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 AbbasAbu 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.'
88 US Senators sign letter to Obama opposing UN-imposed 'solutions' in the Middle East, 2 of Israel's best friends don't sign
Greetings from Boston's Logan Airport where I am having a travel evening. I'm headed to... Chicago.
88 United States Senators have signed an AIPAC-drafted letter urging President Obama to oppose UN attempts to impose a 'solution' to the Israeli-'Palestinian' conflict. Two of Israel's best friends in the Senate - Marco Rubio (R-Fl) and Ted Cruz (R-Tx) did not sign the letter. Here's why. The letter says
The only way to resolve the conflicts between the two is through direct negotiations that lead to a sustainable two-state solution with a future state of Palestine living in peace and security with Israel. This outcome would provide Israel with greater security and strengthen regional stability. We remain optimistic that, under the right circumstances, Israel and Palestinians can successfully resume productive negotiations toward this goal.
My guess is that Rubio and Cruz don't agree with two-state anymore. I wonder why.
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.
Inevitable: Sweden's Foreign Minister blames Israel for Paris attacks
Carl Bildt may not be the foreign minister of Sweden anymore, but his replacement is no better. Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom has told a Swedish television station that the Paris attacks happened because - you guessed it - Israel has refused to give a 'state' to the 'Palestinians.'
“Here again, you come back to situations like that in the Middle East
where not least the Palestinians see that there isn’t any future [for
them]. [The Palestinians] either have to accept a desperate situation or
resort to violence,” Margot Wallstrom said in an interview with Sweden’s SVT television station about the Nov. 13 killing of 132 people in a series of attacks in the French capital.
French President Francois Hollande said the attack was “an act of war” by the Islamic State terrorist group.
Queried by the Times of Israel over the statement by Wallstrom,whose
government last year was first in the European Union to recognize the
Palestinian Authority as a country that Sweden calls Palestine, a
spokesman for the Israeli foreign minister said her words reflected
“blindness.”
“It would seem that the Swedish foreign minister is afflicted with
total political blindness,” said the spokesman, Emmanuel Nahshon. “This
blindness may lead to tragedy.”
The Swedish Embassy in Israel later said in a tweet: “FM has not said
that Israeli Palestinian conflict is linked to tragic events in Paris.
Sweden condemns all acts of terrorism.”
Later on Monday, Israel’s Foreign Ministry summoned Sweden’s ambassador in Israel for a meeting with Director-General Dore Gold.
What can you say about a country that has someone like this as their chief diplomat? /Spit.
'Moderate' 'Palestinian' President Mahmoud AbbasAbu Mazen, now in the 10th year of his four-year term, has found a solution to his 'succession problem' - his inability to let anyone else take over. Abu plans to disband the 'Palestinian Authority,' hand responsibility for supporting its people back to Israel, and then complain that he is the head of an 'occupied state.'
Dr. Ahmed Majdalani, a senior PA official and
member of the Palestine Liberation Organization Executive Committee,
told the Palestinian news agency Ma’an in an interview published Sunday
that Palestinian leaders were considering the drastic move in light of
the failure of those agreements to bring about a Palestinian state.
The Palestinian National Council is set to meet
in mid-September to discuss the Palestinians’ next move in the stalled
peace talks. One option favored by many, reports suggest, is to announce
the cancellation of the Oslo accords begun in 1992, as well as the 1994
Sharm el Sheikh agreement and a later “Paris agreement,” which together
establish PA authority over Palestinian civilian and security affairs,
and regulate economic relations between the PA and Israel.
Abbas is reportedly slated to announce the
decision in his speech at the UN General Assembly later this month. He
will note in the speech that the UNGA recognized a “state of Palestine”
in 2012. He will argue that Israel has failed to abide by the existing
accords by failing to establish a Palestinian state, and that therefore
the Palestinians were no longer bound by the agreements.
Palestine, Abbas is expected to declare, is an established state under occupation.
The Oslo Accords never dictated a 'Palestinian state.' They called for the parties to negotiate a permanent solution, something Israel has been trying to do ever since without preconditions. But let him go ahead and cancel them, and then we can start expelling all the terrorists.
Isn't it amazing that with everything else that's going on in the world, they still find the time for this clown? I wonder why....
Vatican signs treaty with imaginary state of 'Palestine'
And you thought the German Pope was going to be a problem? Argentinean-born Pope Francis I's Vatican has signed a 'treaty' with the 'state' of 'Palestine.'
The Vatican
signed its first treaty with the "State of Palestine" on Friday, calling
for "courageous decisions" to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and
backing a two-state solution.
The
treaty, which made official the Vatican's de facto recognition of
Palestine since 2012, angered Israel, which called it "a hasty step
(that) damages the prospects for advancing a peace agreement".
Israel also said it could have implications on its future diplomatic relations with the Vatican.
