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A Statement on the Crisis in the U.S.—Israel Relationship

March 19, 2015

A Statement on the Crisis in the U.S.—Israel Relationship, Commentary Magazine, The Editors, March 19, 2015

(A lengthy but excellent summary, putting the relationship between the U.S. and Israel in perspective. — DM)

After six weeks of madness, Benjamin Netanyahu stood before Congress and delivered a speech about the nuclear threat posed by Iran. It was a terrific speech. It was not a remarkable speech, because nothing the Israeli prime minister said came as news to anyone who has been paying attention to the issue for the past decade.

What made his speech and its occasion of particular note were the atmospherics. It has been years since an address by a politician in the United States had been so hotly anticipated, and it wasn’t even to be delivered by an American. The anticipation was due entirely to Barack Obama’s incendiary response to the speaking invitation extended to Netanyahu in January by the Republican House leader, John Boehner.

The president’s displeasure and rage continued to grow, to the point that a few days before the speech, no less a personage than National Security Adviser Susan Rice said it would be “destructive of the fabric of the relationship” between the United States and Israel. On the day of the speech, the Democratic Middle East operative Martin Indyk declared on CNN that it was “the saddest and most tragic day” for the relationship in all his 35 years as a water-carrier.

In this case, we fear, the wish is father to the threat. Susan Rice and Martin Indyk see the relationship between Israel and the United States on a downward spiral because they and their boss want it so. Obama does not like the special status Israel seems to enjoy in the United States—not only because its particularistic and nationalist claim offends him ideologically, but because Israel’s popularity with the American people limits his freedom of action.

The relationship between the United States and Israel is in jeopardy because, from the moment his administration began, Barack Obama has consciously, deliberately, and with malice aforethought sought to jeopardize it. He did so in part because he is committed to the idea that Israel must retreat to its 1967 borders, dismantle its settlements, and will a Palestinian state into existence. He views Israel’s inability or unwillingness to do these things as a moral stain.

But the depth of Obama’s anger toward Israel and Netanyahu suggests that there is far more to it than that. Israel stands in the way of what the president hopes might be his crowning foreign-policy achievement: a new order in the Middle East represented by a new entente with Iran. Netanyahu’s testimony on behalf of his country and his people is this: A nuclear Iran will possess the means to visit a second Holocaust on the Jews in a single day. His testimony on behalf of everyone else is this: A nuclear Iran will set off an arms race in the Middle East that will threaten world order, the world’s financial stability, and the lives of untold millions. Simply put, Obama finds the witness Israel is bearing to the threat posed by Iran unbearable.

Elliott Abrams has called the speech kerfuffle a “manufactured crisis.” He is right, and the assembly line has been rolling without letup for six years.

Barack Obama came into office determined to put daylight between the United States and Israel. A few months after his inauguration, he met with Jewish leaders to discuss growing concerns about the bilateral relationship. One leader, Malcolm Hoenlein, told the president: “If you want Israel to take risks, then its leaders must know that the United States is right next to them.” Obama responded thus: “Look at the past eight years. During those eight years, there was no space between us and Israel, and what did we get from that? When there is no daylight, Israel just sits on the sidelines, and that erodes our credibility with the Arab states.”

Obama sought to make “daylight” almost immediately by picking fights with the new government of Benjamin Netanyahu, who came into office only weeks after Obama’s inauguration. The administration made no secret of its hopes that Netanyahu’s government would fall and be replaced by the supposedly more pliant opposition leader Tzipi Livni.

While the White House and the State Department have consistently portrayed Netanyahu as a man bent on obstructing Obama’s policies, the record shows otherwise. From the start, Netanyahu has sought to accommodate the Obama administration’s wishes as much as possible without jeopardizing Israel’s security.

In May 2009, Obama met with Netanyahu and told him bluntly that “settlements [on the West Bank] have to be stopped in order for us to move forward.” Israel complied; Netanyahu announced a 10-month settlement freeze, which was supposed to trigger a new round of U.S.-led peace talks. But for nine months Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas refused all invitations to negotiate. In the 10th month, Abbas sat through exactly two talks before abandoning negotiations once again. Yet Obama offered this assessment in a January 2010 interview with Time: “Although the Israelis, I think, after a lot of time showed a willingness to make some modifications in their policies, they still found it very hard to move with any bold gestures.”

Like all its predecessors, the Obama administration is a stern critic of Israel’s West Bank settlements and sees them as an obstacle to peace. But the administration’s particular obsession was not Jews sitting on remote hilltops or in areas many if not most Israelis saw as expendable—but rather the Jewish presence throughout unified Jerusalem. Though no American government had ever recognized Israeli sovereignty over the capital, the Obama administration was the first to consider normal growth in Jerusalem’s 40-year-old Jewish neighborhoods (in parts of the city that had been illegally occupied by Jordan, from 1949 to 1967) as a deliberate and outrageous provocation.

This came to a head in the spring of 2010 when a routine announcement of a housing project in one of those Jerusalem neighborhoods (which had specifically been exempted from the freeze) coincided with a visit to Israel by Vice President Joe Biden. Netanyahu found himself on the receiving end of a 43-minute telephone tirade from then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. She accused Netanyahu of sending a “deeply negative signal” that had “harmed the bilateral relationship.” Such condemnations were repeatedly echoed in the press from multiple administration figures.

The administration clearly hoped its expressions of rage could be leveraged to force Israel to agree to end such construction—and encourage the Palestinians to realize that the United States would back them in negotiations. But rather than isolate Netanyahu, the U.S. attack on Jewish Jerusalem strengthened him, because defending the unity of the city remains one of the few issues on which there is consensus in Israeli politics.

Even as relations continued to deteriorate—Israel’s then-ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, told a group of Israeli diplomats in 2010 that U.S.–Israel relations were at their lowest point since 1975—Netanyahu moderated construction in settlements. By the first half of 2014, Israel was building at its slowest rate since the 2010 freeze. (Indeed, according to Israeli historian and archivist Yaacov Lozowick, no new settlements have been built since 2003.)

In May 2011, President Obama gave a major address responding to the Arab Spring protests, in which he chose to devote the last third to a plan for a new round of Israeli–Palestinian talks—a non sequitur if ever there has been one. The plan was to set the 1967 lines as the starting point for future negotiations. The speech was timed to be delivered the day before Netanyahu was to arrive in the United States for talks. Obama was attempting to force a fait accompli.

Netanyahu earned applause at home and in the U.S. for pushing back against Obama’s idea, which he rightly saw as an attempt to undermine Israel’s negotiating position. Days later, Netanyahu spoke to a joint session of Congress where both Republicans and Democrats cheered him as if he were the second coming of Winston Churchill, a spectacle that was rightly seen as a rebuke to Obama’s slap at the Israelis. (That episode is crucial to understanding the White House’s bitterness about Netanyahu’s recent speech to Congress.) And like the previous arguments with Israel, this one would yield no benefits to the United States, since not even this tilting of the diplomatic playing field toward the Palestinians would be enough to nudge them to make peace.

The general antipathy toward the Israeli prime minister led Washington Postcolumnist Jackson Diehl to ask, in November 2011, “Why do Sarkozy and Obama hate Netanyahu?” Diehl was writing on the revelation that Obama and then-French President Nicolas Sarkozy had made comments, picked up on a live microphone, about their dislike of the Israeli leader. Diehl pointed out that Obama’s problem with Netanyahu was obviously personal: “Netanyahu has been an occasionally difficult but ultimately cooperative partner. He can be accused of moving too slowly and offering too little, but not of failing to heed American initiatives.”

After this incident, the administration put its campaign against Israel on hold for the duration of the 2012 presidential election campaign. It ceased sparring with Netanyahu and even moved toward Israel on the subject of Iran.

Obama had always stated his opposition to an Iranian bomb, but he had also consistently demonstrated his desire for a rapprochement with Tehran. He was both slow and reluctant to embrace sanctions against the regime. Throughout this period, the administration seemed more anxious about preventing an Israeli strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities than it was about the nuclear threat itself. But in 2012, the president told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee that he would never be willing to merely “contain” a nuclear Iran. And during his foreign-policy debate with Mitt Romney, he pledged that any possible deal with Iran would require it to give up its nuclear program.

Once reelected, Obama reverted. He unleashed John Kerry, his new secretary of state, to pursue yet another futile quest for peace with the Palestinians. Despite

successful American pressure on Israel to agree to a framework that accepted most of the Palestinians’ demands throughout 2013, Abbas wouldn’t take yes for an answer. He eventually blew up the talks. The Obama administration responded by placing the blame for Kerry’s failure on Israel, arguing speciously that the problem was construction in Jerusalem and in the settlement blocs that would be retained by Israel in any peace deal.

This administration’s willingness to blame the Jewish state under virtually any circumstances was on display again, in the summer of 2014, after rocket barrages on Israeli cities prompted Israel to launch a counterattack on Hamas bases in Gaza. Though the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff would later cite Israeli efforts to avoid civilian casualties in the fighting as a model for American troops, the White House and the State Department criticized Israel for the deaths of Palestinians—who were being used as human shields by Hamas. But far worse, and far more suggestive of Obama’s true feelings, was the White House’s decision to try and use arms supplies as a pressure point against Israel.

