From The Australian, July 01, 2009, by Ilan Grapel, researcher with the Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council:
THE Green Left Weekly is probably Australia's best-known radical-left newspaper. While nominally independent, it is affiliated with the Socialist Alliance party and its youth movement Resistance! Like most radical socialist groups, it invariably aligns with the anti-Israel movement.
For some time it has been apparent that an unholy alliance is growing between extreme left-wing groups and Arab and Islamic extremists, despite completely different visions for society. This alliance has been on show in much of the anti-war movement in Britain and other places.
For instance, Britain's "Respect" party is basically an alliance of radical Muslims and old hard-line Marxists such as former Labour MP George Galloway. Galloway was pro-Saddam Hussein before the 2003 Iraq war. Today, he works for the Iranian government mouthpiece television station, Press TV.
But what isn't widely known is that the Green Left Weekly is openly promoting extremism among Arabic speakers in Australia through a monthly Arabic-language insert called the Flame. This support is not limited to Green Left Weekly's own far-left agenda. It supports terrorist groups and promotes violence as the solution to the existence of the "Zionist state."
You would think GLW's declared pursuit of the advancement of "anti-racist, feminist, student, trade union, environment, gay and lesbian, civil liberties" would rule out the promotion of radical Islamist groups such as Hamas, which are deeply hostile to all the above.
Yet alongside content promoting the PFLP, a tiny left-wing and currently marginal Palestinian terror group, Hamas is also promoted by GLW as a positive model of "resistance"; that is to say, terrorism. Those killed as a result of the violence Hamas sparks are "martyrs", terminology Flame shares with Hamas. Further, the terminology of the Flame is openly hostile to the more moderate governments of the region and repeatedly demands all-out war on the "Zionist entity".
The January edition of the Flame was devoted to the conflict in Gaza. The cover page is a compilation of statements from various communist parties in the Arab world. Predictably, the communiques incited its Arabic readers with imagery of "slaughter," and a "waterfall of Palestinian blood washing the streets". More surprisingly, there are implicit calls for other Arab states to expand the Gaza war.
In "Hunt of a people", the paper refers to the 1982 Lebanon war, indignant "Arab capitals stood watching, exactly as is happening now."
The paper targets American-allied Arab governments for their moderation in the war, which it terms "collusion". The front-page article from the Iraqi Communist Party rebukes the Saudi government, Egypt, and the Palestinian Authority, which it disparagingly dubs the "Oslo Authority". The Mubarak government is condemned for being "a loyal accomplice to Israel and the Oslo Authority in their attempt to shut Hamas out". It also accuses the Saudi monarchy of having covert dealings with "the Zionists" stretching back decades. Any non-violent interaction with Israel, whether actual or imagined, is scorned.
In the March edition the Flame was aghast at Egypt for co-operating with the US against Hamas. Its expose was titled "Egypt uses American soldiers to prevent weapons smuggling to the resistance!" In the Arabic, "the resistance" is euphemism for terrorist violence and for Hamas itself.
Another article, "A return to principles is necessary after the Israeli aggression", is more virulent. An illustration shows a Palestinian imprisoned behind barbed wire shaped as a partial Jewish star. The article condemns those calling the Gaza war a victory for the "resistance", given the large proportion of "martyrs" from the Palestinian people in comparison to the "slim" number killed among "soldiers of the Israeli occupation army". The rest of the article is critical of the Palestinian factions for their internecine fight.
It criticises Hamas for abandoning its traditional position as the "resistance" against "the enemy" to fight the PA and calls for a "united Palestinian resistance" which will "return the benefit to the Palestinian people". It is clear that this unity will not negotiate peace with Israel, with the paper stating "this unity in battle must not fall into the trap of dialogue that the decrepit Arab regimes of the region are producing." The Flame defines Israel as "the enemy" and demands violent "resistance" while pouring scorn on negotiations or dialogue, It praises the assassination of a "Zionist minister" as "courageous."
The radical anti-Israel stance of Green Left Weekly is no secret. However, the message it pitches to the Arabic-speaking community of Australia is far more inflammatory. Unbeknown to its English readers, it supports terrorist groups such as Hamas whose goal is to create a state where there would be no place for the gays, lesbians, feminists and trade unionists who read the English-language edition of the paper.
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
What are the chances for peace?
From THE JERUSALEM POST , Jun. 30, 2009, by Yossi Alpher, former director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University [my emphasis added - SL]:
The Israeli-Palestinian final status negotiations launched by the Annapolis meeting of late 2007 never seemed to have a serious chance of success. The leaders on all sides - Israeli, Palestinian and American - were either too weak or too disinterested. Some supporters of the negotiations, which lasted throughout most of 2008, went so far as to argue that even hopeless talks were important as a means of underpinning the security and economic confidence-building measures being implemented simultaneously in the West Bank. And if the talks did somehow succeed, their outcome was in any case destined by Annapolis to become a "shelf agreement" that awaits completion of phase 1 of the road map and the restoration of PLO rule in the Gaza Strip.
Former prime minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas recently discussed with the American press (in interviews in The Washington Post on May 29 and Newsweek of June 13, respectively) the extent to which they actually reached agreement in their 2008 negotiations. The "product" they describe is roughly similar to the Clinton parameters of 2000, the Taba agreements of early 2001 and the unofficial Geneva Initiative of 2003. Bearing in mind the two leaders' apparent inability to even contemplate implementing an agreement, these appear to be the not-so-original details of yet another virtual exercise in peacemaking.