The
accord, which concerns the Catholic Church's activities in areas
controlled by the Palestinian Authority, also confirmed the Vatican's
increasingly proactive role in foreign policy under Pope Francis. Last
year, it brokered the historic resumption of ties between the United
States and Cuba.
Archbishop Paul
Gallagher, the Vatican's foreign minister, said at the signing that he
hoped it could be a "stimulus to bringing a definitive end to the
long-standing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which continues to cause
suffering for both parties".
He
called for peace negotiations held directly between Israelis and
Palestinians to resume and lead to a two-state solution. "This certainly
requires courageous decisions, but it will also offer a major
contribution to peace and stability in the region," he said.
To date, the 'Palestinians' have yet to make any 'courageous decisions' or to drop any of their demands. There is no compromising with them. They continue to seek the destruction of the world's only Jewish State, which happens to be the only state in the Middle East where Christians - including Catholics - are safe, and where their population has grown. Note this disingenuous statement from the article:
There are about 100,000 Catholics of the Roman
and Greek Melkite rites in Israel and the Palestinian territories, most
of them Palestinians.
Prime Minister Netanyahu has once again rained on French President Francois Hollande's parade.
Israel's prime minister said Sunday he will "fiercely reject" any
international proposals meant to bring about a solution to the conflict
with the Palestinians.
Benjamin Netanyahu made the remarks ahead of a visit by French
Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius. France has said it will propose a
resolution in the United Nations Security Council with a framework for
negotiations toward resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
"The way to reach an agreement is only through negotiations and we
will fiercely reject attempts to impose international dictates," he told
his weekly Cabinet meeting.
Netanyahu said that attacks against Israelis will continue with any
international proposal that does not take Israel's security concerns
into account.
...
Fabius is coming to the region to sound out leaders about a planned
Security Council resolution that aims to restart peace talks after a
more than year-long lull.
Palestinian officials and French diplomats have said the proposal
would call for basing the borders between Israel and a future
Palestinian state on the lines that existed before Israel captured the
West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza Strip in the 1967 Mideast war. It
also would set a two-year deadline for an agreement. Israel rejects a
return to its pre-1967 lines, saying they are indefensible. It also
opposes deadlines.
That's not Fabius in the picture with Netanyahu - it's French President Francois Hollande. In any event, the reaction is the same.
Israel's Foreign Ministry urges foreign correspondents to open their eyes to terror rule in Gaza, correspondents not amused
In a marked departure from previous regimes, Israel's Foreign Ministry on Monday released this animated video showing a clueless foreign correspondent, oblivious to Hamas terrorism in Gaza.
The Foreign Press Association is surprised and alarmed by
the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s decision to produce a cartoon mocking
the foreign media’s coverage of last year’s war in Gaza.
At a time when Israel has serious issues to deal with in Iran and
Syria, it is disconcerting that the ministry would spend its time
producing a 50-second video that attempts to ridicule journalists
reporting on a conflict in which 2,100 Palestinians and 72 Israelis were
killed.
Israel’s diplomatic corps wants to be taken seriously in the world.
Posting misleading and poorly conceived videos on YouTube is
inappropriate, unhelpful and undermines the ministry, which says it
respects the foreign press and its freedom to work in Gaza.
The foreign ministry was actually responding to the priorities being set by the media and their European and American rulers. While we understand the gravity of what is going on in Iran and Syria (and Iraq and Yemen and Libya), the 'international community' continues to focus solely on the 'Palestinians' as if a 'Palestinian state right now' is the panacea for all of the region's problems. Hence the necessity for the foreign ministry to respond.
In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, former Israeli Ambassador to the United States and current MK Michael Oren (Kulanu) criticizes Prime Minister Netanyahu's handling of his relationship with President Hussein Obama, and then rips Obama for abandoning Israel. More after the lengthy excerpt (someone was kind enough to send me the full article by email).
[M]any of Israel’s bungles were not committed
by Mr. Netanyahu personally. In both episodes with Mr. Biden, for example, the
announcements were issued by midlevel officials who also caught the prime
minister off-guard. Nevertheless, he personally apologized to the vice
president.
Mr. Netanyahu’s only premeditated misstep was
his speech to Congress, which I recommended against. Even that decision, though,
came in reaction to a calculated mistake by President Obama. From the moment he
entered office, Mr. Obama promoted an agenda of championing the Palestinian
cause and achieving a nuclear accord with Iran. Such policies would have put him
at odds with any Israeli leader. But Mr. Obama posed an even more fundamental
challenge by abandoning the two core principles of Israel’s alliance with
America.
The first principle was “no daylight.” The U.S.
and Israel always could disagree but never openly. Doing so would encourage
common enemies and render Israel vulnerable. Contrary to many of his detractors,
Mr. Obama was never anti-Israel and, to his credit, he significantly
strengthened security cooperation with the Jewish state. He rushed to help
Israel in 2011 when the Carmel forest was devastated by fire. And yet,
immediately after his first inauguration, Mr. Obama put daylight between Israel
and America.
