Love of the Land: Farcical Proximity Talks#links#links#links

Farcical Proximity Talks

Jennifer Rubin
Contentions/Commentary
10 May '10

The “peace process” is underway, George Mitchell boasts. But the first “achievement” reveals how inane the entire exercise is. This report explains that the State Department crows that “Israel had pledged not to build in the Ramat Shlomo neighborhood of East Jerusalem for two years.” But wait:

Sources close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded to the American announcement later Sunday, confirming that the housing project intended for the Ramat Shlomo neighborhood would not be built in the coming two years. The sources added that even when the Ramat Shlomo crisis first erupted, when the housing project was announced just as U.S. Vice President Joe Biden was visiting Israel, Israel told the U.S. administration that the project was only in very initial stages and construction would not begin for at least two years.

So what was the cause of an international incident is now touted as a success. That’s the Orwellian world of peace talks. And the PA’s contribution? They promise not to incite violence. Hmm. Will they rename Dalal Mughrabi square after someone who did not slaughter 38 Israeli civilians? Will we hear a call to end the days of rage? For now, each party pretends something is happening. Meanwhile, the “achievements” remain ephemeral, their only purpose being to secure further employment for George Mitchell.

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Love of the Land: Farcical Proximity Talks

Love of the Land: The Attack on Netanyahu

The Attack on Netanyahu

Leo Rennert
American Thinker
15 March '10

In orchestrating fierce attacks by Vice President Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton against Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Obama allowed his long-held anti-Likud animosity to blind him to basic political and diplomatic realities about the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. As if Mideast diplomacy doesn't face enough hurdles, Obama has made things worse.

Even before he became president, Obama, when asked whether he was a friend of Israel, responded with a qualified affirmative, emphasizing that one didn't have to be in lockstep with Likud orthodoxy to qualify as a supporter of the Jewish state. To Obama, Netanyahu's political party basically doesn't fit his idea of who should run Israel's government.

And judging by his directives to Clinton and Biden to go all-out in condemning Netanyahu over an announcement of a preliminary planning OK for 1,600 housing units in the Ramat Shlomo neighborhood of Jerusalem, Obama showed that he has carried his animus against Likud into the White House.

But in giving full vent to his anti-Likud sentiments, the president forgot to do his homework about past and current U.S. criteria for a two-state solution. Ramat Shlomo was simply the wrong target for creating a crisis with Netanyahu and Israel.

In getting all exercised about more housing in Ramat Shlomo, Obama forgot that his own Secretary of State praised Netanyahu not too long ago when he agreed under administration pressure to impose a ten-month moratorium on housing construction in West Bank settlements. Netanyahu's unilateral concession to entice the Palestinians to come to the negotiating table did not encompass East Jerusalem. Clinton nevertheless praised it as an "unprecedented" confidence-building measure.

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Love of the Land: The Attack on Netanyahu