Netanyahu chooses concessions over confrontation
I don’t see where this solves anything. Why advance the position of the PA if we don’t have our position also advanced. If we are going to have temporary borders, we should be asking for concessions on our side of the borders such us we get to keep Ariel and Maaleh Adumin. If we are to remove Jews from this interim state, we should be permitted to build in the rest of the settlements and to keep them.
Its not so much as Israel being against a Palestinian state but being in favour of keeping 90% of the settlements and all of Jerusalem and having the new state demilitarized and requiring recognition of Israel as a Jewish state. If we get no concessions of what we want we should give no concessions. You can’t negotiate with someone who doesn’t want to negotiate.
Accordingly Israel is one step closer to accepting the Saudi Plan.
U.S. and Israel trying to put crisis behind them
By Aluf Benn, HAARETZ
It’s too soon to talk about a political breakthrough, but the signs are clear: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is looking to strike a deal with the U.S. administration that will resolve the public dispute between Washington and Jerusalem. U.S. President Barack Obama has exhausted his repertoire of anger at Netanyahu and is now out to rehabilitate U.S.-Israeli relations.
Intensive contacts have been underway for the past few days between the Prime Minister’s Bureau and the White House, in an Israeli attempt to get the administration’s ultimatum to Netanyahu – centering on the demand to cease construction and the settlement of Jews in East Jerusalem – shelved. Netanyahu is refusing to impose a construction freeze in Jerusalem and has proposed a different political blueprint, and in return the president is sending conciliatory messages to Israel and signaling his desire to end the crisis.
The following are the elements of the emerging deal, culled from public and private comments by senior Israeli and American officials:
* Israel will initiate a new interim agreement in the West Bank, which will lead to the establishment of a Palestinian state within interim borders, in return for deferral of the discussion about the future of Jerusalem. Netanyahu has told the Americans: I would be ready to progress to a final-status agreement, but Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is not capable of progressing to such an agreement, and in the end efforts will focus on forging an interim agreement.
The Palestinians are vehemently opposed to an interim agreement, but if they again reject an Israeli initiative that has been welcomed by Obama, they will be perceived as the rejectionist side. Netanyahu will be seen as a statesman who took a political risk, and in the meantime will not be called on to make difficult decisions. He has to take into account, however, that any promise of progress he makes will have to be fulfilled.
* The United States and Israel will identify the areas of disagreement between them. In a talk he delivered on Wednesday to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a saliently pro-Israel think tank, the White House national security adviser, Gen. James Jones, stated: “Like any two nations, we will have our disagreements, but we will always resolve them as allies.” He also elaborated on what is bothering the administration: “We also continue to call on all sides to avoid provocative actions, including Israeli actions in East Jerusalem and Palestinian incitement.”
* Obama will toughen the U.S. line against Iran and Syria, with the aim of preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and averting a new war in the north, and he will tighten the security ties with Israel. Jones quoted the president: “The United States is determined to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.” He spoke with great friendship for Israel and commitment to its security, lauding American cooperation with “my friends in the Israel Defense Forces” and its important contribution to the security of the United States. In displaying readiness to enter into an additional interim agreement and to accept a Palestinian state in temporary borders, Netanyahu is adopting the proposals of Defense Minister Ehud Barak, President Shimon Peres and former defense minister MK Shaul Mofaz (Kadima). However, implementation of such an agreement, even in a limited format, will oblige a further withdrawal, and that might include the evacuation of settlements. In other words, it is likely to thrust Netanyahu into a confrontation with his political partners – both in his party and on the extreme right, who vowed “never again” after the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.
So far, Netanyahu has sat on the fence. Ministers and advisers, statesmen and commentators have made suggestions, and he has tried to drag out the courtship season for as long as possible. Every choice entails forgoing options and entering into confrontations. But Obama exploited the “Ramat Shlomo crisis” during the visit of Vice President Joe Biden in Jerusalem a month and a half ago, to press Netanyahu to decide. The American message was clear: The price to be paid for peace in the coalition will be a crisis in relations with the United States, just when Israel needs U.S. support against Iran.
Netanyahu decided to accept a certain amount of “self-punishment” that would demonstrate political movement without undercutting sacrosanct right-wing principles such as an “eternal unified Jerusalem.” Time is pressing. The settlement construction freeze will end in another five months, and resumption of building without a political process will seriously strain relations with the administration.
Strongman Barak
This was Barak’s opportunity. The defense minister has two cards to play: the threat that Labor will bolt the coalition and leave Netanyahu in the hands of the far right and the ultra-Orthodox, and the prime minister’s desire to have his former commander in the ultra-elite Sayeret Matkal commando unit by his side in the strategic confrontation with Iran.
