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If they are such good friends, why are they so hostile? Part 2
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Jerusalem Posts
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said:
I remember when Bush gave certain assurances and guarantees to Sharon in exchange for withdrawal... and now those promises and guarantees are nowhere in sight.
Bush is in his 2nd term and doesn't need to convince anyone of his supposed friendship with Israel, but he goes out of his way to make guarantees and assurances to the Arabs, none of which the US has ever reneged on.
The following is from April this year... with my comments first...
America has now given the okay for the Saudis to base their F-15's near the Israeli border.
Also, in the meeting with Sharon yesterday, nothing was mentioned about the Palestinian RoR, but worryingly, he's mentioned the Armistce lines of 1949, which gives ALL Israel's neighbours the option to enlarge their own borders if they wish.
This looks as if it could be America's way of de-legitimising Israel and could ultimately spell the end of the little country!
Obviously Bush is putting his oil interests in the Gulf first, and isn't too worried about the US/Israel alliance.
Speaking in a live interview on Israel Radio this morning, Minister Uzi Landau noted that President Bush's statements have no standing as a permanent American commitment. Landau listed a series of previous American presidential commitments that have not been honored - including a promised ban on the deployment of American made Saudi F-15s in Tabuk near Eilat.
President Bush made a veiled reference to the limits that there are to his statements during the press conference last night when he remarked that "when you have a government where the person is bigger than the institutions, that government will inevitably fail. It's when the institutions are bigger than the people that you're able to have continuity and people's hopes and aspirations realized, and peace". In America the institutions are bigger than the people - presidential commitments only have a binding status under the U.S. Constitution if they are approved by a two-thirds majority of the Senate.
Landau pointed out that the Bush letter made no reference to Israel's 14 points about the roadmap thus leaving the roadmap with its fatal flaws (under the roadmap the Quartet decides if a Palestinian state should be formed in evacuated areas based on what it considers the relative performance of the Palestinians as compared to the Israeli performance - the Palestinians are not actually required to successfully complete any security-related operations. The state is formed without requiring either Israeli consent or Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. The Bush statements also did not explicitly link the Phase II Palestinian state to the successful completion of security operations - thus essentially rendering meaningless his statement regarding Israeli control of movement between Gaza and the outside world as [even while Bush remains president and opts to honor his words] it only holds until a Phase II Palestinian state ).
Landau said that it is important to read the actual text of the letter in English. Reading from the text of the Bush letter ("It seems clear that an agreed, just, fair, and realistic framework for a solution to the Palestinian refugee issue as part of any final status agreement will need to be found through the establishment of a Palestinian state, and the settling of Palestinian refugees there, rather than in Israel.") Landau complained that the sentence was being mistranslated in Hebrew reports to read "and not in Israel" when the statement reads only "rather than in Israel".
It should be noted that while the media is presenting the Bush letter as some kind of commitment regarding the final status of the settlement blocs that Bush, who was careful to say in the press conference that "[T]he United States will not prejudice the outcome of final status negotiations. That matter is for the parties," in no way indicated that what would happen with the blocs except to predict in his letter that they will have a value at the negotiating table :
"[I]n light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli populations centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949, and all previous efforts to negotiate a two-state solution have reached the same conclusion. It is realistic to expect that any final status agreement will only be achieved on the basis of mutually agreed changes that reflect these realities."
Mr. Bush may consider it "realistic", for example, for the existence of the major Israeli population centers to be such a significant negotiating card that Israel can trade them for the French Hill and Ramat Eshkol neighborhoods in Jerusalem - occupied territory in American eyes.
As for the situation in evacuated Gaza, President Bush sees building up the "capacity and will of Palestinian institutions to fight terrorism"."working together with Jordan, Egypt, and others in the international community." The caveat "will", in particular within the context of Egyptian efforts, refers to plans to co-opt the terrorists by recruiting them into the Palestinian security forces. The presence of "Jordan, Egypt, and others in the international community" on the ground will provide the Palestinians with a formidable human shield to protect them from Israeli security operations.
http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=20432
And then read about America's sales to Egypt HERE (a conglomeration of many articles)
Posted by: Jerusalem Posts on December 29, 2004 06:27 PM
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Jerusalem Posts
said:
The links is HERE
Posted by: Jerusalem Posts on December 29, 2004 06:29 PM
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Jerusalem Posts
said:
And there's more...
and then of course, there's the State Dept with it's friends in the Muslim Brotherhood...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12823-2004Sep10.html
Oh! No-one's mentioned Egypts acquisition of North Korean missiles.... do a search on MENL for the past 3 years...
Posted by: Jerusalem Posts on December 29, 2004 06:51 PM
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BobW
said:
There is much, much, much more to all this. It assembles into world politics. Israel does not have a modern Parliamentary type government with executive branch institutions to properly participate in world politics.
The Harpies; This appears as a blended combination of a "set-up" and a failed Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Israel has been selling arms to both Beijing and Taipei. This is drastic mistake number one. If business is sought, the arms trade must be avoided if competitors are Great Powers. Remember that Israel's R&D industry is US funded. The set-up was always available especially when dealing with Yesha and internationalizing Jerusalem. Funny, with Israel's arms sales, where are the net returns?!
