed, a two
state solution has never been in the government guidelines in any
Likud-led government.
3. The Prime Minister hoped during his most recent meeting with the
President that the new MOU would be announced, but the White House only
wanted to announce the intention to negotiate it. He hopes it will be
concluded in the next few months. When I asked if Bunker Busting Bombs
or the new deep ordinance bomb was on the Israeli request list, he only
indicated that “there is no dispute on platforms” between the
Administration and Israel. He said the biggest issue is the amount of
money, in a lean budget situation. The Israeli Embassy is not going
around the Administration to lobby for a higher figure, although they
could probably get it. But if the figure is too low, they will wait
until the next President.
4. Missile defense funds are also critical, but they come out of the
Pentagon budget, while many of the items on the MOU list are in the
FMF/Foreign Ops budget.
5. He attended part of the Saban Forum and felt that most of the
emphasis was on the Palestinian issue, and wonders if a Clinton
Administration “will be a Saban Forum for four years”, due to “the
people around her, but not her”. Her own speech was “95% good, although
there was some moral equivalence language.”
6. We discussed possible economic initiatives to help the Palestinians,
like more Palestinian investment in Zone C, and/or an agreement to limit
settlement expansion to the established blocs that under the Clinton
parameters would be in Israel after any negotiation. He said the Prime
Minister is genuinely interested in doing positive things on the ground.
He said that they know it would have to be unilateral, and that they
can expect nothing from the Palestinian Authority. But, he said there
are the following complications:
(1) It is difficult to do while the knifings are occurring, and while
Abu Mazan is fomenting violence;
(2) So that it does not appear they are bending to violence they need
the “support” of the USG. This could include:
(a) Opposition to a new UN Resolution, which Secretary Kerry continues
to seek;
(b) Support for settlement activity in the established blocs. But the
Obama Administration will not agree to any settlement activity, even in
areas like Gilo.
(c ) It is little appreciated that despite great pressure to stop any
Palestinians from the West Bank from coming into Israel to work, the
Prime Minister had kept the flow of tens of thousands coming in every
day, recognizing how important this is to the economy of the West Bank
and to stability.
(d) The Prime Minister has also kept the VAT refund money flowing to the
PA, despite the provocative statements.
But he reiterated there is a deal to be made with the next
Administration, looking for positive steps at the outset; “it would be
easy to do”.
7. American Jews are focused on issues like BDS and Israeli legitimacy,
while Israelis are focused only on security, with the stabbings.
8. There are some in the Israeli coalition that want to dismantle the
Palestinian Authority and take over full control. But the Prime Minister
and the Defense Minster, and “certainly the military and intelligence
community”, want to keep the PA. There is still intelligence sharing on
radicals, but when Israel asks them to arrest the radicals they
identify, they refuse, and ask the Israelis to do it, and then protest
the arrests. But this is all part of a scenario of cooperation. However,
if the PA takes Israel to the International Criminal Court, this would
be a “huge problem” and a potential game changer in terms of their
relationship with the PA.
9. Abu Mazan continues to talk about retiring, as he has done for years,
but seems more serious now. There is no obvious successor if he leaves,
“other than the guy in jail” [Barghouti. CiJ].
10. Only about 2% to 4% of Israeli civilians have guns, and certainly
not the kind of assault rifles used in the US.
11. Israel Arabs are a “real problem.” The government had to dismantle
the northern branch of the Islamic Association because they were
radicalizing the Israeli Arabs, who are 20% of the population.
Best wishes,
Stu Eizenstat
I am not able to access the Haaretz columns by Barak Ravid analyzing this story (usually you can access his columns through his Twitter feed even if - like me - you refuse to pay for access to Haaretz), however the
Hebrew version has a more detailed summary than the English one. That summary claims that Israel 'fears' that a Clinton administration will adopt the spirit of the Saban Forum and blame Israel for the frozen 'peace process.'
I don't quite see that in item 5 above (and yes, I'm #NeverHillary and therefore voting for Trump), although I have little doubt that Clinton will push the 'Palestinian' issue.