Throughout the Obama presidency, the president’s defenders (and Netanyahu, in his 2015 address to Congress) have spoken of the strengthening of the so-called strategic relationship with Israel as proof of Obama’s sincere support for the alliance. It is true that Obama continued funding for the Iron Dome missile-defense system initiated under the Bush administration and did not obstruct the fostering of close ties between the two countries’ defense and intelligence establishments. But the Gaza war revealed the president’s discomfort with that closeness. When he realized that the Pentagon, without his express permission, was resupplying Israel with ammunition needed for fighting Hamas, he called a halt to it—supposedly to send a signal he did not think Israel was being surgical enough with its surgical strikes. He denied Israel bullets in the middle of a shooting war.

Meanwhile, the administration’s secret negotiating track with Iran was making progress. And this brings us to the nub of the issue.

The true beating heart of the crisis between Israel and Obama is Iran. The Islamic Republic does not merely harbor genocidal fantasies about annihilating Israel; it boasts of them. The country was founded in 1979 on the theocratic vision of Ruhollah Khomeini, who made the destruction of Israel a defining national objective. More than three decades later, Iran’s leaders remain obsessed with the idea. It is, to their thinking, an unshakable Islamic obligation. As recently as last November, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei publicly outlined a nine-point plan for eradicating the Jewish state.

More important than Tehran’s declarations are its actions. In 2002, an Iranian dissident revealed two secret Iranian nuclear sites, confirming—for those with eyes to see—the mullahs’ pursuit of a nuclear weapon. In 2010, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) declared that Iran had worked on, or is working on, the construction of a nuclear warhead and has experimented with detonation methods. IAEA inspectors have also found evidence that the Iranians have clandestinely enriched uranium to levels that exceed those needed for civilian energy and approach those required for a nuclear bomb.

Iran’s religious hatred of the Jewish state combined with its apparent pursuit of a nuclear weapon make it Israel’s chief security concern. The overused term “existential threat” is the only one that applies. As ISIS’s recent establishment of an Islamic caliphate shows, the nightmares of committed Muslim radicals can come true.

Obama came to office declaring he would not permit Iran to build a nuclear weapon and that “all options are on the table” for stopping it. Repeating this assurance, he succeeded in getting Israel to refrain from striking Iran on its own. Obama’s record, however, has discredited the suggestion that he would take military action if necessary. He has demonstrated an unyielding faith in diplomacy and seems to regard the use of force as almost necessarily reckless. What’s more, he hoped—and hopes—to use diplomacy to make the Shia theocracy “a responsible member of the international community,” in Susan Rice’s words. This fanciful goal seems to have become Obama’s priority. As his foreign-policy spokesman, Ben Rhodes, said: “This is probably the biggest thing President Obama will do in his second term on foreign policy. This is health care for us, just to put it in context.”

During his first term, Obama reached out to Tehran repeatedly. He went through several third parties to offer Iran access to civilian-grade nuclear energy. The mullahs rejected every overture. Despite Iran’s obstinacy, Obama began his second term covertly imploring the Iranians to sit down for direct talks with the United States. In 2013, Iran elected President Hassan Rouhani, a regime hardliner who had enjoyed a public-relations makeover as a “moderate.” The administration soon announced direct talks between Washington and Tehran, talks that had been planned behind Israel’s back. Netanyahu has been left to look on while the Obama administration chases a dangerous nuclear deal with Iran.¹

As Washington crafted its deal, Obama administration officials took the opportunity to taunt Netanyahu for having complied with the president’s request not to strike Iran. “The thing about Bibi is, he’s a chickenshit,” an administration official told the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg. “The good thing about Netanyahu is that he’s scared to launch wars. It’s too late for him to do anything. Two, three years ago, this was a possibility. But ultimately he couldn’t bring himself to pull the trigger. It was a combination of our pressure and his own unwillingness to do anything dramatic. Now it’s too late.”

Israel’s prospects for a strike on Iran’s nuclear program have grown dim indeed. First, it’s a technically formidable undertaking. During these past few years, Iran’s nuclear sites have become more diffuse and entrenched. It may well be that the United States alone has the sufficient resources and weaponry to disable Iran’s air defenses and do meaningful damage to its various fortified facilities.

If Israel launches a strike that falls short of disabling the Iranian nuclear program, Israelis would face the same Iranian threat along with grave new problems. In addition to launching direct retaliatory strikes on Israel, Iran might respond by blocking the straits of Hormuz and driving up oil prices. Without the help of the United States, Israel would bear the global outrage (and perhaps punishment) for the resulting destabilization. And although Arab leaders would privately celebrate any blow dealt their Iranian enemy, they too would publicly admonish the Jewish state. This would inevitably further inflame the anti-Semitic and anti-Israel violence that now consumes the Muslim world.

And if the United States has explicitly recognized Iran’s right to enrich uranium, Israel would ostensibly be attacking a “legitimate” nuclear-power state against America’s wishes. With the American–Israeli alliance already at such a precarious point, this final act of Israeli disobedience could tear open an almost unthinkable breach in the bilateral relationship.

The fraying of the relationship has only served Obama’s larger purpose vis-à-vis Iran. As his effort to get Democratic members of the House and Senate to boycott Netanyahu’s speech demonstrates, Obama has spent six years implicitly setting up a loyalty test: Democrats will be showing their disloyalty to him if they show support for Israel as it does whatever it can to prevent Iran from getting the bomb.

The breach with the Obama administration illustrates a basic problem within the pro-Israel coalition inside the United States. During the 2012 campaign, Jewish Democrats were able to say that he had strengthened security cooperation between the two countries. Their argument was shaken during the Gaza war in 2014, when Obama cancelled the ammunition resupply.

Even so, the administration succeeded in the first months of 2015 in distracting many Jewish supporters of Israel from the looming bad deal with Iran by focusing their attention on the supposed breach of protocol represented by Netanyahu’s acceptance of Boehner’s invitation. Since most liberal Jews view Boehner and the GOP Congressional majorities with almost as much disdain as they do Israel’s enemies, and since many are not especially supportive of Netanyahu, they were disinclined to back him against the president.

Netanyahu was accused by the administration of injecting partisanship into the U.S.–Israel relationship, but the true culprit here was Obama. He was playing off the fact that his party’s members are far less supportive of Israel than Republicans are.

According to Gallup, support for Israel among Democrats is currently at almost exactly the same level it was in 1988. Now, as was true a quarter century ago, 47 percent of Democrats sympathize with Israel. That was before Israel signed the Oslo Accords, was subjected to an ongoing terror campaign, withdrew from the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank unilaterally, publicly declared support for the establishment of a Palestinian state, and made three separate final-status offers that would have given the Palestinians a state with its capital in Jerusalem. And before Iran began developing the bomb.

Republicans noticed. In 1988, their sympathy for Israel vis-à-vis the Palestinians was at about the same level as the Democrats’; today it’s at 83 percent. Independents noticed as well. In 1988, 42 percent of independents sympathized with Israel; today that number has jumped 17 points to 59.

Israel’s good-faith negotiations and sacrifices for peace in the face of unrelenting terror and incitement won over Republicans and independents. Democrats remain unmoved. That consistency, and the partisan gap it is creating in support for Israel, is far from reassuring.

During the war with Hamas last summer, the Israel Defense Forces uncovered some 30-plus tunnels running from Gaza into population centers in Israel to be used for mass terror attacks against Israeli civilians. The war itself was touched off by steady rocket fire from Gaza into southern Israel. Israel’s goal was to stop the rocket fire and neutralize the tunnels, not to overthrow Hamas or retake the Gaza Strip. When those objectives were reached, Israel withdrew.

Yet a CNN poll found that only 45 percent of Democrats considered Israel’s counteroffensive justified, compared with 56 percent of independents and 73 percent of Republicans. According to Gallup, only 31 percent of Democrats considered Israel’s
actions justified. Astoundingly, a Pew poll recorded that Democrats were evenly divided on whether Israel or Hamas was to blame for the war.

Pro-Israel Democrats don’t simply have an ‘Obama problem.’ The president did not create Israel’s status as a wedge issue for his party. He has only exploited it.

Certainly, the supportive voting record of Democratic members of Congress acts as an important check on the rougher treatment Israel would receive from an unfiltered expression of the party’s activist base. But it also masks the anti-Zionist populism so prevalent on college campuses and among leftist political pressure groups, and the anti-Israel sentiments expressed by many black and Latino activists as well.

That filter can’t catch everything, even in this age of scripted politics. During the 2012 Democratic National Convention, it was revealed that references to God and to Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel had been removed from the Democratic Party’s platform. Party officials moved to add the language back in, which required a voice vote from the Democratic Party delegates in the hall. The motion to restore the references was soundly defeated.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who was emceeing the proceedings, was visibly shocked. He asked for a re-vote. The motion lost again, with the crowd growing more agitated. Villaraigosa looked off stage for direction. He turned back to the audience, held one more vote, and, amid a hail of boos, declared the motion passed—despite its obvious and raucous defeat for the third time in a row.

The incident was important not only because it showed that the party’s delegates were opposed to traditional pro-Israel language in the party’s platform, but also because that language had been removed in the first place either at the behest or approval of the Obama campaign. Obama’s two presidential campaigns have been notable for their ability to tap into the zeitgeist of the party’s core supporters.

“Obviously, this is much bigger than two men,” CNN’s Dana Bash said on March 1, two days before Netanyahu’s address to Congress. Indeed it is. And it puts American Jews in a bind. American Jews still care deeply about Israel—and still vote overwhelmingly Democratic. Recent polls show a subtle rightward shift, but it is far too early to tell if that shift will stay in place in 2016 and beyond. (Jimmy Carter hemorrhaged Jewish votes in 1980; in 1984, Walter Mondale won most of them back.) Nonetheless, the Democrats are expected to nominate Hillary Clinton, who served as Obama’s secretary of state and has had her own share of dustups with Netanyahu. And veterans of the Obama administration will no doubt staff future Democratic White Houses. Is this, then, the shape of things to come? If the answer is to be no, Jewish Democrats are going to have to do more than find presidential nominees who paper over this internal divide with platitudes.

