Surprise! Obama and Media Call for Segregation in Israel

...Can the Israeli prime minister possibly–assuming he even wants to comply with the American president’s order–intervene to overturn a legal sale because it was made from an Arab to a Jew? What on earth could Obama be expecting here? That Israel be the one Western country to legally restrict Jewish property rights? In the year 2014? In Jerusalem? Does the president even understand what he’s asking here? The safe bet is generally to answer such questions in the negative: no, Obama does not understand what he’s saying.

Seth Mandel..
Commentary Magazine..
06 October '14..

The most concerning aspect to the periodic arguments between President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is not that they fight, but what they fight about. No one expects a disagreement about how to approach the Iranian nuclear program not to raise the temperature a bit; it’s something many Israelis consider an existential threat and it would shift the balance of power in global politics further away from the West while isolating Israel even more. If the two are going to argue, in other words, argue over something important.

But you can tell the relationship is really on the rocks by the fights the Obama administration chooses to pick, most recently on two issues: Jewish construction in Givat Hamatos, a Jerusalem community just over the green line, and the private sale of existing homes in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan from Arabs to Jews. The case of Givat Hamatos is standard fare for fights over settlements: although the Obama administration is wrong here (as usual), it’s a petty but classic fight to pick for American officials looking to take potshots at Israel. (Though the optics of telling black Ethiopian immigrants they must live in substandard housing is not the Obama administration’s proudest moment, to be sure.)

The Givat Hamatos tiff, therefore, doesn’t speak well of Obama, but doesn’t really break any new ground. That’s not true of Silwan. Obama’s objection to a Jew legally buying a home from an Arab in Jerusalem is nothing less than ethnic segregationism, and press secretary Josh Earnest’s classification of such a home as an “occupation” is the kind of pro-Palestinian propaganda the parroting of which is, quite frankly, evidence of a level of surpassing ignorance shocking even for the Obama administration. (Discrimination which the New York Times endorsed as well.) On that note, this nugget from an earlier Times of Israel story about the controversy jumps out:

When asked about Netanyahu’s allegations that the US was telling Jews that they could not buy houses in the Arab East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan, which several Jewish families moved into earlier the week, Psaki did not clarify Washington’s position regarding the Ir David group’s independent purchase of Arab-owned houses there.

Instead, Psaki said that there were questions involving building permits and construction — an answer that seemed to address the municipality’s involvement in Givat Hamatos rather than the private initiative in Silwan.

It wasn’t clear that Jen Psaki even knew what she was being asked about. The degree to which this administration’s advisors and spokesmen are uninformed about issues on which they pronounce judgment is simply incredible.

When pronouncements on Israeli politics and policy reveal a stunning, all-encompassing ignorance

...Newspapers may have resources, but nobody has the resources of the American government. And yet, the Obama administration’s pronouncements on Israeli politics and policy reveal a stunning, all-encompassing ignorance. Even worse, that ignorance is voluntary: it is very easy to get the real story. The president and his Cabinet don’t seem to want the real story. It’s no wonder their policies toward the conflict are so destructive and their diplomacy so thoughtlessly harmful.

Seth Mandel..
Commentary Magazine..
05 September '14..

I can’t quite decide if the headline and framing of this recent dispatch from the Washington Post’s Jerusalem bureau chief is further evidence of everything that is wrong about the media’s reporting on the conflict or if it’s a modest step in the right direction. The headline is: “Here’s what really happened in the Gaza war (according to the Israelis).”

The point of the article is that a group of journalists met with an Israeli intelligence official to get Israel’s side of the story. On the one hand, I suppose the media can be commended for at least recognizing that there’s a side other than that churned out by Hamas flacks. On the other hand, the war is over. Perhaps, I don’t know, during the war would have been a good time to figure out that there are two sides to the story? Just a thought. Additionally, isn’t the fact that basic information about Hamas fighters and weaponry is considered a major scoop a massive indictment of the press?

Here’s another question: should the Jerusalem bureau chief of a major American newspaper show his surprise at finding out information he should have known long before? The tone of the report, then, doesn’t help either. For example:

The intelligence chief said it is not important how lethal the rockets were. He said the aim was to instill terror, to force a million Israelis to run into shelters.

So Hamas succeeded, in part.

Of the 4,500 rockets fired by Hamas and allies, 875 fell inside Gaza. Many were lobbed at Israeli soldiers during the ground offensive, but others were duds or misfires that landed short, meaning Hamas dropped explosives on its own people.

It is even possible, the intelligence chief said, that some of that fire was intentional.

Yes, some of the damage to Gaza was inflicted directly by Hamas. If you have the resources of the Washington Post behind you and you need this pointed out to you after the war, you might want to consider it not a revelation but a piece of constructive professional criticism.

When The Rubber Man Meets the Peace Process

...But if the main barrier is Palestinian unwillingness to end their war on Israel, the problem is unsolvable and peace is unachievable. And to most of the world, blaming Israel unjustly is infinitely preferable to acknowledging that unpleasant truth.

Evelyn Gordon..
Commentary Magazine..
21 May '14..

As I noted yesterday, there’s no lack of evidence that even “moderate” Palestinians aren’t interested in ending their war on Israel. Yet most of the world will go through contortions worthy of the rubber man rather than admit it. A classic example is the interview a “senior American official” (widely reputed to be special envoy to the Israeli-Palestinian talks Martin Indyk) gave to Yedioth Ahronoth earlier this month.