Labels: Binyamin Netanyahu, Haim Saban, Hillary Clinton, Middle East peace process, Ron Dermer, US presidential campaign 2016
It's come to this: Saudi editorial blasts Abu Mazen for not responding positively to Netanyahu invitation
It's finally happened. A major Sunni Arab country has told Abu Bluff where to get off. And it's a big one: It's '
our friends, the Saudis.'
The editorial, published Sunday in the Saudi Gazette, a daily published
in Jeddah that has a woman editor-in-chief, seemed to depart in tone
from the widely-held position in the Arab world that Israel is
responsible for the impasse with the Palestinians. It likened
Netanyahu’s proposal that the two leaders address each other’s
parliaments, to Prime Minister Menachem Begin’s 1977 invitation to
Egyptian president Anwar Sadat to visit Israel, and implied it could
also lead to a breakthrough. Begin made the invitation “and the rest is
history,’’ the editorial said.
“For all its shortcomings, Camp
David demonstrated that negotiations with Israel were possible and that
progress could be made through sustained efforts at communication and
cooperation,’’ it added.
As another example of how “official
visits can bend the arc of history’’ the paper cited then-US President
Bill Clinton’s 1998 visit to the Gaza Strip to address the Palestinian
National Council on the day it deleted clauses calling for the
destruction of Israel from the PLO charter.
Well, except that deletion had not legal effect, but let's leave that for now.
The editorial said that Palestinians had rejected overtures from
Netanyahu with the explanation that his hard-line position on all core
issues made dialogue impossible.
“But the Palestinians should note that at that time, Egypt and Israel were mortal enemies having fought three wars.’’
The
editorial went on to second guess the Arab world for rejecting Camp
David, saying “in hindsight if the provisions had been carried out,
Israel and the Palestinians might not be in the impasse they are at
present.’’ Saudi Arabia was a leader of the Arab opposition to Camp
David.
'
Moderate' '
Palestinian' President
Mahmoud Abbas Abu Mazen sent 'Palestinian' Christian mouthpiece Hanan Ashrawi out to respond.
‘’Whoever wrote this editorial is totally unaware of the reality of
this so-called invitation,’’ said PLO spokeswoman Hanan Ashrawi. “It is
a very obvious public relations trick that’s been overused. If
Netanyahu wants peace, let him abide by the requirements of
international law, the two-state solution and the 1967 boundaries.’’
...
Ashrawi took issue with the analogy to Egyptian-Israeli peacemaking.
“It’s not a question of Egypt and Israel, two countries that wanted to
make peace, it’s a question of an occupying force that is destroying the
other state and it’s about people under occupation who have no right
and no power.’’
Funny. I don't recall Begin or Sadat imposing any preconditions... and I am old enough to remember.
Ashrawi said she thinks that “below the surface there are contacts
[between Israel and Saudi Arabia] and all sorts of security
considerations and Israel is positioning itself to be a regional
power.’’ But she added: “No matter what happens, they won’t recognize or
normalize with Israel because it hasn’t respected Palestinian rights
and international law. Once the Palestinian issue is resolved things
can move. Before that they might have secret contacts, but they can’t
afford to lose their own constituency.’’
Except that the 'Palestinians' have made the 'Palestinian issue' impossible to resolve by
rejecting any form of compromise.
Here's betting that Abu Mazen and Ashrawi go to their graves without seeing any kind of compromise or 'Palestinian state.'
Labels: Abu Mazen, Anwar Sadat, Binyamin Netanyahu, Hanan Ashrawi, Menachem Begin, Middle East peace process, our friends the Saudis, Palestinian state RIGHT NOW syndrome, Saudi Arabia, two-state solution
Lieberman: 'Abbas must go'
Using language rarely heard from an Israeli Minister about a 'Palestinian leader' since the death of Yasser Arafat, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has bluntly said that '
moderate' '
Palestinian' President
Mahmoud Abbas Abu Mazen must go.
The defense minister views Abbas as a bitter enemy of Israel and says that Abbas’s policies have eliminated any possibility of advancing the peace process.
In the past two weeks, Lieberman has said several times that defense officials meet frequently with West Bank Palestinians, without the involvement or approval of Abbas and his people.