PERHAPS THE PROTOCOLS the leaders left behind will prove useful for future peacemakers. But we also have to hope that the ultimate failure of their negotiations will not negatively affect the willingness of the next generation of leaders to try again. Personally, this is why I opposed the Annapolis process: To engage in negotiations that have no chance of reaching fruition and success is liable to mean adding yet another layer of failure to the increasingly depressing structure of abortive Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking enterprises. That is liable to deter rather than assist the next set of negotiators. How many more times will Israeli and Palestinian leaders agree to risk their political careers and perhaps their lives and reinvent the very same peace wheel, only to see it fall off its axle?
Olmert says he offered Abbas 93.5 percent to 93.7% of the West Bank, along with 5.8% in land swaps and a Gaza-West Bank safe passage corridor. Abbas recalls the offer as 97%. Both agree that Israel agreed to accept a small number of Palestinian refugees, with Olmert adding that he rejected the right of return and offered limited return to Israel as a "humanitarian gesture." Olmert also offered to, in effect, internationalize the Jerusalem Holy Basin.
Olmert's interviewer reports that Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat "confirmed that Olmert had made the offer... [Olmert] was serious." Erekat claims the Palestinians needed time to study Olmert's offer and prepare a reply and that time ran out when Olmert resigned and Israel invaded the Gaza Strip. But that's not what Abbas says (nor has anyone in his entourage denied what he told The Washington Post's Jackson Diehl) - and this is the troublesome part for anyone examining this negotiating experience for clues as to future chances of success.
Every so often, a national leader makes statements in an interview that redefine his position on the world stage. Abbas appears to have done this. Abbas chose to interpret whatever statement of empathy Olmert made about the refugees - the effort he apparently undertook to offer the Palestinians some sort of psychological closure regarding the events of 1948 - as acceptance of the right of return, while Olmert understood he was saying the opposite and rejecting the right of return. Abbas looks at an offer of virtually the entire territory of the West Bank, internationalization of the disputed holy sites in Jerusalem and (according to him) the right of return, turns it down and says "the gaps were wide."
CAN WE be blamed for suspecting that we really do not have a partner for a two-state deal?
This is very bad news indeed. Abbas is about as moderate as the Palestinian leadership gets. Olmert proved to be about as moderate as the Israeli leadership gets, placing himself on a par with Yossi Beilin, the chief Israeli architect of the Geneva Initiative. I know of no other Israeli leader who would wish to offer the Palestinians even more in order to close the gap. I myself would not have offered as much: I believe Palestinians must accept an unequivocal Israeli position that the right of return contradicts the very spirit of a two-state solution. I also would argue that the West Bank-Gaza safe passage corridor is "worth" a lot more than around 1% of the "swaps" calculation, if only because a Palestinian state cannot survive without it.
Be that as it may, I can only hope that somewhere, waiting in the wings, is the Palestinian leader capable of broadly accepting at least Olmert's offer - and without distorting it. Or that some sort of international leadership, Arab or American, will prove ready and able to persuade the Palestinian leadership and public to make the necessary concessions. Otherwise, the chances of a successful two-state breakthrough in the near future were definitely reduced by Abbas' statements.
The Israeli-Palestinian final status negotiations launched by the Annapolis meeting of late 2007 never seemed to have a serious chance of success. The leaders on all sides - Israeli, Palestinian and American - were either too weak or too disinterested. Some supporters of the negotiations, which lasted throughout most of 2008, went so far as to argue that even hopeless talks were important as a means of underpinning the security and economic confidence-building measures being implemented simultaneously in the West Bank. And if the talks did somehow succeed, their outcome was in any case destined by Annapolis to become a "shelf agreement" that awaits completion of phase 1 of the road map and the restoration of PLO rule in the Gaza Strip.
Former prime minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas recently discussed with the American press (in interviews in The Washington Post on May 29 and Newsweek of June 13, respectively) the extent to which they actually reached agreement in their 2008 negotiations. The "product" they describe is roughly similar to the Clinton parameters of 2000, the Taba agreements of early 2001 and the unofficial Geneva Initiative of 2003. Bearing in mind the two leaders' apparent inability to even contemplate implementing an agreement, these appear to be the not-so-original details of yet another virtual exercise in peacemaking.
PERHAPS THE PROTOCOLS the leaders left behind will prove useful for future peacemakers. But we also have to hope that the ultimate failure of their negotiations will not negatively affect the willingness of the next generation of leaders to try again. Personally, this is why I opposed the Annapolis process: To engage in negotiations that have no chance of reaching fruition and success is liable to mean adding yet another layer of failure to the increasingly depressing structure of abortive Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking enterprises. That is liable to deter rather than assist the next set of negotiators. How many more times will Israeli and Palestinian leaders agree to risk their political careers and perhaps their lives and reinvent the very same peace wheel, only to see it fall off its axle?
Olmert says he offered Abbas 93.5 percent to 93.7% of the West Bank, along with 5.8% in land swaps and a Gaza-West Bank safe passage corridor. Abbas recalls the offer as 97%. Both agree that Israel agreed to accept a small number of Palestinian refugees, with Olmert adding that he rejected the right of return and offered limited return to Israel as a "humanitarian gesture." Olmert also offered to, in effect, internationalize the Jerusalem Holy Basin.
Olmert's interviewer reports that Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat "confirmed that Olmert had made the offer... [Olmert] was serious." Erekat claims the Palestinians needed time to study Olmert's offer and prepare a reply and that time ran out when Olmert resigned and Israel invaded the Gaza Strip. But that's not what Abbas says (nor has anyone in his entourage denied what he told The Washington Post's Jackson Diehl) - and this is the troublesome part for anyone examining this negotiating experience for clues as to future chances of success.
Every so often, a national leader makes statements in an interview that redefine his position on the world stage. Abbas appears to have done this. Abbas chose to interpret whatever statement of empathy Olmert made about the refugees - the effort he apparently undertook to offer the Palestinians some sort of psychological closure regarding the events of 1948 - as acceptance of the right of return, while Olmert understood he was saying the opposite and rejecting the right of return. Abbas looks at an offer of virtually the entire territory of the West Bank, internationalization of the disputed holy sites in Jerusalem and (according to him) the right of return, turns it down and says "the gaps were wide."