The official spent about 3,000 words blaming the talks’ breakdown on Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, and specifically its authorization of settlement construction during the negotiations. Only then did he describe what actually happened during those crucial final months when Secretary of State John Kerry was trying to broker a framework agreement:

“In February, Abbas arrived at a Paris hotel for a meeting with Kerry … He rejected all of Kerry’s ideas. A month later, in March, he was invited to the White House. Obama presented the American-formulated principles verbally – not in writing. Abbas refused.”

Then, in the very next sentence, came this astonishing defense: “The claim on your side that Abbas was avoiding making decisions is not true. He wasn’t running away.”

So long before the announcement of 700 new housing units that Kerry later termed the “poof” moment when everything blew up, Abbas had rejected all Kerry’s ideas and all President Barack Obama’s ideas. Yet he wasn’t “avoiding making decisions” or “running away”; he was a committed and engaged peace partner. Then who is to blame for his serial rejections? Why, Netanyahu, of course: Those “announcements of new housing tenders in settlements limited Abbas’ ability to show flexibility.”

In other words, if Netanyahu is intransigent, it’s Netanyahu’s fault. And if Abbas is intransigent, it’s also Netanyahu’s fault. Under this administration’s definition of “honest brokerage,” only one side is ever to blame; the Palestinians have no agency of their own.

The Gratuitous Nature of European Union’s Israel Policy

...From time to time the EU will attempt to portray its actions as upholding justice and the law. But that is manifestly untrue, as is any claim the EU is acting in its own self-interest. EU leaders are following their hearts, and their hearts are telling them to take a swing at Israelis from time to time, just to remind them who their true friends are–and who they aren’t.

Seth Mandel..
Commentary Magazine..
26 July '13..

When the European Union announced new restrictions on its dealings with Israeli entities in Jerusalem and the West Bank, there was some confusion, thanks to the initial reporting by Haaretz, of what the new rules meant in practice. But clearing up the confusion does not seem to have done the EU and its regulations any favors. Yair Rosenberg read through the document and explained that the EU rules did not amount to a full-blown economic boycott of Jews living where the EU doesn’t want Jews to live. That is true enough; I wrote about the new rules and preferred to call them a “move toward boycotting Jews in the West Bank and parts of Jerusalem,” which it plainly was.

And Wednesday at the Times of Israel, American law professor Eugene Kontorovich made the sensible point that because the new rules don’t restrict trade but rather apply to grants and the like, the regulations won’t harm EU economies the way a trade boycott would. Kontorovich was not writing in defense of the morality of the EU’s discriminatory action; he was simply noting that withholding grants and barring trade are two very different things. Nonetheless, the newfound clarity on the rules should not inspire a sense of relief. If anything, Kontorovich’s explanation of the regulations shows the EU’s policymakers to be not just intent on discriminating against Jews in their current and historic capital but also ignorant of international law even while using their interpretation of such law as the basis for their collective actions:

The Europeans regard Israel as an occupier in the West Bank, despite the illegitimacy of the previous Jordanian presence there. They also see Jewish communities there as violating the Geneva Conventions prohibition on the “occupying power… transferring its civilian population” into the occupied territory, despite the fact that Jews living in the West Bank there were not “transferred” by Israel in any meaning of the word; they just moved themselves.

Set such quibbles aside. Let’s assume the European position on settlements is correct. Even so, international law does not forbid or restrict the operations of private groups based in or operating in the West Bank. International law prohibits governments from “transferring” settlers to occupied territory; it does not make the settlers themselves illegal, international lepers, or legitimate objects of discrimination. It does not prohibit business from operating in occupied territory, or require the denial of services to “transferees” and their descendants. Such a broad reading of international rules finds absolutely no support in the treatment of any other occupation. Indeed, in an important recent decision concerning a company involved in building the Jerusalem light rail, a high-level French court held that international law does not restrict companies from doing business across the Green Line, or even working on Israeli government-funded projects.

Rawabi - The "Palestinian settlement"

Yisrael Medad..
Green-Lined/JPost..
04 March '13..

I could not believe my eyes.

At first, that is.

But there it was: settlement.

In a headline. In a mainstream media outlet.

But not a Jewish settlement.

A Palestinian settlement.

And it got better.

Here:

European settlements, Northern Cyprus and double standards

Dore Gold..
Israel Hayom..
04 January '13..

Anyone flipping through cable television channels with his or her remote control has undoubtedly come across programs about British and other retirees from Northern Europe seeking to escape the harsh climate where they live by venturing to one of the well-known vacation spots along the Mediterranean coast. The difficult problem that these buyers face is the soaring prices of properties over the last decade in places like Marbella, Spain, the French Riviera, or Italy's Amalfi Coast, which leads many to look for more economical alternatives. As a result, many European buyers after 2002 have been flocking to Northern Cyprus, where a villa with a swimming pool can be bought at discount prices.

The main legal question that is not addressed with this new European property boom is the legal status of the area where these new homes are being built. It should be recalled that in 1974 the Turkish army invaded Cyprus, which had been an independent state since 1960 and took over 37 percent of the island. Tens of thousands of Greek Cypriots were expelled in this period in what they viewed was a deliberate policy of ethnic cleansing by the Turkish army. In the aftermath of the invasion, the U.N. Security Council adopted Resolution 353 which demanded "an immediate end to foreign military intervention" and called for "the withdrawal without delay from the Republic of Cyprus of foreign military personnel."