Barak shares Netanyahu’s disgust with the Palestinian leadership and his assessment that a final-status agreement is not practical. However, in contrast to some other members of the “forum of seven” – ministers Avigdor Lieberman, Moshe Ya’alon and Benny Begin – who are against any movement or compromise, Barak is proposing slow progress and avoidance of confrontations with the United States. The fact that his ideas have been adopted casts Barak as the strongman in the government.
Netanyahu thought that the administration’s pressure to stop construction in Jerusalem afforded him an opportunity to muster political support in America. The “leave Israel alone and don’t touch Jerusalem” campaign, whose high point was a full-page ad of support by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel, succeeded in shaking Obama’s self-confidence and mitigating the brutal pressure being exerted on Netanyahu. The shift was apparent this week in articles by Aaron Miller and Martin Indyk, members of the Clinton-era “peace team,” who cannot be suspected of being fans of either Netanyahu or the Likud.
Miller’s article, in the journal Foreign Policy, was trenchant and fascinating. Abjuring his belief in what he called “the false religion of Mideast peace,” he related how he had devoted 20 years of his life to advancing an agreement that appeared to be inevitable and irreversible – until he discovered the error of his ways. “Today, I couldn’t write those same memos [about the urgency of Arab-Israeli peace] or anything like them with a clear conscience or a straight face,” he notes. Miller suggests that Obama take a broader perspective: There are more important issues for America than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Afghanistan, for example, Iraq, and of course the confrontation with Iran. Pressuring Israel to make concessions in Jerusalem and on its borders will only push it to take unilateral action vis-a-vis Iran, the veteran diplomat warned.
Netanyahu read the Miller article and felt encouraged: At last, someone in the “peace industry” understands the Israeli appraisal of the situation, and identifies with it. That’s a lot more credible and persuasive than another favorable comment on Fox News or an article of support in The Wall Street Journal – the bastions of the American right wing, which attack Obama at every opportunity.
The positive messages from the administration were quick to arrive: a warm congratulatory embrace from the president for Independence Day, Jones’ talk at the Washington Institute and the dispatch of White House officials for talks in Jerusalem.
The time has come for the leaders in the region “to demonstrate the courage and leadership” of Anwar Sadat, King Hussein and Yitzhak Rabin, Jones said. Follow in the footsteps of Menachem Begin and Ariel Sharon and prefer America over your right-wing coalition, Indyk urged Netanyahu in The New York Times. The prime minister is not there yet. But he is approaching the moment when he will have to choose a political path and perhaps also translate it into action.
Total capitulation by Netanyahu.
Bull-fucking-shit.
This is the Gaza withdrawal con job all over again.
And remember how well that worked out?
All the credit lavished on Israel by the “international community”?
The harsh denunciations of Palestinian intransigence?
This is an endlessly recurring nightmare, not unlike yamit’s biscuit recipe.
I can do that right now….without making unilateral concessions!
Obama passionately believes that Israel is illegitimate…an historical mistake.
The Israelis disagree.
There you go.
So now that the disagreement has been identified, no need for concessions.
Right?
Wanna bet?
I say, “Never gonna happen.”
Loser gets an mbrach karate kick to the chops.
Yes, and Barak’s solution is to make unilateral concessions to the Palestinian leadership that disgusts him, thereby teaching Abbas the cruel lesson that if you kill Jews, the Jews will reward you for doing so.
And don’t ever forgot it!!!!
Then he is dumber than Paterno’s son.
So Netanyahu’s approach is now receiving the warm endorsement of Haaretz, a seditious scandal sheet that revels in the murder of Jews.
yamit must once again be acknowledged for a flawless appraisal of Netanyahu’s character, which was that Netanyahu lacks all character.
To end this frenzied screed on a positive note, it is that kind of shrewd analysis which has propelled Israpundit to a new Alexa high:
Traffic Rank in US: 138,050
The only question now is how the Netanyahu-engineered demise of the Jewsih state will affect readership…
The positive connotation of a ‘breakthrough’ as seen by Haaretz in reality is more like when the enemy breaks through your line of defense. Obama is an enemy that stays an enemy. If he warms to an opponent it is only to get positioned to deal a fatal blow.
The man (Obama) is pure evil. You cannot reason with him and he is too treacherous to deal with. The only way to confront a person like Obama is with the intent to defeat him totally.
is most definitely what the Obami now understand. add South Korea, devolution in Pakistan, China’s new blue water navy policy, meltdown in Kyrgyzstan, even the saber rattling between the Azeris and Armenia, and the Obami now know that they have far more urgent priorities than ‘peace in the middle east in time for the 2012 elections’.
when so many frozen conflicts are melting, one hopes the Obami now understand the benefit of frozen.
