WarSclerotic

No way to treat a friend – latimes.com.

Opinion

Why is the Obama administration so hard on Israel — the most liberal and pro-American country in the Middle East — when it’s so soft on its despotic neighbors?

It is nice to see a real display of emotion from the normally dispassionate Obama administration. Unfortunately, if predictably, its ire is directed not against America’s enemies but against one of our closest friends.

Vice President Joe Biden, in Israel on March 9, publicly “condemned” the announcement by the Israeli government that another 1,600 homes would be built in East Jerusalem. He claimed the decision undermined “the trust that we need right now in order to . . . have profitable negotiations.” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton piled on, phoning Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to personally chew him out about this “deeply negative signal.” Even the White House politico, David Axelrod, joined in, calling what happened “an affront” and “an insult.”

If the White House has expressed similar outrage about other “affronts” and “insults,” I missed it. For example, there was the Axis of Evil summit in Damascus on Feb. 26 featuring Bashar Assad of Syria, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah of Hezbollah and Khaled Meshaal of Hamas. They called for a Middle East “without Zionists and without colonialists,” mocked U.S. attempts to separate Syria from Iran and demanded that Americans “pack their bags and leave” the region.

Considering the amount of effort the Obama administration has expended on wooing both Syria and Iran, those statements were a public slap in the face. Especially coming less than a week after Undersecretary of State William Burns had visited Damascus “to convey President Obama’s continuing interest in building better relations with Syria based upon mutual interest and mutual respect.” Yet the administration is not reaming out Syria. That, no doubt, would be considered counterproductive.

Another rogue state actually received a public apology from State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley. On Feb. 26, he had the temerity to assert that Libyan strongman Moammar Kadafi didn’t make “a lot of sense” when he called for a “jihad” against Switzerland. After the Libyans threatened nasty repercussions, Crowley had to backtrack: “I made an offhand comment last Friday regarding statements from Libya. It was not intended to be a personal attack.”

Why is the administration so hard on Israel — the most liberal and pro-American country in the region — when it’s so soft on its despotic neighbors?

Granted, Israel blundered by announcing the new housing while Biden was visiting, but Netanyahu has repeatedly apologized for what he said was an inadvertent slight. In November, Netanyahu agreed to a 10-month moratorium on construction in the West Bank but pointedly excluded East Jerusalem. That was hailed by U.S. special envoy George Mitchell as a “positive development.” Now it’s an insult. Again: Why?

Two press leaks may illuminate administration thinking. First, in July 2009, President Obama reportedly told Jewish leaders at the White House that it was important to put some “space” between the U.S. and Israel to “change the way the Arabs see us.” Then an Israeli newspaper claimed that in a private meeting, Biden told Netanyahu that Israeli settlements were “dangerous for us”: “What you’re doing here undermines the security of our troops who are fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. That endangers us and it endangers regional peace.”

I can’t vouch for the authenticity of those quotes (the second one has been denied by the administration). But in spirit they ring true. They indicate a mind-set that holds that Israeli settlements are the primary obstacle to peace and that an Israeli-Palestinian accord is necessary to defeat the broader terrorist movement.

Neither proposition is terribly convincing. If Israeli “occupation” is such a big problem, then how to explain the aftermath of Israel’s pullout from the Gaza Strip in 2005? Instead of spurring concessions, that led to rocket attacks by Hamas. The Israeli public has understandably concluded that more territorial concessions won’t be productive until the Palestinians prove willing and able to suppress extremists who will never accept the “Zionist entity.” That hasn’t happened so far, yet the administration remains silent about Palestinian affronts such as the recent renaming of a West Bank square after Dalal Mughrabi, leader of the 1978 “Coastal Road massacre” that killed 37 Israeli civilians and one American.

What about the second claim — that progress in the peace process is necessary to quell terrorism? That only makes sense if you think that bombs are being set off in Baghdad, Islamabad or Kabul because of what happens in the West Bank. Most of the victims aren’t even Americans. They’re local Muslims. It is hard to see how their deaths have anything to do with Israel. But such attacks make perfect sense if seen as part of an intra-Muslim civil war pitting modernizers against the medieval ideologues of Al Qaeda and tied groups.

