Ira Glunts writes:
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak will meet with George Mitchell on Tuesday to present an Israeli compromise to the U.S. demand that all settlement expansion cease. It has been in the Israeli press for a few days. Ethan Bronner reports in the Times that Barak will propose a three-month to six-month trial freeze which would be continued if the Palestinians and other Arab nations respond in an appropriately conciliatory manner.
I think Barak is substituting for Netanyahu here because Bibi pissed
Mitchell off . This proposal is, of course, a joke since after the time limit expires, Netanyahu will surely declare that the Palestinians did not do what was expected of them and then he will proclaim that settlement building should proceed.
Bronner is wrong in presenting this Israeli proposal as a serious compromise. If the Americans do not stand firm here, I think it is a
very bad sign. The U.S must reject all compromise on new settlement construction. If it does not, it will signal that Obama is not going to apply the necessary pressure on Israel to achieve his stated goals.
The latest Israeli proposal is to allow a freeze so long as it's part of a larger US agreement that will allow unfreezing four to six months from now for selected large settlement blocks. Will Obama go along with this old hat charade? Stay tuned. Pay attention to Obama's very carefully selected choice of words on this matter; Hillary will follow fitted suit unless she smells an Achilles heel, a golden brown one.
A temporary freeze is a reasonable approach, if the freeze is complete. And, to test the response of the Arab world is similarly a reasonable response. One's suspicions are NOT truth, but only suspicions.
Phil Weiss wrote: "The U.S must reject all compromise on new settlement construction. If it does not, it will signal that Obama is not going to apply the necessary pressure on Israel to achieve his stated goals." Well let's see; it's been about a month or maybe two now that we've been talking about this issue alone which is really just talking about what should happen before there's real talking, with at least another few months to go if Obama doesn't cave. And then of course there's all the other talks about talking that needs to take place, and then…. By my lights then given that the remaining issues make this one not even microscopic, I guess this means that we can expect Obama to "achieve his stated goals" about the time that the Sun runs out of fuel. Especially since I think the real reason it's Barak that's coming is to make a statement that not just Likud and Kadima but Labor too—thus essentially meaning 90%+ of Israel or so—won't go along with a settlement freeze. And to make that point crystal clear what did Barak *himself* do just last week but …. "Barak confirmed last week that he retroactively legalized 60 apartments built without government approval on Givat Habraicha, a hilltop about 500 yards from the authorized settlement of Talmon. The construction was legalized nine months ago, before Netanyahu took power in late March, he said. But the plans to expand the outpost received a boost in April when public comment on them was solicited, a formal step in the planning process. These homes are to be the nucleus of a neighborhood of 300 apartments that will in effect connect Givat Habraicha to Talmon, where some 2,500 settlers live. The Defense Ministry has not given final approval for the project, but odds appear stacked in its favor." See http://wire.antiwar.com/2009/06/28/israel-to-expa... Hope Obama's planning to live to be at least 150 or so if he expects to see anything really substantive happen at this pace.
A temporary freeze offers absolutely no incentive for Israel to make progress, but plenty of incentive to just keep stalling all negotiations with new demands. An unlimited freeze enforced by US pressure, on the other hand, gives out a simple message to Israel: "You want to have so-called natural growth in settlement blocks close to Israel? Then get off your asses and negotiate with the Palestineans for a peace deal including a land swap."
Test Israel the way the Palestinians and Lebanese have been tested.
Sin Nombre, your frustration is understandable. But there's real traction. The G-8, the Quartet and the governments of Australia-Italy-France-Russia all made it clear: no more growth. Full stop. The entire world has isolated Israel. Mitchell canceled the meeting in Paris with Bibi because Netanyahu was planning to utter the words "natural growth" once again. Barak is going to get a door closed in his face if he shows up for today's meeting with a half-baked scam, expecting Mitchell to be tricked into a temporary freeze. Everyone is expecting Obama to back down . . . I'm not seeing it yet. He's lined up the world leaders, and most of the non-Zionist members of Congress to make it clear that there is a consistent message here: no more settlement activity of any kind. Obama raised his own stakes, I see no sign of him punking out yet.
