Robert Grenier, CIA's chief of station in Islamabad, Pakistan, from 1999 to 2002 and director of the CIA's counter-terrorism center, writes in disbelief at the current Obama administration strategy with the peace process (which he considers long dead). He comments on the Al Jazeera English website about the rumored bundle of incentives the White House is offering Israel for a 90-day extension of the partial settlement freeze:
After witnessing US policy toward Israel and the Palestinians for over 30 years, I had thought I was beyond shock. This development, however, is breathtaking. In effect, along with a whole string of additional commitments, including some potentially far-reaching security guarantees which it is apparently afraid to reveal publicly, the Obama administration is willing to permanently cast aside a policy of some 40 years' duration, under which the US has at least nominally labelled Israeli settlements on occupied territory as "obstacles to peace,". All this in return for a highly conditional settlement pause which will permit Netanyahu to pocket what the US has given him, simply wait three months without making any good-faith effort at compromise, and know in the end that Israel will never again have to suffer the US' annoying complaints about illegal settlements.
Leave aside the fact that as of this writing, the Israeli cabinet may yet reject this agreement - which seems even more breathtaking, until one stops to consider that virtually everything the Americans have offered the Israelis they could easily obtain in due course without the moratorium. No, what is telling here is that the American attempt to win this agreement, lopsided as it is, is an act of sheer desperation.
What gives rise to the desperation, whether it is fear of political embarrassment at a high-profile diplomatic failure or genuine concern for US security interests in the region, I cannot say. It seems crystal clear, however, that the administration sees the next three months as a last chance. Their stated hope is that if they can get the parties to the table for this brief additional period, during which they focus solely on reaching agreement on borders, success in this endeavour will obviate concerns about settlements and give both sides sufficient stake in an outcome that they will not abandon the effort.
No one familiar with the substance of the process believes agreement on borders can be reached in 90 days on the merits; consider additionally that negotiators will be attempting to reach such a pact without reference to Jerusalem, and seeking compromise on territory without recourse to off-setting concessions on other issues, and success becomes virtually impossible to contemplate.
The Obama administration is coming under heavy criticism for having no plan which extends beyond the 90 days, if they can get them. There is no plan for a 91st day because there is unlikely to be one. The Obama policy, absurd as it seems, is to somehow extend the peace process marginally, and hope for a miracle. The demise of that hope carries with it the clear and present danger that residual aspirations for a two-state solution will shortly be extinguished with it.
Grenier believes the two state solution is no longer possible ("no conceivable Israeli government could remove [the settlements] even if it wanted to") and the long term outcome is "the progressive delegitimation of the current state, and the eventual rise of a binational state in its place."
Its still necessary to try, and to support the trying.
And, the presence of settlements need not be considered an insurmountable obstacle so long as settlers are given the choice of returning to Israel or living as law-abiding Palestinian citizens.
Palestine should be able to peacefully accommodate a 10% minority, rather than an ethnically pure state.
“settlers are given the choice of returning to Israel or living as law-abiding Palestinian citizens”
If the settlers really had even the slimmest respect for laws they would not be in the West Bank in the first place Mr Witty !! … That alone says it all.
This is not a matter of “ethnically pure State” but a matter of justice …
They (sttlers) dont obey any law now whether it is Israeli or international.Law in israel is often changed to meet their(settlers’s) aspirations. Their fore fahathers did not obey any law when they moved to israel. why should any body believe them that thye would in future?
And, the presence of settlements need not be considered an insurmountable obstacle so long as settlers are given the choice of returning to Israel or living as law-abiding Palestinian citizens.
If the settlers had any desire for living as Palestinian citizens (let alone law-abiding citizens), they could legally apply for Palestinian residence or press for the formation of a Palestinian state in which to live as Palestinians.
The criminality of the settler enterprise is not simply the transfer of Israeli civilians onto Palestinian territory but its declaration and annexation of said Jewish colonies as Israeli territory, which is land conquest to the letter.
If Jewish settlers could live securely and peacefully as a 10% minority in a rump Palestinian state, then why couldn’t all the Jews in the area live securely and peacefully in a unified Palestine?