The Turkish Cypriots declared their independence in 1983 by forming the "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus," an act that the U.N. condemned as "null and void." Over the years, an estimated 160,000 "settlers" who came from Turkey moved into Northern Cyprus. In many cases, properties that had been left behind by Greek Cypriot refugees were given by the Northern Cyprus administration to Turkish Cypriots and to the Turkish settlers, who sold them to European buyers. To date, some 5,000 British citizens have purchased homes in Northern Cyprus despite it being a clear-cut case of an "occupied territory." According to a BBC report, as many as 10,000 foreigners have bought up former Greek Cypriot properties in Northern Cyprus.

Is there any basis for comparing Northern Cyprus to the situation with the West Bank?

Fresnozionism - Settlements are not the problem

Fresnozionism.org
26 November '11

http://fresnozionism.org/2011/11/settlements-are-not-the-problem/



Recently the NY Times published a letter written in reaction to a beyond-irrational attack on Israel for ‘pinkwashing’ (I discussed the original remarkably stupid op-ed here).

The letter took strong issue with the op-ed. It could positively be counted as ‘pro-Israel’. And yet, it contained this:

Israel, like any other democracy, has its flaws. Its settlement policy is destructive, the occupation of the West Bank is untenable and its government is furthering the country’s isolation and distancing it from its original vision of being a “light unto the nations.”

Similarly, when a conversation I was having with a relative recently turned to Israel, he — certainly a ‘pro-Israel’ person by any definition — agreed with me about the dangers facing the country from so many directions, but added something like “…those settlements have to stop. And Netanyau is too stubborn.”

I’ve also been told, “don’t talk about the settlements. It’s the hardest thing about Israel to defend.”

Of course it is true that “like any other democracy,” Israel has flaws. But these aren’t them. What is happening, I think, is that certain false propositions are being repeated over and over from every direction — the UN, Europe, the media, the Obama Administration, the Israeli Left — to the point that almost anybody can be excused for thinking that they are true.

Cycle of stupidity at the LA Times

Fresnozionism.org
16 March '11

http://fresnozionism.org/2011/03/cycle-of-stupidity-at-the-la-times/


Worse even than the NY Times, possibly on the same level as the UK Guardian, I give you the Los Angeles Times:

Anyone who follows the news is familiar with how this cycle works. It might begin with a Palestinian child dying while stopped at an Israeli army checkpoint on his way to the hospital. In response, an enraged Palestinian shoots into a crowd of Israeli soldiers at a bus stop. To show that it will not tolerate such behavior, an Israeli army helicopter then fires a missile into an apartment building in Gaza, targeting militants but killing civilians as well, after which outraged Palestinians fire a rocket into Israel, which in turn leads the Israelis to tighten whatever embargo or travel restrictions or security rules are in place at the moment. That increases Palestinian rage still further. 

Needless to say, the cycle doesn’t end there but continues until, after a while, it becomes completely impossible to say with any authority who began the hostilities or to distinguish actions from reactions. — Editorial, LA Times, 3/14/2011

Is it possible that they still think this way? Leaving aside the fact that the story about the “Palestinian child dying” probably was made up from whole cloth, and that the “enraged Palestinian” was probably a member of an organized terrorist militia, is it possible that they really can’t distinguish between terrorism and efforts to stop it?

Was the Israeli missile fired into a random apartment building like Hamas’ Qassams, or was it aimed at a terrorist operative who was already responsible for the deaths of tens of Israelis, and who was intending to kill more?

Is “Palestinian rage” primarily a reaction to Israeli counter-terror activities or is it fed by the constant antisemitic and anti-Israel propaganda that emanates from Hamas, our ‘partners’ in Fatah and every Arab country? Are Israeli “security rules” punitive retaliation or are they intended to protect Israelis?

You know the answers to all these questions, but the Times has an agenda: to prove that Palestinian Arab society is ‘normal’, and deserves to be given a state taken from the historical Jewish national home.

But Palestinian Arab society is not normal. Its leadership has created a nation in which monsters are venerated, like Samir Kuntar and Dalal Mughrabi.

The editorial continues:

Which is worse — stabbing children to death or building new houses in West Bank settlements? The answer is obvious. But that’s not the point. The point is that no matter how abhorrent the murders are, it serves no purpose to aggravate the provocation that led to them in the first place. How will building more houses for Israelis in the midst of the West Bank, in settlements that are almost universally acknowledged to violate international law, do anything other than keep the crisis going?

I honestly wonder which the writer thought was worse, in his heart of hearts. After all, the children were Jewish ‘settler’ children, international lawbreakers. What would he say after a few beers? But never mind. Let’s deal with the argument:

The vicious murder of the Fogel family was a deliberate act of terrorism, both in the fact and the manner of its commission. The intent was to deter Jews from living in the Land of Israel. The more violent the act, the more effective it is.

One of the first things that you learn in elementary psychology is that if you want to extinguish an unwanted behavior, you have to stop rewarding it. The Times thinks that Israel should give them what they want:

… the Israeli government should be in the business of calming tensions, not stoking them, and of removing obstacles to peace rather than constructing them.

If the response to this crime is the removal of ‘obstacles’ — settlements, checkpoints, whatever — then there will be more, not less, terrorism. After all, they will see that it gets them what they want.