Suicide bombers are not going to be converted into McDonald’s franchisees by an Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Even if a deal were reached with the Palestinian Authority, it would be denounced as illegitimate by radical Muslims. They can only be defeated by changing the poisonous dynamic of the societies that breed them. That is what President Bush began to do, however clumsily, in Afghanistan and Iraq. If Obama is serious about reducing the threat against the U.S., he should do more to support peaceful opposition groups in Syria and Iran — states that actually help to kill American troops. Instead, he’s picking on the only state in the region that’s consistently on our side.

Max Boot is a contributing editor to Opinion, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of “War Made New: Technology, Warfare, and the Course of History, 1500 to Today.”

Netanyahu, Clinton Talk: Israeli Leader Calls Clinton, Plans Meeting Next Week.

MOSCOW — Hoping to defuse a fight between friends, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton agreed Thursday to meet next week in Washington to confront an embarrassing dispute over Israeli land claims.

The Obama administration’s special envoy for Mideast peace, George Mitchell, prepared to return to the region for talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

Netanyahu called Clinton on Thursday. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley declined to provide details of the conversation, which he described as the Israeli prime minister’s response to Clinton’s call last week in which she harshly criticized Israel’s announcement of additional Jewish settlement housing in east Jerusalem.

“They discussed specific actions that might be taken to improve the atmosphere for progress toward peace,” the department said in a statement released by Clinton’s traveling party.

Crowley said U.S. officials will review Netanyahu’s response and “continue our discussions with both sides to keep proximity talks moving forward.”

Netanyahu’s office said the prime minister clarified Israeli policy in the call with Clinton and suggested “mutual confidence-building measures” by Israel and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.

Netanyahu planned to be in Washington next week for the annual gathering of the premier pro-Israel lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Clinton was scheduled to speak to the group on Monday.

Crowley said Mitchell will fly to the Mideast this weekend and hold separate talks with Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

The U.S. wants Israel to roll back plans for new Jewish houses on land claimed by the Palestinians. Crowley would not say whether Netanyahu offered to take that action in his call to Clinton.

Story continues below

Announcement of the housing plan embarrassed Vice President Joe Biden while he was visiting Israel last week and led to an unusual breach in diplomatic relations.

In public comments Thursday while in Moscow for talks on a range of international issues, Clinton appeared to be seeking to calm U.S. relations with Israel, saying the U.S. has not changed its approach to championing an Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

Last week Clinton denounced the Israeli housing announcement. The Israeli move was seen by the Obama administration as an insult and a repudiation of U.S. efforts to get Israel to halt construction of additional Jewish settlements.

“Our goals remain the same,” Clinton said Thursday during a joint news conference with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. “It is to relaunch negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians on a path that will lead to a two-state solution. Nothing has happened that in any way affects our commitment to pursuing that.”

Why is US gov’t thwarting Iran sanctions bill?.

Photo by: AP

By MICHAEL M. ROSEN
18/03/2010 00:18

The US government is stalling on one of the few remaining mechanisms for peacefully resolving the impasse with the Islamic Republic.

In today’s Washington, it’s rare for any legislation to pass with bipartisan support, even rarer for such a bill to pass with massive bipartisan backing, and rarer still for such legislation to lie around gathering dust.

But not when it comes to Israel and Iran. Unfortunately, congressional leaders have bottled up a hugely popular Iran sanctions bill that passed both houses with overwhelming support. At precisely the moment that the Islamic Republic is expanding and perfecting its nuclear
capabilities, the highest levels of the US government have stalled on one of the few remaining mechanisms for peacefully resolving the impasse, and thus have abdicated their responsibilities to Israel, the subjugated Iranian people, and the rest of the free world.

In December, amid endless delays and deception by the mullahs rivaled in their intensity only by the Obama administration’s zeal for a “negotiated solution” to the crisis, members of Congress finally decided to take real action. The House of Representatives passed the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act by a 412-12 vote, signaling the body’s prodigious bipartisan resolve to stifle Iran’s nuclear progress.

The bill would bolster the White House’s power to sanction any company assisting Iran in importing or refining petroleum; despite its vast natural gas and oil reserves, the Teheran regime imports up to 40 percent of its gasoline. Severe sanctions such as these can be
expected to bring the Iranian economy to a screeching halt.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman (D-CA), one of the measure’s sponsors, said with admirable vigor and forthrightness that “the big question is how soon will the international community conclude that without rigorous sanctions, the diplomatic approach gets nowhere.”