“We’ve met dozens of economists and businessmen from the Palestinian Authority, and when you ask what’s most important for the Palestinian economy, they all reply that the most important thing is to get rid of Abu Mazen,” he said on one such occasion, referring to Abbas by his nickname. “He has imposed a reign of corruption that encompasses everything. He has people in every economic sector — in real estate, the fuel market, the communications market. Abbas’ people take a tithe from every deal, and aside from the people in the inner circle, the PA leadership doesn’t allow anyone there to develop economically.
“That’s why it’s so important for him to go,” Lieberman continued. “As long as Abbas is there, nothing will happen.”
Lieberman said he didn’t think Israel should actively work to end Abbas’ rule, but at the same time, he said, it shouldn’t blame itself for the situation in the West Bank.
“Not everything depends on us,” he said. “As long as the PA’s corrupt and ineffective management continues, the economic situation there won’t improve.”
The defense minister also charged that Abbas rarely visits Nablus and Jenin, the major cities of the northern West Bank, as he prefers to take diplomatic trips abroad. “He doesn’t want to deal with problems of economics and employment,” Lieberman said. “The entire system of management there has failed.”
All of which probably makes 'Abbas' no more corrupt than any other Arab leader. But then other Arab leaders don't lead a 'people' that have a real democracy in their midst as a standard of comparison.
By the way, yes, this could well be the end of the 'peace process.'
Last week, Arab media outlets reported that Russian President Vladimir Putin was trying to arrange a diplomatic summit between Abbas and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later this year. Netanyahu doesn’t use Lieberman’s blunt language, but he apparently shares the defense minister’s skepticism about the prospects for real diplomatic progress as long as Abbas remains in power. And, like Lieberman, he blames the impasse entirely on the Palestinians.
Those last two sentences are Haaretz whining, but what's more interesting is that the
Russians are denying that Putin ever made the suggestion.
Russia supports the Palestinian-Israeli settlement process, but there
are no specific agreements on holding a meeting of the sides’ leaders
in Moscow, Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov said on
Monday.
"There are no specifics on this matter yet," he said, commenting on related reports issued by the Israeli media.
"Moscow maintains rather trust-based and active relations with both
the Israelis and Palestinians, but there are no specifics yet," he
added.
Hmmm.
Labels: Abu Mazen, Avigdor Lieberman, Middle East peace process, Palestinian Authority corruption, two-state solution, Vladimir Putin, Yasser Arafat
October 8, 2016: The end of the 'Palestinian Authority'
There are 'local' 'Palestinian' elections scheduled for October 8, and while '
moderate' '
Palestinian' President
Mahmoud Abbas Abu Mazen may be hoping that Israel will step in to stop them, because Hamas seems likely to win them, that is increasingly unlikely according to Caroline Glick, who sees the elections as signifying
the end of the 'Palestinian Authority.'
Hamas is widely expected to win control over most of the local
governments in Judea and Samaria. Hamas’s coming takeover of the
municipalities is likely playing a role in decisions by Fatah terrorist
cells to reject the authority of the PA. Many of those cells can be
expected to transfer their allegiance to Hamas once the terrorist group
wins the elections.
Given his Fatah party’s looming electoral
defeat, more and more PA functionaries are wondering why Abbas doesn’t
use the growing anarchy in Palestinian cities as a reason to cancel
them. Abbas seems to have calculated that Israel will step in and, as
it has repeatedly done over the past 20 years, cancel the elections for
him.
Media organs Abbas controls are full of conspiracy theories
whose bottom line is that Israel is not canceling the elections Abbas
declared because it is in cahoots with Hamas and other “collaborators”
to undermine the PA.
Although Israel, of course, is in cahoots
with no one, it is the case that the government has apparently finally
lost its patience with Abbas and is looking past him.
Repeated
angry denunciations by government leaders of Abbas for his lead role in
inciting violence against Israelis, leading the international movement
to delegitimize Israel, refusing to negotiate anything with its
leaders, and radicalizing Palestinian society, are finally being
translated into policy.
Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman’s
recent announcement that Israel is adopting a carrot-andstick approach
not toward the PA but toward the Palestinians themselves, and will
advance development projects in areas where terrorism levels are low
and take a hard line against areas where terrorist cells are most
active, has sent shock waves through Abbas’s palaces.