CAN WE be blamed for suspecting that we really do not have a partner for a two-state deal?
This is very bad news indeed. Abbas is about as moderate as the Palestinian leadership gets. Olmert proved to be about as moderate as the Israeli leadership gets, placing himself on a par with Yossi Beilin, the chief Israeli architect of the Geneva Initiative. I know of no other Israeli leader who would wish to offer the Palestinians even more in order to close the gap. I myself would not have offered as much: I believe Palestinians must accept an unequivocal Israeli position that the right of return contradicts the very spirit of a two-state solution. I also would argue that the West Bank-Gaza safe passage corridor is "worth" a lot more than around 1% of the "swaps" calculation, if only because a Palestinian state cannot survive without it.
Be that as it may, I can only hope that somewhere, waiting in the wings, is the Palestinian leader capable of broadly accepting at least Olmert's offer - and without distorting it. Or that some sort of international leadership, Arab or American, will prove ready and able to persuade the Palestinian leadership and public to make the necessary concessions. Otherwise, the chances of a successful two-state breakthrough in the near future were definitely reduced by Abbas' statements.
Todd Harrison's Memoirs of a Minyan
From The Wall Street Journal, Jun 10, 2009, Chapter 1: "Inmates in the asylum" by Todd Harrison (This e-book, which is published each Wednesday over 18 weeks, is now up to Chapter 4):
How a high-flying trader learned the secret of money
Todd Harrison spent a number of years in the belly of the Wall Street beast and lived to tell about it. In this 18-part series, he relives his days as a highflying trader and what he learned about money.
(WSJ Editor's note: "Memoirs of a Minyan" is a first-person account that follows Minyanville founder Todd Harrison through a Wall Street trading career to the Internet media business, with some important lessons about the nature of money along the way....).
...I struggled whether to share this story because I didn't know if anyone would be interested in my lot in life. As I weaved my way through the many mazes in my mind, I decided to put pen to paper and recount my steps.
If not for you, for me, but with a larger lens on the immediate-gratification, conspicuously consumptive society in which we live. Some might say I bowed to the false idolatry of money, and perhaps I did. I was conditioned to believe that success was measured by a bottom line, and validation could be found in a bank account.
Everything you'll read in this series is true, as seen through my eyes. I share it without vice or virtue, and with all due humility. Lou Mannheim said in the movie "Wall Street": "Man looks in the abyss, there's nothing staring back at him. At that moment, man finds his character. And that is what keeps him out of the abyss."
I've stared into a few black holes during my career and emerged each time with newfound passion and incremental resolve. The ability to turn obstacles into opportunities is one of life's best-kept secrets, and the greatest wisdom is bred as a function of pain.
As with any journey, the path we take is more important than the destination. My particular route included climbing the corporate ladder and chasing the trappings of success. Once I got to where I thought I wanted to be, I realized net worth and self-worth were entirely different dynamics.
That was distinctly different from what I was programmed to believe as a child, and it facilitated a professional and spiritual rebirthing....
...At the age of 13, I began working at the local bagel shop. I awoke at 5 a.m. on Saturdays to prepare for the mad rush of customers, many of whom were the families I aspired to emulate.
I never forgot the symbolism of that counter, a divide representing the chasm between the "haves" and "have nots," as money changed hands for goods and services. Little did I know that I would experience life on both sides of that cash register....
To read the original, follow these links:
• Chapter 1: Inmates in the asylum
• Chapter 2: Animal house
• Chapter 3: Let the games begin
• Chapter 4: War stories
How a high-flying trader learned the secret of money
Todd Harrison spent a number of years in the belly of the Wall Street beast and lived to tell about it. In this 18-part series, he relives his days as a highflying trader and what he learned about money.
(WSJ Editor's note: "Memoirs of a Minyan" is a first-person account that follows Minyanville founder Todd Harrison through a Wall Street trading career to the Internet media business, with some important lessons about the nature of money along the way....).
...I struggled whether to share this story because I didn't know if anyone would be interested in my lot in life. As I weaved my way through the many mazes in my mind, I decided to put pen to paper and recount my steps.
If not for you, for me, but with a larger lens on the immediate-gratification, conspicuously consumptive society in which we live. Some might say I bowed to the false idolatry of money, and perhaps I did. I was conditioned to believe that success was measured by a bottom line, and validation could be found in a bank account.
Everything you'll read in this series is true, as seen through my eyes. I share it without vice or virtue, and with all due humility. Lou Mannheim said in the movie "Wall Street": "Man looks in the abyss, there's nothing staring back at him. At that moment, man finds his character. And that is what keeps him out of the abyss."
I've stared into a few black holes during my career and emerged each time with newfound passion and incremental resolve. The ability to turn obstacles into opportunities is one of life's best-kept secrets, and the greatest wisdom is bred as a function of pain.
As with any journey, the path we take is more important than the destination. My particular route included climbing the corporate ladder and chasing the trappings of success. Once I got to where I thought I wanted to be, I realized net worth and self-worth were entirely different dynamics.
That was distinctly different from what I was programmed to believe as a child, and it facilitated a professional and spiritual rebirthing....
...At the age of 13, I began working at the local bagel shop. I awoke at 5 a.m. on Saturdays to prepare for the mad rush of customers, many of whom were the families I aspired to emulate.
I never forgot the symbolism of that counter, a divide representing the chasm between the "haves" and "have nots," as money changed hands for goods and services. Little did I know that I would experience life on both sides of that cash register....