AIPAC declared that the bill “sends a strong message to Iran, and to our friends in the international community, that the United States has the will to act to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability.”

Even J Street praised its passage.

Berman’s counterparts in the Senate carried the ball forward not long afterward, passing a very similar measure in January by unanimous voice vote.

“The Iranian regime has engaged in serious human rights abuses against its own citizens, funded terrorist activity throughout the Middle East, and pursued illicit nuclear activities posing a serious threat to the security of the United States and our allies,” thundered Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut, who co-sponsored the measure with Republican Richard Shelby of Alabama. “With passage of this bill, we make it clear that there will be appropriate
consequences if these actions continue.”

MAINSTREAM ELECTED officials and pundits from across the political spectrum lauded Senate passage of the legislation. The National Jewish Democratic Council “enthusiastically applaud[ed]” the bill, as did the Republican Jewish Coalition.

All that remained for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, to make the bill a law was to “reconcile” the slightly different language in the separate Senate and House versions into a single piece of
legislation.

But instead, Reid and Pelosi have bottled up the measure and refused to allow a blending of the bills. Why? Because the Obama administration asked them to.

According to a reporter for Foreign Policy magazine, reconciliation of the Senate and House bills is “not expected until after the administration pursues a new UN resolution on Iran.”

That would be the same resolution the White House has been discussing ever since Obama took office some 14 months ago, but has still made no headway in obtaining.

Recall that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has sought to impose “crippling” sanctions on the Islamic Republic for as long as she’s resided in Foggy Bottom. But when Congress finally served up those crippling sanctions on a platter, she sent them back to the kitchen.

In deadening diplo-speak, a State Department spokesman claimed that the White House is trying to “make sure the president has sufficient flexibility to be able to work with other countries effectively for our shared goal of finding ways to put appropriate pressure on Iran to
change course.”

But the Obama administration’s much vaunted knack at promoting international harmony has hit yet another dead end, as China, among other countries, appears to be dead-set against another round of UN-sponsored sanctions.

In response, according to the Washington Post, the White House has urged congressional leaders to shred the petroleum sanctions bill by labeling China a “cooperating country” and carving out a gigantic exception for Chinese companies doing business with Teheran.

Congressional supporters of the sanctions act expressed predictable outrage at the maneuver.

“Given the Chinese-Iranian relationship, it’s hard to imagine a meaningful cooperating country exemption that China would fall into,” one aide commented.

Our foreign allies were even more perturbed. “We’re absolutely flabbergasted,” a senior official from a foreign country friendly to the United States told the Washington Post. “Tell me what exactly have the Chinese done to deserve this?”

Viewed from this perspective, and in light of the Obama administration’s recent pummeling of the Israeli government for building homes in Jerusalem, the White House’s reluctance to punish Teheran and its willingness to coddle Beijing begin to make sense. Obama and his foreign policy advisors have consistently shown themselves to be more solicitous of  America’s enemies than its allies, more willing to provoke our friends than to challenge our foes. And so far, this approach has succeeded only in emboldening opponents of the United States while alienating its trusted partners.

As the nuclear clock continues to tick, let’s hope the administration begins to appreciate the consequences of its actions and omissions.

Haaretz poll: Most Israelis see Obama as fair and friendly – Haaretz – Israel News.

U.S. President Barack Obama’s popularity may be declining in American public opinion, but a sweeping majority of Israelis think his treatment of this country is friendly and fair, according to a Haaretz-Dialog poll conducted this week.

The poll also found that most Israelis don’t believe politicians who call Obama anti-Semitic or hostile to Israel, or who say he is “striving to topple Netanyahu.”

The poll, which was conducted Tuesday and Wednesday and supervised by Professor Camil Fuchs, comes after reports of a crisis in diplomatic relations due to Israel’s announcement during a visit by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden that it will build 1,600 housing units in East Jerusalem.

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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s aides said they had hoped the public would rally around him and see him as a victim of overly strict treatment by the Obama administration.

However, there was no significant change in the level of public satisfaction with Netanyahu since the previous poll, conducted six weeks earlier. Respondents’ evaluation of his suitability as premier also remained stable.

