The Negotiations Charade. A Protracted and Never-Ending Story

...The Western powers seem to have adopted an attitude of hyperbolic weakness, in which the fear of assertive action is more frightening than the worst acts taken by our enemies against us.... Under this self-imposed attitude of powerlessness, the Western nations can do nothing but negotiate endlessly and offer ever more concessions to the Iranians so as to keep them at the negotiating table and avoid being exposed to their own publics for what they really are: appeasers. This attitude of defenselessness to the will of the intransigent is even on display in America’s dealings with those whom the U.S. has nothing to fear from, in this case the Palestinians.

Tom Wilson..
Commentary Magazine..
03 February '14..

As champions of “soft power” America and her allies have adopted an attitude of unprecedented powerlessness that has left the West with no other way to deal with our enemies than through negotiations. Unwilling to back these negotiations up with even the threat of tough action–shrinking from so much as further sanctions against Iran–Western diplomats find themselves trapped in an endless cycle of appeasement and protracted, yet fruitless, negotiations and peace conferences.

In recent days both Secretary of State John Kerry and the EU’s foreign-affairs representative Baroness Ashton have made announcements proposing an extension to the various Middle East negotiations they are involved in overseeing. To no one’s surprise, Kerry is now saying that the time period for the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations will need to be extended beyond the original, and always improbable, nine-month period that the State Department had set. Far more disturbingly, Baroness Ashton has suggested an extension on the five-month-long negotiation period over Iran’s nuclear program–an unbelievable suggestion given that the round of negotiations in question hasn’t even begun yet.

Indeed, Baroness Ashton’s comments about the Iranian negotiations are by far the most concerning. A consensus seems to be forming among many intelligence experts who say that if Iran wished to produce nuclear weapons it could possibly achieve this within a month to six weeks. As it is, the next round of negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program, which are being overseen by Kerry and Ashton as part of the P5+1 grouping, are due to run for five months starting from February 18. During that period not only does Iran receive relief from some of the sanctions but it is also permitted to continue with enrichment of uranium and so far has not been obliged to dismantle any of its nuclear infrastructure.

Speaking at the security conference in Munich over the weekend, Iran’s Foreign Minister Zarif had been pushing for precisely such an extension. This is hardly surprising given the benefits Iran derives from the current arrangements. For Ashton to be voicing such suggestions before negotiations are even underway seems recklessly irresponsible considering the gravity of the stakes involved. Yet, State Department spokespeople have also started hinting that the real time frame they have in mind may be more like six months to a year. In fact the phrase used by deputy State Department spokesperson Marie Harf was “six months, or a year or at any time.” Yes, any time. The message to the Iranians is clear. No need to get serious now, if you keep playing for time then really you can have all the time you need.

A gang of bullies and remembrance of meetings past

...Does this sound like something that happened to another small nation before, with many of the same players?

Fresnozionism.org..
01 February '14..





News item:

Top officials from the United Nations, United States, Russia and European Union will meet on Saturday [February 1] to discuss how they can help U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s drive for a Middle East peace deal, the EU said on Friday. …

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said she would chair the meeting with Kerry, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Quartet envoy Tony Blair, the former British prime minister.

I have always disliked the idea of the ‘Quartet’, basically a gang of bullies who conspire to find ways to force the Jews out of the territories, something that in the foreign offices of Europe and the US State Department seems to have a higher priority than any other geopolitical issue — I won’t list them; you know about Syria, South Sudan, etc.

These representatives of powerful nations and international organizations quite unashamedly apply the principles that ‘might makes right’, ‘international law is whatever gives us an advantage’, and ‘historical fact is anything we want it to be’. Then they try to wreck the tiny Jewish state because their lunatic idea of ‘justice’ demands yet another vicious Arab (possibly Islamist) dictatorship in its place. And (with the exception of the US) these are mostly the same perps that have brutalized the Jews for centuries. It will be chaired by the woman who can commemorate the Holocaust without mentioning Jews.

The Moral Obtuseness of Baroness Catherine Ashton & Company

...Perhaps Europe in general and Ashton in particular find Holocaust Remembrance Day a troublesome, even a disagreeable onus. Hence Ashton obscured the Jewish context with a short collection of hackneyed platitudes on tolerance and human rights. This is a cogent example of how Holocaust history is increasingly watered down, especially in Europe. Yesteryear’s physical destruction is followed up by today’s distortion of remembrance.