They will have to address the growing conflict between American Zionism and American liberalism. They will need not happy talk but confrontation of hard truths. That will require recognizing that the momentum is with the Occupy Wall Street protesters’ adopting the Palestinian cause as their own, with the American professoriate shaping higher-education curricula along with the minds and worldviews of their students, and with the progressive activists who fill the arena at presidential nominating conventions and seek to remake the Democratic Party platform in their image.

It means American Jewish organizations are going to have to recognize that it will become more and more difficult to square the circle. AIPAC tried just that in 2014, when it acquiesced to Democratic pressure and did not send out its 10,000-strong team of citizen activists to lobby members of Congress to support new sanctions.

AIPAC was caught between a rock and a hard place, but its leaders surely know they made a terrible error in 2014—and have changed their tune this year. Seen from one perspective, the failure to push sanctions decreased the administration’s leverage at the negotiating table; from the other, it gave Obama the freedom to acquiesce to Iran’s own demands.

On Capitol Hill, opposition to a nuclear Iran has always been as bipartisan as support for Israel. Obama is making every effort to turn it into a partisan issue so that he can peel off enough Democrats to sustain a veto of legislation that would block a bad deal. Netanyahu’s triumph before Congress made his job harder. Israel’s prime minister did what he set out to do—to lay before Congress and the American people the nature of the threat and the danger of such a deal.

Americans who care about Israel, and American Jews who care not only about the Jewish state but also the condition of the Jewish soul in the United States, must now follow his example. We cannot relent in our efforts to fight against those who seek to drive a wedge between Israel and America—on campuses, in the media, within elite institutions, and within both the Democratic and Republican parties. The impending end of Obama’s political career should make it easier for Israel’s government to make its case against appeasement in both 2015 and 2016 as well as shore up wavering American Jewish support. The manufactured crisis Barack Obama began in 2009 is not yet a full-bore crisis either within the Democratic Party or within the American body politic. But it will become one—if this existential threat, this spiritual existential threat to American Jewry, is not dismantled.

Footnotes

1 The salient facts are these: First, the Obama administration agreed to Tehran’s demand that the United States ease sanctions on Iran in advance of any confirmed nuclear agreement. Second, the administration recognized Iran’s right to enrich uranium to 5 percent despite the fact that all Iranian enrichment is prohibited by the United Nations Security Council. Third, Iran has ignored negotiation deadlines to win reported concessions that would render the deal pointless. These include the right to 5,000–6,000 working centrifuges, enough to fuel a nuclear bomb within a year. The administration has also reportedly included a “sunset clause,” which could free the Iranians from the strictures of a deal within 10 years.

Categories: Diplomacy, Foreign policy, History, Iran, Iran scam, Islamism, Israel, Middle East, Netanyahu, Obama, Obama administration, P5+1, Palestinians, Peace process, Rouhani, Sanctions, Settlements, State Department, Two state solution, U.S. Congress, United Nations
Tags: Foreign Policy, History, Iran, Iran Scam, Islamism, Israel, Middle East, Netanyahu, Obama Administration, Palestinians, Peace Process, Rouhani, Sanctions, Settlements, State Department, Two state solution, U.S. Congress, United Nations, United States

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EU undermining Israeli sovereignty. Again

February 9, 2015

EU undermining Israeli sovereignty. Again | Anne’s Opinions, 9th February 2015

(The perfidy and hypocrisy of the European Union in building illegal “settlements” for the Palestinians in the West Bank while denouncing Israeli housing is both outrageous and breathtaking in its scope.– anneinpt)

A map of the West Bank produced by Regavim, an Israeli group, shows the EU-funded Palestinian settlements represented by stars. The yellow part is Area C, which was placed under Israeli control during the Oslo Accords. The pink and red parts are Areas A and B, which are Palestinian (Click to enlarge)

I have written about the European Union’s perfidy towards Israel several times before, and it has evidently never gone away. In fact their latest act of treachery is simply the realization and expansion of their declaration 3 years ago that they intend to build infrastructure in the West Bank, thereby undermining Israel’s sovereignty over the Green Line in Judea and Samaria.

Their latest activity (h/t Margie in Tel Aviv) has been building houses in what they call the West Bank.

One could be forgiven for blinking one’s eyes in astonishment at this seeming act of Zionism – until one realises that the housing that the EU is building over the Green Line is intended for Palestinians only. The Daily Mail reports:

The EU is acting illegally by funding unauthorised Palestinian building in areas placed under Israeli control by international law, say an NGO, international lawyers and MEPs.

More than 400 EU-funded Palestinian homes have been erected in Area C of the West Bank, which was placed under Israeli jurisdiction during the Oslo Accords – a part of international law to which the EU is a signatory.

The Palestinian buildings, which have no permits, come at a cost of tens of millions of Euros in public money, a proportion of which comes from the British taxpayer.

This has raised concerns that the EU is using valuable resources to take sides in a foreign territorial dispute.

Official EU documentation reveals that the building project is intended to ‘pave the way for development and more authority of the PA over Area C (the Israeli area)’, which some experts say is an attempt to unilaterally affect facts on the ground.

Locally, the villages are known as the ‘EU Settlements’, and can be found in 17 locations around the West Bank.

They proudly fly the EU flag, and display hundreds of EU stickers and signs. Some also bear the logos of Oxfam and other NGOs, which have assisted in the projects.

Questions have also been asked about the conduct of EU workers in the region, after a picture emerged of a man in EU uniform threatening soldiers and bystanders with a rock outside a settlement in 2012. An EU spokesperson declined to comment on the picture.

A man in EU uniform threatens Israeli soldiers and bystanders with a rock on the West Bank in 2012

Do go to the Daily Mail website and look at the detailed pictures and maps to get the full impression of what has been going on there.

Maja Kocijancic, a Brussels-based EU spokesperson, denied that this was happening.

‘The EU’s funding will provide training and expertise, to help the relevant Palestinian Authority (PA) Ministries to plan and build new infrastructure and enable people to reclaim and rebuild their land there,’ she said.

‘To date, no construction has started yet under these programmes. The EU is not funding illegal projects.’

When shown sequences of photographs showing construction taking place, she declined to comment. She also did not comment on an EU-Oxfam sign stating that the ‘main activities’ of construction work are ‘rehabilitation and reclamation’ of land.

However, her statement appeared to be contradicted by Shadi Othman, a spokesman for the EU in the West Bank and Gaza. Speaking on the telephone from the West Bank, he accepted that the construction was taking place.

‘We support the Palestinian presence in Area C. Palestinian presence should not be limited Areas A and B. Area C is part of the occupied Palestinian territory which eventually will be Palestinian land.

But Area C is Israeli controlled territory intended for Israelis under the Oslo Accords! Who do the Europeans think they are, undermining the Accords? And if they are invalidated for them, then Israel too can consider itself free of the constraints of those awful Accords, and should therefore be permitted to build anywhere it wants.

An Oxfam spokesperson acknowledged that unauthorised construction was taking place, but said that it was justified on humanitarian grounds.

‘In recent years, around 97 percent of Palestinian permit applications for building in the Occupied Palestinian Territory have been rejected by the Israeli Government.’ he said.

‘This means many Palestinian communities in Area C, which is under full Israeli Government control, are being prevented from building basic, essential structures such as homes and schools.

…

Ari Briggs, International Director of Regavim and principal author of the report, claimed that humanitarian projects are being used by the EU and Oxfam as a ‘Trojan horse’ for political aims.

‘Area C has been identified by the anti-Israel “humanitarian community” as a hot spot to push Israel.

‘These organisations with EU funding are encouraging and actively aiding the illegal attempt to take over public land. This has nothing to do with human rights and everything to do with taking advantage of less privileged nomadic societies for political goals.’

At least two Members of the European Parliament are raising the matter with EU policymakers.

On 1 February, James Carver, a British MEP for the West Midlands region, wrote a strongly-worded letter to the European Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs.

‘The structures all bear the name and flag of the EU and official EU agents have been photographed participating in overseeing the construction, so the active involvement of the EU can hardly be denied,’ he wrote.

‘I kindly call upon you to do your utmost to bring an end to these illegal and destructive activities,’

Michael Theurer, a German MEP who is a member of the European Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, shares his concerns. ‘I am taking these allegations seriously and will thoroughly investigate them,’ he said.

An Israeli government source said that the Palestinian settlements demonstrate ‘the double standards of the EU’, which ‘deplores’ Israeli settlements while funding illegal building of its own for Palestinians.

‘If Israel started building houses in the middle of Hyde Park, the British government would immediately take them down,’ he said. ‘The EU is doing things that would never be acceptable in Europe.’

The Israeli politician Yariv Levine, Chairman of the House Parliamentary Committee in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, added:

‘It is hypocritical of the EU to criticise Israeli construction while at the same time actively supporting and practically taking part in illegal Palestinian settlement construction on Israeli land.’

…

Alan Baker, an international lawyer who took part in drafting the Oslo Accords in the Nineties, said that the EU’s actions were illegal.

‘The EU is a signatory to the Oslo Accords, so they cannot pick and choose when they recognise it,’ he said.

‘According to international law, all building in Area C must have permission from Israel, whether it is temporary or permanent.

‘The same principle applies anywhere in the world. If you want to build, you need planning permission.

‘The EU is ignoring international law and taking concrete steps to influence the facts on the ground.’

