Is there a more pitiable creature accumulating frequent flier miles these days than George Mitchell? The former senator who was hailed for arranging a peace agreement between the UK and Northern Ireland ending more than 600 years of British colonization has proved to be no match for the Israelis, particularly when he has been undercut repeatedly by the White House.
Yesterday, as the Hebrew edition of Yediot Ahronot reports, Mitchell again met with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and asked him to stop building in the Gilo housing project in East Jerusalem which the Israelis euphemistically call a “neighborhood.”
He got his answer Tuesday morning when the Israeli housing commission announced the construction of 900 additional housing units in Gilo.
It was definitely a “screw you” to Obama.
After Obama agreed to not object to projects in progress, with the publicly stated promise of no more after that, Netanyahu announced the 900 units.
He regards that as consistent with Israel’s declared annexation of greater Jerusalem, as an already completed annexation, a done deal, and not a component of occupation any more.
He is a savvy politician, and will dance through “no-confidence” votes.
There is very limited left or peace movement in Israel, so that is a very small component of his political math. Until there is again, the US will be far less influential, skew to Israeli identified concerns.
The far left opposes an Israeli peace movement practically, even though they really won’t admit it. An Israeli peace movement by definition supports a two-state solution, in contrast to the often stated one-state assertions as “THE” definition of “real justice, real democracy”.
So, rather than organizing a movement that can succeed, the far left advocates for “self-righteousness”.
Witty? Did settlement expansion not happen under governments further left than Netanyahu? If you can answer that question to satisfaction, then maybe you can blame Netanyahu alone… and not Israel and Zionist policy itself.
Hey, maybe eventually Obama will really grasp who rules the roost in the USA as much as
Netanyahu. I mean it does look like Obama has been slowly learning the score.
Hey Nazi, you’re no one to judge what the ‘Far Left’ is and what ‘it’ thinks.
But yea, same Wittyisms. Orwellian language (Jews want ‘peace’, Palestinians and their supporters do not).
And Israel killed 1400 people in 22 days. There is no Israeli peace movement you yuppie piece of trash.
when usa politicans develop a spine bone, they will stop giving israel a few billion each year… this will have the magical effect of altering things as they presently stand in the usrael relationship… until then, it will be biz or bullshit as usual…
Holding your breath for this? I’m not. Congress sold their spine bones for campaign cash a lot time ago.
I would have thought that Republicans have lots of spine. Unfortunately their politics are literally fascist.
I’ve wondered if it will be the Republicans that ultimately will pull the plug on Israel. I think that they are capable of doing it if it becomes important to them. If so, I’m sure they will somehow manage to make it a bigger disaster than what we have now.
part of the way for american politicians to develop a spine bone is for ordinary american citizens to be made aware of the fucked up game that israel is playing with them… until more folks wake up to this, dishonest brokers for israel will continue on their merry little bullshit way with all of this…
i think a better title for this and many others like this could be :”" israel ignores”"….. one can fill in the blanks as they see fit…
I’ve looked at Gilo, Israel at Google Maps and it is fairly close to the Green Line and south of Jerusalem. In contrast, I read articles in the Israeli press about rightwing soldiers refusing evacuation orders of West Bank settlements and outposts. Does anyone have a thorough analysis with data on new Israeli settlements and dismantled ones and whether they occur deep into the West Bank or near the 1967 border? I think it is expected by all sides that Israel will keep at least some of the settlements near the 1967 border. What is the cost for having settlements taking over some border space? It would be a positive compromise to move the settlers from deep into the territory to areas close to the border. It might shrink a future Palestinian state a bit, but it will remove tension between rightwing and central Israelis, and Palestinian “moderates”.
The significance of the East Jerusalem developments/settlements is that
1. They are exclusively Jewish leases, so not really rationalizable as “developments”
2. They further approach the pincer of isolation of East Jerusalem from the rest of Palestine.
That is beyond legal issues of title and expropriation by decree, rather than by bi-lateral and multi-lateral consent.
And so, given what you say, Witty, what’s your advice for Obama?
You’re an expert in bullshit Witty. It’s Nazis like you who continue to spout legal spittle while the Palestinians continue to lose their land and homes.
Phil, why do you allow this guy to post? Seriously. Have you considered his intentions? Do you think about what Witty’s commentary?
At least Phil, own up to your own sense of Jewish exceptionalism and racism, you don’t give a damn about Palestinians. Clearly. You let Witty continue to post. You let all the other racists and bigots like yonira, etc. post. But you’ll ban Chris [Moore? don't remember] and make special posts about anti$emitism. Shame on you Phil.
You just love the smell of your own humanism. But you don’t give a shit about the non-Jewish people involved. It’s like an ongoing movie to you and you’re just entertained by it. That’s why you kept that camera on that Palestinian girl – like a sleazeball.
Do you even think they’re people like you Phil? Ever think maybe, one day, they’ll finally overcome Zionism an the Jewish Thought Police and wonder who that sick voyeur was?
You and Witty deserve each other. Quite a pair of Jewish tourists you are.
On capturing Jerusalem in 1967, Israel expanded the boundaries of the city to three times its original size and annexed it. Since the international community has never recognized this officially and considers all of that area to be illegally occupied, none of the Jewish “settlements” such as Gilo are in Jerusalem at all.