Sarah Honig..
Another Tack..
29 January '14..

Baroness Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Vice President of the European Commission, issued a statement on January 27 marking international Holocaust Remembrance Day.

It was commendable that the EU at all chose to note the day, but what Ashton said on its behalf was surreal. She managed to use 121 words without ever mentioning Jews. Her glaring omission in the context of the Holocaust is quite remarkable.

Ashton even lauded “all those who acted with courage and sacrifice to protect their fellow citizens against persecution.” But who were these nameless “fellow citizens?”

It’s highly doubtful that Ashton’s lapse is inadvertent.

Not everything can be plausibly ascribed to unintentional slip-ups. The bizarre homage Europe’s spokesperson paid to “every one of those brutally murdered in the darkest period of European history,” without even minimal reference to their identity, constitutes too great a strain on the commonsense.

Perhaps Europe in general and Ashton in particular find Holocaust Remembrance Day a troublesome, even a disagreeable onus. Hence Ashton obscured the Jewish context with a short collection of hackneyed platitudes on tolerance and human rights.

This is a cogent example of how Holocaust history is increasingly watered down, especially in Europe. Yesteryear’s physical destruction is followed up by today’s distortion of remembrance.

This serves two purposes.

It firstly seems to cleanse European nations – not just the chief genocide perpetrators, but all those who collaborated and/or profited from the industrial extermination of the Jews. By dwarfing the Holocaust, robbing it of its uniqueness and likening it to any subsequent, yet essentially very different inter-ethnic massacre – it becomes less of a moral stain. Any corollary obligation to the Jewish people is also thereby expunged.

Secondly, the disingenuous pretense that the Holocaust’s victims were anonymous and faceless reduces friction with the Arab/Muslim world, which chafes against Holocaust commemoration lest it even theoretically imply sympathy for Jews.

EU, Israel Reach "Compromise" - A de facto EU boycott of Israeli institutions

...The Israeli government has hailed the November 26 diplomatic breakthrough—in which both sides ostensibly agree to disagree—as a victory for Israel and the Israeli technology sector. But the true winner appears to be the EU, which has not budged at all from its insistence on using the agreement to impose its pro-Palestinian polices on Israel.

Soeren Kern..
Gatestone Institute..
27 November '13..

Israel and the European Union have reached a tentative agreement on a compromise formula that will make it possible for Israel to participate in a prestigious and financially lucrative European scientific research program.

The compromise paves the way for Israel to participate in Horizon 2020, the EU's flagship research and development program—despite Israeli objections to a contentious new policy that prohibits the EU from funding Israeli institutions that operate anywhere beyond the Green Line, including eastern Jerusalem.

The Israeli government has hailed the November 26 diplomatic breakthrough—in which both sides ostensibly agree to disagree—as a victory for Israel and the Israeli technology sector.

But the true winner appears to be the EU, which has not budged at all from its insistence on using the agreement to impose its pro-Palestinian polices on Israel.

Israel and the EU both stand to benefit from Israel's involvement in the €70 billion ($95 billion) program, which begins on January 1, 2014 and will run for a period of seven years.

Israel—the only non-EU country that has been invited to join Horizon 2020—is expected to invest €600 million in the program and receive €900 million in inbound research grants and other investments. For its part, the EU will benefit from Israeli research and technology, which is widely believed to surpass the capabilities of many EU member states.

But Israeli participation in Horizon 2020 became jeopardized after the EU politicized the project by linking it to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The new EU directive—the long title of which is "Guidelines on the Eligibility of Israeli Entities and their Activities in the Territories Occupied by Israel since June 1967 for Grants, Prizes and Financial Instruments funded by the EU from 2014 Onwards"—forbids EU organizations and institutions from funding or cooperating with any Israeli entities based in Judea and Samaria, eastern Jerusalem or the Golan Heights.

Working Towards a Better World. Dismantle the EU's "Political Wing"

The Muslim Brotherhood is embraced as a friend and partner of Europe, but Jewish sportsmen, artists and scientists are considered a dangerous threat to peace in the Middle East. The EU's policies towards Israel and the Jews has become so vicious, dishonest and unfair, that it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the EU is an anti-Semitic organization. The sooner the "political wing" of this organization is dismantled, the better.

Peter Martino..
Gatestone Institute..
02 August '13..