The AIPAC example is a clear set-up. The initial fault is chargable to AIPAC. It is a vestage from an earlier era. AIPAC has not kept up with the times. After the Tome Dine scandal,this organization should have joined Yiddish theater in the history books.
When reviewing pblic statements of politicans, the private positions must also be reviewed. The Jerusalem Embassy Act was the proverbial balancing act in current affairs. Jerusalem is contested and this matter is clearly supported by Israel's Ministry of Foreign Afairs. Israel's MFA even has a web site showing an organizational chart with the status of Jerusalem as part of the Ministry's mission. No where else does a government allow its foreign ministry deal in domestic affairs. Note the US Department of the Interior for these type matters !
There is no urgent or important reason for the US Government to move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Israel's Ministry of Defense is located in Tel Aviv and not in Jerusalem. Israel's National Security Council is not located in Jerusalem. It is located in Ramat Hasharon, Tel Aviv. Recall when former Secretary of State James Baker, when discussing America's diaspora Jews said:"F*** the Jews...". The rest of his statement discussed the NON-support of American Jewry for the Bush 41 administration. It would be more than difficult for me to speak before a pro-Israel Christian group here in the States and argue that the US Embassy should be moved to Jerusalem.
Plus, Jerusalem is scheduled to be a shared capital city and also function as an internationalized city such as post WWII Berlin and Treiste.
Douglas Feith is a friend of Israel?! It is the "neocons" or more accurately, the "Hofjude" that allow for Israel to be humiliated on a daily basis. The neocons do not make US policy - although presented to the public as such -.US Middle East policy is established by retired SecState James Baker and a few others.
In international relations we deal with interests and not friends. A small group of conversos both in Israel and North America have made fortunes along with a comfortable life vis a vis their so called public service contributions.
This is just a repeat story from the Tanakh and Jewish history books.
Kol tuv,
BobW
Posted by: BobW on December 30, 2004 05:13 AM
If they are such good friends, why are they so hostile? Part 2
In a previous article, I went over the major instances where the US opposed Israeli policies, to Israel's detriment. The second part of that article was designed to illustrate the anti-Israel pressure by the US authorities, based on recent news stories and documentation. In fact, there are so many instances of this kind, that I am compelled to divide this part of the presentation into several pieces, each dealing with a calendar month.
Below is the review and documentation (links) to three major stories that emerged in the month of December 2004 alone.
While reading the text, bear in mind that we are dealing with specifics and details; the overall picture is totally tainted by the decision taken by George Bush to go back on his 2000 election promise, and to intervene in the Israel/Arab dispute, obviously to the detriment of Israel. Being the first US president to openly call for a PLO independent state in Yesha has been a source of great pride to George Bush, and a source of an impending disaster for Israel. We will cover this part of Israel-US relations, the mother of all problems, as the review goes backward in time.
Problem #1: the Israel/China drone incident
On Boxing Day, 26 Dec 2004, JPost reported on the most recent Israel-US dispute, the one concerning Israeli drones previously sold to China and currently being upgraded in Israel. Prima facie, all is simple: China is a threat to US power, especially as the Taiwan issue is heating up. Clearly, then, the US would object to Israel arming a US opponent. But when one reads the details, things get less simple. JPost reported:
Even as I was completing this piece for posting, a new JPost article was published, shedding light not merely on the severity of the US-Israel rift, but also on the role of Douglas Feith, who is supposed to be Israel's friend. JPost reports in an article entitled, "Crisis with US over China deal" (29 dec 2004):For more on this issue, see Ha'aretz article and JPost article.
While the US may be concerned about the Israel-China military trade, the US keeps arming Israel's potential enemies to the hilt. A recent example is the sale of US air-to-air missiles to Jordan (the country which withdrew its ambassador from Israel and never returned him). JPost documents the story:
One is bound to ask, other than Israeli planes, against whom is Jordan to be protected?Problem #2: AIPAC, industrial espionage
As of
All this sounds like a sting operation the FBI would conduct against a hostile country at the height of the cold war. Which makes one think... especially after one reads the details spelt out in the article mentioned above.July, 2004, AIPAC kept popping in and out of the news. The latest article which landed on my desk is a JAT item dated December 21, informing readers that:
A visit to the JAT site, and a search for "AIPAC" at the site, yields a series of articles on the topic. Also see this JPost story, dated Dec 5. The seminal article, "Exclusive: How FBI set up AIPAC", was published by JPost on Dec 5, and updated on Dec 7.
A related issue is the US accusation of industrial spying by Israel. On Dec 8, JPost reported out of the blue:
This story seems to have died down, but so did the AIPAC story for a time. Who knows when or why the FBI may revive the issue.Problem #3: the US embassy in Israel
Moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem constituted a solemn promise that Bush made before the 2000 election, backed by the Embassy Act of 1995. Well, we are now approaching the Act's ninth birthday, and all we see is a sequence of 6-months delays. The most recent was underscored in a JPost article dated Dec 16, 2004:
Referring to his two-state policy, Bush scoffs at his opponents for not believing in his sincerity. Indeed, when it comes to promises made to Arabs, Bush is very sincere; only when it comes to promises that might benefit Israel is the Bush sincerity consigned to oblivion.To be continued.
Posted by Joseph Alexander Norland at December 29, 2004 03:50 PM