For 22
years, Israel has bowed to Palestinian and Western demands and agreed
to speak only to PA functionaries and Palestinian civilians authorized
by the PA to speak to Israelis. Liberman’s decision to base Israel’s
actions on the ground on the behavior of the Palestinians themselves
rather than act in accordance with PA directives, along with his
decision to speak directly to Palestinian businessmen and others, marks
the end of Israel’s acceptance of this practice.
Without a
doubt, Israel’s willingness to let Abbas fall is in part a function of
the wider Arab world’s increased indifference to, if not disgust with
the Palestinians. As MEMRI has documented, the Arab media is
registering growing impatience with PA spokespeople. Arab commentators
have harshly criticized PA functionaries who continue to insist their
conflict with Israel is the most pressing issue on the pan-Arab agenda.
The
disintegration of Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Libya and the rise of Iran as
a mortal threat, along with Israel’s growing importance as an ally to
Sunni Arab regimes have made the Palestinian cause look downright
offensive to large swaths of the Arab world.
Part of Israel’s
willingness to let Abbas fall also owes to its inevitability. Once
Hamas wins the elections and takes control over the local governments,
Abbas’s already weakened position will become unsustainable. As is
already happening in towns and villages throughout the areas, Fatah
cells will transfer their allegiance to Hamas. The areas will become
Balkanized and radicalized still further.
Confrontation between Israel and the Hamas-controlled Palestinians in Judea and Samaria is inevitable.
Moreover,
this process will likely be rapid. Just as Hamas’s complete takeover
of Gaza from Fatah forces happened seemingly overnight in June 2007, so
its seizure of control over Judea and Samaria will happen in the blink
of an eye.
The collapse of the 'Palestinian Authority' and the likely end of the 'two-state solution' are also part of Barack Hussein Obama's disastrous foreign policy legacy. It's been more than seven years since 'Abbas' told the Washington Post's Jackson Diehl that his only role in the 'peace process' was to
wait until President Obama forced Prime Minister Netanyahu to give him what he wanted.
Yet on Wednesday afternoon, as he prepared for the White House meeting
in a suite at the Ritz-Carlton in Pentagon City, Abbas insisted that his
only role was to wait. He will wait for Hamas to capitulate to his
demand that any Palestinian unity government recognize Israel and swear
off violence. And he will wait for the Obama administration to force a
recalcitrant Netanyahu to freeze Israeli settlement construction and
publicly accept the two-state formula.
Until Israel meets his demands, the Palestinian president says, he will
refuse to begin negotiations. He won't even agree to help Obama's envoy,
George J. Mitchell, persuade Arab states to take small
confidence-building measures. "We can't talk to the Arabs until Israel
agrees to freeze settlements and recognize the two-state solution," he
insisted in an interview. "Until then we can't talk to anyone."
So why is that Obama's fault? Because instead of taking 'Abbas' to task for his recalcitrance, Obama and his two Secretaries of State pandered to the 'Palestinian leader,' continuing to pressure only Israel to make concessions. Abu Mazen read that correctly seven years ago, and he still reads it correctly today.
What's interesting about Abbas's hardline position, however, is what it
says about the message that Obama's first Middle East steps have sent to
Palestinians and Arab governments. From its first days the Bush
administration made it clear that the onus for change in the Middle East
was on the Palestinians: Until they put an end to terrorism,
established a democratic government and accepted the basic parameters
for a settlement, the United States was not going to expect major
concessions from Israel.
Obama, in contrast, has repeatedly and publicly stressed the need for a
West Bank settlement freeze, with no exceptions. In so doing he has
shifted the focus to Israel. He has revived a long-dormant Palestinian
fantasy: that the United States will simply force Israel to make
critical concessions, whether or not its democratic government agrees,
while Arabs passively watch and applaud. "The Americans are the leaders
of the world," Abbas told me and Post Editorial Page Editor Fred Hiatt.
"They can use their weight with anyone around the world. Two years ago
they used their weight on us. Now they should tell the Israelis, 'You
have to comply with the conditions.' "
That is why for the past seven years, nothing has happened with the 'peace process.' And that is why nothing will happen during Obama's remaining months in office. Obama only knows how to pressure one side, and the Democratically elected government of Israel has a much better ability to resist Obama's pressure than does Abu Mazen, in his 11th year of a four-year term.