Last week, EU foreign policy commissioner Catherine Ashton published an article in the International Herald Tribune about her recent visit to Egypt, reaffirming the European Union's support for every significant political group in Egypt, including the Muslim Brotherhood. Rarely have the double standards of the EU been so blatantly obvious.

The article was published shortly after Lady Ashton, a British Baroness and former Labour politician with a past in the far-left Soviet-penetrated Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), had sent her fellow EU commissioners a letter informing them that the EU is about to impose binding requirements for labeling products produced by Jews in East Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the Golan Heights. At the same time, the EU has issued guidelines barring the 500,000 Jewish inhabitants of these regions from any EU funding, cooperation, awarding of scholarships, and research funds or prizes.

While the European Commission is waging a campaign against half a million Jews, its chief foreign representative is heaping praise on Jew-hating radical Islamists in Egypt. While in Egypt, Ashton even paid a visit to the deposed former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, a man who has called Israelis "blood-suckers," "warmongers" and "descendants of apes and pigs." Perhaps she cheered him up with the news of the EU's anti-Jewish boycott.

Ashton's article in the Herald Tribune was entitled, "Moving Egypt back to the democratic path." Back to the democratic path? As if Egypt ever has been a democracy? Sorry to disappoint you, Lady Ashton, but the only democracy in the Middle East happens to be Israel. With the exception of Lebanon, there has never been a democracy in the entire region apart from Israel. What Ashton seems to imply in her article, however, is that during Morsi's one-year of tyranny in Egypt, it was "on the democratic path."

How would her Excellency, Lady Catherine Ashton answer this?

Elder of Ziyon..
24 July '13..





This letter, written by Irene, is sort of genius:
PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL

Lady Catherine Ashton
High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy
and
Vice-President of the European Commission
Brussels

Excellency:

Because we met a few years ago in Ankara during the time of Turkey’s invasion of Iraq and its bombing of Iraqi civilian homes that Prime Minister Erdoğan believed to harbor PKK activists, I feel emboldened to write directly to you. You may recall that I had just been dismissed from my position as Senior Protocol Officer of the Republic of Azerbaijan by Armenian occupation officials.

I have several questions regarding the new directive “Guidelines on the eligibility of Israeli entities and their activities in the territories occupied by Israel since June 1967 for grants, prizes and financial instruments funded by the EU from 2014 onwards.”

1. My primary business is established (as defined in the directive) in Turkish occupied northern Cyprus, but I employ an individual whose great grandfather lived in Hebron in the West Bank during all 19 years of the Jordanian occupation when the whole area was ethnically cleansed of Jews. Am I eligible to apply for an EU grant to pay his salary?

2. I have a second business, incorporated and established, for tax purposes, in Rabat, but which is physically located in Moroccan occupied Western Sahara. We manufacture prayer flags for an important client in occupied Tibet; but the delivery truck broke down while transiting Jordan, which King Hussein, at the time of our incorporation, said was Palestine. (I believe his exact statement was, “Jordan is Palestine, and Palestine is Jordan.”) Because of the emergency nature of the shipment, we contracted with a trucking firm run by Hasidic individuals from Beitar Illit in the occupied West Bank. They are demanding advance payment in the currency previously used in western Georgia before the Russian invasion. Are we eligible for a short-term loan from the European Investment Bank?

(Continue)

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For mass murder, terrorism, Islamic extremists, Europe maintains right to remain silent, except for...

...But hypocrisy is not the only guiding principle for the nations of the EU, nor are the economic interests it has with the United Arab Emirates or the sentiments of the Muslim voters in Europe, it is the pure anti-Semitism that rejects the Jewish people's right to be the sovereign rulers and inhabitants of their own country -- without the criminal foreign intervention intended to bring it to its knees.

Matan Peleg..
Israel Hayom..
18 July '13..

Twelve-year-old Suleiman ran away from Syria alone to a refugee camp in Turkey after his entire family was murdered by Syrian President Bashar Assad's army in the Aleppo massacre. His family's fate is not unique, and it tells the story of an entire nation. More than 100,000 people have been murdered in the Syrian civil war since March 2011. But Europe has not said a word.

Young Pakistani Malala Yousafzai, 16, was shot in the head last October for leading a social resistance to the Taliban. She recently spoke to the U.N. about students, especially female, being murdered because of Islamist extremists' desire to keep women from completing their educations. And Europe has not said a word.