RE: "If the Americans do not stand firm here, I think it is a very bad sign. The U.S must reject all compromise on new settlement construction." *** TELL OBAMA "FREEZE MEANS FREEZE" *** FROM J STREET: Following Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's rejection of a full settlement freeze, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said…that President Obama "wants to see a stop to settlements – not some settlements, not outposts, not natural-growth exceptions." This is exactly the sort of leadership we need from the President and Secretary of State if we are going to achieve a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – the only way to truly secure Israel's future as a Jewish, democratic homeland. Please send the President a message telling him you support his "Freeze means Freeze" approach to Israeli settlements. * TO SEND MESSAGE - http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/o/2747/t/3251/pet...
nonsense. Everybody that isn't suspicious after several decades of facts on the ground is a fool,
Israel is now going ahead with 50 new settlement homes: http://tvnz.co.nz/world-news/israel-defies-us-and...
Well I hope you're right Oscar, except as stated I think this issue is just microscopic compared to the ones yet to be broached, and yet even with this one we see endless finagling and writhing around chewing up time. And even to the Israelis this can't be twisted into some matter of defense; it's pure and simple aggrandizement. And yet how many times exactly does Obama have to say "no" and in how many ways and in how many ways will the Israelis fight it and parse it and etc. and so forth? Even right now I've heard that Israel is saying that they don't believe Obama means to stop settlements in the *Jerusalem* area and is carefully not bringing it up so that whatever "deal" they might reach or concession they might make that's yet *another* aspect of this that Obama is going to have to raise (to cries of "picking on Israel), and then haggled over. And wait till we get to 99% of any of the remaining issues, which Israeli politicians have cleverly convinced Israelis are indeed about *defensive* matters. If Obama is having such a hard time with this expanding settlements aggrandizing one … yeesh. Don't get me wrong; while I obviously disagree about much of the Israeli position I'll admit that maybe they're right enough about something to matter crucially to them. Which is why I don't think the U.S. ought to be involved at all taking any sides at all except to just wish for peace. No dough to either side except for humanitarian, and tell 'em all "good luck." To me it's the *only* sensible U.S. position.
Has any USA president except Ike been able to resist Israeli haggling, deception, and charades? Our own organized Jews have made it impossible to do otherwise. There's no way except to change US campaign finance laws.
I'm suspicious as well. But, I'm working for progress, not for perfection.
Already happened. Israelis passed with flying colors.
sin nombre Don't get me wrong; while I obviously disagree about much of the Israeli position I'll admit that maybe they're right enough about something to matter crucially to them. Which is why I don't think the U.S. ought to be involved at all taking any sides at all except to just wish for peace. lol. so this is the position of someone who 'obviously disagrees' w/much of israels position. how exactly pray tell is this very much different than what those 90% of israelis want us to do? stay out of it? maybe the USD should take the side of decency and himan rights and do what it does to nations on the wrong side of them. threaten them w/sanctions and worse if they don;t comply. and what exactly does "maybe they're right enough about something to matter crucially to them" mean. if something matters to me i am right? sheesh.
The settlements indicate Israel has failed. Every settlement, every settler, every incursion by the IDF outside the Green Line is a test failure. Offer Israel 97% of the UN Mandate and see how they react to that test.
There is no way to change US campaign finance laws without declaring the IDF to be a terrorist organization so that the major Zionist donors/plutocrats can be arrested with concomitant asset seizure, tried, convicted, and imprisoned for aiding and abetting Zionist terrorism. Simultaneously all Israel Advocacy Organizations as well as the vast majority of Jewish communal organizations could be shut down and liquidated: Saving America in 100 Words.