Let’s give the Arabs credit for rationality, no matter how twisted their expression of it. To stop terrorism, we should make it unproductive for them.

So, therefore, what better response could there be for Israel than to build more homes? And it’s nonviolent!

The Times tells us that settlements are the “provocation” that led to the murders. Here’s another story about similar terrorist murders that took place in 2002:

Kibbutz Metzer is situated near the West Bank in Green line Israel. The Kibbutz was founded in 1953 by Argentinian members of the Hashomer Hatzair movement and is part of the leftist Kibbutz Artzi Federation. Metzer is located east of Hadera in the “triangle” opposite Tul Karm in the the West Bank. The Kibbutz was founded in Green Line Israel. Its members oppose post-1967 expansionism and are leaders in the Israeli Peace movement.

On November 10, 2002 during the Al-Aqsa Intifada, a member of the Palestinian Fatah Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades (then affiliated with the Tanzim) entered Metzer at night and murdered five people, including two young children and their mother, and the Kibbutz Secretary Itsik. The victims were all shot by one Sirhan Sirhan, who was allegedly rewarded with $20,000 by Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and was later killed by Israeli forces. — Ami Isseroff, “Metzer Massacre”

Not only were the Metzer victims living within the 1949 lines, they favored giving up the territories! I suppose the Times would have found some other “provocation” to account for this atrocity, just as they would have found one for all the pre-1967 terrorism, or for the 1967 war itself.

The truth is that Jews living in the Land of Israel is, and always has been, all the provocation they need.

British Foreign office, BBC, European liberal-left devastated by leaked revelations on Israeli settlements, Guardian furious at “weak” and “craven” Palestinian leadership

Robin Shepherd
robinshepherdonline.com
24 January '11

http://www.robinshepherdonline.com/british-foreign-office-bbc-european-liberal-left-devastated-by-leaked-revelations-on-israeli-settlements-guardian-furious-at-%E2%80%9Cweak%E2%80%9D-and-%E2%80%9Ccraven%E2%80%9D-palestinian-leadersh/

Game over. No way back. An entire edifice of anti-Israeli demonisation definitively consigned to the scrap heap, never to be recycled again. This is the uncompromising message that comes out of yesterday’s revelations on Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. To the horror of a European political intelligentsia which has been steadfast to the point of fanatical in its opposition to Israeli “settlements” in east Jerusalem, the Palestinian leadership itself, we now know, has long accepted that the vast majority of Israeli settlements can be considered legitimate and would become part of Israel under any reasonable peace agreement.

This is utterly devastating since it simultaneously shows that everyone from the British Foreign Office and the BBC to the European Commission and the continent’s passionately anti-Israeli NGO community have been adopting a position which was significantly more uncompromising on “settlements” than the Palestinian leadership itself, and also that that same Palestinian leadership had accepted that the so called 1967 “borders” — the gold standard for practically every anti-Israeli polemic around — are irrelevant to the prospects of a lasting peace.

In one of its most resentful leader columns for years, the Guardian was nothing short of apoplectic: not so much with Israel, but with a Palestinian leadership which has effectively blown the credibility of the Guardian’s very own mantras on the MidEast straight out of the water. The Palestinian leadership, the paper declaimed, had been shown to be “weak” and “craven”. Their concessions amounted to “surrender of land Palestinians have lived on for centuries”. And, in words that look alarmingly close to the position adopted by Hamas, “The Palestinian Authority may continue as an employer but, as of today, its legitimacy as negotiators will have all but ended on the Palestinian street.” This is sheer spite.

The Palestinian leadership accepts what any reasonable person has been able to accept for decades. The Guardian then slams them as surrender monkeys. The Guardian newspaper is more hardline against Israel than the Palestinian leadership itself. And bear in mind, as you mull over the implications of that stark and unyielding state of affairs, that the Palestinian Authority is led by Mahmoud Abbas, who is a Holocaust denier.

Why I am pro-settler

Fresnozionism.org
21 November '10

I have something to tell you: I am pro-settler.

OK, you are not surprised. But considering the amount of vitriol poured out every day on settlers and settlements, I thought I needed to explicitly say this.

For example, here is how Naomi Paiss of the putatively pro-Israel New Israel Fund (about which I wrote yesterday) justifies boycotting ‘settlement’ products and artistic activities beyond the Green Line:

The settlements are not in Israel. They represent not “just” a blot on Israel as a just and decent nation, and a terrible danger to its survival, but also the waste of billions of shekels for security, expensive bypass roads, government-subsidized construction and mortgages, and more. Those are shekels that could be used to build a more prosperous and socially just Israel. Refusing products and services made in the settlements, and opposing government expenditures there, is well within the rights of every organization and individual who intends to influence the Israeli government to finally abandon the quixotic and immoral settlement enterprise.

I think even members of the pro-Zionist Left (I think NIF has crossed the line, although they would deny it) more or less share this viewpoint.

(Read full post)

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Stupid about his daughters, stupid about settlements

Fresnozionism.org
12 September '10

Theodore Bikel, the 86-year old Jewish acting and musical legend, who starred as Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof, is quoted in the Forward thus:

Anyone who has strong feelings for Israel like I do, and that believes it is an absolute necessity to strive for peace, understands that the single most obvious obstacle are the settlements. [my emphasis]

The article goes on to explain that this is why Bikel signed a petition urging Israeli artists to not perform in settlements, and then quotes far-left actor Ed Asner,

“I would like to see this kind of courage among American actors,” Asner said in a telephone interview with the Forward. The eight-time Emmy Award winner praised the Israeli actors for “taking a stand on an issue that no one else wants to touch.”