At this point, as Caroline Glick notes above, there are more reasons for peace not to happen than there were seven years ago. The Arabs don't care about the 'Palestinians' anymore. They are busy with their own. If there was an opportunity for peace during the past seven years, it was surely missed.
And that is Obama's legacy to our region.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: Abu Mazen, Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Hillary Clinton, Jackson Diehl, John Kerry, Middle East peace process, settlement freeze
Israelis thumb their noses at US and EU: Housing prices in 'settlements' skyrocket
For those who are new or otherwise wondering why I put 'settlements' in scare quotes in the title to this post, it's because I hate the term. To me at least, it gives an impression of being something temporary, and I cannot think of any place populated by Jews in Israel as being a temporary home. Temporary homes for Jews only exist in the diaspora where we are supposed to pine for our imminent return to the land of Israel, and not in Israel itself. Surely as we sit a few days before Tisha b'Av, the fast that commemorates the destruction of the two Temples, we must understand that our forefathers were not sitting around waiting for their homes to be destroyed, even if they knew through the prophets that it was going to happen. Enough for my soapbox.
Israelis are becoming more secure that in fact the land of Israel - all of Israel - will remain ours. As a result, Jews are snapping up homes in Judea and Samaria as fast as they can be built, and prices are skyrocketing. The picture above is a partial view of Givat Zev, which is right outside Jerusalem, and which has been growing by leaps and bounds, filling more and more of the land that has been considered part of that town before the 1993 Oslo Accords. The picture was taken in April of this year.
But what's more impressive, as you will see in this article, is that
Kfar Tapuach, which is not part of a 'settlement bloc' like Givat Zev, has also seen its home prices rising.
The
first time Michal Ronen traveled to her rental apartment in this Jewish
settlement in the occupied Palestinian territories, a firebomb struck
her bus.
“I was so hysterical,” she said. “I thought that happens every time.”
Now Ms. Ronen and her husband are looking to buy a home in Kfar Tapuach.
The
eagerness of Israelis to own a home on disputed land is an increasingly
important political and financial barrier to a comprehensive
Israeli-Palestinian peace based on two neighboring states, critics of
settlement expansion say.
Israel
has said that settlements aren’t an impediment to a two-state solution
because many of them could be exchanged for Israeli territory in a
future deal.
Prices
are rising faster in many Jewish settlements than in major cities such
as Jerusalem and Tel Aviv because of strong demand from Israeli home
buyers. Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu’s government is increasing the
incentives for settlers, despite objections from the U.S. and other
world powers to expanding the settlements.
Israel
would almost certainly have to compensate settlers for moving from any
land included in a future Palestinian state, according to researchers at
the Tel Aviv-based Macro Center for Political Economics. That would
amount to billions of dollars, depending on the number of settlers who
had to relocate, the center estimated.
Indeed. I don't trust 'Peace Now' for anything, so take this with a grain of salt, but look at this graphic.
It should be noted that all of the 'West Bank settlements' noted above are in 'settlement blocs,' areas that Israel says it would keep in any conceivable 'peace settlement' with the 'Palestinians.' The United States committed, during the
Bush administration, that Israel would in fact be allowed to keep the 'settlement blocs,' a promise that was
reneged upon by the self-proclaimed 'most pro-Israel administration evah.'
Congress backed the Bush commitment.
While home prices have risen because people want to move to Judea and Samaria because it appears safe to do so, that 'safety' theoretically ought to exist only in the 'settlement blocs.' None of that explains the meteoric rise in prices in Kfar Tapuach:
In Kfar Tapuach, where Ms. Ronen lives, the price of land has more than
tripled in the past five years, according to data from Israel-based
property website Madlan.
...
Residents
of Kfar Tapuach, a settlement of roughly 200 families near the
Palestinian city of Nablus, said house prices have benefited from the
growth of a university in the nearby settlement of Ariel.
Ms.
Ronen said she and her husband, Yuval, moved to the settlement because
Mr. Ronen studies engineering at the university. They live there with
their three children. “We now really want to buy a house,” she said,
adding that they say it has to be now because prices are “going up
crazy.”
Well yeah, but tripled? Ariel has had the university for many years (although it got university status officially
in 2012). And Israel is not like the US where you need a Bachelor's degree to be a plumber.