“When there is no daylight,” the president told
American Jewish leaders in 2009, “Israel just sits on the sidelines and that
erodes our credibility with the Arabs.” The explanation ignored Israel’s 2005
withdrawal from Gaza and its two previous offers of Palestinian statehood in
Gaza, almost the entire West Bank and half of Jerusalem—both offers rejected by
the Palestinians.
Mr. Obama also voided President George W. Bush’s
commitment to include the major settlement blocs and Jewish Jerusalem within
Israel’s borders in any peace agreement. Instead, he insisted on a total freeze
of Israeli construction in those areas—“not a single brick,” I later heard he
ordered Mr. Netanyahu—while making no substantive demands of the
Palestinians. Consequently, Palestinian President Mahmoud
Abbas boycotted negotiations, reconciled with Hamas and sought statehood in the
U.N.—all in violation of his commitments to the U.S.—but he never paid
a price. By contrast, the White House routinely condemned Mr. Netanyahu for
building in areas that even Palestinian negotiators had agreed would remain part
of Israel.
The other core principle was “no surprises.”
President Obama discarded it in his first meeting with Mr. Netanyahu, in May
2009, by abruptly demanding a settlement freeze and Israeli acceptance of the
two-state solution. The following month the president traveled to the Middle
East, pointedly skipping Israel and addressing the Muslim world from Cairo.
Israeli leaders typically received advance
copies of major American policy statements on the Middle East and could submit
their comments. But Mr. Obama delivered his Cairo speech, with its unprecedented
support for the Palestinians and its recognition of Iran’s right to nuclear
power, without consulting Israel.
Similarly, in May 2011, the president altered 40
years of U.S. policy by endorsing the 1967 lines with land swaps—formerly the
Palestinian position—as the basis for peace-making. If Mr. Netanyahu appeared to
lecture the president the following day, it was because he had been assured by
the White House, through me, that no such change would happen.
Israel was also stunned to learn that Mr. Obama
offered to sponsor a U.N. Security Council investigation of the settlements and
to back Egyptian and Turkish efforts to force Israel to reveal its alleged
nuclear capabilities. Mr. Netanyahu eventually agreed to a 10-month moratorium
on settlement construction—the first such moratorium since 1967—and backed the
creation of a Palestinian state. He was taken aback, however, when he received
little credit for these concessions from Mr. Obama, who more than once publicly
snubbed him.
The abandonment of the “no daylight” and “no
surprises” principles climaxed over the Iranian nuclear program. Throughout my
years in Washington, I participated in intimate and frank discussions with U.S.
officials on the Iranian program. But parallel to the talks came administration
statements and leaks—for example, each time Israeli warplanes reportedly struck
Hezbollah-bound arms convoys in Syria—intended to deter Israel from striking
Iran pre-emptively.
Finally, in 2014, Israel discovered that its
primary ally had for months been secretly negotiating with its deadliest enemy.
The talks resulted in an interim agreement that the great majority of Israelis
considered a “bad deal” with an irrational, genocidal regime. Mr. Obama, though,
insisted that Iran was a rational and potentially “very successful regional
power.”
The daylight between Israel and the U.S. could
not have been more blinding. And for Israelis who repeatedly heard the president
pledge that he “had their backs” and “was not bluffing” about the military
option, only to watch him tell an Israeli interviewer that “a military solution
cannot fix” the Iranian nuclear threat, the astonishment could not have been
greater.
Oren doesn't go far enough. His claim that Obama was 'never anti-Israel' doesn't square with the facts that we knew long before Obama was elected President. The fact that the one example Oren gives of 'significantly strengthened security cooperation' under Obama relates to a natural disaster and not to a military action is telling.
Oren seems to be placing the burden of restoring the US-Israel relationship to what it was on both the US and Israel. But clearly, one party here (the US in the person of the Obama administration) initiated the hostilities. The actions that Obama took immediately on taking office - the introduction of 'daylight' between the US and Israel, the Cairo speech, the Buchenwald visit in which he adopted the 'Palestinian' narrative of Israel's sole right to our land being based on the Holocaust, and the disavowal of the Bush letter - set the tone for the relationship, and it's up to Obama - more likely to his successor - to reset that tone.
Yesterday, I met with the Washington correspondent of a US-based newspaper. She asked me how Israelis feel about the United States. I told her 'Israelis love the United States and the American people. Israelis hate Obama. For good reason.'
It’s not that there’s lots of breaking news in “Ally” that will
startle people. Rather, it makes news on almost every page with its
incredibly detailed account of the root hostility of the Obama
administration toward the Jewish state.