No one else wants to touch it? Give us a break. These ‘courageous’ actors are on the same side as the Israeli academic and media establishment, the European Union, Barack Obama and the entire Arab and Muslim world!

Anyway, I don’t doubt Bikel’s love of Israel or his Zionist credentials, but he’s wrong. Here are five simple reasons why settlements are not “the single most obvious obstacle to peace.” Then I will reveal what it really is (it won’t be a surprise to regular readers).

(Read full post)

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A Question

According to the MEMRI Iranian Media Blog:

"Iranian expatriate human rights activists report that 4,000 students demonstrated in Tehran to mark Students Day today, shouting "Death to (Iranian Supreme Leader Ali) Khamenei " and "Khamenei is a Murderer and His Religious Authority Is Null and Void," as well as "Death to the Government That Deceives the People."

At Amir Kabir University in Tehran, 1,500 students shouted for the "coup government" to step down, and chanted "Death to the Dictator" (referring to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad)." -more

To see a video of this week's Iranian student anti-Ahmadinejad demonstrations click on Tehran Video

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Bibi Versus The Iceman

I thought that I'd draw Obama and Bibi Netanyahu as battling SuperHeroes, but they came out looking like a pair of phony costumed TV wrestlers putting on a show!* * *The Arab-Israeli conflict will end when the Arab states accept the existence of a Jewish State in the region as natural. Political correctness requires that we ignore this obvious truth and pretend that the problem is simply a border dispute between "Palestinians" and Israelis.

Absurd US position on Jerusalem isn’t constructive

FresnoZionism.org
21 November 09

Here’s a perfect example of the misleading use of the settlement issue, from a Palestinian source. Ma’an News tells us that,

According to the [Israel channel 10] report, the US administration suggested, and Israel was preparing to allow, the following in exchange for a guarantee from Abbas that the PLO would re-enter talks.

• Weapons for Palestinian Authority security forces
• Release of 400 Fatah prisoners from Israeli jails before the Muslim holiday of Eid
• Extending the PA’s West Bank jurisdiction in Area B to full control and Area C to partial control

Channel 10 reported that Abbas rejected all of these offers, sticking instead to his insistence that there be no negotiations while Israel’s borders continue to expand.

One doesn’t need to be a Ph.D like Mahmoud Abbas (Patrice Lumumba U., Moscow) to know the difference between building some apartments — more correctly, talking about building some apartments — in a Jewish neighborhood in Jerusalem, and ‘expanding borders’. But this is the Palestinian excuse for refusing to return to negotiations with Israel.

The real reason, which is a quite good one and one with which I agree, is that they don’t want to negotiate since they know that their bottom line and Israel’s are so far apart. The PLO won’t — can’t — recognize Israel as a Jewish state, and will not accept a demilitarized Palestine. And they’ve also sold the idea that a ‘two-state solution’ includes the right of return. It really doesn’t matter if Abbas is ready to compromise on these issues or not, since he wouldn’t survive politically or physically if he did. So he prefers to blame it on Israel.

What I find particularly upsetting is our president and Secretary of State taking the same line. And they do, every time they use the highly misleading phrase ’settlement construction’ to refer to any building activity — or even planning activity — in the area that was occupied by Jordan in 1948, especially Jerusalem.

There is a consensus in Israel that Jewish neighborhoods of Jerusalem are not settlements, regardless of where the cease-fire line happened to fall in 1949.

Recently there’s been some excitement over the fact that a US passport issued to a citizen born in Jerusalem — any part of it — will not say ‘Jerusalem, Israel’ but rather only ‘Jerusalem’ for the place of birth. This is consistent with the American point of view.

The UN and the US in point of fact, do not recognize that Israel has anyrights in Jerusalem, East or West. But in this view, neither do the Palestinians! The original UN partition resolution of 1947 and UN Security Council Resolution 303 of 1949 call for all of Jerusalem to be internationalized, and the US State Department still holds this position.

It’s easy to forget that in 1967 Israel did not capture Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem from the Palestinians. These were part of the Palestine Mandate, which included the Balfour Declaration — the charter for a Jewish national home. The Jordanian occupation of this area was illegal, the product of a war of aggression. Israel annexed Jerusalem in 1980, when it declared that “Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel.”

(Read full article)

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Who Was Distracted by Settlements, Rahm?

Jonathan Tobin
Contentions/Commentary
10 November 09

Rahm Emanuel’s statement today that “no one should allow the issue of settlements to distract from the goal of a lasting peace between Israel, the Palestinians, and the Arab world” may be interpreted in a couple of different ways. Some may see it as a jibe at Israel to give in on the issue so as to enable peace talks to proceed. But the truth is, if anyone has been distracted by the settlements to the detriment of peace, it would be Emanuel and his master in the Oval Office.

Some feared that the White House chief of staff’s speech to the General Assembly of the United Jewish Communities today in Washington might be the latest in a series of tit-for-tat ripostes between the Obama administration and the Israeli government led by Benjamin Netanyahu. However, it appears that Netanyahu’s determined effort to pretend — at least in public — that all is well between the two bickering allies has resulted in the administration’s deciding that increasing the tension between the two isn’t in their interest. Thus, although Emanuel’s talk sought to defend his boss’s feckless pursuit of popularity in the Arab world by distancing himself from Israel at every opportunity, it appears as though he passed on the chance to take any direct shots at Netanyahu.