BB has already capitulated long before the current public phony crisis came to public notic. Might I remid all the declaration at Bar Ilan by BB agreeing to the creation of a Pali state. Might I remind one and all that BB not only agreed to 10month freeze of all construction over the post 67 lines, that include Jerusalem although he won’t admit to it publicly.
All of the check posts taken down. The Harassment of all the Jews living in all of the settlements in Yehuda and Shomron.
After BB’s first face to face the Hussein he friends and staff leaked BB’s reaction to the effect “I don’t know what he wants from me”> If BB didn’t know by that time he certainly hasn’t learned what Hussein wants from him yet, at least based on his actions and statements.
BB by now knows Obama will do nothing to impinge Iran from becoming a nuclear power, nothing.
Obama could be the weakest President in History even eclipsing Jimmy Carter, yet BB seems to shy, too scared and too obtuse to read the tea leaves that every good tea leaf reader seems able. Then we have seen that the weakest of American Presidents forced the most rightest of right wing Israeli governments to abandon All of Sinai and dismantle major Jewish settlements. Hussein seems to be of the Jimmy Carter mold.
The current year and a half arms embargo to Israel in place since the Bush years speaks volumes, yet all quite from Jerusalem. Even the media has not widely reported this.
BB has been unaware of:
Obama sells arms to Arabs, but not to Israel
Washington Think Tank Predicts New Mideast War
Dr. Samuel L. Blumenfeld Dr. Samuel L. Blumenfeld
Is the US Eroding Israel’s Qualitative Edge?
by Avi Yellin
Question: why has Israel and the media been silent for so long?
It is not for Israel to defeat Obama; it for Israel to survive him!
Obama has to be defeated in some sense by someone in order to survive him. What Obama is pushing to remove the final obstacles for consolidation of world power into a global authority. Once that happens, Israel will numro uno to deal with, not Iran. NATO, UN peace-keepers, international banks, taxes, laws and courts, you and I both know these have been in the making for years awaiting the time a NWO could become a reality. Obama will do all he can through international treaties to make it happen ASAP to create a global totalitarian state in which a Jewish state, or free people have no place.
This is not just about the survival of Israel, it is about the survival of freedom in the world. The two are inseparable at this point; what happens to Israel is a harbinger.
This is not just about the survival of Israel
It is to me!
it is about the survival of freedom in the world.
Don’t lay that trip on us. We have enough to worry about without the freedom of the rest of the world on our heads. Anyway most of us here don’t vote in American elections. and even fewer give a shit about the freedom in the rest of the world.
The two are inseparable at this point; what happens to Israel is a harbinger.
Enough with the cliches, The two are not inseparable. More freedom or less freedom will not be influenced by our demise or survival.
Czechoslovakia, and Serbia, were harbingers but but few connect the dots.
Your problem is Obama ours is BB and Barak.
Make Hay While The Sun Shines.
No use crying over spilt milk.
Don’t beat around the bush.
Don’t count your chickens before they hatch.
There is a time and place for everything.
It’s a dog eat dog world.
You can take a horse to the water, but you can’t make it drink.
Survival of the fittest.
Too little too late.
Randy is right, that bastard wants to sink the ship of freedom and we’re all on board, screw the life boats let get the SOB and throw his black ass (that is not being racist, unless is ass is white, its the truth) overboard.
PM Netanyahu should avoid talking to anyone and I mean anyone about the Palestinians. In the meantime he has to do the best and I mean the best PR work on the U.S. congress, targeting the conservatives who should be taking over the house and senate after November. After that this shithead president will be a lamb fuck (I mean duck)
The conservative house and senate should put the Palestinians on notice they will push of a Palestinian state in Jordan and unless they and Jordan don’t accept, no more aid.
FYI – 2 PM (right now) on ESPN-2 it the Blue-White PennState spring football game.
What is the over/under?
So far, my favorite name in the NFL draft is Scott Sicko.
FYI-9:10Pm here and it was just reported that Hussein Obama was watching as well after all Penn St. is his favorite
collegiate football team and he is said to follow the team as religiously and as devotedly as rongrand.
Doubtful, since the screen name rongrand is actually used by Joe Paterno.
I also note that it took you FOUR MINUTES! to write this short paragraph.
With reaction time like that, Israel is doomed.
…and thank you for your concern for the rest of humanity.