Professor Eugene Kontorovich, an international lawyer from the Northwestern University School of Law in Chicago, said: ‘There’s no question, the EU is openly in violation of international law.’

Accepted terminology and Double standards

The EU in their smug self-righteousness defend themselves by saying:

The Office of the European Union Representative in Jerusalem said in a statement: ‘The European Union is deeply dismayed by and strongly opposes Israeli plans to expand settlements in the West Bank, including in East Jerusalem, and in particular plans to develop the E1 area.

‘The E1 plan, if implemented, would seriously undermine the prospects of a negotiated resolution of the conflict by jeopardizing the possibility of a contiguous and viable Palestinian state and of Jerusalem as the future capital of two states.

‘It could also entail forced transfer of civilian population. In the light of its core objective of achieving the two-state solution, the EU will closely monitor the situation and its broader implications, and act accordingly.’

“Could entail forced transfer of civilian population” – but it won’t because Israel has never done that until now and has no intention of doing so in the future. And again, it is up to Israel to decide what to do with E1, and not the Europeans. They should butt out of Israel’s business and if they are so worried about the Palestinians’ welfare they should investigate where their billions of dollars in aid are disappearing to – and you can be sure it is not into housing, schools or infrastructure, not to mention paying the salaries of Palestinian civil servants. Those billions are most likely to be found deep in the pockets of senior PA officials who are quite happy to let the EU do their dirty work.

Emily Amrousi explains how the European Union is building Palestine and why this poses a huge danger for Israel:

The network of Bedouin outposts in the Adumim region looks like a flagship Palestinian Authority-European Union initiative. Why there? The strategic importance of this specific area stems mainly from the narrow corridor that runs along one of Israel’s main routes — the road from Jerusalem to the Dead Sea.

In any war scenario, that road would become a vital artery, delivering vehicles, weapons and supplies to the eastern border. The battle is for control over that corridor. The Palestinians are trying to create territorial contiguity between Nablus, Ramallah and Jericho east of Jerusalem, and between Bethlehem and Hebron to the south. Israel claims contiguity between Jerusalem and Maaleh Adumim and eastward to the Jordan Valley.

One line runs east to west between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea. The other line runs north to south from Ramallah to Bethlehem. The intersection between these two lines is a fateful point: It is either an Israeli barrier preventing Palestinian contiguity or the other way around. The race is on. The point where these two lines meet is called E1. In the outdated zoning plans it is called Mevaseret Adumim. It is a range of round hills that have swelled with too many promises over the years. As of today, there is no Israeli construction there, but there is plenty of Palestinian-European construction — about 200 houses, all built in violation of the law.

The European Union mission in east Jerusalem confirmed to us that “the European Union is very frustrated with the Israeli plans to build in the E1 zone, which will jeopardize the possibility of establishing a contiguous and viable Palestinian state. We are monitoring the situation and taking appropriate action.”

It doesn’t get any clearer than that. Europe is facing the Jewish state with facts on the ground: contiguous and permanent Palestinian housing in sovereign Israeli territory. Take that.

The publicity that this Regavim report has engendered has finally embarrassed the government into taking action, and this being election season has only strengthened the government’s resolve. The Prime Minister has now ordered the demolition of the EU-funded structures over the Green Line.

I shall however not hold my breath, but will reserve judgement until I see for myself that those structures have actually been taken down. From bitter experience we Israelis know that our government is very big on talk and very reluctant to take action, especially against a hostile entity like the EU who has had the temerity to threaten sanctions against Israel for building in the West Bank while reserving that right for itself – but only for the enemy side.

And if by some miracle the government follows through, how long do you think it will take for cries of “apartheid”, “repression” or “war crimes” to ring throughout the EU and UN?

Categories: European Union, Israel, Palestinians, Settlements
Tags: EU, Judea and Samaria, Settlements, West Bank

Comments: 1 Comment

The U.S. President is Not Omnipotent

December 28, 2014

The U.S. President is Not Omnipotent, Algemeiner, December 28, 2014. This article was originally published by Israel Hayom.

full-senate-300x200

The United States Senate.

Will the 114th Congress follow in his footsteps, or will it abdicate its constitutional responsibilities?

Congress has often abdicated its constitutional power in the area of foreign policy, failing to fully leverage the power of the purse: funding, defunding and “fencing.”

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White House and State Department officials contend that, irrespective of Congress, President Barack Obama can apply effective diplomatic, commercial and national security pressure and coerce Israel to partition Jerusalem and retreat from Judea and Samaria to the 9-15 mile-wide pre-1967 sliver, surrounded by the violently turbulent and unpredictable Arab street.

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro recently voiced this inaccurate underestimation of the power of Congress — which has traditionally opposed pressure on Israel, echoing the sentiments of most constituents — saying, “What is unmistakable about our foreign policy system is that the Constitution provides the president with the largest share of power.”

The assertion that U.S. foreign policy and national security are shaped by presidential omnipotence can be refuted by the U.S. Constitution as well as recent precedents. The Constitution was created by the Founding Fathers, who were determined to limit the power of government and preclude the possibility of executive dictatorship. They were apprehensive of potential presidential excesses and encroachment, and therefore assigned the formulation of foreign policy and national security to both Congress and the president. Obviously, the coalescing of policy between 535 legislators constitutes a severe disadvantage for the legislature.

According to the Congressional Quarterly, the U.S. Constitution rectified the mistakes of its predecessor, the Articles of Confederation, upgrading the role of Congress to the primary branch of the U.S. government. “Hence, the first article of the Constitution is dedicated to Congress. The powers, structure, and procedures of the national legislature are outlined in considerable detail in the Constitution, unlike those of the presidency and the judiciary.”

Unlike all other Western democracies — where the executive branch of government dominates the legislature, especially in the area of international relations and defense — the U.S. Constitution laid the foundation for the world’s most powerful legislature, and for an inherent power struggle over the making of foreign policy between the legislature and the executive, two independent, co-equal and co-determining branches of government. Moreover, while the president is the commander in chief, presidential clout depends largely on congressional authorization and appropriation in a system of separation of powers and checks and balances, especially in the areas of sanctions, foreign aid, military assistance, trade agreements, treaty ratification, appointment confirmation and all spending.

Congressional power has been dramatically bolstered since the Vietnam War, Watergate, the Iran-Contra affair and globalization, which have enhanced the involvement of most legislators in international issues, upgraded the oversight capabilities of Congress, dramatically elevated the quality and quantity of some 15,000(!) Capitol Hill staffers and have restrained the presidency.

However, Congress has often abdicated its constitutional power in the area of foreign policy, failing to fully leverage the power of the purse: funding, defunding and “fencing.” Legislators prefer to focus on domestic issues, which represent their constituents’ primary concerns and therefore determine their re-electability. Hence, they usually allow the president to take the lead in the initiation and implementation of foreign and national security policies, unless the president abuses their trust, outrageously usurping power, violating the law, assuming an overly imperial posture, pursuing strikingly failed policies, or dramatically departing from national consensus (e.g., the deeply rooted, bipartisan commitment to the Jewish state). Then, Congress reveals impressive muscle as befits a legislature, which is the most authentic reflection of the American people, unrestrained by design, deriving its power from the constituent and not from party leadership or the president, true to the notion that “the president proposes, Congress disposes.”

For example:

On August 1, 2014, Democratic senators forced Obama to separate the $225 million funding of Iron Dome batteries from the highly controversial $2.7 billion immigration and border security bill.
Since 1982 the Senate has repeatedly refused to ratify the Convention on the Law of the Sea, and since 1999 it has rejected ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
The January 2013 defense authorization bill tightened restrictions on the transfer of terrorists from Guantanamo to the U.S. In May 2009, Majority Leader Harry Reid foiled Obama’s attempt to close down the detention camp.
On February 17, 2011, Obama reluctantly vetoed a U.N. Security Council condemnation of Israel’s settlement policy, due to bipartisan congressional pressure.
In September 2012, a $450 million cash transfer to the Muslim Brotherhood regime in Egypt was blocked by Congress.
The 2012 budget cut into Obama’s foreign aid spending request by more than $8 billion.
In 2009, bipartisan congressional opposition prevented the appointment of Charles Freeman to chair the National Intelligence Council.
In 1990-1992, Congress approved a series of amendments, expanding U.S.-Israel strategic cooperation to unprecedented levels despite presidential opposition.
In 1990, President George H. W. Bush failed in his attempt to cut Israel’s foreign aid by 5 percent due to congressional opposition.
In January 1975, the Jackson-Vanik Amendment was signed into law, in defiance of the president.
Congress ended U.S. military involvement in Vietnam (the 1973 Eagleton, Cooper and Church Amendments), Angola (the 1976 Clark Amendment) and Nicaragua (the 1982-1984 Boland Amendments).
In 1991, Senator Daniel Inouye fended off administration pressure to withdraw an amendment to upgrade the port of Haifa facilities for the Sixth Fleet: “According to the U.S. Constitution, the legislature supervises the executive, not vice versa.”

Will the 114th Congress follow in his footsteps, or will it abdicate its constitutional responsibilities?

Categories: Foreign policy, Ideology, Islamic slaughter, Israel, Jerusalem, Jewish occupation of Israel, Middle East, Moral equivalence, Multiculturalism, Obama, Peace process, Political correctness, Settlements, Two state solution, U.S. Congress
Tags: Constitution, Foreign Policy, Ideology, Islamic slaughter, Israel, Jerusalem, Jewish occupation of Israel, Middle East, Moral equivalence, Multiculturalism, Peace Process, Political correctness, Settlements, Two state solution, U.S. Congress

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Imperialism, Obama style

December 20, 2014

Imperialism, Obama style, Dan Miller’s Blog, December 20, 2014

Obama condemns “wicked” U.S. imperialism for supporting American values such as freedom and democracy abroad. Simultaneously, he tries to precipitate “regime change” in Israel so that she will support His values and those of Palestinians rather than American and Israeli values of freedom and democracy.