The recent Egyptian overthrow saw 57 supporters of ousted President Mohammed Morsi massacred in one day. In Iran, adulterous women are stoned, in Saudi Arabia women are fighting for the right to drive a car, though it seems as though they will have to give up this round. Iran is building a naval base in Sudan to deliver weapons systems to Assad and Hezbollah. But Europe has not said a word.

The Shiite-Sunni war claims the lives of hundreds of innocents every month, not only in Syria but in Iraq and Bahrain as well. The war waged by Islamic extremists against intellectual progress exacts a heavy toll on women and young girls, part of the Islamists' declaration of intent. But Europe has not said a word.

The only place were one can really find human rights in the Middle East is Israel. One could argue about the enforcement of rights, or the stalled peace talks and who is to blame for their stasis. Yet civil and human rights exist, as do progress, a culture of critiquing the government, law, court houses and international laws. But Europe chooses to exercise its right to hate.

Abject Cowardice and Racist Bullying? Meet the EU

...Ashton would like us to think there is a political wing of Hizballah which does, er, politics, and a military wing which blows people up and starts wars. She does not explain who tells the military wing whom to blow up...The truth is that the EU is so frightened of Hizballah and its patron and puppet-master Iran, that this absurd distinction is the best it can do — if it even goes this far...

Fresnozionism.org..
17 July '13..

On September 1, 1939, German aircraft bombed the town of Wielun, Poland. Five minutes later, a German battleship bombarded the free city of Danzig, and several hours after that German infantry and armor invaded on three fronts.

On September 3, the UK and France declared war on Germany (of course Britain did little until Churchill became Prime Minister in 1940, but that’s another story).

Note that they did not declare war on the Kriegsmarine, the Luftwaffe, or the Heer. Even Neville Chamberlain understood that the struggle was against the Nazis, and Germany’s armed forces were simply instruments thereof. But today’s European Union (EU) politicians aren’t even Chamberlains, not to mention Churchills.

There is indisputable evidence that Hizballah has been responsible for world-wide terrorism over the past three decades, including several attacks in EU nations — the latest being the bombing of a tour bus carrying Israelis in Burgas, Bulgaria. Hizballah also carried out the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005. It was directly responsible for the Second Lebanon War with Israel, and is on track to start another one.

Despite this, the EU has been so far unable to decide to call Hizballah a terrorist organization. But riding to the rescue is Churchill-like Catherine Ashton, the head of EU Foreign Policy:

European governments have been deadlocked over the issue since May when Britain asked for the Shi’ite Muslim group’s military wing to be put on the EU terror list, citing evidence it was behind a deadly bus bombing in Bulgaria last year.

Several EU capitals had objected, arguing such a move could destabilize Lebanon where Hezbollah is part of the government, and questioning whether there was sufficient evidence linking the group to the attack in the seaside resort of Burgas [nonsense -- ed.]

Before further talks on the issue in the coming days, the EU’s Catherine Ashton suggested a compromise that could allay concerns that a blacklisting would complicate the EU’s relations with Lebanon.

Two EU diplomats told Reuters the proposal suggests including a statement the EU “should continue dialogue with all political parties in Lebanon” and maintain funding to Beirut.

This is one of those propositions that is so utterly moronic that it’s hard to present it with a straight face in order to refute it! Ashton would like us to think there is a political wing of Hizballah which does, er, politics, and a military wing which blows people up and starts wars. She does not explain who tells the military wing whom to blow up.

Something truly mind-boggling - The EU’s propensity for self-harm

...Nice move Ashton. How it is possible for so much economic incompetence and political venom to be embodied in one single person defies description. In true EU style, she will no doubt be promoted to a new job in Brussels or, better still, UN headquarters in New York.

Ilya Meyer..
ilyameyer.com..
17 July '13..

100,000 civilians have been slaughtered in the ongoing Syrian civil war, and another 2.8 million – that’s 2,800,000 people – have been rendered homeless, refugees in their own state or having abandoned everything and fled to neighbouring countries such as Turkey, the Lebanon and Jordan.