To read the original, follow these links:
• Chapter 1: Inmates in the asylum
• Chapter 2: Animal house
• Chapter 3: Let the games begin
• Chapter 4: War stories
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
US demand for settlement freeze is 'extortion'
From THE JERUSALEM POST, Jun. 30, 2009, by HERB KEINON, REBECCA ANNA STOIL and HILARY LEILA KRIEGER:
MK Otniel Schneller (Kadima) lashed out Monday against the US demand for a settlement freeze, labeling it "extortion" and warning it could set back Israeli readiness for peace.
In an interview with The Jerusalem Post, Schneller assailed Obama administration officials as holding beliefs shaped by "far-Left opinions outside of the Israeli consensus."
Schneller, who has been involved in peace deals with the Palestinians and Jordan since 1994, sent a letter Sunday to Defense Minister Ehud Barak in advance of the minister's visit to the US in which he said he "searched for ways to find a meeting-point between Israel's desire to advance peace, the recognition of the agreement of the majority of Israeli people to recognize a Palestinian state, and the fatalism of America that is pushing us into a corner."
"The most dangerous thing to the peace process is to push the Israeli public into a corner," he said.
...Schneller argued that the pressure to stop natural growth in settlements was a "fatal mistake," but said that although Israel "must go as much as possible in the direction of American interests through democracy, maintaining peace, continuing to work together with Abu Mazen [PA President Mahmoud Abbas], when the Obama government extorts the government of Israel by putting forward the question of natural growth and settlements opposite the Iranian question, it is extortion in the full meaning of the word."
"What does the president of the United States think - that a nuclear Middle East is less dangerous than natural growth in a small settlement? What does the American Jew who voted for Obama think? To allow him to endanger our physical existence in Israel because my daughter is going to have a baby?
"I think that the US government must stop its charge forward and instead go forward hand in hand with Israel on two channels - one, the Iranian channel, without any connection to the Palestinians, and two, the peace process with the Palestinians while understanding that the consensus within Israel is the most serious lever that can be operated toward that end," Schneller said.
In his letter to Barak, Schneller argued that "in no case can one agree to freezing natural growth - not even temporarily. Beyond the ideological question (the right of people to give birth, to raise children) and beyond the humanitarian questions (preschools, clinics), the believability of Israel's government will be tested. There is no legal or public ability to carry out a complete freeze and there is no chance to prevent all building. America's temporary freeze will cause us to pay a moral price and we will be found untrustworthy opposite the Americans."
Schneller said there was no legal basis for the government to stop private construction that had already been contracted, or to prevent building by those who already had made down payments, unless "we enforce the government's will in an illegal and anti-democratic manner. The American pressure endangers Israeli democracy. Human rights and the power of democracy are not dependent upon the interest of a particular nation."
Instead, Schneller said, the American call to freeze all Jewish building in the West Bank were "unifying the Israeli public against the American demands."
He weighed in on the debate regarding US agreements regarding building in the West Bank, arguing that the Americans had always understood that it was a necessity. As early as Camp David II, which he attended in 2000 as part of then-prime minister Barak's delegation, Schneller said, there was already an understanding. All of the argument regarding whether Israel would keep 8 percent or 12% of the West Bank meant that there was already a recognition that settlement blocs would be maintained, and that the debate centered around how much would be included.
Barak has been saying in recent days that his talks with Mitchell were aimed at moving forward on a comprehensive agreement in the region...
...Barak met with other inner cabinet members - their second meeting on the issue within 24 hours - in which two camps reportedly emerged.
The first, which includes Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Intelligence Agencies Minister Dan Meridor, as well as Barak, is interested in a compromise - perhaps freezing construction for a limited time while allowing building to continue on housing units that are in an advanced stage - to avoid continued friction with the Obama administration on what they consider a peripheral issue.
Such a move, according to this school of thought, would remove the Palestinian excuse for not restarting negotiations, and paint the Palestinian Authority as the "intransigent" party if it continued to refuse the talks, since they have made a settlement freeze a condition for renewed dialogue.
The other camp, represented by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Minister-without-Portfolio Bennie Begin and Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya'alon, believes it would be a mistake for Israel to stop building in the settlement blocs that will likely remain in Israel's hands in any future agreement. They also are opposed to any pre-conditions to renewed negotiations.
Netanyahu's adviser on the Palestinian issue, Yitzhak Molcho, who also attended, will accompany Barak to New York for the discussion with Mitchell.
The Americans, for their part, are declining to rule out accepting a compromise along the lines of a temporary freeze.
"We've been working with all the parties to try and come up with an environment conducive to the resumption of negotiations. And we look forward to sitting down and talking about what we can do to move this process forward," US State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said ahead of Tuesday's meeting. He called on both the Israelis and Palestinians to meet their road map obligations, which include a freeze on all settlement activity.
"I'm not going to say we're not willing to compromise," Kelly said when pressed on whether that meant the US wouldn't accept such a proposal from Israel....
...Zalman Shoval, an outside adviser to Netanyahu who was in Washington last week and held talks with officials in both the current and previous administration, said his sense was that the Obama administration "was looking for a way out."
Shoval, speaking to the Post from Paris on his way back to Israel, said it was becoming "clearer and clearer" that there had been "tacit understandings governing construction in the settlements" between the Bush administration and then-prime minister Ariel Sharon. He said that if Barak came to New York with some concrete suggestions about how to break the impasse, it could be the basis for an agreement, since the Americans were looking for a way off the "high horse" they had climbed to.
While former US deputy national security adviser Elliott Abrams has publicly said there were understandings on the issue between the Bush and Sharon governments, Shoval said that behind closed doors, more senior members of the previous US administration were saying the same thing. He refused to name them.
There are also signs the Americans are assessing that the focus on Israel and the settlement issue has not been paving the way to a changed dynamic between Israel and the Palestinians and the wider Arab world, and concession from the latter two, as the US had hoped.
