Observation: Will DM Barak approve construction of 5 neighborhoods in response to Itamar slaughter?

Dr. Aaron Lerner
IMRA
Independent Media Review & Analysis
12 March '11

Will DM Ehud Barak approve the construction of 5 neighborhoods in the West Bank to memorialize the five Israelis murdered in Itamar?

Such a move would achieve several goals:

#1. The move would turn the terrorists who murdered the Israelis from Palestinian heroes (if they are killed they will graduate to hero-martyr status) to being the jerks whose action caused Israel to build 5 neighborhoods in the West Bank.

#2. The deterrent impact of the move would be tremendous since any murder of Israelis only serves to “reward” the settlers with permission to build more neighborhoods. Announcing that the same response will be in the event of a death caused by rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip can be expected to have a chilling effect on attacks from Gaza as well.

#3. The move would serve to discourage “price tag” revenge attacks.

Yes, this move is not as easy as the focus on Palestinian incitement. But while the incitement theme may look promising, experience has shown that we can quite quickly get sucked into endless discussions as to just what constitutes “incitement” with the Palestinians pulling out their clippings with counter claims.

The White House may not celebrate that murdering Israelis leads to Israeli construction but that’s hardly “continuing the cycle of violence”.

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Obama's Foolish Settlements Ultimatum

Steven Rosen
MEF
ForeignPolicy.com
01 April '10

U.S. President Barack Obama's decision to confront Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Israeli construction activity in East Jerusalem has been greeted by a hail of praise, especially from people impatient to proceed with peace negotiations with the Palestinians. The belief seems to be that meeting this issue head-on will accelerate progress toward an agreement ending a conflict that has festered for generations. The historical record suggests a different conclusion.

The assumption that a faceoff over construction in Jerusalem will advance negotiations has not been subjected to much scrutiny. But the last two decades show that progress has occurred not when this issue was put first, but when it was finessed and left for the final status negotiations on Jerusalem.

Consider this: If, 17 years ago, U.S. President Bill Clinton or Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat had insisted that Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin freeze all settlement construction, including in Jerusalem, before Arafat would sit down with Rabin, there would have been no Oslo agreements. By Rabin's own account, in comments before the Knesset, Israel's parliament, he had to fudge the issue.

"I explained to the president of the United States," he said,"that I wouldn't forbid Jews from building privately in the area of Judea and Samaria ... I am sorry that within united Jerusalem construction is not more massive."

The same year as the famous handshake on the White House lawn, 1993, the Rabin government completed the construction of more than 6,000 units in the Pisgat Zeev neighborhood of East Jerusalem, out of a total of 13,000 units that were in various stages of completion in areas of the city that had been outside Israeli lines before 1967.

So Arafat did sit down with Rabin, even while Israel's construction in Jerusalem continued. And, on Sept. 13, 1993, the Oslo peace accord was signed -- by the same Mahmoud Abbas who refuses to sit down today. And on October 14, 1994, Rabin, who built homes for Jews in East Jerusalem, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Altogether, Israel completed 30,000 dwelling units in the West Bank, Gaza, and Jerusalem in the four years of Rabin's government. Even the Jan. 9, 1995, announcement of a plan to build 15,000 additional apartments in East Jerusalem neighborhoods beyond the 1967 borders (especially Pisgat Zeev, Neve Yaacov, Gilo, and Har Homa) did not stop negotiations, which resulted in the Oslo II accord of September 28, 1995. Israeli construction continued while Abbas and Rabin signed an historic accord.

And what was the American policy toward Rabin's construction of Jewish homes in East Jerusalem? Mild annoyance.

(Read full article)
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