As for his line about letting settlements “distract” anyone from the goal of peace, if anyone has done that, it has been Obama and his minions, whose recklessness on this issue has led to no end of Middle East mischief in recent months. Obama was determined to end what he termed the George W. Bush policy of allowing “no daylight” between the countries (which was hardly true, as Bush’s secretary of state spent her last two years in office trying to push the Israelis into more concessions to the Palestinians). His decision to pick a fight with the newly elected Netanyahu over a settlement freeze in Jerusalem and the territories was as foolish as it was pointless. The Palestinian Authority and its leader, Mahmoud Abbas, had just turned down yet another generous peace offer from Netanyahu’s predecessor Ehud Olmert. And the administration’s settlement stand merely encouraged the Palestinians to dig in their heels and refuse to talk until Netanyahu bowed to a demand that no Israeli government would ever agree to.

The result is that Obama’s settlement distraction helped further undermine the already weak Abbas and strengthened the hand of his Hamas rivals. With Abbas threatening resignation, there is now a chance that the Palestinians will opt, as they always have whenever they have been faced with a serious policy choice in the past, for an escalation of violence in the hope that more bloodshed will result in greater pressure on Israel. Obama and his hatchet man Emanuel have been chastened by the Israeli public’s strong support for Netanyahu’s refusal to bow to American pressure, and they appear to be adopting a more realistic policy on settlements these days. But their resentment of Netanyahu, who they thought they might topple a few months ago, has done nothing to advance the cause of peace, let alone regional stability. Let’s hope they take that line about distractions more seriously in the future.

It should also be noted that in the same speech Emanuel claimed that the administration has made some sort of progress on stopping Iran’s nuclear program since “thanks to the work of the president, there is strong and international consensus against a nuclear-armed Iran.” Sorry, Rahm, but that consensus existed long before Obama arrived in Washington. The problem today is whether the United States and its allies (who have taken a much tougher stand on Iran than Obama has) will draw the right conclusions from America’s failed attempt at nuclear diplomacy with Iran. On Iran, as well as on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Obama’s first initiatives have been fiascoes. What’s needed now is not rhetoric aimed at reassuring American Jews that Obama cares about Israel but rather a dramatic policy overhaul that recognizes and seeks to correct the dramatic mistakes that have been made in the last ten months.

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What Carter Missed in the Middle East

Elliot Abrams
Washington Post
08 September 09

In an op-ed on Sunday ["The Elders' View of the Middle East"], former president Jimmy Carter, speaking on behalf of a self-appointed group of "Elders," described a rapacious Israel facing long-suffering, blameless Palestinians, who are contemplating a "nonviolent civil rights struggle" in which "their examples would be Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela."

As with most of Carter's recent statements about Israel and the Palestinians, instead of facts we get vignettes from recent Carter travels. And while he finds "a growing sense of concern and despair" among "increasingly desperate" Palestinians, polls do not sustain this view. The most recent survey by the leading Palestinian pollster, Khalil Shikaki (done in August, the same month Carter visited), shows "considerable improvement in public perception of personal and family security and safety in the West Bank and a noticeable decrease in public perception of the existence of corruption in [Palestinian Authority] institutions." This does not sound like despair. In fact, positive views of personal and family safety and security in the West Bank stood at 25 percent four years ago, 35 percent two years ago and 43 percent a year ago, and they have risen to 58 percent in the past year, Shikaki reports. There are other ways to measure quality of life in the West Bank: The International Monetary Fund recently stated that "macroeconomic conditions in the West Bank have improved" largely because "Israeli restrictions on internal trade and the passage of people have been relaxed significantly."

The IMF predicts that "continuation of the relaxation of restrictions could result in real GDP growth of 7% for 2009 as a whole," a rate of growth that would be far in excess of ours -- or Israel's.

Carter's efforts to portray life among the Palestinians as unbearable and getting worse are belied by data. His efforts to blame Israel for all the problems that do exist are equally unpersuasive, and the best example is Gaza.

Carter states that Gaza is a "walled-in ghetto" and that "Israel prevents any cement, lumber, seeds, fertilizer and hundreds of other needed materials from entering through Gaza's gates." But Gaza is not an enclave surrounded by Israel; it has a border with Egypt. Every commodity that Carter says is needed can be supplied by Egypt, a point he overlooks in his efforts to blame Palestinian problems exclusively on the Jewish state.

Similarly, he says that "[s]ome additional goods from Egypt reach Gaza through underground tunnels," phrasing that suggests the "additional goods" may help reduce shortages. In fact, they include missiles and rockets, thousands of which have been fired into Israel since its troops left Gaza in 2005. While Carter warns that a Palestinian "civil rights struggle" is in the offing, he says nothing about Palestinian violence in the real world -- in which Palestinian terrorist groups continue to attack Israel and where all of Gaza is, of course, in the hands of one such group, Hamas.

Carter claims that the expansion of Israeli settlements is "rapidly" taking Palestinian land. Yet four years ago Israel gave up the Gaza Strip and all the settlements there (plus four small West Bank settlements); moreover, Carter presents no data suggesting that Israel's West Bank settlements are actually expanding physically. Their population is growing, but new construction is almost all "up and in," meaning that the impact on Palestinians is limited -- and that the picture Carter paints of a rapidly disappearing Palestine is inaccurate.