White House sources are now speaking more frequently about the need for the Arab world to take steps, and pushing back against the expectation that some have articulated that they expect the US to extract more concessions from Israel.
In The Washington Post on Sunday, columnist David Ignatius quoted White House officials who "grumble about Israeli intransigence," and are "worried about 'squishy' Arab promises and demands for preconditions."
He quoted a senior White House official as saying of the Arab leaders, "Don't keep faxing it in, saying I gave you a peace plan in 2002."
In his column, Ignatius also wrote that Obama's "hardheaded strategy" on the settlements has one big flaw: "The Obama team is assuming that if it can pressure Israel into a real settlements freeze, the Arabs will respond with meaningful moves toward normalization of relations - which will give Israel some tangible benefits for its concessions. But that hope appears to be misplaced."
According to Ignatius, while a settlements halt "would produce some limited Arab response," such as renewed trade or diplomatic contacts with countries like the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman and others, "Saudi Arabia, the Arab kingpin, probably wouldn't offer major concessions until the negotiating process was further along."...
MK Otniel Schneller (Kadima) lashed out Monday against the US demand for a settlement freeze, labeling it "extortion" and warning it could set back Israeli readiness for peace.
In an interview with The Jerusalem Post, Schneller assailed Obama administration officials as holding beliefs shaped by "far-Left opinions outside of the Israeli consensus."
Schneller, who has been involved in peace deals with the Palestinians and Jordan since 1994, sent a letter Sunday to Defense Minister Ehud Barak in advance of the minister's visit to the US in which he said he "searched for ways to find a meeting-point between Israel's desire to advance peace, the recognition of the agreement of the majority of Israeli people to recognize a Palestinian state, and the fatalism of America that is pushing us into a corner."
"The most dangerous thing to the peace process is to push the Israeli public into a corner," he said.
...Schneller argued that the pressure to stop natural growth in settlements was a "fatal mistake," but said that although Israel "must go as much as possible in the direction of American interests through democracy, maintaining peace, continuing to work together with Abu Mazen [PA President Mahmoud Abbas], when the Obama government extorts the government of Israel by putting forward the question of natural growth and settlements opposite the Iranian question, it is extortion in the full meaning of the word."
"What does the president of the United States think - that a nuclear Middle East is less dangerous than natural growth in a small settlement? What does the American Jew who voted for Obama think? To allow him to endanger our physical existence in Israel because my daughter is going to have a baby?
"I think that the US government must stop its charge forward and instead go forward hand in hand with Israel on two channels - one, the Iranian channel, without any connection to the Palestinians, and two, the peace process with the Palestinians while understanding that the consensus within Israel is the most serious lever that can be operated toward that end," Schneller said.
In his letter to Barak, Schneller argued that "in no case can one agree to freezing natural growth - not even temporarily. Beyond the ideological question (the right of people to give birth, to raise children) and beyond the humanitarian questions (preschools, clinics), the believability of Israel's government will be tested. There is no legal or public ability to carry out a complete freeze and there is no chance to prevent all building. America's temporary freeze will cause us to pay a moral price and we will be found untrustworthy opposite the Americans."
Schneller said there was no legal basis for the government to stop private construction that had already been contracted, or to prevent building by those who already had made down payments, unless "we enforce the government's will in an illegal and anti-democratic manner. The American pressure endangers Israeli democracy. Human rights and the power of democracy are not dependent upon the interest of a particular nation."
Instead, Schneller said, the American call to freeze all Jewish building in the West Bank were "unifying the Israeli public against the American demands."
He weighed in on the debate regarding US agreements regarding building in the West Bank, arguing that the Americans had always understood that it was a necessity. As early as Camp David II, which he attended in 2000 as part of then-prime minister Barak's delegation, Schneller said, there was already an understanding. All of the argument regarding whether Israel would keep 8 percent or 12% of the West Bank meant that there was already a recognition that settlement blocs would be maintained, and that the debate centered around how much would be included.
Barak has been saying in recent days that his talks with Mitchell were aimed at moving forward on a comprehensive agreement in the region...
...Barak met with other inner cabinet members - their second meeting on the issue within 24 hours - in which two camps reportedly emerged.
The first, which includes Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Intelligence Agencies Minister Dan Meridor, as well as Barak, is interested in a compromise - perhaps freezing construction for a limited time while allowing building to continue on housing units that are in an advanced stage - to avoid continued friction with the Obama administration on what they consider a peripheral issue.
Such a move, according to this school of thought, would remove the Palestinian excuse for not restarting negotiations, and paint the Palestinian Authority as the "intransigent" party if it continued to refuse the talks, since they have made a settlement freeze a condition for renewed dialogue.
The other camp, represented by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Minister-without-Portfolio Bennie Begin and Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya'alon, believes it would be a mistake for Israel to stop building in the settlement blocs that will likely remain in Israel's hands in any future agreement. They also are opposed to any pre-conditions to renewed negotiations.
Netanyahu's adviser on the Palestinian issue, Yitzhak Molcho, who also attended, will accompany Barak to New York for the discussion with Mitchell.
The Americans, for their part, are declining to rule out accepting a compromise along the lines of a temporary freeze.
"We've been working with all the parties to try and come up with an environment conducive to the resumption of negotiations. And we look forward to sitting down and talking about what we can do to move this process forward," US State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said ahead of Tuesday's meeting. He called on both the Israelis and Palestinians to meet their road map obligations, which include a freeze on all settlement activity.
"I'm not going to say we're not willing to compromise," Kelly said when pressed on whether that meant the US wouldn't accept such a proposal from Israel....
...Zalman Shoval, an outside adviser to Netanyahu who was in Washington last week and held talks with officials in both the current and previous administration, said his sense was that the Obama administration "was looking for a way out."