The 10-million-strong Coptic Christian minority of Egypt suffered unspeakable atrocities at the hands of the Muslim Brotherhood under Morsi’s rule. Now the Islamist Morsi has been swept aside by popular sentiment (and army support) and the Egyptian civilian population is not only in political turmoil – statistics reveal that almost 15 percent of Egyptians have had to cut back on their basic food intake in a country that is collapsing politically, economically, industrially, agriculturally, morally and socially. During the 4-day revolution last month several hundred women were brutally raped in Cairo and elsewhere, some by Morsi supporters who objected to the presence of women in public places, the rest by anti-Morsi activists who celebrated their exuberance over Morsi’s removal with “recreational rape”.

In Somalia and elsewhere female genital mutilation is still practised routinely, often with fatal results – and that’s before we even consider the psychological effects on the survivors. The Taliban are increasing their presence and gaining credibility in Afghanistan, with offshoots in countries like Pakistan and elsewhere. Saudi culture still embraces the enslavement of black Africans and non-Muslim “guest workers” from overseas. The Iranian regime still routinely hangs shoplifters, gays and political dissidents in public squares. Hizbollah still reigns with impunity in the Lebanon, expanding its terrorist fiefdom there and coercing opponents into scared silence. The Egyptian army has sealed Egypt’s border with Gaza, smashing some Hamas tunnels under the border and flooding the remainder with raw sewage, drowning Palestinian Arabs like rats. The EU-funded Palestinian Authority still routinely names roads, schools and public buildings in honour of mass-murderers – even when these roads, schools and public buildings are constructed with EU funding. The Islamist Turkish regime still illegally occupies Northern Cyprus – and Cyprus is a full-fledged EU member state.

And while all this strife in the Muslim world is going on, the EU manages not to comment on, deal with or even acknowledge any of the above. Instead, it manages to focus on the world’s sole Jewish state – Israel. In a move that was both malicious in the extreme and grossly lacking in sensitivity, coming as it did on the anniversary of the date on which the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem was sacked and Hitler formally ratified his project for the industrialised extermination of world Jewry, the EU announced that it has unilaterally decided on the borders of Israel and that parts of Jerusalem, including the Western Wall (the site of the Temple), will henceforth be classified as being located in “Palestine”.

(Video) Dear John, Bill, and Catherine. Oslo Accords, been there, done that.

LOTL..
18 June '13..
H/T Greg Lauren/IsraelUnseen.com..

As the ongoing stream of visitors once again proffer ill-advised and unbidden advice, perhaps it's time to take a short look back at their and their predecessors prior contributions.

The twenty years from the signing of the Oslo Accords, 1993-2013, brought the State of Israel and it's people 1,537 murdered and tens of thousands injured and crippled. Thus the Oslo Accords became known instead as the Oslo War, which from the year 2000 and onward itself accounts for 1,235 of the above total. The first video below presents a montage of these terrible years in a way that no words can convey. The background track is "The Ballad of Oslo's Children" from our friends at LatmaTV, and is presented and translated in the 2nd video below.


Yaron Lahav



LatmaTV

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook.

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Misinformed and erroneous statements are the real obstruction to peace

...In 2009 I was invited to meet Tony Blair, the special envoy of the quartet (the UN, US, Russia and the EU) for the Middle East. At the end of our conversation I invited him to visit the communities whose future we had just discussed. He declined, saying: "I can see them from my helicopter." "From the helicopter," I replied, "you can't see the faces, look into the eyes and understand their aspirations." Blair, like many of his peers, continues to fly over our heads.

Dani Dayan..
The Guardian..
07 June '13..

Catherine Ashton, the EU's high representative for foreign affairs, is a vocal critic of the Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria. Referring to them as "settlements", she claimed last week that they "threaten to make a two-state solution impossible" and called on Israel "to immediately end all settlement activities beyond the green line, including East Jerusalem". Obviously, Ashton has never visited a "settlement", like almost all of her colleagues in the international diplomatic high echelons. Nevertheless they consider themselves experts on the matter.

One notable exception is the former US president Jimmy Carter, who visited Gush Etzion in 2009. Carter is well known for his harsh criticism of Israel, considered by many as sheer hostility towards the Jewish state. So shocked was he by the reality on the ground, he stated: "This particular settlement is not one that I envision ever being abandoned, or changed over into a Palestinian territory." The contrast between Carter's statement and Ashton's reminded me of a recent statement by Israel's finance minister, Yair Lapid: "I used to have so many opinions before I learned the facts."