What makes the details especially credible is that Oren is no
flame-breathing Israeli right-winger but very much (and at times
distressingly) an Establishment creature and one, moreover, who makes it
clear he drank the Obama hope-and-change Kool-Aid in 2008. (Indeed, he
now serves in Israel’s Knesset not as a member of Bibi Netanyahu’s Likud
but of the new centrist Kulanu party.)
On major matters, the administration seemed to hold Israel accountable for problems it had nothing to do with.
Example: The Palestinian Authority made moves toward seeking a
declaration of statehood at the United Nations in 2011, which would’ve
triggered a law shutting down their US mission and suspending all aid to
the PA and to UN agencies that recognized Palestine.
In response, Deputy Secretary of State Tom Nides called Oren into his
fancy Foggy Bottom office and screamed at him: “You don’t want the
f - - - ing UN to collapse because of your f - - - - ing conflict with
the Palestinians, and you don’t want the f - - - king Palestinian
Authority to fall apart either.”
To which Oren replied that Israel didn’t want the United Nations to
collapse “but there are plenty of Tea Party types who would, and no
shortage of Congress members who are wondering why they have to keep
paying Palestinians who spit in the president’s eye.” He reports that
Nides “slumped into his Louis XVth chair.”
Oren also writes about bizarrely petty offenses. In 2010, Obama left
Israel off a list of countries he mentioned as having helped in the wake
of the Haiti earthquake when it was the first nation in the world to
dispatch relief teams and get them to the disaster sites — because the
president was angry about something having to do with the peace process.
Even when the administration is acting friendly, Oren senses it is
doing so not out of genuine fellow feeling but to keep Israel close —
hugging it to prevent it from acting, especially when it came to Iran’s
nuclear program.
Would love to read this.... Most pro-Israel administration evah? Keep fooling yourselves American Jews.
Report: EU 'weeks' away from finalizing required labeling of 'settlement products'
The more Europe changes, the more they stay the same. Europe has always been a bastion of anti-Semitism and it continues to be one. As even the Arab countries are abandoning anything other than lip service to the 'Palestinian cause,' Europe is stepping up its Jew-hatred, calling for a boycott of 'settlement products' via a labeling scheme.
The European Union is preparing new guidelines
that would require Israel to label products made in West Bank
settlements if they are exported to the 28-nation bloc, EU officials
said Tuesday.
The move is the latest sign of international discontent with
Israeli construction of settlements on occupied lands claimed by the
Palestinians. And while the work is expected to take weeks, it comes as a
grassroots movement promoting boycotts, divestment and sanctions
against Israel is gaining steam.
Israeli officials reject the European labeling plan, saying it would
amount to a type of boycott and would discourage the Palestinians from
pursuing peace talks.
The Times of Israel reported last week
that the issue of labeling settlement goods could snowball into a major
headache thanks to the Boycott Divestment Sanctions movement gathers
steam against Israel for its policies toward the Palestinians.
According to one of the EU officials, the bloc’s foreign policy
chief, Federica Mogherini, told European foreign ministers last month
that work is “underway” and that a set of guidelines will be “finalized
in the near future.” The officials spoke to The Associated Press on
condition of anonymity because they were discussing internal EU affairs.
There have been other recent actions that have underscored the controversial settlement issue.
In recent weeks, Israel fended off a Palestinian attempt to expel
Israel from FIFA, the global soccer federation. Britain’s national
student union endorsed the anti-Israel boycott movement, and the chief
executive of French telecom giant Orange said he would like to sever
business ties with Israel. The CEO, Stephane Richard, has since tried to
backtrack from his comments, but the uproar over the so-called BDS
movement has not subsided.
An EU labeling effort would deliver an especially tough diplomatic
blow, since Western European countries are among Israel’s closest
allies. Europe is Israel’s largest trade market, though products from
settlements, including wines, cosmetics and agricultural products, make
up a tiny percentage of exports.
Europe's actions are not bringing 'peace' any closer. If anything, they're emboldening the 'Palestinians' to dig in their heels and insist on everything.
The Palestinians reject peace talks with
Israel and then try to get boycotts imposed on Israel for there being no
peace talks, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told visiting Czech
Republic Foreign Minister Lubomir Zaoralek during a meeting in Jerusalem
on Monday, calling it a "perfect trap."
Netanyahu explained, "We want two states for
two peoples: a Jewish state, a Jewish nation state -- Israel, living in
peace with a demilitarized Palestinian state," Netanyahu said.
"Unfortunately, the Palestinians don't negotiate. They ran away from
negotiations. They ran away from [Ehud] Barak; they ran away from
[Ariel] Sharon; they ran away from [Ehud] Olmert; they ran away from me.
... What they do is they refuse to negotiate, refuse to deal with the
framework of John Kerry, in the White House, run to Hamas, which calls
for our destruction, go to the U.N. and try to get sanctions on Israel.