The Palestinians have placed before the United Nations Security Council a “peace proposal” intended to force Israel to agree to creation of a Palestinian state and “an Israeli withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines” by the end of 2017. Secretary Kerry has argued that the matter should not be considered until after the Israeli Knesset elections in March. According to an article in Foreign Policy,

Speaking at an annual luncheon with the 28 European Union ambassadors, Kerry cautioned that any action by the U.N. Security Council would strengthen the hands of Israeli hardliners who oppose the peace process. . . . [Emphasis added.]

“Kerry has been very, very clear that for the United States it was not an option to discuss whatever text before the end of the Israeli election,” according to a European diplomat.

The diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the luncheon was confidential, said that Kerry explained that Israel’s liberal political leaders, Shimon Peres and Tipzi Livni, had expressed concern that a Security Council move to pressure Israel on the eve of election would only strengthen the hands of Israeli hardliners, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Naftali Bennett, an implacable foe of a Palestinian state and leader of the right-wing Jewish Home party. Netanyahu is also fiercely opposed to the Palestinians effort to secure Security Council backing for its statehood drive. [Emphasis added.]

Kerry said Livni had “told him that such a text imposed by the international community would reinforce Benjamin Netanyahu and the hardliners in Israel,” as well as the hardliners in Palestine, according to the European diplomat.

The message, said another European diplomat, was that U.N. action would “give more impetus to more right-wing parties, that there was a risk this could further embolden the more right-wing forces along the Israeli political spectrum.” [Emphasis added.]

Kerry’s remarks highlight the Obama administration’s delicate balancing act when it comes to its tense relationship with the Israeli government. On the one hand, senior administration officials make little attempt to hide the personal dislike between Netanyahu and President Barack Obama or their sharp disagreements on issues ranging from the peace process to Iran. On the other hand, Kerry and other top policymakers have tried to avoid saying or doing anything that could be seen as meddling in the Israeli election in an effort to oust Netanyahu and replace him with a more centrist prime minister. [Emphasis added.]

On an open microphone in March of 2012, Obama

told Dmitry Medvedev that he would have more flexibility after November’s election to deal with contentious issues such as missile defence. . . .

Obama’s candid remark was considered a gaffe because He made it assuming that the microphone had been turned off and that no one other than Medvedev would hear Him. Kerry, however, candidly but intentionally told twenty-eight European Union ambassadors that it is U.S. policy to encourage the Israeli left, to diminish the Israeli right and to make it more difficult for Prime Minister Netanyahu to remain in office. Aside from his incredible naivete, why did Kerry do that?

For Obama and European leaders, Israel is reducible to the peace process. And the Israeli left depends on the support of foreign governments for its network of foreign funded non-profit organizations. The Israeli left can’t let go of its exploding version of ObamaCare [Palestine] because the left is becoming a foreign organization with limited domestic support. Its electorate isn’t in Israel; it’s in Brussels. [Emphasis and bracketed insert added.]

. . . .

Escalating a crisis in relations has been the traditional way for US administrations to force Israeli governments out of office. Bill Clinton did it to Netanyahu and as Israeli elections appear on the horizon Obama would love to do it all over again.

There’s only one problem.

The United States is popular in Israel, but Obama isn’t. Obama’s spats with Netanyahu ended up making the Israeli leader more popular. The plan was for Obama to gaslight Israelis by maintaining a positive image in Israel while lashing out at the Jewish State so that the blame would fall on Netanyahu. [Emphasis added.]

Kerry’s remarks — covered by Israeli media — seem, contrary to his intentions, likely to enhance the chances of Israeli “hardliners” on the “right,” to hurt the chances of those on the left and hence to increase PM Netanyahu’s chances of remaining in office. Even leaving that aside, how will Kerry’s remarks favoring regime change be viewed by other increasingly reluctant U.S. allies in the Middle East?

Israeli “hardliners” have already yielded to the Palestinians as much as, if not more than, they can without greatly endangering the security of Israel because there is no Palestinian entity with which peace can be made other than through Israel’s suicide.

The remarks of the Islamic preacher at the mosque in Jerusalem reflect a general Palestinian view.

Interestingly, the speaker doesn’t mention the longing for Palestinian statehood or independence. Instead, he talks of the establishment of the “Islamic Caliphate.” “Oh Allah’” he states, “Hasten the establishment of the State of the Islamic Caliphate,” and further rants, “Oh Allah hasten the pledge of allegiance to the Muslim Caliph.” He spews forth the latter statement three times to chants of “Amen!” from the large, approving crowd congregating around him.

These comments, which would register horror and revulsion in the West (at least in some quarters) are almost banal among Palestinians. In fact, a similar video featuring a different speaker some days earlier at the same venue, conveyed identical sentiment, expressing admiration for the Islamic State and calling for murder of Jews and annihilation of America. [Emphasis added.]

Here’s the other video referenced in the article:

Guttural anti-Semitism is ingrained and interwoven in the fabric of Palestinian society. Despite their minuscule numbers, 78% of Palestinians believe that Jews are responsible for most of the world’s wars while a whopping 88% believe that Jews control the global media and still more believe that Jews wield too much power in the business world. [Emphasis added.]

Much of the blame for this can be placed squarely on the doorstep of Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority, which subjects the Palestinian population to a steady diet of hate-filled, Judeophobic rhetoric through state-controlled media and educational institutions. It is so well entrenched that the process of deprogramming, if it were ever attempted, would take generations to reverse. [Emphasis added.]

As noted in the Wall Street Journal article linked in the quote immediately above,

To understand why peace in Palestine is years if not decades away, consider the Palestinian celebrations after Tuesday’s murder in a Jerusalem synagogue of five Israelis, including three with joint U.S. citizenship. Two Palestinian cousins armed with meat cleavers and a gun attacked worshipers during morning prayers, and the response was jubilation in the streets.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine claimed responsibility, while Hamas praised the murders as a “response to continued Israeli crimes.” The main obstacle to peace isn’t Jewish settlements in the multireligious city of Jerusalem. The barrier is the culture of hatred against Jews that is nurtured by Palestinian leaders. [Emphasis added.]

Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas condemned the killings, but not without calling for Israel to halt what he called “invasions” of the holy Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. Mr. Abbas has previously said the Temple Mount was being “contaminated” by Jews, despite assurances by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa Mosque are for Muslim worship only. The Memri news service reports that the Oct. 29 issue of the Palestinian daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida was full of false accusations that Israel is damaging Jerusalem’s holy sites. [Emphasis added.]

An overwhelming majority of Palestinian Arabs support the recent spate of terrorist attacks against Israelis, an opinion poll released Tuesday finds, according to The Associated Press (AP).[Emphasis added.]

The poll also found that more than half of Palestinian Arabs support a new “intifada” (uprising) against Israel, and that Hamas would win presidential elections if they were held today. [Emphasis added.]

Palestinian Arab pollster Khalil Shikaki said the results reflected anger over Israeli statements about Jerusalem, as well as a loss of hope following the collapse of U.S.-brokered peace talks and Israel’s recent war with Hamas in Gaza.

Shikaki heads the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, which interviewed 1,270 people in the Palestinian Authority-assigned areas of Judea and Samaria and Gaza last week. The poll had an error margin of 3 percentage points.

“There is an environment in which violence is becoming a dominant issue,” Shikaki told AP. “This seems to be one of the most important driving forces.”

Hamas is, if possible, even worse than Abbas’ Palestinian Authority.

Both Hamas and Abbas’ Palestinian Authority seek the death of Israeli Jews and the destruction of Israel, the only democratic and free nation in the Middle East. Kerry’s ill-conceived efforts to assist them at the expense of Israel, most recently by actively seeking to promote Israel’s left wing, to diminish its right wing and hence to empower Palestinians intent upon the death of Israel, may well fail. Succeed or fail, those efforts are consistent with Obama’s preference for Islamic dictators over democracy coupled with freedom.

Categories: Abbas, Antisemitism, Caliphate, European Union, Foreign policy, Gaza, Hamas, Iran, Islam, Islamic jihad, Islamic slaughter, Israel, Israeli elections, Jewish occupation of Israel, Kerry, Leftists, Middle East, Netanyahu, Obama, Palestinians, Peace process, Settlements, Two state solution
Tags: Abbas, Antisemitism, Caliphate, European Union, Foreign Policy, Gaza, Hamas, Iran, Islam, Israel, Israeli elections, Jihad, Leftists, Middle East, Netanyahu, Occupation of Israel, Palestinian state, Palestinians, Peace Process, Settlements, Slaughter, Two state solution

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The Palestinians’ UN Charade Collapses

December 19, 2014

The Palestinians’ UN Charade Collapses, Commentary Magazine, Jonathan S. Tobin, December 19, 2014

[T]he endless quarrels between Obama and Netanyahu over the peace process are so pointless. No matter how much Obama tilts the diplomatic playing field in the Palestinians’ direction or how often he and his supporters prattle on about time running out for Israel, Abbas has no intention of signing a peace agreement. The negotiations as well as their maneuverings at the UN and elsewhere are nothing but a charade for the PA and nothing Netanyahu could do, including offering dangerous concessions, would change that. The sooner Western leaders stop playing along with their game, the better it will be for the Palestinian people who continue to be exploited by their leaders.