In 2009 I was invited to meet Tony Blair, the special envoy of the quartet (the UN, US, Russia and the EU) for the Middle East. At the end of our conversation I invited him to visit the communities whose future we had just discussed. He declined, saying: "I can see them from my helicopter." "From the helicopter," I replied, "you can't see the faces, look into the eyes and understand their aspirations." Blair, like many of his peers, continues to fly over our heads.

More than 360,000 Israelis live in almost 200 communities across Judea and Samaria, with 200,000 more in East Jerusalem. That's more than half a million people. Our endeavour stands on solid moral ground.

Good Morning Europe - Time to Face Reality in Jerusalem

Nadav Shragai..
Israel Hayom..
21 December '12..

Is the High Commissioner of Palestine returning to the land of Israel? While the British left the land a long time ago, European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who is British, hasn't ceased to worry over, keep an eye on, and condemn us — all because of the decision to renew construction in Jerusalem.

For years Ashton and her associates pressured us to accept reality, to face the facts and to recognize the Palestinians' right to a state. Ultimately, and to the chagrin of many Israelis, even Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came to terms with the idea.

Now, Miss Ashton, it is your turn. It's about time that you and your colleagues face reality. The Jerusalem you are talking about today is much different than that of 45 years ago, which seems to still be stuck in your heads. This city, part of the Jewish genome, is not up for debate, first and foremost because of the continuous Jewish connection to it throughout the ages and our rights of primogeniture over the city (which has never been an Arab political or cultural capital).

Beyond these factors, though, you should take a few other facts into account: The area you are accustomed to calling "east Jerusalem," in other words, the area north and south and east of the Green Line that split the city in half during the Jordanian occupation, is home today to some 200,000 Jews comprising 41 percent of all the residents living in this area. Eighty-five percent of the 295,000 Arabs in east Jerusalem were born after 1967 into the reality of a united Jerusalem under Israeli governance, and were never exposed to the reality of a divided city.

They are extremely fearful of Palestinian Authority rule and the division of the city. Tens of thousands of them voted with their feet by crossing the security barrier in north Jerusalem over to the Israeli side, to remain inside the united city. Additional tens of thousands have said in surveys that they will do the same thing if the city is once again divided.

Ashton's problem evidently is with Jewish settlers, not Israeli Arabs

Elder of Ziyon..
21 December '12..






EU High Representative Catherine Ashton made this statement earlier this week:

The approval of an additional 2610 housing units in the settlement of Givat Hamatos is extremely troubling, coming in addition to announcements made at the end of November and Monday’s approval of 1500 units in Ramat Shlomo. This plan for Givat Hamatos would cut the geographic continuity between Jerusalem and Bethlehem. I strongly oppose this unprecedented expansion of settlements around Jerusalem.

First of all, Ramat Shlomo and Givat Hamatos are in Jerusalem, not "around" Jerusalem.

But more interestingly is how there is one set of announced housing that Ashton did not mention, namely, the plan to add 688 units to the neighborhood of Beit Safafa.

Why would she mention some neighborhoods and not mention Beit Safafa? Because Beit Safafa is Arab.

But which side of the Green Line is Beit Safafa on? The answer is - both. The Green Line divided it into two. Before 1967, residents who were literally across the street from each other - even within the same family - were separated.

The ones in the north are Israeli citizens, the ones in the south generally are not (unless they choose to become citizens, as any Jerusalem Arabs have the right to do.)

Since 1967, Israeli Arabs have moved to Beit Safafa, including Christians from Jaffa and Nazareth, on both sides of the Green Line. The residents themselves are adamant that their neighborhood never be divided again, and certainly most of the Israeli citizens will refuse to become citizens of "Palestine."

(Continue)

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Kurshner - From Israel: The Head Spins

Arlene Kushner..
11 July '12..

I begin by returning to the issue of Jewish/Israeli rights on the Temple Mount, which I wrote about extensively in my July 9 posting:

http://arlenefromisrael.squarespace.com/current-postings/2012/7/9/july-9-2012-a-matter-of-great-import.html

In my effort to better understand the situation, I had a conversation with MK Arieh Eldad (National Union), who co-chairs the Knesset Lobby for Judea, Samaria, and Gaza.

He told me, first, that there is no simple way to secure lifting of the gag order (for "security reasons") that had been placed by the Knesset State Control Committee on a Temple Mount report done by the Comptroller's office in 2008. There would need to be, he speculated, a court ruling or a complete change in circumstances.

