Love of the Land: Correcting President Obama: 242 does not set the size of the land mass under Arab control (Update)

Correcting President Obama: 242 does not set the size of the land mass under Arab control (Update)

Dr. Aaron Lerner
IMRA
22 May 2011

Speaking at the AIPAC Conference in Washington President Obama argued that by mentioning land swaps, President Obama did not actually call for Israel to withdraw to the indefensible '67 lines since Israel can trade [off huge chunks of the Negev] to avoid the '67 line.

But that's not really the point.

The point is that President Obama handed the Palestinians a tremendous concession by embracing the Palestinian assertion that it somehow has the implicit right to every square millimeter beyond the Green Line and thus must be compensated on a 1:1 basis for any adjustment to the line so that the final land mass under its control remains the same.

This was not - repeat not - the meaning of UNSC 242.

And the record on this is absolutely clear.

The framers of 242 were well aware that secure borders for Israel would be achieved by Israel retaining territory beyond the '67 lines - and this without any requirement of some quid pro quo in return to the Arabs to somehow compensate for the retention of said land.

[See below for references]

There is no reference in the series of Oslo documents, that serve as the basis and framework continuing from 242, to the concept that the size of the land mass to be ultimately under Palestinian control is not subject tonegotiation.

Again.

Let there be no confusion here.

Israel never asked President Obama to say that he endorses Israel swapping the Negev for parts of the West Bank.

Israel has instead every right to make it crystal clear that we completely reject attempts to change the rules of the game - in particular after we have made so very many extremely painful and expensive concessions based onpromises and commitments regarding the rules of the game.

Let's not forget that the tens of thousands of assault rifle armed Palestinians are deployed today in the West Bank along with many thousands of rockets in the Gaza Strip along with Israeli graveyards packed with "sacrifices for peace" because we decided to take a chance for peace and lifted Yasser Arafat from the dung heap of history - bringing him from his exile in Tunis. Israel's security situation at the time was nothing short of fantastic.

Each month the size of the "terrorist wanted list" got shorter as Israeli security forces captured or killed terrorists faster that the Arabs could produce new one.

Nothing on the Arab side compelled Israel to agree to Oslo.

President Obama argues that some previously democratically elected Israeli Governments engaged in negotiations that reflected the concept that any change from the '67 lines would be offset with transferring sovereign Israeli land to the Palestinians.

But that's not the point.

These negotiations were not concluded.

And in point of fact, the Israelis engaged in negotiations warned their Palestinian counterparts that if they failed to cut a deal with them before Israeli elections they ran the very real risk that the Israeli democratic process would erase whatever gains they may have made in talks not finalized.

Because while we cannot rescind a treaty we have already signed via the ballot box, we can most certainly revise our negotiating positions.

And that is just what we did.

So when President Obama tells Israelis that former PM Olmert embraced the positions he now wishes to dictate, we Israelis have a simple answer: Olmert's Kadima Party is not in power.

The Palestinians walked away from Olmert "negotiating stall" and thought he [or Livni who replaced him at the head of Kadima]would keep offering more. But instead the Israeli People spoke on Israeli election day and put a coalition headed by Binyamin Netanyahu in charge.

Israel has absolutely no obligation to promise the Palestinians that they will end up with a land mass equal in size to every square millimeter beyond the Green Line.

242, and in turn Oslo, never predetermined the size of the land mass under Palestinian control.

That, like everything else is a matter for negotiations - not American dictate.