Yes, some of the rise is explained by straight supply and demand calculations: Under pressure from the self-proclaimed 'most pro-Israel administration evah' Israel has underbuilt even in the 'settlement blocs.' But if people felt they needed to worry constantly about being expelled from Judea and Samaria for a 'Palestinian state,' there would be no demand.
Bottom line: The rise in price is best explained by the fact that Israelis feel secure that their land will not be turned over to the 'Palestinians.' And that's good for everyone. Actions should have consequences.
Labels: Ariel University, Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Givat Zev, housing crisis, Judea and Samaria, Kfar Tapuach, Middle East peace process, two-state solution
NINE YEARS since last visit by an Egyptian foreign minister
Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukhry is in Israel this afternoon to meet with Prime Minister Netanyahu to discuss - what else - how to advance the 'peace process' with the 'Palestinians.' It is the first visit to Israel by an Egyptian Foreign Minister in
NINE YEARS.
Netanyahu said he would meet with Shoukry twice on Sunday, once in the afternoon and again in the evening. Netanyahu's special envoy Isaac Molho is responsible with coordinating Shoukry's visit, the premier said.
"The visit today is important in many ways," Netanyahu said at the start of Sunday's weekly cabinet meeting. "It shows the change in relations between Israel and Egypt, including Sissi's important call to advance the peace process [both] with the Palestinians and with Arab states.
Two weeks ago Shoukry met Palestinian President Abbas in Ramallah.
For the record, the last time an Egyptian President visited Israel was when Hosni Mubarak came to Yitzchak Rabin's funeral... in 1995.
None of this is surprising. Here's how the
average Egyptian thinks of peace with Israel. I took it from the Egyptain blog, Sandmonkey.
But
then I rememebrd that we- the majority of us anyway- don't want peace
with Israel, and are not interested in any real dialogue with them. We
weren't then and we are not now. The Entire peace process has always
been about getting the land back, not establishing better relations.
Even when we do get the land back, it's not enough. People in Egypt
lament daily the Camp David treaty that prevents us from fighting.
In
Gaza they never stopped trying to attack Israel. In Lebanon Hezbollah
continued attacking even after the Israeli withdrawel. And the people-
the majority of the arab population- support it. Very few of us are
really interested in having any lasting Peace or co-existance. I mean,
if our left is asking for war, what do you think the rest of the
population is thinking?
I think that the Israeli want peace with
us because they don't want their lives disrupted. They don't want to
have the IDF soldiers fighting in Gaza, rockets coming into their towns
from Hamas or having to go to wars against Hezbollah to get their
soldiers back. I think they want peace because they want their peace of
mind. They view us as if we were a headache. We view them as if they
are a cancer.
All of which leads the average Israeli to conclude that peace with the Arabs isn't really worth the price in land that we'd have to pay - there won't be real peace.
Labels: Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Egypt, Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, Hosni Mubarak, Middle East peace process, Sandmonkey
How to hold a 'peace conference' without either of the sides making 'peace'
With 500,000 Syrians dead and millions more homeless, the Obama administration and Europe turned to the real priority today: The 'Palestinians.' At a 'peace conference' whose outcome is predetermined (host France has already announced that if Israel does not agree to a 'Palestinian state,' France will), John Kerry, Federica Mog and friends urged Israel to 'accept' the division of the remaining 22% of the British Mandate that is currently called Israel. There are only two problems:
Israel didn't show up and neither did the 'Palestinians.'
Among the participants will be US Secretary of State John Kerry, UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and EU Foreign policy chief Federica
Mogherini, and representatives from the Arab League. Although Russia,
Germany, Britain and Japan will be among the 26 representations at the
conference, they will not be represented by their foreign ministers.
Following an opening statement by Hollande, each representative
is expected to make a statement on the primacy of Middle East peace
and the importance of retaining the possibility of the two state
solution.
The conference is expected to conclude with a press
conference where conclusions – worked upon by the delegations on
Thursday night – will be presented. The summit will be the first
international gathering on the Middle East peace process since then US
President George Bush convened the Annapolis conference in 2007. Both
Israel and the Palestinians were invited to that parley.