The reason for the gag order, I have been advised, involves understandings between Jordan, which controls the Wakf (Islamic Trust, which administers the holy sites on the Mount), and Israel. Those understandings pertain at least in part to hours during which the Mount will be open to Jews.

I had alluded in my June 9th posting to the words of Moshe Dayan, who had made arrangements with the Wakf regarding freedom of Jewish access to the compound without limitation: "it would be inconceivable for Jews not to be able freely to visit this holy place now that Jerusalem was under our rule."

I indicated in that post that Jews do not have free access to the Mount, and here it is, a forged agreement: So many hours this day, some hours on that day.

Then, I asked MK Eldad, this was kept secret so as to not embarrass our government for forging an agreement that restricts Jewish access to the Mount?

Not at all, replied MK Eldad, "this government is beyond embarrassment." Netanyahu, he said, is proud of maintaining a good relationship with Jordan: It was kept secret so as to not embarrass the king of Jordan, who had agreed to permit Jews on the Mount when many Arabs would prefer that no Jews go there at all.

The specifics and the details of that agreement are hidden from us.

Kushner - From Israel: Jerusalem and Jewish Rights

Arlene Kushner..
From Israel..
17 June '12..

Last week, Jacques Gauthier came to town for a conference on who has the rights to Jerusalem. Gauthier, who is a lawyer specializing in international law, says, hands down, the Jews do. What is significant here is that he is not Jewish, and arrived at his opinion not from the basis of religious conviction, but rather from an examination of the legal and historical facts.

His interest in Jerusalem began in 1982, when he traveled here; he subsequently devoted 25 years of study to the subject, culminating in a Ph.D. dissertation on the issue that runs for 1,300 pages and has 3,250 footnotes.

Ashton, Erdogan, and Dreamy Foreign Policies

Caroline Glick..
carolineglick.com
15 June '12..

With her unbridled hostility towards Israel, the EU's foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton provides us with an abject lesson in what happens when a government places its emotional aspirations above its national interests.

Since the establishment of the State of Israel, many of Israel's elite have aspired to be embraced by Europe. In recent years, nearly every government has voiced the hope of one day seeing Israel join the EU.

To a significant degree, Israel's decision to recognize the PLO in 1993 and negotiate with Yasser Arafat and his deputies was an attempt by Israel's political class to win acceptance from the likes of Ashton and her continental comrades. For years the EU had criticized Israel for refusing to recognize the PLO.

Until 1993, Israel's leaders defied Europe because they could tell the difference between a national interest and an emotional aspiration and preferred the former over the latter. And now, Israel's reward for preferring European love to our national interest and embracing our sworn enemy is Catherine Ashton.

To put it mildly, Ashton is not a friend of Israel. Indeed, she is so ill-disposed against Israel that she seems unable to focus for long on anything other than bashing it. Her obsession was prominently displayed in March when she was unable to give an unqualified condemnation of the massacre of French Jewish children by a French Muslim. Ashton simply had to use her condemnation as yet another opportunity to bash Israel.

The Mayor asked the question and the EU's Catherine Ashton answered

Exercising their EU legitimized
 right to protest?

LOTL..
24 May '12..
H/T to M. Palmer..







In a recent letter to the editor at the NYT, former Mayor Edward Koch asked what would seem to be a both simple and reasonable question:

Rock Throwing by Arabs
Published: April 6, 2012

To the Editor:

Thomas L. Friedman (“A Middle East Twofer,” column, April 4) endorses what he calls “nonviolent resistance by Palestinians” against Israel. He adds that Palestinians need to “accompany every boycott, hunger strike or rock they throw at Israel with a detailed map” delineating their territorial demands.

I was attacked by “nonviolent” Arab rock throwers while touring the old Jewish quarter of Jerusalem in 1991. I needed nine stitches but was fortunate to have suffered only relatively minor injuries. If my attackers’ aim had been a little sharper, I could have lost an eye, or worse.

Many Israelis as well as foreign tourists have been badly injured, sometimes permanently maimed, in such “nonviolent” assaults. Israelis have even been murdered by rock throwing. Last September, Asher Palmer, 25, and his infant son, Yonatan, were killed when “nonviolent” rocks were thrown at their car, causing a fatal crash.