They refuse to negotiate and then try to get boycotts on Israel for
there not being negotiations which they refuse to enter. Catch-22.
"And Israel is being blamed. There is talk of
labeling products on Israel, there's talk of U.N. Security Council
resolution demands on Israel. This will push peace further and further
back. Because why should the Palestinians negotiate when the U.N. will
give them everything without negotiations?
"I think this cycle has to be stopped. I think
we have to get back to direct negotiations without preconditions. I
think it's important that the international community stop giving the
Palestinians a free pass.
In the last three weeks, two American states - Illinois and South Carolina - have passed anti-BDS bills. In Illinois it is now illegal for the state to invest its pension funds in companies
that boycott Israel, while in South Carolina it is now illegal for state agencies to contract with any business that
boycotts others “based on race, color, religion, gender, or national
origin.” The last item on the list—”national origin”—effectively
encompasses boycotts of the state of Israel, but is not limited to
them.
The European Union is effectively carrying the ball (along with US President Obama) for a 'Palestinian state' and you have to wonder why. The only explanation I can think of is classic anti-Semitism.
Obama threatens Netanyahu on Israeli television: 'Israeli refusal to renew peace talks with the [PA] will "make it hard" for the US to veto motions in the UN against Israel'
Here's President Obama with Ilana Dayan (no idea why the previous post talked about Yonit Levy - that's what the article I blogged said) on Israel's Channel 2 on Tuesday night. Here's the key sentence:
An Israeli refusal to renew peace talks with the Palestinian
Authority (PA) will "make it hard" for the US to veto motions in the UN
against Israel.
"Netanyahu…is somebody who's predisposed to think of security first. To
think perhaps that peace is naive," he continued. "To see the worst
possibilities, as opposed to the best possibilities in Arab partners or
Palestinian partners, and so I do think that right now, those politics,
and those fears are driving the government's response. And, I understand
it, but…what may seem wise and prudent on the short-term, can actually
end up being unwise over the long-term."
That's not just Netanyahu. That's Israelis - Israeli politics. From his safe house in Washington, Hussein Obama is telling us to abandon our fears and place all of our bets on the savages making 'peace.'
And while you're listening to Obama brag about how he's stopped Iran's advance toward nuclear weapons, make sure you saw this story this morning.
@JeffreyGoldberg agrees with 'only 46%' of this mainstream Israeli viewpoint
@JeffreyGoldberg publishes a lengthy critique of his recent interview with, and a speech by President Obama. The critique was written by Yossi Kuperwasser, who until recently was the director general of Israel's Ministry of Strategic Affairs and was formerly a special security consultant to the Prime Minister's office. Goldberg describes it - legitimately - as a mainstream Israeli viewpoint, which has to make me wonder with which 54% of what Kuperwasser writes, self-proclaimed Israel supporter Goldberg disagrees. A few highlights.
During the recent Israeli elections, Prime Minister Netanyahu’s
statements regarding the possibility of a Palestinian state and Arab
Israeli voters triggered a global uproar, leading the prime minister to
quickly issue the necessary clarifications. Nevertheless, the president
accused the prime minister of betraying Israel’s core values, which he
attributed to the likes of the kibbutzim and Moshe Dayan. The
president’s statements betray a lack of understanding of both the past
and present. Moshe Dayan and Netanyahu, for one, were not that
different. Both were eager for peace, but at the same time realistic
about the need for security due to the Palestinian refusal to accept the
Jewish state. Dayan opposed a retreat to the 1967 borders, and in his
famous eulogy for Roi Rotberg, he warned against making dangerous
concessions. Obama also referenced Golda Meir, who famously denied the
existence of the Palestinian people.
President Obama’s anger toward Netanyahu is misplaced, especially
given his extraordinary lack of criticism of Palestinians for far more
egregious behavior. The Palestinians, after all, are the ones who
refused to accept the president’s formula for extending the peace
negotiations. It is Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority (PA) who
have called for “popular resistance,” which has led in recent years to
stabbings, stonings, and attacks with cars and Molotov cocktails against
Israelis. Since the PA ended the peace negotiations, there has been a
sharp increase in attacks and casualties in Israel. Hamas, for its part,
openly calls for the extermination of Israelis and sacrifices a
generation of children towards that goal.
In response to these threats, all the president had to say at Adas
Israel was that “the Palestinians are not the easiest of partners.”
Rather than recognizing how fundamentally different Palestinian
political culture is, the president offered slogans about how
Palestinian youth are just like any other in the world. This is a
classic example of the mirror-imaging—the projection of his own values
onto another culture—that has plagued most of his foreign policy.
...