It appears the public was relatively unfazed by the Israeli and American media frenzy over the diplomatic drama. Perhaps Israelis are too busy cleaning and shopping for Passover or looking for cheap vacations.

The survey indicates that Netanyahu emerged from the crisis unscathed in the eyes of Israeli public opinion, but the continued construction in Jerusalem should cause him some concern.

Nearly half the respondents (48 percent) said Israel must keep building in the capital, even at the expense of a rift with the United States, while 41 percent said Israel must accept the American demand (and Palestinian ultimatum) to stop building in Jerusalem until the end of the negotiations (which haven’t begun yet). Netanyahu may conclude that at the moment he may have some room to maneuver, but the balance between supporters and opponents of continued construction could easily shift.

A large majority believes Netanyahu is not deliberately causing a crisis to thwart talks with the Palestinians, as some have argued. A smaller majority does not believe Netanyahu should fire Eli Yishai, whose Interior Ministry announced the construction during Biden’s visit. Yishai is not particularly liked by the mainstream, but Israelis aren’t that interested in seeing heads roll – or the coalition destabilized – over this incident.

Though the public remained composed in the face of the diplomatic fracas, poll respondents are not thrilled with the prime minister’s conduct in the affair.

More people said Netanyahu’s behavior was irresponsible than said he acted responsibly. The public seems to be treating Netanyahu harshly; after all, he didn’t plan the badly timed announcement and he did apologize several times. So why is he seen as irresponsible nonetheless?

Perhaps the words “Netanyahu” and “conduct” are a disastrous combination for a prime minister who lost power a decade ago because of improper behavior.

His performance in the first year of his current term is not especially encouraging. As soon as people hear those two words in the same sentence, they give Netanyahu an F. No matter that he didn’t rant and rave, that he made an effort to soothe the Americans.

The prime minister’s aides waited tensely for the weekend newspaper surveys. They believed the public’s heart would be with their man, whom they see as the underdog who was scolded though he did no wrong.

The public has not turned its back on Netanyahu, but it hasn’t applauded his performance either. Perhaps average Israelis cannot, and do not want to, imagine themselves living in a far worse reality than this – without the warmth and light of an American alliance.

Investors.com – Iran As Al-Qaida Base.

Posted 06:59 PM ET

Terrorism: The connections between Islamofascist Iran and al-Qaida have been clear for many years. Maybe now that the architect of the Iraq surge is warning about it, the alarming truth will be accepted.

Gen. David Petraeus, the counter-insurgency expert now heading the U.S. Central Command after successfully turning around the war in Iraq, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday of Tehran and Osama bin Laden’s terrorist group working together.

Al-Qaida “continues to use Iran as a key facilitation hub, where facilitators connect al-Qaida’s senior leadership to regional affiliates,” Petraeus said. “And although Iranian authorities do periodically disrupt this network by detaining select al-Qaida facilitators and operational planners, Tehran’s policy in this regard is often unpredictable.”

The Washington Times’ Bill Gertz quoted a counterterrorism official within the U.S. government who said “the Iranian government knows” that al-Qaida operatives are stationed in Iran.

The National Counterterrorism Center has reported that “Iran remained unwilling to bring to justice senior al-Qaida members it has detained, and has refused to publicly identify those senior members in its custody.” The Center noted that “Iran also continued to fail to control the activities of some AQ members who fled to Iran following the fall of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.”

For years we’ve heard claims that Shiites like the champions of the Ayatollah Khomeini’s now 30-year-old revolution in Iran and Sunni terrorists like those in al-Qaida simply won’t work together in big ways. But that view was discredited long before Petraeus’ warning this week.

Imad Mughniyah, a high-ranking member of the Iranian-supported Hezbollah terror group who served as liaison between Hezbollah and Iranian intelligence, and who was associated with the Marine barracks and U.S. embassy bombings in Beirut in 1983, was a Lebanese Shiite. But bin Laden was willing to meet with him in the Sudan in 1993 because he was impressed by the embassy attack.

“The two agreed they would work together,” Michael Ledeen notes in his book, “The Iranian Time Bomb.” “Subsequently, Hezbollah trained al-Qaida terrorists in Lebanon, Iran and Sudan. It is fair to say that a great deal of al-Qaida’s methods, technology and worldview came from the Islamic Republic, primarily from Mughniyah.” Mughniyah was assassinated two years ago, possibly by Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency.