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In the end, there wasn’t much suspense about the Obama administration’s decision whether to support a United Nations Security Council resolution endorsing a Palestinian state. After weeks of pointless negotiations over proposed texts, including a compromise endorsed by the French and other European nations, the wording of the proposal that the Palestinians persuaded Arab nations to put forward was so outrageous that even President Obama couldn’t even think about letting it pass because it would undermine his own policies. And the rest of the international community is just as unenthusiastic about it. In a very real sense this episode is the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict in a nutshell: the world wants to do something for the Palestinians but their leaders are more interested in pointless shows than in actually negotiating peace or doing something to improve the lives of their people.

The resolution that was presented to the Security Council was so extreme that Jordan, the sole Arab nation that is currently a member, didn’t want anything to do with it. But, after intense lobbying by the Palestinian Authority representative, the rest of the Arab nations prevailed upon Jordan and they put it forward where it will almost certainly languish indefinitely without a vote since its fate is preordained.

The terms it put forward were of Israeli surrender and nothing more. The Jewish state would be given one year to withdraw from all of the territory it won in a defensive war of survival in 1967 where a Palestinian state would be created. That state would not be demilitarized nor would there be any guarantees of security for Israel which would not be granted mutual recognition as the nation state of the Jewish people, a clear sign that the Palestinians are not ready to give up their century-long war against Zionism even inside the pre-1967 lines.

This is a diktat, not a peace proposal, since there would be nothing for Israel to negotiate about during the 12-month period of preparation. Of course, even if the Palestinians had accepted the slightly more reasonable terms proposed by the French, that would have also been true. But that measure would have at least given the appearance of a mutual cessation of hostilities and an acceptance of the principle of coexistence. But even those concessions, let alone a renunciation of the “right of return,” was not possible for a PA that is rightly fearful of being supplanted by Hamas. So long as Palestinian nationalism remains wedded to rejection of a Jewish state, no matter where its borders might be drawn, no one should expect the PA to end the conflict or actually make peace.

Though many of us have been understandably focused on the question of how far President Obama might go to vent his spleen at Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and his government, that petty drama is, as it has always been, a sideshow distraction from the real problem at the core of the Middle East peace process: Palestinian rejectionism.

Though the administration has tirelessly praised PA leader Mahmoud Abbas as a champion of peace in order to encourage him to live up to that reputation, he had other priorities. Rather than negotiate in good faith with the Israelis, Abbas blew up the talks last year by signing a unity pact with Hamas that he never had any intention of keeping. The purpose of that stunt, like the current UN drama, isn’t to make a Palestinian state more likely or even to increase Abbas’s leverage in the talks. Rather, it is merely a delaying tactic, and a gimmick intended to waste time, avoid negotiations, and to deflect any pressure on the PA to either sign an agreement with Israel or to turn it down.

That’s not just because the Palestinians wrongly believe that time is on their side in the conflict, a dubious assumption that some on the Israeli left also believe. The reason for these tactics is that Abbas is as incapable of making peace as he is of making war.

This is not just another case of the Palestinians “never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity,” in Abba Eban’s immortal and quite accurate summary of their actions over the years. It’s that they are so wedded to unrealistic expectations about Israel’s decline that it would be inconceivable for them to take advantage of any opening to peace. That is why they turned down Israeli offers of statehood, including control of Gaza, almost all of the West Bank, and a share of Jerusalem, three times and refused to deal seriously with a fourth such negotiation with Netanyahu last year.

And it’s why the endless quarrels between Obama and Netanyahu over the peace process are so pointless. No matter how much Obama tilts the diplomatic playing field in the Palestinians’ direction or how often he and his supporters prattle on about time running out for Israel, Abbas has no intention of signing a peace agreement. The negotiations as well as their maneuverings at the UN and elsewhere are nothing but a charade for the PA and nothing Netanyahu could do, including offering dangerous concessions, would change that. The sooner Western leaders stop playing along with their game, the better it will be for the Palestinian people who continue to be exploited by their leaders.

Categories: Abbas, Fatah, Foreign policy, Hamas, International Community, Israel, Kerry, Netanyahu, Obama, Palestinians, Peace process, Settlements, Terrorism, Two state solution, United Nations, West Bank
Tags: Abbas, Fatah, Foreign Policy, Hamas, International Community, Israel, Netanyahu, Palestinians, Peace Process, Settlements, Terrorism, Two state solution, United Nations, West Bank

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Israeli Ambassador: Obama “Worldview Not in Accord w/Any Israeli Government.”

December 14, 2014

Israeli Ambassador: Obama “Worldview Not in Accord w/Any Israeli Government.” Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, December 13, 2014

But it certainly is in accord with Iran.

Former ambassador Michael Oren provided a little reminder that the issue isn’t Netanyahu and that Obama’s radical politics would put him at odds with any Israeli government.

This is an administration which makes the racist claim that Jews living in Jerusalem are “settlers”, which funds terrorists and takes their side against Israel.

Michael Oren was the consummate diplomat. He was dignified, thoughtful, articulate, knowledgeable and tactful.

In a dialogue at The Plaza here last week at the annual Scholar-Statesman dinner of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Oren said that “this administration [in Washington] has a worldview that is not in accord with any Israeli government,” not just the current one.

Describing the Obama administration as “ideological” on the Mideast, with the president’s 2009 outreach-to-the-Arab-world Cairo speech as its source, Oren said the White House views east Jerusalem communities like Gilo, for example, as not necessarily part of the Jewish state, a position he said no Israeli government would accept.

(Gilo is over the Green Line but part of the Jerusalem municipality, with a largely Jewish population.)

After the March 17 elections, Israel’s next government “likely will move to the right,” Oren predicted, “and America may be going a different way.”

Though he said the U.S.-Israel relationship is crucial — “we [Washington and Jerusalem] have no choice but to be allies” — he asserted on several occasions that “Israel has to take responsibility for itself.”

Asked by moderator Robert Satloff, the executive director of the Washington Institute, about the West’s negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program, Oren first noted that Israel’s “margin for error is exactly zero” on this issue, given Iran’s longstanding threat to destroy the Jewish state.

Then, his voice rising, he said that if you believe that Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is indeed the moderate he claims to be, if you believe that Iran has reversed its policy of being the world’s leading exporter of terror, if you believe that its leaders have changed their long pattern of lying about the nuclear program, and if you believe the West is capable of and willing to respond militarily to prevent the production of a nuclear bomb, then yes, you should support the U.S. effort to reach an agreement with Iran.

“But if your children and grandchildren’s’ lives depended on it, you may reach a different conclusion,” he asserted, adding: “We [the Jewish people] have not come back after 2,000 years to disappear.”

And it goes without saying, that if you believe that you’ve chosen to completely ignore everything happening in the world.

I am not Oren’s biggest fan and what he is saying is simply common sense. Obama isn’t just at odds with Netanyahu or with Israel. He’s at odds with the remaining US allies in the Middle East. If Obama is at odds with Muslim allies of the US because he supports Muslim terrorists like the Muslim Brotherhood, it goes without saying that his relationship with Israel will be toxic.

Categories: Foreign policy, Iran, Iranian nukes, Israel, Michael Oren, Obama, Settlements
Tags: Foreign Policy, Iran, Iranian nukes, Israel, Michael Oren, Settlements

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Who is the Real Chickenshit?

November 4, 2014

Who is the Real Chickenshit? Gatestone Institute, Bassam Tawil, November 4, 2014

(Are attempts to spawn a new Islamic Caliphate more grounded in fantasy than Obama-Kerry perceptions of the Islamic State, grounded in their ill-formed perceptions of fact and ideology? Or less? — DM)

Judging by their actions, most Arab leaders do not want to create yet another terrorist Islamist state, dedicated to the Muslim Brotherhood’s ideology and to toppling their regimes. We do want a Palestinian state, but please, only one that will provide responsible governance.

According to the “Arab street,” it is the Americans and Europeans who are cowards, afraid to take significant steps against Iran, and terrified of the Islamic ghettoes in their cities, which have been exporting terrorists to fight for the Islamic State, and providing housing to the seasoned fighters who return.

To Arabs, the ultimate irony is that America is paying Qatar to have its airbase there, while Qatar is paying terrorists to kill Americans.

When John Kerry claimed it was the unresolved Palestinian issue that caused a ripple effect that crated ISIS, he simply inspired the Palestinians to use Al-Aqsa mosque as a religious trigger for future bloodshed.

There is a civil war currently under way between radical Islam — motivated by imperialist fantasies of restoring the Islamic Caliphate — and the more moderate secular Muslim regimes that are seeking the path to modernization and progress.

At the same time, Sunni Islam is in the midst of an increasingly violent crisis in its dealings with Shi’ite Iran, which looks as if it is about to be granted nuclear weapons capability, and which for decades quietly has been eyeing neighboring Arab oil fields.

Into the middle of this explosive disarray, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his supporters have thrown the accusation that it was actually Israel’s so-called refusal to reach a peace agreement that was responsible for the ripple effect that led to the creation of ISIS. This incorrect diagnosis of the situation merely postpones the West’s efforts to find a real, workable solution for the Palestinian issue.

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Does Kerry really blame Israel for ISIS? Above, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv, Israel, on July 23, 2014. (Image source: U.S. State Department)

It is easy for the leaders of the Arab world to latch onto Kerry’s accusation and use it justify their weakness and unwillingness to enter into a direct battle against terrorism; to let America do the dirty work, and conveniently to relieve the Arab world of having to recognize Israel and establish a Palestinian state.