So why does Obama pick on Netanyahu and not on Abbas? The most likely
reason is directly related to a conflict in the West between two
schools of thought, both dedicated to defending democratic and
Judeo-Christian values: Optimism and realism. Obama is a remarkable
proponent for the optimist approach—he fundamentally believes in human
decency, and therefore in dialogue and engagement as the best way to
overcome conflict. He is also motivated by guilt over the West’s
collective sins, which led, he believes, to the current impoverishment
of Muslims in general and Palestinians in particular. He believes that
humility and concessions can salve the wound, and Islamists can be
convinced to accept a global civil society. “If we’re nice to them,
they’ll be nice to us,” Obama thinks.
Netanyahu, on the other hand, is a realist. Due in part to Israel’s
tumultuous neighborhood, he has a much more skeptical attitude of
Islamists, such as the Muslim Brotherhood and Iranian President
Rouhani’s government. Netanyahu does not see these groups as potential
moderates, willing to play by the international community’s rules;
instead, he acknowledges their radicalism, and their intent to undermine
a world order they consider a humiliating insult to Islam. The major
difference between the Islamists and the extremists, according to
Netanyahu, is one of timing. The Islamists are willing to wait until the
time is ripe to overthrow the existing world order.
Western realists worry that optimists are actively aiding Islamists
in the naïve hope that they will block out the extremists. The realists
believe that a resolute stance, with the use of military force as an
option, is the best way to achieve agreed-upon Western goals. Obama both
prefers the optimist approach and believes that his hopeful dialogues
will achieve the best possible outcome. Netanyahu, on the other hand,
whose nation would feel the most immediate consequences from Western
concessions, does not have the luxury of optimism.
This helps explain why Obama targets Netanyahu for criticism. The
prime minister’s insistence on the dangers of the optimist approach
threatens to expose the inherent weakness of Obama’s worldview and
challenge the president’s assumption that his policy necessarily leads
to the best possible solutions. For Netanyahu and almost everybody in
Israel, as well as pragmatic Arabs, the president’s readiness to assume
responsibility for Iran’s future nuclear weapons, as he told Jeffrey
Goldberg, is no comfort. The realists are not playing a blame game; they
are trying to save their lives and their civilization. To those who
face an existential threat, Obama’s argument sounds appalling.
...
Should Israel at this moment aid in the creation of a Palestinian
state, half of which is already controlled by extremists who last summer
rained down thousands of rockets on Israel, while its leaders urge
their people to reject Israel as the sovereign nation-state of the
Jewish people? Should it aid a movement that follows these five pillars:
1) There is no such thing as the Jewish people; 2) The Jews have no
history of sovereignty in the land of Israel, so the Jewish state’s
demise is inevitable and justified; 3) The struggle against Israel by all
means is legitimate, and the means should be based simply on
cost-benefit analysis; 4) The Jews in general, and Zionists in
particular, are the worst creatures ever created; And 5) because the
Palestinians are victims, they should not be held responsible or
accountable for any obstacles they may throw up to peace?
In short, even though Israel, under Prime Minister Netanyahu, remains
committed to the formula of “two states for two peoples, with mutual
recognition,” the implementation of this idea at this point is
irrelevant. The PA’s poor governance and the general turmoil in the
Middle East render any establishment of a Palestinian state right now
unviable. President Obama admitted as much, reluctantly, but continued
to criticize Netanyahu instead of betraying his optimist paradigm.
Netanyahu’s realism would stray too far from the path Obama, and other
Western leaders, have set in front of them. But while Obama and the
optimists offer their critiques, Netanyahu and the realists will be on
the ground, living with the consequences the optimists have wrought.
Kuperwasser's view is very definitely mainstream Israeli. While not all Israelis have reached the conclusion that I have - that there will never be peace with the 'Palestinians' - a poll before our recent elections showed that two thirds of Israelis believe that there will be no peace with the 'Palestinians' now regardless of who heads the government. That doesn't comport with Obama's timetable, which comes to an end on January 20, 2017, but it's reality.
Most Israelis don't trust the 'Palestinians' and haven't since Yasser Arafat orchestrated his 'second intifada' in September 2000 (you'd be amazed how trusting Israelis were in the '90's). We don't trust Iran either. We've heard too many people say that they want to kill us, and we know that we have to take such threats seriously. Some Arab commentators refer to that as a 'bunker mentality.' But they've never lived with random suicide bombers and rocket attacks as we have. They've never sent their kids off to school in the morning wondering how, when and if they would return home. They've never had 15 or 30 or 60 seconds to reach a bomb shelter.
And neither has Obama. At least, that's the charitable view of Obama. The harsher view - and one which is apparently still outside the Israeli mainstream but is within the realm of things I find to be at least possible if not likely - is that Obama is determined to destroy 'post-colonialism,' and sees Israel as its most obvious manifestation.
Still wondering which 54% of 'mainstream Israeli' views Goldberg rejects....
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.
And I doubt we'd last much longer if we went back to the 1949 armistice lines and allowed the establishment of a 'Palestinian state' in the parts of Israel that are over the 'green line.'