======================================



Statements Clarifying the Meaning of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242
http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/peace%20process/guide%20to%20the%20peace%20process/statements%20clarifying%20the%20meaning%20of%20un%20security%20c


Even before the beginning of the Jarring Mission (the Special Representative as mentioned in the Resolution), the Arab States insisted that Security Council Resolution 242 called for a total withdrawal of Israeli forces from territories occupied in the Six-Day War. Israel held that the withdrawal phrase in the Resolution was not meant to refer to a total withdrawal. Following are statements including the interpretations of various delegations to Resolution 242:



A. United Kingdom


Lord Caradon, sponsor of the draft that was about to be adopted, stated, before the vote in the Security Council on Resolution 242:

"... the draft Resolution is a balanced whole. To add to it or to detract from it would destroy the balance and also destroy the wide measure of agreement we have achieved together. It must be considered as a whole as it stands. I suggest that we have reached the stage when most, if not all, of us want the draft Resolution, the whole draft Resolution and nothing but the draft Resolution." (S/PV 1382, p. 31, of 22.11.67)

Lord Caradon, interviewed on Kol Israel in February 1973:

Question: "This matter of the (definite) article which is there in French and is missing in English, is that really significant?"

Answer: "The purposes are perfectly clear, the principle is stated in the preamble, the necessity for withdrawal is stated in the operative section. And then the essential phrase which is not sufficiently recognized is that withdrawal should take place to secure and recognized boundaries, and these words were very carefully chosen: they have to be secure and they have to be recognized. They will not be secure unless they are recognized. And that is why one has to work for agreement. This is essential. I would defend absolutely what we did. It was not for us to lay down exactly where the border should be. I know the 1967 border very well. It is not a satisfactory border, it is where troops had to stop in 1947, just where they happened to be that night, that is not a permanent boundary... "

Mr. Michael Stewart, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, in reply to a question in Parliament, 17 November 1969:

Question: "What is the British interpretation of the wording of the 1967 Resolution? Does the Right Honourable Gentleman understand it to mean that the Israelis should withdraw from all territories taken in the late war?"

Mr. Stewart: "No, Sir. That is not the phrase used in the Resolution. The Resolution speaks of secure and recognized boundaries. These words must be read concurrently with the statement on withdrawal."

Mr. Michael Stewart, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, in a reply to a question in Parliament, 9 December 1969:

"As I have explained before, there is reference, in the vital United Nations Security Council Resolution, both to withdrawal from territories and to secure and recognized boundaries. As I have told the House previously, we believe that these two things should be read concurrently and that the omission of the word 'all' before the word 'territories' is deliberate."

Mr. George Brown, British Foreign Secretary in 1967, on 19 January 1970:

"I have been asked over and over again to clarify, modify or improve the wording, but I do not intend to do that. The phrasing of the Resolution was very carefully worked out, and it was a difficult and complicated exercise to get it accepted by the UN Security Council. "I formulated the Security Council Resolution. Before we submitted it to the Council, we showed it to Arab leaders. The proposal said 'Israel will withdraw from territories that were occupied', and not from 'the' territories, which means that Israel will not withdraw from all the territories." (The Jerusalem Post, 23.1.70)

B. United States of America

Mr. Arthur Goldberg, US representative, in the Security Council in the course of the discussions which preceded the adoption of Resolution 242:

"To seek withdrawal without secure and recognized boundaries ... would be just as fruitless as to seek secure and recognized boundaries without withdrawal. Historically, there have never been secure or recognized boundaries in the area. Neither the armistice lines of 1949 nor the cease-fire lines of 1967 have answered that description... such boundaries have yet to be agreed upon. An agreement on that point is an absolute essential to a just and lasting peace just as withdrawal is... " (S/PV. 1377, p. 37, of 15. 11.67)

President Lyndon Johnson, 10 September 1968:

"We are not the ones to say where other nations should draw lines between them that will assure each the greatest security. It is clear, however, that a return to the situation of 4 June 1967 will not bring peace. There must be secure and there must be recognized borders. Some such lines must be agreed to by the neighbours involved."

Mr. Joseph Sisco, Assistant Secretary of State, 12 July 1970 (NBC "Meet the Press"):

"That Resolution did not say 'withdrawal to the pre-June 5 lines'. The Resolution said that the parties must negotiate to achieve agreement on the so-called final secure and recognized borders. In other words, the question of the final borders is a matter of negotiations between the parties."

