Netanyahu defies Obama call for settlement freeze

[TruthSeeker]

Netanyahu defies Obama call for settlement freeze
Mon Jun 1, 2009 2:22pm EDT
By Jeffrey Heller and Adam Entous

JERUSALEM, June 1 (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, defying U.S. President Barack Obama's call for a settlement freeze, said on Monday Israel would continue to build in existing Jewish enclaves in occupied territory.

"Freezing life would not be reasonable," he told lawmakers.

But in an apparent gesture to Obama, who has sought to revive stalled peace talks and plans to address Muslims from Egypt on Thursday, Israeli officials said Netanyahu might ease Israel's crippling blockade of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

In a mark of passions mounting in the West Bank, Jewish settlers, enraged at troops' removal of a hilltop outpost, set fire to Palestinian fields and pelted motorists with rocks.

Netanyahu's pleas that settlement cannot be fully halted seem to be landing on stony ground in Washington under a new administration keen for Arab support. Diplomats say a range of possible measures are being reviewed by the United States and European Union to bring pressure to bear on their Israeli ally.

Talk of such sanctions prompted one senior Israeli official to complain: "The Netanyahu government is acting the same as its predecessors. The one who has changed policy is the American administration. The new administration is trying to get out of understandings achieved under the Bush administration."

Speaking to a parliamentary committee on Monday, Netanyahu called for "reason and logic" in dealing with settlements in the West Bank, territory Israel captured in a 1967 war.

Obama, in office for just over four months to Netanyahu's two, has called for a full settlement freeze, under a 2003 peace "road map". His secretary of state Hillary Clinton said last week that included halting building in existing settlements.

"You can't freeze life" in the settlements, an official quoted Netanyahu as saying, defending his view that existing settlements must expand to accommodate growing families.

The right-wing coalition government has said it will remove unauthorised "outposts", mostly small hilltop camps, that Israel itself has not approved. The World Court has deemed all settlements, large and small, illegal.

In the West Bank, settlers set fire to Palestinian fields and scuffled with Israeli security forces who removed three caravans at one outpost near Nablus on Monday. Half a million Jews live in settlement blocs built in the West Bank and Arab East Jerusalem -- areas where, with the Gaza Strip, Palestinians want to establish a state.


Netanyahu defies Obama call for settlement freeze | Reuters

We will see how much "guts" Obama has to stand up to the US-Israeli lobby over this. Some say it is a feint orchestrated by Rahm Emanuel to force Netanyahu to close the "illegal outposts" while then compromising on accepting the position of the barrier wall and accepting continued Israeli settlement building within the barrier. All part of an Israeli plan to make the barrier wall the permanent border. Time will tell.

 

[Patriot]

Sounds like Obama will loose in next elections.

 

[ajtr]

Netanyahu Agrees to Push for Freeze in Settlements​

By MARK LANDLER
Published: November 13, 2010


WASHINGTON — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has agreed to push his cabinet to freeze most construction on settlements in the West Bank for 90 days to break an impasse in peace negotiations with the Palestinians, an official briefed on talks between the United States and Israel said Saturday evening.

In return, the Obama administration has offered Israel a package of security incentives and fighter jets worth $3 billion that would be contingent on the signing of a peace agreement, the official said. The United States would also block any moves in the United Nations Security Council that would try to shape a final peace agreement.

The quid pro quo was hashed out by Mr. Netanyahu and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in seven and a half hours of talks in New York on Thursday.

The partial freeze would not include East Jerusalem, which the Palestinians view as the future capital of a Palestinian state and where recent Israeli building set off a firestorm of criticism.

It was unclear whether the prime minister could win approval for the United States deal from his cabinet, which has been reluctant to freeze settlement construction. It was also unclear if the leaks of the details of the agreement, which were widely reported in Israeli newspapers on Saturday, were designed to put pressure on Mr. Netanyahu.

He convened an unusual meeting of the inner council of his cabinet in Jerusalem on Saturday night, and he will meet with the full cabinet on Sunday, according to an Israeli official.

If approved, the agreement could surmount a stubborn hurdle to talks between Israel and the Palestinians, which began with much fanfare in Washington in early September but soon ran aground after Israel’s 10-month partial moratorium on settlement construction expired later that month.

It would also give President Obama a foreign policy victory after the Democrats’ midterm election losses and a tough few days for him in Asia, in which he failed to win support on trade and international economic issues.

The stalled Middle East peace process had loomed as another setback. The Palestinians have refused to return to the bargaining table unless Israel extends the moratorium. And Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton have failed to sway Mr. Netanyahu, despite repeated public and private entreaties.

Last week, Mr. Obama and Mr. Netanyahu again traded barbed words after the Israeli authorities announced plans to build new Jewish housing in a contested part of East Jerusalem, while the prime minister was visiting the United States and Mr. Obama was traveling in Indonesia.

This proposed 90-day freeze would be nonrenewable: the United States would not ask for further extensions, the official with knowledge of the deliberations said.

The freeze would apply not only to new construction, but to building that began after the 10-month moratorium expired in September, the official said. That is a particularly delicate stipulation, given the large number of houses that have begun being built since then. The ban would apply to residential building; public structures like schools and community centers would be unaffected.

The logic behind a 90-day extension is that the two sides would aim for a swift agreement on the borders of a Palestinian state. That would make the long dispute over settlements irrelevant since it would be clear which housing blocks fell into Israel and which fell into a Palestinian state.

The security incentives offered by the administration, though generous, do not appear to go far beyond the support the United States typically offers Israel. For example, the United States has not agreed to endorse a long-term Israeli security presence in the Jordan River Valley, the official said.

The American pledge to block initiatives in the Security Council appears aimed at heading off efforts by the Palestinian Authority to seek international support for a unilateral declaration of statehood — something it has considered in recent weeks as Israel has refused to reconsider a new building moratorium.

A spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in Washington, Jonathan Peled, declined to comment on the reports, as did Philip J. Crowley, the spokesman for the United States Department of State.