Shoval, speaking to the Post from Paris on his way back to Israel, said it was becoming "clearer and clearer" that there had been "tacit understandings governing construction in the settlements" between the Bush administration and then-prime minister Ariel Sharon. He said that if Barak came to New York with some concrete suggestions about how to break the impasse, it could be the basis for an agreement, since the Americans were looking for a way off the "high horse" they had climbed to.
While former US deputy national security adviser Elliott Abrams has publicly said there were understandings on the issue between the Bush and Sharon governments, Shoval said that behind closed doors, more senior members of the previous US administration were saying the same thing. He refused to name them.
There are also signs the Americans are assessing that the focus on Israel and the settlement issue has not been paving the way to a changed dynamic between Israel and the Palestinians and the wider Arab world, and concession from the latter two, as the US had hoped.
White House sources are now speaking more frequently about the need for the Arab world to take steps, and pushing back against the expectation that some have articulated that they expect the US to extract more concessions from Israel.
In The Washington Post on Sunday, columnist David Ignatius quoted White House officials who "grumble about Israeli intransigence," and are "worried about 'squishy' Arab promises and demands for preconditions."
He quoted a senior White House official as saying of the Arab leaders, "Don't keep faxing it in, saying I gave you a peace plan in 2002."
In his column, Ignatius also wrote that Obama's "hardheaded strategy" on the settlements has one big flaw: "The Obama team is assuming that if it can pressure Israel into a real settlements freeze, the Arabs will respond with meaningful moves toward normalization of relations - which will give Israel some tangible benefits for its concessions. But that hope appears to be misplaced."
According to Ignatius, while a settlements halt "would produce some limited Arab response," such as renewed trade or diplomatic contacts with countries like the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman and others, "Saudi Arabia, the Arab kingpin, probably wouldn't offer major concessions until the negotiating process was further along."...
Monday, June 29, 2009
Obama tells Jews where they can live
From Middle East and Terrorism Blog, Sunday, June 28, 2009, by Joseph Farah, an American journalist of Arabic heritage:
... the U.S. government is now using its clout with Israel to insist Jews, not Israelis, mind you, but Jews, be disallowed from living in East Jerusalem and the historically Jewish lands of Judea and Samaria, often referred to as the West Bank.
I want you to try to imagine the outrage, the horror, the outcry, the clamoring, the gnashing of teeth that would ensue if Arabs or Muslims were told they could no longer live in certain parts of Israel – let alone their own country.
...It's the 1930s all over again. This time, it's the enlightened liberal voices of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama who are telling Jews where they can live, how they can live and how far they must bend if they want to live at all.
...Israel is being reduced to "Auschwitz borders." Jews have already been told they can no longer live in the Gaza Strip. Now they are being told they can no longer choose to live in any of the areas being set aside by international elites for a future Palestinian state.
...Obama and Clinton – and, thus, by definition, you and me, the taxpayers of the United States – have determined they will yield to the racist, bigoted, anti-Semitic demands of the Palestinian Authority that no Jews be allowed to live in their new state.
I like to think that in any other part of the world, this kind of effort at ethnically cleansing a region would be roundly condemned by all civilized people. Yet, because most people simply don't understand the clear, official plan by the Arab leaders to force out all Jews from the new Palestinian state, the policies of capitulation retain a degree of sympathy, even political support, from much of the world.
... Why is the United States supporting the creation of a new, racist, anti-Semitic hate state? Why is the civilized world viewing this as a prescription for peace in the region? Why is this considered an acceptable idea?
Is there any other place in the world where that kind of official policy of racism and ethnic cleansing is tolerated – even condoned?
Why are the rules different in the Middle East? Why are the rules different for Arabs? Why are the rules different for Muslims?
Why are U.S. tax dollars supporting the racist, anti-Semitic entity known as the Palestinian Authority?
That's what we do when we forbid "settlement construction," repairs, natural growth, additions to existing communities.
This is "balance"? Are there any impositions upon the Arabs and Muslims suggesting they can no longer move to Israel? No. Are there any impositions on Arabs and Muslims suggesting they cannot buy homes in Israel? No. Are there any impositions on Arabs and Muslim suggesting they cannot repair their existing homes in Israel? No. Are there any impositions on Arabs or Muslims suggesting the cannot build settlements anywhere they like? No.
Now, keep in mind, there are already quite a few Arab and Muslim states in the Middle East. Many of them already forbid Jews to live in them. Some prohibit Christians as well. But now, the only Jewish state in the world, and one that has a claim on the land dating back to the days of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, is being told Jews must keep off land currently under their own control, but destined for transfer to people who hate them, despise them, want to see them dead and will not even accept living peacefully with them as neighbors.
All the while, Israel continues to hold out its naïve hand of friendship to the Arabs and the Muslims – welcoming them in their own tiny nation surrounded by hateful neighbors. Arabs and Muslims are offered full citizenship rights – and even serve in elected office. They publish newspapers and broadcast on radio and television freely.
But, conversely, Jews are one step away from eviction from homes they have sometimes occupied for generations. Gaza is about to happen all over again.
I hope my Jewish friends remember this well. Many of them voted for Barack Obama. Many of them voted for Hillary Clinton. These are not your friends. These are the same kinds of people who turned away ships of Jewish refugees from Germany in the 1940s. These are the same kinds of people who appeased Adolf Hitler at Munich. These are the same kinds of people who made the reformation of the modern state of Israel so difficult.
I say, "No more ethnic cleansing. No more official anti-Semitism accepted. No more Jew-bashing. No more telling Jews where they can live, how they can – and if they can live."