The “sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq” that Barack Obama and
Joe Biden hailed as one of Obama’s “great achievements” in 2014 has
regressed into chaos as a result of Obama’s premature withdrawal of
American troops. But it isn’t just Iraq. Syria is the closest thing to
Hell on Earth. Iran is working away on nuclear weapons and delivery
systems. Yemen has fallen to Iran’s proxies. Saudi Arabia is looking for
nuclear weapons to counter Iran’s. ISIS occupies an area the size of
Great Britain. Libya, its dictator having been gratuitously overthrown
by feckless Western governments that had no plan for what would follow,
is a failed state and terrorist playground.
It seems as though things couldn’t possibly get worse, but they
almost certainly will. We are seeing the fruit of a set of policies that
were based on the false premise that problems in the Middle East are
mostly the fault of the United States. Not only were such policies
misbegotten, they have been executed incompetently. The resulting
collapse is occurring with sickening speed.
John doesn't even mention that none of these hotspots is President Obama's priority for the Middle East. Indeed, the President's priority for the Middle East - indeed for all his foreign policy - is the creation of a 'Palestinian state,' which he apparently sees as a panacea for all his foreign policy miscues. He has gone so far as to threaten the new Netanyahu government with the withdrawal of support for Israel at the United Nations.
That'll stop Islamic State, clean up Syria and convince Iran not to develop nuclear weapons....
Report: Obama green lights UN Security Council resolution on 'Palestinian state'
The ink isn't even dry yet on Prime Minister Netanyahu's new coalition agreement, and he may already be facing his first crisis. This crisis isn't with his coalition partners. It's with his supposed ally, the 'most pro-Israel administration evah.' I don't like to sole-source DEBKA, but this one rings true, and there have been enough hints of it in the media to make it plausible: DEBKA is reporting that US President Hussein Obama has green-lighted a Security Council resolution calling for a 'Palestinian State.'
Obama is reported exclusively by our sources to have given
the hitherto withheld green light to European governments to file a UN
Security Council motion proclaiming an independent Palestinian state.
Although Netanyahu left the foreign affairs portfolio in his charge and
available to be filled by a suitably moderate figure as per the White
House’s expectations did not satisfy the US President.
The White House is confident that, with the US voting in
favor, the motion will be passed by an overwhelming majority and
therefore be binding on the Israeli government.
To show the administration was in earnest, senior US
officials sat down with their French counterparts in Paris last week to
sketch out the general outline of this motion. According to our sources,
they began addressing such questions as the area of the Palestinian
state, its borders, security arrangements between Israel and the
Palestinians and whether or not to set a hard-and-fast timeline for
implementation, or phrase the resolution as a general declaration of
intent.
Incorporating a target date in the language would expose Israel to Security Council sanctions for non-compliance.
It was indicated by the American side in Paris that the Obama
administration would prefer to give Netanyahu a lengthy though
predetermined time scale to reconsider his Palestinian policy or even
possibly to broaden and diversify his coalition by introducing
non-aligned factions or figures into such key posts as foreign affairs.
At the same time, both American and French diplomats are already using
the club they propose to hang over the Netanyahu government’s head for
gains in other spheres.
French President Francois Hollande, for instance, the first
foreign leader ever to attend a Gulf Council of Cooperation summit,
which opened in Riyadh Tuesday to discuss Iran and the Yemen war, used
the opportunity to brief Gulf Arab rulers on Washington’s turnaround on
the Israeli-Palestinian issue.
And US Secretary of State John Kerry plans to present the
Obama administration’s new plans for Palestinian statehood to Saudi
leaders during his visit to Riyadh Wednesday and Thursday, May 6-7.
Kerry will use Washington’s willingness to meet Palestinian aspirations
as currency for procuring Saudi and Gulf support for a Yemen ceasefire
and their acceptance of the nuclear deal shaping up with Iran.
This is the Obama Doctrine. When he cannot get what he wants via the
process of leading and making a case, he just side steps anyone deemed
an obstacle – not until demonizing them first. We have seen this with
the GOP legislative branch and now with Israel.
First, he is driven by the wanton desire to have an unprecedented
foreign policy achievement, albeit rather dubious, in nuclear
negotiations with Iran. Second, there will be a “Palestinian” state
before he departs the White House — come hell or high water!
So his preferred course of action will be to side with the other
despots, dictators, theocrats and autocrats that run the United Nations
and by force of will and coercion, cause Israel to capitulate. And I’m
quite sure if anyone were to query the former Secretary of State who is
running for president – which would be difficult, considering she’s not
answering any inquiries – she would most likely carry forth this aspect
of the Obama foreign policy doctrine.
You know there is a part of me – as well as many of you — who would
like to tell the American Jewish community, “I told ya so.” Then again,
what difference at this point does it make?”