We may disagree on borders, settlements, refugees or other contentious Arab-Israeli issues. But can’t we all agree that in the English language, the terms “nonviolent” and “rock throwing” are mutually exclusive?

EDWARD I. KOCH
New York, April 4, 2012

The writer is the former mayor of New York City.

However Mr. Mayor, the answer to "that in the English language, the terms “nonviolent” and “rock throwing” are mutually exclusive?" is no, at least in the mind of High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice President of the Commission Catherine Ashton and her colleagues:

Tobin - Iran Provides New Test of Obama’s Mettle

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary/Contentions..
22 May '12..




Just hours after an announcement that an agreement between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency on access for inspectors was imminent comes a new bit of news that could render the entire diplomatic process moot. As the Associated Press reports via the Times of Israel:

Iran announced Tuesday that it had delivered its first two batches of domestically produced nuclear fuel to a Tehran research reactor. The move comes on the eve of talks between Tehran and six Western powers over the future of the country’s nuclear program. The move is widely seen as an attempt by Iran to boost its bargaining position by exaggerating its nuclear technology.

Tehran had tentatively agreed to ship its enriched uranium abroad in order to produce such fuel in 2009. By moving the fuel rods to its own reactors, Iran will effectively put the kibosh on a deal by which it would send the fuel abroad.

While one has to applaud the sheer chutzpah of the Iranians in conducting this maneuver on the very day that IAEA chief Yukio Amano was in Tehran to negotiate with them, it does speak volumes about their utter contempt for their Western negotiating partners. Do they really think they can get away with this? But an even better question would be to ask whether the P5+1 negotiators led by EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton are so desperate for an accord as to go forward with the talks even as the Islamist regime contradicts the terms of the proposed deal.

Tobin - No Dissension Within Israeli Coalition on Iran

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary/Contentions..
09 May '12..

With the dust settling from Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s brilliant political maneuver in which he vastly expanded his coalition and his power, the question remains what will he do with it in the next year? While Israelis seem more interested in domestic political implications of the move, not surprisingly, most foreign observers are focused on the impact of the new coalition on the issue of Iran’s nuclear threat. Some of Netanyahu’s frustrated critics are holding on to the hope that somehow the addition of Kadima head Shaul Mofaz will moderate the prime minister’s stand on the issue. But this is not only a misreading of Mofaz but of Netanyahu’s position.

As the prime minister demonstrated today in his meeting with European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, far from Mofaz’s entry into the Cabinet acting as a restraint on him, the creation of a government that can count on nearly 80 percent of the Knesset means that when Netanyahu speaks now there can be no doubt that he represents a strong consensus within his country on the issue. By bringing Mofaz as well as Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman to speak to Ashton, Netanyahu demonstrated that there is across-the-board support for his demands that Iran’s nuclear program be stopped dead in its tracks.

Ashton, a virulent critic of Israel who has been ceded control of the P5+1 talks with Iran by President Obama, may have intended her visit to Israel as an opportunity to mend fences so as to allow her to continue the diplomatic minuet she is dancing with the Islamist regime to continue unimpeded by Israeli actions. But Netanyahu used the meeting to lay down the guidelines for the upcoming negotiations in Baghdad. As Haaretz reported today:

Ben-David - Catherine Ashton and the Iran ‘freebies’

Lenny Ben-David..
The Times of Israel..
17 April '12..

A detailed account of the last week’s nuclear talks with Iran appears in “How Iran Talks Came Back From Verge of Collapse” by reporter Laura Rozen in yesterday’s al-Monitor. After interviewing several diplomats and behind-the-scenes sources, she presents a picture of negotiations that were deteriorating if not for the leadership role of the EU’s Catherine Ashton and the praiseworthy skills of American negotiator Wendy Sherman. At the end of the day, Ashton said the talks were “constructive and useful.”

But there are several very troubling passages in Rozen’s report. In fact, they’re downright scary.

European Union Foreign Policy Chief Catherine Ashton and Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili kicked off the first international nuclear talks in over a year with a three-hour dinner at the Iranian consulate in Istanbul Friday night. The mood at the informal dinner—meant to build rapport between the two chief negotiators ahead of the formal talks getting underway the next day—was described by aides as “good and friendly.” Conversation deliberately steered away from specific discussion of the Iran nuclear issue.

So, what did they discuss?