Most inaccurate of all, and most bizarre, is Carter's claim that "a total freeze of settlement expansion is the key" to a peace agreement. Not a halt to terrorism, not the building of Palestinian institutions, not the rule of law in the West Bank, not the end of Hamas rule in Gaza -- no, the sole "key" is Israeli settlements. Such a conclusion fits with Carter's general approach, in which there are no real Palestinians, just victims of Israel. The century of struggle between moderate and radical Palestinians, and the victories of terrorists from Haj Amin al-Husseini to Yasser Arafat, are forgotten; the Hamas coup in Gaza is unmentioned; indeed the words "Hamas" and "terrorism" do not appear in Carter's column. Instead of appealing for support for the serious and practical work of institution-building that the Palestinian Authority has begun, Carter fantasizes about a "nonviolent civil rights struggle" that bears no relationship to the terrorist violence that has plagued Palestinian society, and killed Israelis, for decades. Carter's portrait demonizes Israelis and, not coincidentally, it infantilizes Palestinians, who are accorded no real responsibility for their fate or future. If this is "the Elders' view of the Middle East," we and our friends in that region are fortunate that this group of former officials is no longer in power.

The writer, a senior fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, served as a deputy national security adviser in the George W. Bush administration.
Related: Despair, Indeed
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The Bogeyman in The Hills of Judea and Samaria

Ariel Harkham
JPost
07 September 09

Earlier this month, Ori Nir, a spokesman for Americans for Peace Now and former Haaretz reporter, revealed an alarming, even terrifying, bit of news in an opinion piece for the Washington Jewish Week: There are bogeymen in the hills of Israel. Citing only an incident in 1988, and one in 2000, Nir argued that the "brutality" of soldiers and settlers in the West Bank has spread across the Green Line, causing the wave of violent crime the country seems to be experiencing lately.

Never mind, for the moment, that Israel has one of the lowest murder rates in the world - a statistic that even the most basic level of research would have confirmed for Nir. But the fact that the Peace Now spokesman so vigorously set out to identify the settler movement as the cause of a pseudo-effect goes to show just how much this cause is an apparition conjured by fear mongering, a moral bogeyman in the hills of Judea and Samaria.

NIR'S OPINION piece, like the logic of the entire anti-settler machine, reminds me of the story of the man who walked into a bar, only to be physically assaulted by another customer. Rising to defend himself, the man inadvertently broke a few bottles and glasses. After tensions had cooled, the bartender took the man aside and berated him, but left the instigator alone with his drink. The man, indignant at being unfairly targeted, retorted, "Why aren't you saying this to the other guy? I mean, he's responsible." The bartender stared at him incredulously, and said, "It wouldn't make any difference. That guy is deaf."

It's this logic that's on display in Nir's piece. Israel is the man walking into a bar only to be subjected to violence, and when all is said and done, is the only actor held responsible. As a result, it alone is subject to censure. As with the man in the bar, this is due not to any actual guilt on its part, but is simply on account of the fact that it is the only one able to listen.

This bears little on the arguments of people like Nir in the anti-settlement camp. While 'anti-settlers' in and outside the country say that both sides need to distribute land and share the burden of peace, they refuse to distribute blame or share the burden of culpability. But it takes a callous intellect to blinker out Israel's multiple offers of Palestinian autonomy and statehood, and the subsequent replies in the form of terror and rockets. Rather, Nir and the like trumpet the notion that when the effect is violence, the cause is Israel. And when the identity of that cause is investigated, the settlers - far removed from the power centers of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, few in number, lacking cash and unrepresented by the major political parties - are the easy target.

Reading the news, one would be utterly convinced that the settler community is at best a nuisance. According to this school of thought, the IDF's defense of this so-called nuisance is spreading a toxic pathogen inside Israel.

Yet the reality is far different. The West Bank settler population is the fastest-growing Israeli demographic, serves disproportionately in the IDF officer corps and suffered disproportionate casualties in the 2006 Lebanon war. Not to mention that its presence protects vital water resources and strategic high ground that would pose major national security liabilities if in the hands of hostile Palestinians.

FAR FROM Nir's assertion that "the occupation burdens Israel politically, economically and militarily," the settler community is the real "salt of the earth," standing on the frontlines of a 100-year war as a buffer for cities like Haifa, Beersheba and Tel Aviv.
(Continue)

Obama’s Dangerous Strategy

melaniephillips.com
Jewish Chronicle
03 September 09

The farce over doorknobs for centrifuges masks the fact that President Obama’s whole Middle East strategy is in the process of imploding.

Obama has been pressuring Israel to freeze every brick and window-frame of all settlement construction as a precondition for the US ‘getting tough’ with Iran. This has caused Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu to walk a diplomatic tightrope. But it is arguably President Obama who has the rope around his own neck.

Israel’s supposed policy of expanding the settlements has been presented as the major stumbling-block to peace with the Palestinians and Arab support against Iran. This was absurd, and indeed Obama is now softening his stance.

Construction of new settlements has been frozen for years with no concessions from the Palestinian side. And the idea that Israeli concessions were needed to bring the Arabs on side against Iran was ridiculous. The Arabs are desperate for the Iranian nuclear threat to be removed because Iran is an overwhelming threat to their existence.