They would also be able to avoid dealing with Israel’s demand for the Palestinian territories to be disarmed and the Palestinians’ demands for concessions from Israel.

Judging by their actions, most Arab leaders have no desire to see the Palestinian issue resolved. They seem to prefer preserving the status quo. They blame Israel for refusing to make concessions to the Palestinians and hope that this refusal will weaken Israel, even though Israel is their strategic defense against Iran.

Most Arab leaders do not want to create what is bound soon to become yet another terrorist Islamist state, dedicated to the Muslim Brotherhood’s ideology and to toppling their regimes. The Arab leaders already have to contend with ISIS, Al-Qaeda and the Al-Nusra Front in Syria, Iraq, Libya and Yemen, which are enough for them, to say nothing of Africa from Nigeria to Somalia and everything in between.

But if Israel can be blamed for another of world’s ills, with Kerry’s blessing, why waste the opportunity?

When Jordan’s King Abdullah called the current Islamic civil war a cry of distress, he was not speaking randomly. There is a genuine problem.

No examples are better than Turkey, Qatar and Iran. Turkey, led by its president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, hosts Hamas’s overseas command center; is supported by Qatar and would apparently like to take control of more Sunni territory by subverting the Sunni Arab monarchies. Such a move would enable Erdogan to realize his outspoken dream of recreating an Ottoman Empire and Caliphate.

Turkey and Qatar, its partner in plotting the return of the Caliphate, have left their fingerprints on most of the terrorist attacks and catastrophes currently visited upon the Middle East, especially in the fields of subversion, incitement to terrorism, and the arming and training of terrorists.

The Middle Eastern Sunni Islamist terrorist organizations, meanwhile, are being incited and indoctrinated by Al-Jazeera TV, a Muslim Brotherhood megaphone that belongs to Qatar’s ruling al-Thani family. It was Al Jazeera’s Arabic channel that created the “Arab Spring” by taking the story of a fruit-seller who merely wanted a permit, and whipping it up, non-stop, until it grew into a revolution that brought down Tunisia’s government.

The Middle East’s terrorist gangs are now armed and trained with funding from Qatar. Recently, in yet another savored irony, Turkey agreed to help train Syrian rebels and allow the U.S. to use its military bases — but for Turkey, the plan is probably to bring down Syria’s non-Sunni President, Bashar Al-Assad, and not, as the U.S. might imagine, to bring down ISIS.

In the past, Persian Gulf states such as Saudi Arabia joined in training Islamic terrorist cadres, but currently, as the Arab proverb goes, “The magic spell boomeranged,” and Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies have to defend themselves from the very groups they helped create.

Terrorist organizations are now generously funded by Qatar and NATO-member Turkey, which inspire them to attack the regimes of Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Jordan, and various regimes in the Persian Gulf and Africa. Of course, they are all also inspired to attack Israel, as Hamas has done.

Turkey and Qatar are also exploiting the naiveté of the Western world, encouraging ISIS operatives to make preparations to attack Europe and the United States. Preachers of “political Islam” incite susceptible Islamic youths in the West and prepare them for a terrorist campaign. They use the West’s political correctness, free speech and support for “pluralism,” all the while insisting they are not preaching terrorism.

Turkey and Qatar, along with Iran — which does its utmost to export the Ayatollah Khomeini’s Islamic Revolution throughout both North and South America, as well as Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen — are aided by a mechanism known as the da’wah, or “outreach,” Da’wah, technically the preaching of Islam, is used by political Islam for indoctrinating, enlisting and handling Islamist terrorists worldwide. Perfected for terrorist purposes by the Muslim Brotherhood, its mouthpiece is Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who, like Hamas’s leader, Khaled Mashaal, is based in Qatar.

While Iran’s rivals, the Sunni states, conduct their civil wars, Iran only becomes stronger. Not only is it turning itself into a nuclear power, it is also strengthening all its outposts in the Middle East and around the world. It supports the Shi’ite regime in Iraq against ISIS; it arms and funds the Houthis in Yemen and the Hezbollah in Lebanon; and it supports the Syrian Alawite regime against its Sunni opponents.

When it comes to terrorism, Iran does not draw partisan lines. It also supports the Sunni groups Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, both of which seek to destroy Israel and attack the Egyptians in the Sinai Peninsula.

In response to the colossal threat of radical Islam, the whimpering voice of the West can barely be heard. The U.S. administration targeted Israel for condemnation. A “senior official,” most likely the current White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, called Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a “chickenshit,” for being afraid to make peace with the Palestinians.

According to the “Arab street,” including the Palestinian street, it is the Americans and Europeans who are cowards, afraid to take significant steps against Iran, and terrified of the Islamic ghettoes in their cities, which have been exporting terrorists to fight for the Islamic State, and providing housing to the seasoned fighters who return.

The Sunni states under Shi’ite threat cannot even reach an agreement among themselves about what is to be done; and the Palestinians, in their folly, have chosen the worst possible moment to ignite violence in Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa mosque. The Palestinians seem not to understand that the Arab regimes that might support them are currently busy fighting for their own survival, and have no desire to fall prey to Palestinian provocations about what they realize all too well are fictional threats to Jerusalem.

Given the current situation, Turkey’s regional political actions are dangerous, underhanded and hypocritical. To achieve their ends, Turkey’s leaders seem to have no qualms about sacrificing their minorities, such as Christians and the Kurds (most of whom are Sunni). Turkey’s leaders were the first to cry “humanitarian crisis” when Israel imposed a closure on the Gaza Strip to prevent Iran from sending Hamas arms. Turkey sent the Mavi Marmara flotilla to protect the Gazans, who were never in any danger in the first place. Turkey’s leaders then weakened Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who, at least at that time, showed himself willing to reach a peace agreement with the Israelis. But when Syria’s Kurds are being killed in Kobani on a daily basis, the Turks are silent, perhaps secretly comfortable seeing a group that wants a state of its own apart from Turkey, being attacked.

Thus, when John Kerry claimed that it was the unresolved Palestinian issue that caused a ripple effect that created ISIS, he simply inspired the Palestinians to use Al-Aqsa mosque as a religious trigger for future bloodshed. The idea is not new; it was used in 1929 by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and led to anti-Jewish riots and the massacre of the Jews in Hebron. It was used again by PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat in 2000, to incite the Palestinians to the second intifada, which killed untold numbers of Jews and Arabs. Today, Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas’s Khaled Mashaal are doing the same thing to incite a jihad that this time will truly be religious and not based on real estate.

The more Kerry accuses Israel of having had a hand in creating ISIS, the more the Palestinians will use Al-Aqsa mosque to stir the fire burning under the bubbling cauldron of the Middle East.

The Palestinians’ religious incitement campaign is currently being waged primarily by Mahmoud Abbas, the man who stood in front of the UN and accused Israel of fomenting a religious war. This is the same Mahmoud Abbas who calls on Palestinians to use every means available to fight Israel, while at the same time denying that he is doing so.

Meanwhile, Qatar lurks in the background, instructing Al-Jazeera TV to incite the Palestinians against Israel, Egypt and Jordan, and encouraging terrorist attacks that lead only to justified Israeli reprisals.

Qatar’s royal family hides behind the security of having a major U.S. airbase on its soil, while supporting Hamas, the Islamic Movement in Israel and the terrorist organizations in the Sinai Peninsula. To Arabs, the ultimate irony is that Americans are paying Qatar to have an airbase there, while Qatar is paying terrorists to kill Americans.

Qatar also still finds time nonsensically to accuse the wakf in Jordan, responsible for Al-Aqsa mosque, of collaborating with Israel to eradicate all signs of Muslim presence on the Temple Mount. Qatar’s only plan with that at the moment, however, is to cause riots in Jordan to oust Jordan’s king.

Inspired by Western accusations against Israel and the West’s enthusiastic recognition of a Palestinian state — without requiring the direct negotiations with Israel, as obligated by international treaties — the Palestinian leadership has become more radicalized.

Mahmoud Abbas has gone so far as to abandon his pretense of moderation: if the Israelis can be accused of creating the ISIS with no mention made of the culpability of Hamas, whose ideology is the same as ISIS’s, Mahmoud Abbas has been freed of any commitment to peace and can actively pursue the unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state.

In addition, witnessing Russia’s abrogation of its 1994 Budapest Memorandum with the Ukraine, with virtually no adverse consequences, must have seemed a precedent too tempting to ignore. Thus, the Palestinian Authority and Hamas do truly speak with one voice, but it is the voice of Hamas.

Khaled Mashaal, head of Hamas’s political bureau, called on all the Palestinians to take up arms to defend Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem. The mosque, he said, justifies jihad and the sacrificing of shaheeds [martyrs] to liberate it, and, as in the Hamas charter, that “resistance” is the only solution for the problems of the Palestinian people.

Mashaal was echoed by Mahmoud Abbas at the 14th Fatah conference. Abbas said that under no condition were Jews to be allowed into Al-Aqsa mosque or the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, because any Jewish presence would defile them. On whose authority did he take possession of the Christian holy sites? A short time earlier, Abbas had even claimed that he had no intention of inciting a third intifada against Israel.

Somehow, John Kerry has managed to link to Israel the Shi’ite-Sunni civil wars, radical Islam’s Muslim Brotherhood-inspired global plot and the creation of ISIS. Then he linked the failure of the Palestinian issue to have been resolved to Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The unpopular and inconvenient truth is: if there is to be peace, Hamas has to be disarmed, the Palestinian Authority and the Gaza Strip have to be demilitarized, Mahmoud Abbas has to recognize the State of Israel as the homeland of the Jews, and Netanyahu has to recognize the Palestinians state. Israel will then compensate the Palestinians with land in return for the land on which the three large blocks of settlements stand, as has already been agreed.