Ledeen notes “Iran is a major center for al-Qaida, and the Germans identified roughly a dozen camps around Tehran where al-Qaida terrorists were taken care of by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.” In addition, Ledeen says: “Al-Qaida and Hezbollah moved gold and diamonds from Karachi to Sudan, via Iran.

IAF strikes in Gaza after Kassam attack.

Obama’s War Against Israel | FrontPage Magazine.

Anti-Defamation League Goes After Petraeus, Calls His Views ‘Dangerous’.

General David Petraeus has come under fire from the Anti-Defamation League for comments he made before the Senate Armed Services Committee this week in which he suggested that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict foments anti-American sentiment due to the perception that the US favors Israel.

“Enduring hostilities between Israel and some of its neighbors present distinct challenges to our ability to advance our interests in the area of responsibility,” Petraeus said Wednesday. “Arab anger over the Palestinian question limits the strength and depth of U.S. partnerships with governments and peoples [in the region].”

In a statement released Thursday, the ADL labeled Petraeus’ views on the issue “dangerous and counterproductive.”

“Gen. Petraeus has simply erred in linking the challenges faced by the U.S. and coalition forces in the region to a solution of the Israeli-Arab conflict, and blaming extremist activities on the absence of peace and the perceived U.S. favoritism for Israel,” the statement said.

Here’s the full statement via the Washington Independent.

The assumptions Gen. Petraeus presented to the Senate Armed Services Committee wrongly attribute “insufficient progress” in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and “a perception of U.S. favoritism for Israel” as significantly impeding the U.S. military mission in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan and in dealing with the Iranian influences in the region. It is that much more of a concern to hear this coming from such a great American patriot and hero.
The General’s assertions lead to the illusory conclusion that if only there was a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the U.S. could successfully complete its mission in the region.

Gen. Petraeus has simply erred in linking the challenges faced by the U.S. and coalition forces in the region to a solution of the Israeli-Arab conflict, and blaming extremist activities on the absence of peace and the perceived U.S. favoritism for Israel. This linkage is dangerous and counterproductive.

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Whenever the Israeli-Arab conflict is made a focal point, Israel comes to be seen as the problem. If only Israel would stop settlements, if only Israel would talk with Hamas, if only Israel would make concessions on refugees, if only it would share Jerusalem, everything in the region would then fall into line.

Obama has crossed the line.

Binyamin Netanyahu

As this issue closed, DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s Washington sources reported that President Barack Obama had reconsidered his position on the crisis with Israel and resolved to halt the downward spiral. The White House is working on a document for putting the friendly relations back on an even keel. Netanyahu has not yet decided whether to travel to Washington to address the AIPAC annual conference next Monday, March 22. But before he does, he will ascertain that the administration has withdrawn the threat to close its doors to him.
The White House also told the Palestinians it was time to stop their “over-the-top” utterances against Israel and street outbreaks and start cooperating with the US and Israel in their effort to restart peace talks.
Earlier, DEBKA-Net-Weekly ran the following Special Report:
For Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, two big bones of contention with the Obama administration have been blown up by Washington into matters of life or death. They are the status of Jerusalem as Israel’s undivided capital and the vital need to eliminate Iran’s capacity for building a nuclear weapon. Netanyahu’s coalition government would not last long if he bent to Washington’s will on these two issues. Furthermore, his surrender would in itself spark a deadly chain of events.
Israeli intelligence chiefs put dire predictions of catastrophe before the seven members of Israel’s inner cabinet, which spent 96 hours this week reviewing the spiraling crisis in relations with Washington.
According to DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s sources, they warned that if Israel let itself be bullied into submission by the Obama administration, it would become fair game for its enemies.
Iranian-backed Hizballah and the Palestinian extremist Hamas would take Israel’s loss of its senior ally, the US under president Barack Obama, as an open an invitation for an ever-expanding campaign of terror, thereby laying the ground for Tehran to consolidate its proxy’s grip on Beirut, and move in on the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad already jumped in this week with this comment: “The Islamic revolution of Iran is a humane revolution reaching beyond the geographic boundaries of Iran. Our existence and our breathing space require that we expand our borders of conflict even closer to the command centers of the enemy. One who sits and waits for the enemy to approach… will be dressed in the robe of misery.”