The
meeting’s initial focus is to reaffirm existing international texts and
resolutions that are based on achieving a Palestinian State in the
West Bank and Gaza Strip co-existing with Israel, an outcome the French
said in a pre-summit document is increasingly coming under threat.
That
document blamed the threat to the two-state solution primarily on
settlement activity, without mentioning Palestinian violence, the
Hamas-Fatah split, or the consistent Palestinian refusal to recognize
Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people.
However, French
Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said in a Le Monde interview that
in order for there to be an agreement, the Palestinians needed
reconciliation between Hamas in Gaza and Fatah in the West Bank, and
that Hamas needed to take the first step by recognizing Israel,
accepting previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements, and forswearing
violence.
The Paris meeting will try to establish working groups
comprising various countries that would meet in the coming months and
tackle all aspects of the peace process.
Some groups would strive to creating economic incentives and security
guarantees to convince both sides to return to talks. Others would
focus on trying to find ways to break deadlocks that scuttled previous
negotiations or look at whether other peace efforts such as a 2002 Arab
initiative remain viable.
"France isn't trying to reinvent
things that already are out there. The idea is to rebuild confidence and
convince everybody to work together to find a way to get to the next
conference," a senior french diplomat said. He said the objective was to
get Israelis and Palestinians back together after the U.S. elections.
What could go wrong?
Shabbat Shalom everyone.
Labels: Federica Mogherini, France, John Kerry, Middle East peace process, Palestinian state RIGHT NOW syndrome, Saudi plan
Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander - Netanyahu avoids 'electioneering' in the US
Just about a year ago, the Obama administration, furious with Israel's Prime Minister Netanyahu, let everyone who would listen know that it deemed the Prime Minister's address to a joint session of Congress two weeks before the Israeli elections to be '
electioneering.'
In the summer of 2012, the administration went out of its way to accuse Netanyahu of interfering in the US election by
hosting Republican nominee Mitt Romney three and a half months before that election took place.
Now, the shoe is on the other foot. With the media paying less and less attention to Obama, he wants a visit from Netanyahu to shed the limelight on the White House again. Last week, Netanyahu's ambassador to Washington, Ron Dermer, informed the administration that Netanyahu wouldn't be coming because he did not want to appear to be interfering with the US election campaign. On Monday night, the Obama administration
feigned surprise at Netanyahu's decision.
The
White House said Israel had proposed two dates for a meeting between
the leaders and the U.S. had offered to meet on one of those days. "We
were looking forward to hosting the bilateral meeting," said Ned Price, a
spokesman for the White House's National Security Council. "We were
surprised to first learn via media reports that the prime minister,
rather than accept our invitation, opted to cancel his visit."
But Netanyahu's office said Israel's ambassador to the U.S. had
already informed the White House last week there was a "good chance"
Netanyahu would not make the trip.
It said the ambassador told the White House there would be a final
decision on Monday.
That day, Israeli news reports erroneously reported
that Netanyahu would not travel because he was unwilling to meet with
Obama. Netanyahu's office said it then informed the White House directly
that Netanyahu would not be visiting.
Netanyahu was invited to address a summit of the pro-Israel group
AIPAC. An Israeli official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because
he was not authorized to discuss the issue publicly, said Netanyahu
wanted to avoid potential meetings with presidential candidates at the
summit. Netanyahu was accused of siding with Mitt Romney in the 2012
presidential campaign and he appears wary of sparking any additional
claims of meddling in American politics.
"It's a tumultuous primary season in the United States ... we don't
want to inject ourselves into that tumultuous process," the official
said.
It was the latest signal of ongoing tensions between the U.S. and its
closest Mideast ally. Relations between Israel and the U.S. never fully
recovered after Obama incensed Netanyahu's government by pursuing and
then enacting a nuclear deal with Iran.
And another reason Netanyahu doesn't want to go to Washington:
However, there have also been reports the Obama administration is
considering setting parameters for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal to
make it easier for Obama's successor to pursue. Israel rejects an
imposed formula and says any outline of a peace accord has to be reached
through direct negotiations.
It will be interesting to see whether Netanyahu actually stays away from Washington from now until after the elections in November.
Hmmm.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Campaign 2012, imposed solution, Middle East peace process, Mitt Romney, US presidential campaign 2016