...
These are indeed dark days for Israel and these final 18 months of
the Obama rule may prove a greater mountain to overcome than any of us
expected for Israel.
This goes beyond abandonment. It is the purposeful intent to
usher in Israel’s demise. When you consider the lack of regard and
recognition from most of its neighbors — except Egypt and Jordan — the
Israelis find themselves in a treacherous position.
There’s no doubt Israel can make a stand and fight, but who will
reinforce and support? Certainly not the Obama administration that
threatened to cut off Hellfire missile support during the last
conflagration with Hamas. And as it seems most Israelis know, as
Secretary of State during Obama’s first term in office, Hillary Clinton,
was a full partner in his foreign policy. She may try to appear less
ideologically-driven than Obama, but given her recent policy flip flops
on trade, immigration, and crime, the indications are already that her
basic world view is the same as his. After all, as first lady, she and
President Bill Clinton were all chummy with the original Islamic
terrorist, Yasser Arafat.
What West may not get is that most American Jews don't give a damn. That's the truth.
Obama says there won't be a 'peace agreement,' blames Netanyahu, will try to force creation of a 'Palestinian state'
Barack Hussein Obama has acknowledged the 'reality' that there won't be a 'peace agreement' during his term in office, and has decided instead to attempt to force the creation of a 'Palestinian state' through the United Nations. For all of this he blames Binyamin Netanyahu.
In a stark assessment of U.S.-Israel relations,
Mr. Obama, speaking at a news
conference, put a firm end to one of the
top foreign-policy goals of his second term: a Middle East peace deal that
includes the creation a Palestinian state.
“What we can’t do is pretend that there’s a
possibility for something that’s not there,” Mr. Obama said. “And we can’t
continue to premise our public diplomacy based on something that everybody knows
is not going to happen at least in the next several years.”
He added, “For the sake of our own credibility I
think we have to be able to be honest about that.”
...
Messrs. Obama and Netanyahu are deeply divided
over nuclear talks with Iran, an issue likely to resurface as the next deadline
in negotiations arrives next week. The two leaders have long disliked each
other, but Mr. Obama played down the notion that personal discord was motivating
his policy decisions.
“The issue is not a matter of relations between
leaders. The issue is a very clear substantive challenge: We believe that two
states is the best path forward for Israel’s security, for Palestinian
aspirations, and for regional stability,” Mr. Obama said. “And Prime Minister
Netanyahu has a different approach.”
The president said the U.S. is considering
alternatives to Israeli-Palestinian talks, including taking action at the United
Nations that would afford Palestinians statehood.
Most pro-Israel administration evah? Really? Is this what we can expect next? Now that the US has left Iraq to Islamic State and Afghanistan to the Taliban, they have the troops available. What could go wrong?
In April 2013, US Secretary of State John Kerry told a Congressional hearing:
"Mr
Kerry, the US secretary of state, told the US House of Representatives
Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday that the 'window' for a two state
solution was 'shutting'.
'I think we have some period of time, a year, a year-and-a-half, or two years and it's over,' he said."
I never quite thought of it in these terms, but Lev Tsitrin argues that almost precisely two years later, Binyamin Netanyahu made Kerry into a prophet. Except that Obama is, for some strange reason, unhappy about his Secretary of State being proven right.
But why "evaluate" "other options" regarding Mr. Netanyahu, who, after all, merely confirmed what Mr. Kerry stated two years prior? Shouldn't Mr. Obama rather "evaluate" Mr. Kerry? And for that matter, given that Mr. Kerry acted as a mouthpiece of the Obama administration when making his prophetic statement, shouldn't Mr. Obama "evaluate" Mr. Obama – giving himself a high mark for being right on what he said, and for embracing Mr. Netanyahu for so precisely confirming Mr. Obama's, and Mr. Kerry's, prediction? Shouldn't Netanyahu's statement be a moment of pride for Mr. Obama? Why isn't Mr. Obama happy?
The United States
will not take the floor at the main U.N. human rights forum on Monday
during the annual debate on violations committed in the Palestinian
territories, a U.S. spokesman told Reuters.
The step, which is
unprecedented at the 47-member state forum where Washington unfailingly
defends Israel, follows signals that the Obama administration is
undertaking a "reassessment" of relations with the Jewish state.
"The
U.S. delegation will not be speaking about Palestine today," a U.S.
spokesman in Geneva told Reuters in response to a query as the debate
began. He declined further comment.
Waiting to hear that the US is defending Iran's, Syria's and 'Palestine's 'human rights' records.
UPDATE 12:40 PM
Here's an interesting development from my Twitter feed.
@IsraelMatzav Israel says US was absent fr UNHRC session at its request, not as reported by Reuters as sign Obama displeasure with Israel.
— Eli Tabori (@etabori) March 23, 2015
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