Big wake up call in Israel today.
The state is incapable of going to war against Iran. Forget the Dersh.
The infrastructure to cope with prolonged rocket attack just isn’t there. 41 dead Jewish Israelis in an avoidable catastrophe .
Israel has spent tens of billions of dollars on YESHA and settlers and doesn’t have a single helicopter capable of dealing with a simple forest fire. Which was started in an illegal dump which Israel was unable to police because Israel doesn’t care about ordinary Israelis- it only cares about YESHA.
Who is the minister responsible? Step forward Eli Yishai, settler hero.
link to haaretz.com
“We do not have what it takes to put out the fire, but help is on the way. As a result of calls I have made, there are currently ten aircraft on their way to Israel from Greece, France and Cyprus,” (Prime Minister) Netanyahu said.
link to haaretz.com
“Yesterday Israel asked for help from Cyprus and Greece, and the air force traveled to France to bring fire retardants to make up for the material that had run out. In war time, it is doubtful whether Israel will be able to rely on the generosity and largesse of its neighbors.”
seafoid, my thoughts exactly. Providing security for the colonies alone costs the state a few million dollars a day. It’s all money flushed down the drain in the name of Eretz Yisruel. Meanwhile, a fire that has taken over Haifa and spread east to neighboring towns cripples the state. Israel is now asking Turkey for assistance. Yes, the same Turkey it vilified and demeaned just a few months ago. That’s what happens when a state is forced to eat humble pie.
Thankfully, my family is safe and don’t have to suffer the consequences — at least in the short term — of a mismanaged country and an incompetent leadership.
The so-called ‘defense’ budget:
[...]
Israel has spent little on firefighting equipment or personnel for years–diverted to the military. Help from the goy: Some 100 firefighters from Bulgaria arrived as well as fire extinguishing planes and crews from Greece and Britain, Israeli officials said. More aid was on its way from the United States, Russia, Egypt, Cyprus, Jordan, Spain, Azerbaijan, Romania and Turkey — which put aside recent tensions to lend a hand.
“Help from the goy”
Of course. Carrying water and cutting wood are what goyim were created for.
I’d just like to poke my oar in and note that the help from “Cyprus” is actually from the British – the RAF copters stationed there.
This fire could be the miracle. The wakeup call. Benn is absolutely right.
Unfortunately there is already the atmosphere of a witchhunt, with people planning to blame Arabs for starting the fire.
One think I’m wondering – is this Mount Carmel forest a natural one or one of those Ashkenazi JNF forests? I’ve seen references to a forest there from pre-Israeli days, but the news reports say it’s pines burning. Are these native pines?
Do any of the Israelis here know?
I’m not Jewish or Israeli but it’s pine trees–they grow more quickly than fire resistent trees. The forest burning was planted to reflect a European landscape.
The fire is currently being blamed on a Druze village’s refuse can fire.
link to guardian.co.uk
Yoram Levi, a spokesman for Israel’s fire and rescue service. “We don’t have big aircraft that can carry a large amount of water.”
No money for pointless firefighting but as much as you want for white phosphorous for Gaza.
The irony of it all. Bibi has to go on bended knee to Turkey. I’m sure Lieberman was silenced for that.
The bus was carrying Jewish prisoner guards overseeing of course Palestinian prisoners. The Palestinians survived.
Israel likes to think of itself as world class. How come all of its Nobel prize winners don’t have a basic fire service?
Imagine the response from Yossi Israeli when the fire blows out.
Actually, most of the prison guards were Druze.
do you have a source for that potsherd? haaretz just released the first names and they sound very hebrew to me. they also listed where they were from and out of curiosity i googled one of the cities..99.9% jewish. i recall first reading the reports yesterday and there were rumors about the druze victims but i haven’t seen that confirmed anywhere yet.
It was in Ha’aretz last night, but the news is moving fast and evolving, so I don’t know if I could find it now.
annie,
The best way to search any website is to plug the following in Google:
site:website.com “search term”
e.g.
For an exact match use,
site:haaretz.com “Druze”
For any word match, use without parenthesis,
site:haaretz.com Druze prison guards fire
Have you seen the rumors about the fire being an Arab terrorist attack (arson)?
link to israelnationalnews.com
This could get very ugly.
