So much for Obama's "clout" with Israel

[TruthSeeker]

Begin: We'll continue building in Land of Israel

01.31.10, 15:30 / Israel News

Minister Benny Begin on Sunday took part in a cornerstone laying ceremony for a new neighborhood in the South Mount Hebron settlement of Beit Hagai. "We are building and will build in the Land of Israel," the minister said, adding that "there are 300,000 residents in Judea and Samaria and there will be tens of thousands more."

According to Begin, "The term 'settlement blocs' is used often. Sometimes people are wrong. There are settlement blocs – western ones in Samaria, from the east – in Judea, and in the south – on Mount Hebron. They are all settlement blocs. We don’t distinguish between them and other blocs.

"The State of Israel and the people of Israel have interests in Judea and Samaria and in Jerusalem, which are not only security-related, but based on an ancient affiliation."

The new Beit Hagai neighborhood is slated to include 10 housing units, and the foundations for its houses were laid even before the government decided to implement a 10-month construction freeze in the West Bank.

Rabbi Waldman addressed the construction freeze as well. "There's no such thing as 'don't build'. The Torah orders us to do so in the Land of Israel, as does Zionism and the loyalty to our homeland. They all call on us to create life, and that's what we're doing."

The rabbi said that "there are weaknesses as a result of pressures in the world aimed at narrowing our steps in the Land of Israel, reducing our settlement. We and the people will face these pressures. The people will strengthen the government in withstanding (the pressure)."

The Yesha Council head addressed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's tree planting in settlement in honor of the holiday of Tu B'Shvat, saying that "there are days of confusion and disorder. On the one hand, the prime minister plants a tree in Ariel and Gush Eztion, and on the other hand he is trying to tempt Abu Mazen (Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas) to enter negotiations.


"Now, more than ever, it is our duty to convey a clear message of full trust in the rightness of our way. We will not stop building in Judea and Samaria."

Begin: We'll continue building in Land of Israel - Israel News, Ynetnews

 

[TruthSeeker]

Obama's Middle Eastern adventure

By Gwynne Dyer , Tuesday, February 02, 2010


Barack Obama had worse failures to address in his State of the Union message but a few days before he owned up to the most foolish miscalculation his administration had made in its first year in power. In an interview with Joe Klein of Time magazine, he confessed that he had not understood the obstacles to an Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement.

"The Middle East peace process has not moved forward... For all our efforts at early engagement, (it) is not where I want it to be," Obama said. "If we had anticipated some of these political problems on both sides earlier, we might not have raised expectations as high."

But why didn't he anticipate them? Is there really nobody in Washington who could have told Obama the truth about the Middle East? Every non-American commentator who knows anything about the region has been saying for the past year that there is absolutely no chance of a breakthrough in the "peace process" at the present time. In fact, it is probably dead for a generation.

For example, Obama wanted Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to enter direct peace talks with the Israeli government, even though he knew that Abbas only ruled around 60 per cent of the Arab population of the occupied territories. The other 40pc in the Gaza Strip have for the past several years been under the control of the radical Islamist movement Hamas, which rejects a permanent peace settlement with Israel.

So what was Abbas going to do? Sign a treaty with Israel, and get the Israeli army to impose it on the Gaza Strip? He certainly hasn't the military forces to do it himself. And why would he sign a "separate peace" with Israel - and turn himself into an eternally reviled traitor to the Palestinian cause - just to serve Obama's agenda? No wonder he has been saying he wants to resign for the past year.

Similarly, why would even the most pro-peace Israeli government make a deal with Abbas, who cannot deliver the assent of all, or at least most, of the Palestinians? Yitzhak Rabin would not have signed a treaty with Abbas under current circumstances, because he would have understood that it could not last.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does not bear even a passing resemblance to the martyred Rabin, and the coalition he leads is not particularly "pro-peace." It depends on the hard right and the settler parties for its majority in the Knesset (parliament), and it is not going to sacrifice its vision of a greater Israel to the whim of some passing American president.

Only one US president, George Bush Sr, has defied Israel. His threat of sanctions brought the Israelis to the negotiating table after the Gulf War - but he is convinced that that is why he lost the 1992 elections.

Obama began by backing the Palestinian demand that Israel halt new settlement building in the occupied territories before the start of peace talks. After all, the peace talks would be about granting Palestinians sovereignty over those territories, among other things. For 40 years they have watched more and more of their land disappear under Israeli settlements.

Netanyahu simply said no. After six months had passed, he made a tiny concession. Israel would not start any new building projects in the more rural parts of the West Bank for 10 months, although it would continue work on all current projects to expand the settlements. It would not accept any limitations on its freedom to build new Jewish neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem.

But it gave Obama an excuse to switch his position and demand that Abbas drop his preconditions for entering peace talks as if Netanyahu had dropped his. Blame the Arabs for intransigence, and move on.

The question is: what deluded adviser told Obama that there was any point in embarking on this foredoomed enterprise? The answer is that it could be almost any of the recognised "experts" on the Middle East in Washington. They have been spouting nonsense for so long that it sounds like sense to them.

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