... the U.S. government is now using its clout with Israel to insist Jews, not Israelis, mind you, but Jews, be disallowed from living in East Jerusalem and the historically Jewish lands of Judea and Samaria, often referred to as the West Bank.
I want you to try to imagine the outrage, the horror, the outcry, the clamoring, the gnashing of teeth that would ensue if Arabs or Muslims were told they could no longer live in certain parts of Israel – let alone their own country.
...It's the 1930s all over again. This time, it's the enlightened liberal voices of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama who are telling Jews where they can live, how they can live and how far they must bend if they want to live at all.
...Israel is being reduced to "Auschwitz borders." Jews have already been told they can no longer live in the Gaza Strip. Now they are being told they can no longer choose to live in any of the areas being set aside by international elites for a future Palestinian state.
...Obama and Clinton – and, thus, by definition, you and me, the taxpayers of the United States – have determined they will yield to the racist, bigoted, anti-Semitic demands of the Palestinian Authority that no Jews be allowed to live in their new state.
I like to think that in any other part of the world, this kind of effort at ethnically cleansing a region would be roundly condemned by all civilized people. Yet, because most people simply don't understand the clear, official plan by the Arab leaders to force out all Jews from the new Palestinian state, the policies of capitulation retain a degree of sympathy, even political support, from much of the world.
... Why is the United States supporting the creation of a new, racist, anti-Semitic hate state? Why is the civilized world viewing this as a prescription for peace in the region? Why is this considered an acceptable idea?
Is there any other place in the world where that kind of official policy of racism and ethnic cleansing is tolerated – even condoned?
Why are the rules different in the Middle East? Why are the rules different for Arabs? Why are the rules different for Muslims?
Why are U.S. tax dollars supporting the racist, anti-Semitic entity known as the Palestinian Authority?
That's what we do when we forbid "settlement construction," repairs, natural growth, additions to existing communities.
This is "balance"? Are there any impositions upon the Arabs and Muslims suggesting they can no longer move to Israel? No. Are there any impositions on Arabs and Muslims suggesting they cannot buy homes in Israel? No. Are there any impositions on Arabs and Muslim suggesting they cannot repair their existing homes in Israel? No. Are there any impositions on Arabs or Muslims suggesting the cannot build settlements anywhere they like? No.
Now, keep in mind, there are already quite a few Arab and Muslim states in the Middle East. Many of them already forbid Jews to live in them. Some prohibit Christians as well. But now, the only Jewish state in the world, and one that has a claim on the land dating back to the days of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, is being told Jews must keep off land currently under their own control, but destined for transfer to people who hate them, despise them, want to see them dead and will not even accept living peacefully with them as neighbors.
All the while, Israel continues to hold out its naïve hand of friendship to the Arabs and the Muslims – welcoming them in their own tiny nation surrounded by hateful neighbors. Arabs and Muslims are offered full citizenship rights – and even serve in elected office. They publish newspapers and broadcast on radio and television freely.
But, conversely, Jews are one step away from eviction from homes they have sometimes occupied for generations. Gaza is about to happen all over again.
I hope my Jewish friends remember this well. Many of them voted for Barack Obama. Many of them voted for Hillary Clinton. These are not your friends. These are the same kinds of people who turned away ships of Jewish refugees from Germany in the 1940s. These are the same kinds of people who appeased Adolf Hitler at Munich. These are the same kinds of people who made the reformation of the modern state of Israel so difficult.
I say, "No more ethnic cleansing. No more official anti-Semitism accepted. No more Jew-bashing. No more telling Jews where they can live, how they can – and if they can live."
Barak-Mitchell meeting soon
From Ynet News, 29/6/09, by Roni Sofer:
... defense minister [Barak] heads to US ...expected to say freeze on settlements can only be part of genuine renewal of talks between Jerusalem, Ramallah
"The settlements will not be an obstacle to peace with the Palestinians." That is the message Defense Minister Ehud Barak will be carrying with him on his upcoming trip to meet with special US envoy George Mitchell....
...Six cabinet ministers will meet on Monday morning to discuss the US and European demands to freeze the settlements, just a few short hours before Barak heads to meet Mitchell. The six ministers – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Minister Benny Begin, Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya'alon, and Intelligence Minister Dan Meridor – will meet in Netanyahu's office.
The government is leaning towards saying any move to freeze construction can only be part of renewed dialogue with the Palestinians.
...Barak will also emphasize other gestures Israel has recently made to show its intentions are serious, such as the removal of 140 roadblocks and the opening of numerous checkpoints from peripheral villages to main roadways in the West Bank – making it possible to drive from Jenin to Ramallah in an hour and half, and without passing through any obstructions. The US administration has already voiced its appreciation of the measures.
Barak will also discuss the transfer of security oversight to the Palestinian Authority in four West Bank cities – Ramallah, Jenin, Qalqiliya, and Jericho, and improvements to water and road infrastructure.
... defense minister [Barak] heads to US ...expected to say freeze on settlements can only be part of genuine renewal of talks between Jerusalem, Ramallah
"The settlements will not be an obstacle to peace with the Palestinians." That is the message Defense Minister Ehud Barak will be carrying with him on his upcoming trip to meet with special US envoy George Mitchell....
...Six cabinet ministers will meet on Monday morning to discuss the US and European demands to freeze the settlements, just a few short hours before Barak heads to meet Mitchell. The six ministers – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Minister Benny Begin, Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya'alon, and Intelligence Minister Dan Meridor – will meet in Netanyahu's office.
The government is leaning towards saying any move to freeze construction can only be part of renewed dialogue with the Palestinians.
...Barak will also emphasize other gestures Israel has recently made to show its intentions are serious, such as the removal of 140 roadblocks and the opening of numerous checkpoints from peripheral villages to main roadways in the West Bank – making it possible to drive from Jenin to Ramallah in an hour and half, and without passing through any obstructions. The US administration has already voiced its appreciation of the measures.
