Love of the Land: [Hell froze over?] Text: Haaretz correspondents warn Obama its counterproductive to attack Netanyahu

[Hell froze over?] Text: Haaretz correspondents warn Obama its counterproductive to attack Netanyahu

Dr. Aaron Lerner
IMRA
17 March '10

[Dr. Aaron Lerner - IMRA They genuflect at the end of the column ("7. And as for you, Netanyahu? Do us all a favor and cancel the building in Ramat Shlomo.") but the rest of the article is absolutely incredible.]

U.S. anger over East Jerusalem row is excessive
Haaretz
By Avi Issacharoff and Amos Harel
17 March 2010


A few pointers for the Obama administration on the diplomatic crisis with Israel:

1. I don't support Netanyahu. I think his policies on settlements and building in east Jerusalem are wrong. I think he is stalling for time and I would genuinely like to see a comprehensive political settlement with the Palestinians. But America's response to the government's approval of 1,600 new housing units in Ramat Shlomo in northeast Jerusalem is excessive.

While it extends a hand to Iran, which continues in its effort to acquire a nuclear bomb; and reaches out to Syria as it arms Hezbollah with advanced weapons, it seems the Obama administration has made a conscious decision to aggravate a diplomatic crisis with the Netanyahu government.

True, Netanyahu may - unintentionally - have caused the crisis, which damaged U.S. Vice President Joe Biden. But now Obama's aides are refusing to relax their grip, hoping to force Israel into declaring a total freeze on building in east Jerusalem.

Washington ought to remember one thing, however: The majority of Israelis wholly oppose halting construction in east Jerusalem. They may be angry over the timing of the announcement - but most want building to continue.

So I am not at all sure that America's opposition to a democratic decision by Israel's citizens will damage Netanyahu's standing at home. In the final analysis, it will only push him further into the rightwing camp, by far the country's most powerful political force. The left and center would in any case never vote for him and the latest episode can only strengthen his image in the eyes of the right.

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Love of the Land: [Hell froze over?] Text: Haaretz correspondents warn Obama its counterproductive to attack Netanyahu

Love of the Land: Israel doesn't need to grovel for U.S. forgiveness

Israel doesn't need to grovel for U.S. forgiveness

Moshe Arens
Haaretz
16 March '10

So sorry! Very sorry! Very, very sorry! We apologize! This will never happen again! The prime minister, cabinet members and senior bureaucrats repeated this over and over again last week in an attempt to set right what seemed to them to have been a major blunder, one they thought had spoiled what should have been a dramatic goodwill visit by the vice president of the United States, Joe Biden. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu might have been humming "I'm just a soul whose intentions are good, Oh Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood," while he sat waiting for the arrival of Biden, who vented his anger over what he considered an insult by being deliberately late for dinner.

The government's critics in the media had a field day. According to them the decision by the Jerusalem District Planning and Building Committee to approve plans for putting up additional houses in the Ramat Shlomo neighborhood, just as Biden was arriving in the country, was ruining relations between the United States and Israel and causing irreparable damage to strategic cooperation between the two countries. Listening to them, one might have thought that if some years from now historians try to determine why the U.S. administration did not take any effective action to prevent the Iranians from acquiring nuclear weapons, they will find that the responsibility lay on the shoulders of a minor Israeli civil servant who set the agenda of a local planning committee for that fateful day.

Since it was well known in Washington that the Netanyahu government had not frozen building activity in Jerusalem, and that therefore not only construction there was continuing but also the routine planning activities that precede construction, the blame was now being put on the "timing." Presumably, if the planning committee had held its session a few days before Biden's arrival there would not have been a problem.

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Love of the Land: Israel doesn't need to grovel for U.S. forgiveness

Love of the Land: Time for some self-respect

Time for some self-respect

Fresnozionism.org
15 March '10

The US has ratcheted up the pressure on Israel after the initial flap about Jewish building in East Jerusalem. PM Netanyahu’s apologetic response did not defuse the crisis, showing that it is not about the ‘timing’ of Israel’s announcement, but rather represents a new turn in US policy.

Not only is it assumed that the Administration wants the Ramat Shlomo project canceled, but according to the Jerusalem Post today, the US is asking for further “confidence-building” concessions from Israel, like the release of more Palestinian prisoners.

I suspect that the Palestinians understand Obama’s people better than Netanyahu does. Israel has implemented a settlement freeze in Judea and Samaria (and taken harsh actions against violations), removed roadblocks and checkpoints, and said that it will talk to the Palestinians directly and without preconditions. The Palestinians, on the other hand, insist on preconditions even for indirect talks. And, importantly, they don’t budge.

Naturally the US approach is — since they can’t move the Palestinians — to try to move Israel. The issues on which Israel and the Palestinians are the farthest apart are refugees and Jerusalem; so perhaps the administration thinks that if it can break Israel on Jerusalem, the Palestinians will soften on refugees. Perhaps the Palestinians even led them to believe this.

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Love of the Land: Time for some self-respect

Love of the Land: There is a reason Israel doesn't roll over when Mahmoud Abbas bats his eyelashes

There is a reason Israel doesn't roll over when Mahmoud Abbas bats his eyelashes

Stephanie Gutmann
Telegraph.co.uk
11 March '10

Like many of my friends in Israel I am still scratching my head over the announcement by Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai that he will grant construction permits in contested East Jerusalem — just as Vice President Biden swanned into town to play Big White Peace Broker between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

The announcement seems to have temporarily sabotaged talks that Biden was eager to set up… now, chop-chop (Air Force Two is idling on the runway for goodness sake!) and he has reacted in his characteristic over-the-top way, by saying that the lack of an agreement over Palestine, is “endangering US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Oh please. Like what’s really irking the Taliban and Al-Qaeda is the placement of borders over in Palestine. If there was a “final status agreement” everybody would settle down and take up crocheting. The VP’s comment reveals some profound confusion about how the region works.

Almost everyone — Israeli and Palestinian alike — admits in private that with Hamas busy stock-piling Iranian weapons and tightening its law enforcement and Sharia noose on the citizens of the Gaza Strip, there was little chance either side’s leader, Mahmoud Abbas or Bibi Netanyahu, would commit to terms that change the status quo significantly. Both, in their own way, are quite preoccupied with very large existential threats. Whether a border is moved a few miles to the east or west seems quite trivial. A permanent status agreement is merely a trophy the Obama-ites would like to hang on their wall. Both leaders, to a certain extent, will help their friends in the US keep the office walls looking perky, even though those ever-waffling American friends are increasingly less useful to either side.

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Love of the Land: There is a reason Israel doesn't roll over when Mahmoud Abbas bats his eyelashes