Ahmadinejad issues battle cry for Israel’s weakened state

This was the Iranian president’s battle cry, a call to exploit the friction between Washington and Jerusalem for “expanding our borders of conflict” and making Israel the one “who sits and waits for the enemy to approach.” It was the first time an Iranian leader had openly articulated a frankly aggressive doctrine beyond the familiar Islamic Republic’s goal to “export of revolution” through terrorist surrogates.If Obama aimed at deterring Israel from attacking Iran, he misfired and achieved the reverse effect. His policy has brought the Iranian peril out in the open and forces Israel to hurry up and pre-empt it.
“Obama has decided to break Israel and scrap it as a factor in US-Iranian diplomacy,” said a senior minister to DEBKA-Net-Weekly this week. He refused to speak openly because the ministers were under Netanyahu’s orders to refrain from commenting on the crisis with Washington.
Another Israeli official said: “President Obama denies there is a crisis in the relations. He said [n an interview to Fox on March 17]: ‘Israel is one of our closest allies and that will not go away.’
“But let’s put the facts on the table,” said the Israeli source: “Not only is the crisis there, but we are dealing with an administration whose behavior is irrational – or that’s how it looks from here. The US president is willing to bend facts for the sake of bringing the Israeli government to its knees. That, we cannot accept.”
This Israeli comment, say our sources, referred to Vice President Joe Biden‘s angry remark to Netanyahu in Jerusalem on March 8: “What you are doing here undermines the security of our troops who are fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan,” and Gen. David Petraeus‘ reply to a question from the Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South California on the length of time available before Iran was able to build a nuclear weapon. The general said: “It has, thankfully, slid to the right a bit, and it is not this calendar year, I don’t think.”

Pummeling Israel does not benefit the United States

This answer, which is not borne out by intelligence data, was seen in Jerusalem and most other Middle East capitals as another US attempt to dodge the sanctions option and play for time to engage in more fruitless negotiations with Iran.
How does this benefit the United States? It doesn’t. On March 18, the day US secretary of state Hillary Clinton visited Moscow, prime minister Vladimir Putin administered a slap in the face to Washington by announcing the first unit of the Bushehr nuclear power plant in Iran, constructed by Russian experts, might be put into operation this summer – in direct breach of his pledges to the US and Israel.
Our Jerusalem sources stress that no Israeli government, right, center or left, will ever accept Washington’s attempt to link Jewish settlements to the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan or the Islamic Republic of Iran’s race for a nuclear weapon. This false theory was drummed up by the most anti-Israel elements in the West.
Its aim is to tie Israel down and strip it of the motivation and resources for withstanding the very real threats to its existence which Iran, Syria, Hizballah and Hamas do not trouble to conceal.
Binyamin Netanyahu feels he has leaned over backwards to meet Barack Obama’s demands and deeply resents the US president’s accusations of Israeli “unhelpfulness” to the peace process. He endorsed the US president’s two-state doctrine (Israel and Palestinian) living in peace and security, accepted a 10-month settlement construction moratorium and, in keeping with his Economic Peace Program, has made vital contributions to the West Bank’s current prosperity under the Palestinian Authority, as well as handing over West Bank cities to Palestinian rule.
Yet Washington insists that the improvements are solely due to Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad‘s successful leadership and ignore Israel’s initiative.

The bottomless pit of US demands

Now, Obama wants more Israeli incentives to coax the stubborn Mahmoud Abbas into gracing peace negotiations with his presence, while refusing to credit Israel with any previous contributions to the process. The feeling in Jerusalem is that Israel is being pushed toward a bottomless pit; Washington will not be satisfied until Israel unloads all its strategic assets to meet Obama’s insatiable demands.
This week, Israel’s leaders decided to draw the line, after he laid down three preconditions for restoring normal relations with Jerusalem:
1. The 10-month freeze on West Bank settlement construction must include East Jerusalem;
2. It must be renewed after running out in September for the duration of peace negotiations with the Palestinians;
3. More Israeli concessions are needed to tempt Mahmoud Abbas.
The Netanyahu government made the gesture of offering to halt Jewish purchases of land and property in, or add Jewish residents, to Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem in the course of negotiations with the Palestinians.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s Washington sources report that the White House rejected any form of compromise and wants Israel to comply with all three demands in full.