Barak will also discuss the transfer of security oversight to the Palestinian Authority in four West Bank cities – Ramallah, Jenin, Qalqiliya, and Jericho, and improvements to water and road infrastructure.
The world according to Fayad
From THE JERUSALEM POST, Jun. 28, 2009, by Barry Rubin:
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's big policy speech received global attention. Not so that of his Palestinian Authority counterpart, Salaam Fayad, whose June 22 presentation deserves careful analysis.
...HIS FIRST problem is that Hamas controls the Gaza Strip and seeks the PA's overthrow in the West Bank. Most Fatah and PA leaders prefer peace with Hamas rather than Israel. ...to keep the door open for such conciliation, the PA can't come closer to making a deal with Israel.
...Fayad says Palestinians must avoid "politicizing" the Gaza issue that would enable sanctions to continue against the Hamas regime there. ...By fighting any isolation or sanctions on Hamas, the PA ensures that Hamas tightens its hold on the Gaza Strip ...[and]ensures its Islamist rival appears the more effective fighter.
Second, while not directly endorsing terrorism and violence - in contrast to most of his colleagues and the PA's own institutions - Fayad argues that Israel holding any Palestinian prisoners in jail is "a violation of international law." In other words, if a Palestinian attacks or murders Israelis, Israel has no right to imprison him. What option does it have? Only to set them free to try again. Here, too, Fayad supports and glorifies cost-free terrorism.
Third, Fayad argues that it's not the PA's job to convince Israel by its good behavior or to negotiate bilaterally on the basis of mutual concessions and compromises. Instead, as other PA leaders have openly stated recently, the PA's strategy is to get the world to pressure Israel to give it everything it wants.
While presenting his speech partly as a response to Netanyahu, Fayad confronts none of his points, merely dismissing his position as vague, which it certainly wasn't. (Ironically, in contrast to most Western observers, Fayad acknowledges that Netanyahu endorsed a two-state solution six years ago.)
It's Fayad who is vague - Netanyahu gives a list of specific conditions; Fayad does nothing of the kind. In fact, he does something peculiar. According to him, Netanyahu is presenting an "Israeli narrative" about the conflict, while Palestinians say they have their own "narrative" - one which Fayad says he won't talk about. Why is he vague and not presenting his own case? Because he cannot do so. The narrative as laid out by Netanyahu is clear: Jews want and merit a state; the conflict is due to an Arab refusal to accept that state's existence. This does not prevent a two-state solution, one state for each people.
The Palestinian narrative, to this day, is that Jews have no such right to a state and that all the land is rightly Palestinian, Arab and (for the most part) Muslim. This narrative does prevent a two-state solution. That is what Fayad cannot admit.
...Fayad ...views Israel as the weaker side in relation to the West and thinks those other countries will force it to make concessions without limit.
By feeding the PA's false belief that the West will pressure Israel into giving it a state in the borders it wants, without concessions, restrictions or even implementation of past promises, the US and European governments are doing a very effective job in sabotaging any possibility for peace.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's big policy speech received global attention. Not so that of his Palestinian Authority counterpart, Salaam Fayad, whose June 22 presentation deserves careful analysis.
...HIS FIRST problem is that Hamas controls the Gaza Strip and seeks the PA's overthrow in the West Bank. Most Fatah and PA leaders prefer peace with Hamas rather than Israel. ...to keep the door open for such conciliation, the PA can't come closer to making a deal with Israel.
...Fayad says Palestinians must avoid "politicizing" the Gaza issue that would enable sanctions to continue against the Hamas regime there. ...By fighting any isolation or sanctions on Hamas, the PA ensures that Hamas tightens its hold on the Gaza Strip ...[and]ensures its Islamist rival appears the more effective fighter.
Second, while not directly endorsing terrorism and violence - in contrast to most of his colleagues and the PA's own institutions - Fayad argues that Israel holding any Palestinian prisoners in jail is "a violation of international law." In other words, if a Palestinian attacks or murders Israelis, Israel has no right to imprison him. What option does it have? Only to set them free to try again. Here, too, Fayad supports and glorifies cost-free terrorism.
Third, Fayad argues that it's not the PA's job to convince Israel by its good behavior or to negotiate bilaterally on the basis of mutual concessions and compromises. Instead, as other PA leaders have openly stated recently, the PA's strategy is to get the world to pressure Israel to give it everything it wants.
While presenting his speech partly as a response to Netanyahu, Fayad confronts none of his points, merely dismissing his position as vague, which it certainly wasn't. (Ironically, in contrast to most Western observers, Fayad acknowledges that Netanyahu endorsed a two-state solution six years ago.)
It's Fayad who is vague - Netanyahu gives a list of specific conditions; Fayad does nothing of the kind. In fact, he does something peculiar. According to him, Netanyahu is presenting an "Israeli narrative" about the conflict, while Palestinians say they have their own "narrative" - one which Fayad says he won't talk about. Why is he vague and not presenting his own case? Because he cannot do so. The narrative as laid out by Netanyahu is clear: Jews want and merit a state; the conflict is due to an Arab refusal to accept that state's existence. This does not prevent a two-state solution, one state for each people.
The Palestinian narrative, to this day, is that Jews have no such right to a state and that all the land is rightly Palestinian, Arab and (for the most part) Muslim. This narrative does prevent a two-state solution. That is what Fayad cannot admit.
...Fayad ...views Israel as the weaker side in relation to the West and thinks those other countries will force it to make concessions without limit.
By feeding the PA's false belief that the West will pressure Israel into giving it a state in the borders it wants, without concessions, restrictions or even implementation of past promises, the US and European governments are doing a very effective job in sabotaging any possibility for peace.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)