It is not Israel but the Palestinians who are trying to avoid negotiating a final agreement. They see themselves, with the backing of the UN and Secretary Kerry — and in a final breakdown of any trust in future international agreements — as able to achieve their desired result without having to make any concessions.

People who repeat infamies, as Kerry has done, not only encourage radicalism, they are just delaying the establishment of a Palestinian state. We do want a Palestinian state, but please only one that will provide responsible governance.

Categories: Antisemitism, Egypt, Gaza, Hamas, Iran, Iranian nukes, Iraq, Islam, Islamic State, Israel, Jerusalem, juden ist verboten, Kerry, Middle East, Netanyahu, Obama, Palestinians, Qatar, Syria, Turkey, Two state solution
Tags: Egypt, Iran, Iranian nukes, Islamic caliphate, Islamic State, Israel, Qatar, Settlements, Turkey

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‘New reality requires security fence on Jordan border’

June 30, 2014

New reality requires security fence on Jordan border'”

The Sykes-Picot Agreement that shaped the borders around us almost 100 years ago has run its course,” PM Benjamin Netanyahu says •

Netanyahu says Israel needs to support international efforts to strengthen Jordan and support Kurdish independence

Shlomo Cesana, Eli Leon and Israel Hayom Staff

via Israel Hayom | ‘New reality requires security fence on Jordan border’.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Institute for National Security Studies conference in Tel Aviv, Sunday|
Photo credit: Yehoshua Yosef

In light of recent changes in the Middle East, Israel is going to have to construct a security fence along the length of its border with Jordan, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday.

Speaking at the Institute for National Security Studies conference in Tel Aviv, Netanyahu said that in any future peace deal with the Palestinians, the Israel Defense Forces would be the entity protecting Israel in Judea and Samaria, including the Jordan Valley.

Israel “must stabilize the region west of the security line in Jordan,” Netanyahu said, adding that the territory of a future Palestinian state, up to the Jordan River, would have to remain under full Israeli security control for many years.

Netanyahu said he was updating his 2009 Bar-Ilan University address, in which he called for a two-state solution. The prime minister said he now advocates the notion that the Palestinians should have “political and economic control in the territories they control, but simultaneously there must be a continuation of Israeli security operations in these territories to ensure the disarmament of terrorist groups.”

“A withdrawal of our forces would likely bring about the fall of the Palestinian Authority, and the rise of Islamist extremists, like in the Gaza Strip, which would pose a serious danger for Israel,” Netanyahu said.

He cited four challenges ahead for Israel: defending its borders, stabilizing the region between the security border with Jordan and the population centers, regional cooperation to stop the spread of Islamist extremism, and preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear threshold state.

“The Middle East is witnessing a historic change, one with serious implications for Israel’s and the world’s safety. The Sykes-Picot Agreement that shaped the borders around us almost 100 years ago has run its course,” Netanyahu said.

With regards to developments in Jordan, and the looming threat of jihadist fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, Netanyahu said Israel needs to “support international efforts to strengthen Jordan and support the Kurdish aspiration for independence.”

“Jordan is a stable country, moderate, has a powerful military and knows how to protect itself, which is in fact why international efforts to support it are worthy,” Netanyahu said.

“Regarding the Kurds, they are a fighting people that have proved their political commitment, political moderation, and deserve political independence,” Netanyahu continued.

Meanwhile, the deputy chairman of Turkey’s ruling party indicated last week that Turkey was willing to accept a Kurdish state in Iraq.

“The Kurds in Iraq can decide for themselves the name and type of state that they want to live in,” Justice and Development Party (AKP) Deputy Chairman Huseyin Celik said.

The statements mark a change of rhetoric for Turkey, which had until now opposed Kurdish independence in Iraq, in fear it would bolster nationalistic aspirations of the Turkish Kurds who make up more than 15 percent of its population

Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: Anti Semitism, Disputed Territory, Hamas, IDF, Israel, Jihad, Middle East War, PA, Palestinians, Settlements

Comments: 1 Comment

Europe ‘losing patience’ over settlements, says envoy

June 27, 2014

Europe ‘losing patience’ over settlements, says envoy

Spain and Italy issue warnings against commercial ties with West Bank, while EU ambassador warns more will follow

By Times of Israel staff June 27, 2014, 1:58 pm

via Europe ‘losing patience’ over settlements, says envoy | The Times of Israel.

EU Ambassador to Israel Lars Faaborg-Andersen (photo credit: Yossi Zwecker)

he European Union’s ambassador to Israel, Lars Faaborg-Andersen, has warned once again that European states were “losing patience” with the continued growth of Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

The comment came Friday, after Spain and Italy joined France, Germany and the UK in warning its citizens against engaging in commercial ties with West Bank settlements. France had issued a similar declaration last week, while the foreign offices of Germany and Britain did so several months ago.

“These warnings don’t surprise us,” Faaborg-Andersen told journalists at a Geneva Initiative event on Friday. “The states [of the EU] are losing patience when it comes to continued construction in the settlements, and if the trend continues, more countries will join these warnings against businesses operating over the Green Line,” he warned, according to the Israeli Hebrew-language media.

According to a Friday report in the Italian La Stampa daily, Italy’s Foreign Minister Federico Mogherini cautioned Italians “not to get involved in financial activity and investments” in settlements. The warning is given “in accord with other European countries” and reflects Italy’s implementation of “a political decision taken earlier,” Mogherini said, according to the paper.

The Italian statements, issued on behalf of the EU, the presidency of which it takes over next week, said financial transactions, investments, purchases, contracts and tourism in Israeli settlements only benefit the settlements.

It said companies who do so should consider possible human rights violations and “the potential negative implications of such activities on their reputation or image.”

The international community regards most Israeli building over the Green Line as contrary to international law, though most rounds of peace negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians centered on negotiating a new, agree-upon boundary that would keep most Israeli settlers within Israel, as most settlers live adjacent to the Green Line that divides Israel and the West Bank.

Israel has annexed East Jerusalem, the part of the city over the Green Line that includes the Western Wall and Temple Mount, Judaism’s holiest site, but the move has not been recognized internationally.

The warnings call the settlements “obstacles to peace” which “threaten to make the two-state solution impossible.”

An Israeli diplomatic official shrugged off the warnings Friday, calling them “a political statement disguised as a legal one, and as such one that merely reiterates old and well-known European positions,” according to the Hebrew-language NRG news site.

The “vague wording of the statements points to the weak legal foundations of the warning,” the official said.

AFP and AP contributed to this report.

Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: Anti Semitism, Boycot, EU, Palestinians, Settlements

Comments: 1 Comment

Liberman urges ‘regional agreement’ with moderate Arabs

June 26, 2014

Liberman urges ‘regional agreement’ with moderate Arabs

Current Mideast situation makes separate peace deal with Palestinians impossible, foreign minister tells John Kerry

By Raphael Ahren June 26, 2014, 4:06 pm

via Liberman urges ‘regional agreement’ with moderate Arabs | The Times of Israel.

John Kerry, left, and Avigdor Liberman in Paris Thursday, June 26, 2014. (photo credit: Erez Lichtenfeld)

Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman called on Thursday for a “new political structure in the Middle East” that would entail a coalition of Israel and the moderate Arab states uniting to face the common threat of Islamist extremism.

Current circumstances in the Middle East make a separate peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians impossible, Liberman told US Secretary of State John Kerry during a meeting in Paris. Rather, “we must reach an overall regional agreement,” Liberman said. “Israel’s longstanding conflict is not only with the Palestinians but with the Arab world of which the Palestinians are a part. Therefore, we must reach an agreement that will include the moderate Arab states, the Palestinians and the Israeli Arabs.”

This is the first time that “a strategic consensus of interests has been created between the moderate elements in the Arab world and Israel,” the foreign minister said, “as both must contend with the Iranian threats, worldwide jihad and al-Qaeda, as well as the overflow of the conflict in Syria and Iraq to neighboring states.”

The Arab Peace Initiative, launched in 2002 by Saudi Arabia and since adopted by the entire Arab and Muslim world, offers “full diplomatic and normal relations” with Israel in exchange for a “comprehensive peace agreement” with the Palestinians. Liberman is now trying to turn this offer around: first a comprehensive agreement with the wider Arab world, followed by peace deal with the Palestinians later on.

The conditions prevailing in the region today have created the basis for the “creation of a new political structure in the Middle East,” Liberman said, according to a statement released by his office. Any kind of peace agreement must “include the Arab states and Israeli Arabs,” he insisted, referring to his controversial plan to redraw Israel’s borders in order to annex Israeli settlements and leave major Arab population centers on the Palestinian side of the border.

The Israeli minister also spoke about the current security situation in Iraq. The country is “dissolving before our eyes,” he said, adding that the establishment of an independent Kurdish state is “probably inevitable.” The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and other extremists factions will try to undermine the stability of the entire Gulf area, Liberman said, “and Israel can provide support and assistance to the moderate Arab states against the extremists of the Arab world.”

He also thanked Kerry for Washington’s “firm position” regarding the gravity of the kidnapping of three Israeli teenagers earlier this month, and told him that the teens’ parents wished to meet with him.

In Paris, Liberman was also set to meet with his French counterpart, Laurent Fabius.

Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: Disputed Territory, Hamas, Israel, Middle East War, PA, Palestinians, Settlements

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