The settlements are irrelevant to the Iran crisis — which has predictably become even more acute because Obama’s policy of appeasing the Arab and Muslim world has gone belly-up. In response to his hand of friendship, the Iranian regime rigged its election, tortured and murdered its internal opponents and turned even more extreme.

As for Israel, Netanyahu faced down Obama over his attempt to define Jewish houses in east Jerusalem as ’settlements’ and to freeze construction there, too. Having united virtually all of Israel against him (only four per cent of Israelis think Obama is pro-Israel) the US President grovelled to the Arabs for a sign of some move towards peace with Israel. They refused.

He begged the Iranians to ‘engage’ with him. In response, they have now appointed as defence minister Ahmad Vahidi, a terrorist wanted for the 1994 bombing of the Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires and who was also involved in the 2006 bombing of the Khobar Towers complex which killed 19 American soldiers. Meanwhile, Iran continues to develop the nuclear capability which threatens not just Israel but America and Europe.

In any event, Obama has already said that he will get tough with Iran if it remains intransigent by this autumn. So how could the settlement issue have been the clincher?

And what does ‘getting tough’ mean? Why, sanctions. The Iranians must be quaking in their boots. We can all write the script for that debacle already. Talk about shutting the stable door after the centrifuges have bolted.

And then what? When Plan B fails, what is Obama’s Plan C? I think we know. It’s called ‘living with a nuclear Iran’ — or the surrender of the west.

What Obama may yet come to realise is that he might need Israel to save him from electoral meltdown at home. With his ratings plummeting due to his domestic policies, he leads a country that, unlike Britain and mainland Europe, understands the threat posed by the Iranian nuclear bomb.

The failure to stop Iran going nuclear on his watch could destroy his presidency. We may find, therefore, that the attitude towards Israel of the most hostile President in living memory soon undergoes rapid reprogramming.

President Obama is now between a rock and a hard place. An Israeli strike on Iran would utterly destroy his strategy and possibly draw the US willy-nilly into a wider war. On the other hand, it could just be that to save his political skin at home Obama will find himself sweating upon Israel taking out the Iranian nuclear threat.

He thus faces a possible choice between war against Iran and a mortal threat to his presidency. Such is the outcome of denial, the river that runs through the Oval Office.
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Netanyahu's Road Map

According to YNET:

Agreement reached between PM, defense and housing ministers to freeze building starts in settlements blocs and east Jerusalem until early 2010 enrages settler leaders. 'If Netanyahu implements Livni's policy – government's days are numbered,' Ariel mayor warns

"Settler leaders were furious Tuesday morning after learning of the agreement to freeze building starts in the territories, including in the settlement blocs and east Jerusalem" -more

Your thoughts?

Crisis in Israel-Europe Relations?

Barry Rubin

The Rubin Report

06 September 09

The AP reporter’s voice shows she’s very young and her choice of words show she’s very inexperienced. “What do you think,” she asks me, “about the crisis between Europe and Israel.”

Crisis? Well most immediately this is the kind of “crisis” you want, over a very narrow issue—construction on settlements—which can be easily resolved. The Europeans are supporting U.S. efforts, U.S. policy has become a lot more positive on this issue in recent weeks, and some resolution will soon be found.

The resolution will soon be found because President Barack Obama needs one. In the pattern so often repeated by this administration he has put himself in a corner. If he is going to look “good” at the UN session, feel he has a basis for raising sanctions on Iran, and broker an Israel-Palestinian Authority meeting he has to solve this issue of construction. Right now, he needs a resolution far more than does Israel.

This administration has a genius for putting itself into the weaker position on any international issue.

It’s funny, though, how European governments always find some reason to be annoyed and threatening pressure on Israel but never ever on the Palestinians. Have you noticed that? Massive corruption, incitement to violence, letting terrorists go or never arresting them in the first place, violating commitments, none of its seems to matter.

So European governments have an interesting choice: Is their main goal to be “pro-Palestinian” (if condemning a people to decades of conflict by supporting their intransigence can be called supporting them) or seeking Israel-Palestinian peace?

The answer in most cases—all countries are different—is the former. Being “pro-Palestinian” makes them look “progressive” and “humanitarian,” supposedly scores points in the Arab and Muslim world, theoretically promotes trade and investment with the aforementioned places, and so on.

Also, if European leaders believe—some do, some don’t—that there isn’t going to be peace (even if they privately blame the Palestinians) this policy can seem to make sense for their interests.
Israel’s problem is not predominantly with the European masses or even, to a lesser extent, with governments, but with the European intellectual elites. After all, take the four main countries of Europe: France, Germany, Italy, and the UK.

Relations with France have increased sharply with President Francois Sarkozy, despite his silliness over Lebanon and Syria. Links with Germany remain quite good, and with Italy excellent. The UK has the most problems—the Foreign Ministry often seems incapable of concealing its loathing of Israel—but the fall of the Labour government can’t be too far off and the Tories will be better, not hugely better but enough to put London in line with the others.

Where are the big problem spots? Spain, Sweden, Norway, and Belgium, basically, not exactly the continent’s great powers.

So, a crisis? After more than 30 years analyzing the Middle East, I explain, one has a certain skepticism about crises. In the region, they are like buses—one is along every few minutes—but more frequent.

Oh, and if you want proof of this from 30 years ago--and a real treat of an inside story--read Yehuda Avner on Golda Meir and the crises with Europe of the 1970s.
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