Also: the Israelis [Druze?] killed were for the most part prison service guards, on route to evacuate the prisoners at the notorious Damon facility, one of the worst in the ME, which has a maximum capacity of 300 or so. Haaretz reports 600 prisoners were evacuated. Serious overcrowding (other figures I’ve seen recently were 430 or so at Damon), unless other prisons were evacuated as well. Women prisoners at Damon have issued urgent calls this summer to have the Red Cross visit and shut it down. Also revealing: 4 letters re Damon and ‘preventative detention’, 40 yrs ago. Guess who’s defending Israel and exposed as a liar?
link to commentarymagazine.com
They’ve already made arrests.
And released them. Authorities now claim the main fire was not arson.
Obama has no plan, just like all of the campaign slogans – hope, change – there is none, and there is no plan for the “conflict.” What you have with this administration is a thin veneer, with the same core plans and directions of all of the other administrations. They are doing nothing because they plan to really do nothing, and hope that the “sound and fury,” like on a movie set will suffice when they finally say “we tried.” There is nothing happening but deep complicity between Israel and the USA, someone better wake up to reality – there is no “hope” involved.
There are two ways to look at US offer.One is to get surprised and amazed at the expectation which is itself limited by breadth and duartion of any benefit that Isreal is going to make available to US and become critical of the behavior of US administration.
The other is to look at the possibility of a morally and poltically weak president looking for a life vest in the middle of self created sea. It is possible that this advice was forwarded to Obama by Israeli insider who are in cahoot with donors and Israeli politicians .To make it look like a peace-process issue to the US public , Obama has put a rider to the proposal of giveaway which sounds like total surrender .The rider is Israel stops settlemnts for 3 months.
It is no wonder some have started comparing him to Truman.
Dennis Ross stepped in to grease the peace process with his huge new
promise to give Israel another squadron of very expensive F-35s, so new they are not even in the US inventory AND a promise for the US to secure Israel against any military threat kept in total secret, plus specifics on blocking all new attempts in the UN regarding making Israel accountable to internatioal law. What else could poor Dennis offer Nettie? Hillary was, of course, just the sock puppet for Dennis (and what does that make Obama?). The current US military aid to Israel edifice is “so extensive, including direct military aid, weapons transfers, access to US emergency weapons stocks, pre-positioning of US military materiel in Israel, US investments in Israeli technology development, US support for Israel’s foreign weapons sales, weapons co-production agreements, all sorts of loan guarantees, assistance for settlement of immigrants in Israel – the list goes on – that literally no single entity in Washington is aware of it all.” And let’s not forget Israel holds our veto power in the UN Security Council on anything Israel-related.
link to guardian.co.uk
Maariv columnist Ben Caspit noted that a country that carries out chilling military operations, leads the world in hi-tech and whose powerful economy emerged unscathed from the global crisis, is also the country “whose fire-trucks date back to the previous century, and a country that therefore finds itself caught, standing before the flames, with its pants down”.
Arutz sheva and the settlers are beyond contempt
“According to an unconfirmed report on rotter.net, Radio Haifa reported that Arabs have been dancing in the streets of Furadis, just south of Haifa, in celebration of the deadly fire. ”
That will be the same Arabs who danced on 9/11 presumably. The same ones who wanted Saddam to fall so that democracy would spread throughout the region.
“Arab citizens of Israel use arson as a simple means of inflicting terror and destruction upon the Jewish state. Large scale fires recently consumed 5,000 acres in the Golan Heights. A fire was set in the Gilad Farm several weeks ago and an Arab was seen fleeing by a group of soldiers in the area..”
Those evil Arabs who forced Israel to divert fire department spending to YESHA.
Even from a distance they know he was an Arab because Arabs wear a sign around their necks that reads “I’m an Ay-rab, suspect me”.
RE: “The Obama policy, absurd as it seems, is to somehow extend the peace process marginally, and hope for a miracle.” – Grenier
IN OTHER WORDS: A Hail Mary pass!
A Hail Mary pass/play – link to en.wikipedia.org