Collection: Chief Zionist Frauds
Hi Annie: What I mean is sort of "having a decent respect for the opinions of mankind" to steal a phrase, and that includes not just Palestinian mankind but Israeli mankind too. First of all yes, I think that it was a great crime for Europeans to pick some far away brown people to try to dump their jews on originally. But I am also mindful that I'm sitting on land that the Cree or some other people owned at one point, and then also mindful that they probably got it by slaughtering some earlier tribe and on and on back and back to when the first Clovis people were here. So there's a problem if your focus about Israel's wrongs is on that great crime of the Europeans because of necessity you start getting discriminatory (and probably hypocritical) as to just how far back you go and who you pick on. After all whose land are *you* sitting on now, and how come *you* haven't given it back? Secondly, after reading and thinking about the Israeli/Palestinian situation for a long time now it has struck me that the fundamental reason Israel has been so intransigent—and I absolutely agree that it has been—has not been out of "offensive/aggrandizing" motives but *defensive* ones. Not that there hasn't been a significant claque there that hasn't used the situation to *be* offensive and aggrandizing; that is certainly the case with the settlers, and there's a goodly number of them and their supporters to be sure. However, it has still been the votes and sentiments of the average, mainstream Israeli citizen that has gotten Israel where it is I think. It's that big fairly silent majority that has clearly determined where Israel is and again it seems to me their primary motivation has indeed been defensive. Now, I agree that this doesn't mean that what they have done has all been *justifiably* defensive; far from it. But I am also cognizant of how easy it is for somebody whose own fat is not near any fire to be rather cavalier about just how much defense another person needs. So put it this way: The average Israeli, so far as I can divine, thinks that okay, fine, we give back the occupied territories and then what happens? The world applauds, and in short order the Palestinian moderates are brushed aside by the extremists—one way or another, with violence and corruption hardly being an unknown in Palestinian politics—and suddenly instead of us Israelis sitting on all that land free to sweep it of this or that threat we've got this nice new extremist Palestinian state, seething with hatred for us. A state that maybe has allowed all those nice Hizbulluah folks to trundle their thousands of missiles right up to our borders just seconds away flying time from our densest cities. Maybe with who knows what on or in their warheads? And with big oil-rich friends too like Iran, and maybe the Saudis if the House of Saud falls, and maybe the Egyptians too if the Muslim Brotherhood shakes the Mubareks loose which is hardly an impossibility.
And, to continue, what then? The world says "oh gee, sorry" to Israel but it isn't the world that's in the soup then. And yet today, essentially, isn't *exactly* what the world is urging and saying that Israelis should bet on and trust that the Palestinian people will *not* elect or tolerate those extremists? That deep down—contrary to human nature—they have forgotten 1948-49 and the Nakba, and would actively—and successfully!—fight those revanchist extremists? That, in essence, despite their blood, they would side with Israel? So what I have some regard for is indeed the idea that if I were an Israeli you could talk to me all day long about how my country did this and that wrong in the past. And maybe I'd hang my head any number of times about it. But I sure as hell would not and could not just forget about my future and its dangers, and I sure as hell would say that whatever happened in the past you're not going to get me to commit future suicide over it. And thus before I give back what I have, no matter how I got it, I ain't gonna do so without getting ever security guarantee for it that I can. That doesn't mean I approve of what Israel's doing since I think the average Israel has been conned into thinking everything is defense. But I do think I understand it and am glad I'm not in their position. And it leads me as an American to say that I don't want to be telling anyone to do something that may lead to their catastrophe, first and foremost out of that decent respect for the idea that I don't know everything in the whole world. And that leads to what I said above which is the wise idea that we don't go around the world telling people their business, nor do we go about subsidizing them doing so either which is what greatly distinguishes me from those Israelis who you tried lumping me in with. In short, since we *are* involved and Israel *does* take our money, you bet I feel that I have a right to tell Israelis they are being stupid and greedy and etc. and so forth as my logic from way over here leads me to say. But if I had my druthers you damn right I'd rather keep my dough and remember the virtues of having a little intellectual modesty to know that I don't know all the answers for certain.
Of course, what Joachim (another name he posts under) here really wants is for the Jews to be liquidated.
Wow, an intelligent, accurate assessment of the Israeli position. I'm impressed.
I think the proposal as written is a reasonable one. Given that in the past that Israel has made territorial concessions to the Arabs the results have been mixed, a "let's take a small step and see what happens" approach seems reasonable. The Israelis gave back the Sinai (twice) and the second time it actually led to peace (so far). They pulled out of Gaza and it led to Hamas being elected and massive terrorist attacks. They bulled out of Lebanon in 2000 and the result was more terrorist attacks. The only objection I have to a "3 or 6 month freeze and let's see if the Arabs will try to make peace" approach is that the Palestinian supporters will use it for propaganda. Like every other deal the Palestinians have made, they will break it and then their supporters will ignore the fact that the Palestinians didn't keep their end of the deal while attacking Israel for not giving the Palestinians whatever their side of the deal was. Like saying "hey you are a thief for not giving me the money we agreed on just because I didn't give you the stuff I sold you".
I simply believe that there should be one law for Jews and non-Jews. Thom and all Zionists believe otherwise.
ROFL. And you think the law should be "non-Jews can kill Jews". One law.