Can’t hold a candle to you
Call a spade a spade
Absence makes the heart grow fonder
Absolute power corrupts absolutely
All talk and no action
Better than a kick in the teeth
Better late than never
All work and no play, makes Jack a dull boy
All’s fair in love and war
Cut to the chase
She’s got a bug up her ass
Does a bear shit in the woods?
Here’s mud in your eye
Here’s your hat, what’s your hurry?
do birds fly
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder
Beauty is only skin deep
As horny as a three balled tomcat
Don’t get your panties in a wad
Down the hatch
As useful as tits on a bull
Colder than a well digger’s ass
Finally.
A good Republican ad.
Very Christian of you to say that.
Ninety-nine percent of our Jewish secular thinkers say: Because our crisis is that of the entire world, we must solve the world’s crisis, and then ours will be resolved; socialism, democracy, the danger of world war – the resolution of our crisis will come with the resolution of the world crisis.
For religious Jews the term “humanity” is a foreign word. In Hebrew we say umot haoloam, the “nations of the world.” The abstract concept “humanity” is Platonic; it is an abstract idea. It doesn’t exist in original Hebrew texts, where we encounter only the nations of the world. Unlike “humanity,” the “nations of the world” is a limited concept; according to the Jewish worldview, nothing abstract exists.
The critical difference between us and the Christians is whom we consider a fellow man. Modern Christians unrealistically pronounce all people fellows, and surely fail to treat them as such. But their own parable of the Good Samaritan is instructive: even a despised Samaritan could be one’s fellow if the Samaritan helped him. A fellow is one from whom help is expected. Such a definition surely excludes the Canaanites and Palestinian Arabs from the commandment to love your fellow.
What is the love enjoined to our fellows? The context clarifies: “You shall not oppress your fellow” (19:13), “You shall not hate your brother” (19:17), and the 19:18: “You shall neither take revenge, nor restrain [yourself to take revenge later] at the children of your nation.” This, by the way, refutes the claims that human vengeance is prohibited in Judaism, that it is reserved for the power of God only. Revenge is prohibited only against fellow Jews, on the double presumption of their general goodwill and efficient law enforcement. In such a society, revenge on the personal level was superfluous. But taking revenge on the enemies of Jews (even their distant offspring) is not merely a right, but an often-reiterated obligation: “a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace” (Ecclesiastes 3:8).
The commandment of love concludes a list which parallels the Decalogue, and is therefore comparable to the prohibition of jealousy (Exodus 20:13).
Where it says, “You shall not oppress strangers,” the Torah enjoins us against arbitrarily taking the life or property of the submissive resident aliens who are loyal to Judaism. Where it says, “You shall love your fellow just as yourself,” the Torah enjoins a positive attitude toward one’s compatriots, toward like-minded people only.
I agree.
The greatest dangers to our planet today.
Protect our Planet
Bill O’Reilly is a eunuch:
In commenting on the article Ted posted, most people quote from al-Ha’aretz, assuming their statements are genuine. Please recall that al-Ha’aretz is squarely in the enemy camp, just like its rag-sheet sister, the New Duranty Times. Al-Ha’aretz may have floated a trial balloon, or just made up a story, very much like Jayson Blair did in the NY rag-sheet. So why treat their text as gospel? I would prefer to wait until I see the news printed/broadcast in a decent outlet and only then allow my blood pressure to rise.
The good news is that the One-term Hussein Obama (OTHO) has only 2 1/2 year more to his destructive reign, and that within 6 months, the Congressional elections will paralyze much of his mischief.
Ayn you are right about O’Reilly, I have been a fan for years, in fact I have read all but one of his books.
The past couple of years he has mellowed to the degree he gives BHO a pass just about every subject as though he is afraid to offend him.
He now tries to be too much to the center. He didn’t gain his fame from being to the center but rather to the right, almost far right.
Laura Ingram calls him out on it now and then. She has his number.
As advertised
The Party that started the slide downwards (Likud) will give up Jerusalem just like they gave up Sinai. The PM who gave up Hebron will not hesitate over Jerusalem if he believes he can get away with it politically. Shas the false Jews is led by a charlatan rabbi, give me any atheist lover of Israel over that shithead. They gave us Oslo Now they give them Jerusalem. Money Money and power is all that matters to these cretins.
If a real civil war finally breaks out here I hope Ovadia Yossef is number two on the hit list. Somebody should tell this (gadol hadorot) that if he is so concerned about the saving of life that New Zealand is a pretty safe place even for falsch Jews like he is. Atheist religious Jews will be the death of us.
Bottom line is that there is nothing new or surprising for me in the governments capitulation but being right gives me no joy or satisfaction, it just pisses me off even more that so many others were wrong or worse still, don’t even care.