Eugene V. Rostow, Professor of Law and Public Affairs, Yale University, who, in 1967, was US Under-Secretary of State for Political Affairs:

a) "... Paragraph 1 (i) of the Resolution calls for the withdrawal of Israeli armed forces 'from territories occupied in the recent conflict', and not 'from the territories occupied in the recent conflict'. Repeated attempts to amend this sentence by inserting the word 'the' failed in the Security Council. It is, therefore, not legally possible to assert that the provision requires Israeli withdrawal from all the territories now occupied under the cease-fire resolutions to the Armistice Demarcation lines." (American Journal of International Law, Volume 64, September 1970, p. 69)

b) "The agreement required by paragraph 3. of the Resolution, the Security Council said, should establish 'secure and recognized boundaries' between Israel and its neighbours 'free from threats or acts of force', to replace the Armistice Demarcation lines established in 1949, and the cease-fire lines of June 1967. The Israeli armed forces should withdraw to such lines as part of a comprehensive agreement, settling all the issues mentioned in the Resolution, and in a condition of peace." (American Journal of International Law, Volume 64, September 1970, p. 68)

C. USSR

Mr. Vasily Kuznetsov said in discussions that preceded the adoption of Resolution 242:

"... Phrases such as 'secure and recognized boundaries'. What does that mean? What boundaries are these? Secure, recognized - by whom, for what? Who is going to judge how secure they are? Who must recognize them? ... There is certainly much leeway for different interpretations which retain for Israel the right to establish new boundaries and to withdraw its troops only as far as the lines which it judges convenient." (S/PV. 1373, p. 112, of 9.11.67)

D. Brazil

Mr. Geraldo de Carvalho Silos, Brazilian representative, speaking in the Security Council after the adoption of Resolution 242:

"We keep constantly in mind that a just and lasting peace in the Middle East has necessarily to be based on secure, permanent boundaries freely agreed upon and negotiated by the neighbouring States." (S/PV. 1382, p. 66, 22.11.67)

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Love of the Land: Correcting President Obama: 242 does not set the size of the land mass under Arab control (Update)

Love of the Land: Obama’s policy is different — and terrible for Israel

Obama’s policy is different — and terrible for Israel

Fresnozionism.org
20 May '11

http://fresnozionism.org/2011/05/obamas-policy-is-different-and-terrible-for-israel/



Yesterday I wrote about President Obama’s Israel-Palestine proposal. I tried to be fair, indicating what I thought were the good and bad points. I thought I was finished with it, but apparently not.

Overall, it represents a change in American policy that is a change for the worse. If implemented as described, it would be a disaster for Israel.

I should have known that the usual suspects would spin it as in fact pro-Israel. I am really, really sick of hearing those words.

Let me take a random example. David A. Harris of the National Jewish Democratic Council, in an article titled “Condemning the President” that was also sent by email to its members, said this:

It’s laughable to suggest that President Obama insisted Israel return to 1967 lines, or that he said anything different from the policies of Presidents Bush and Clinton before him.


- President George W. Bush similarly said that prior armistice lines should be used as a basis for talks almost six years ago today—while standing next to PA President Mahmoud Abbas.

Diplomatic statements are carefully calibrated, and what may seem to be small differences in wording can represent big changes in policy. Let’s look at exactly what Obama said,

The United States believes that negotiations should result in two states, with permanent Palestinian borders with Israel, Jordan, and Egypt, and permanent Israeli borders with Palestine. We believe the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states. The Palestinian people must have the right to govern themselves, and reach their full potential, in a sovereign and contiguous state.

And here is what it means:

1. Israel will not have a border with Jordan. Thus the idea that Israel will maintain control of the Jordan Valley, considered essential for strategic reasons, is ruled out.

2. The borders will be based on 1967 lines. The position of every American government until now has followed UNSC resolution 242, that borders will be negotiated between the parties (at Oslo, Israel agreed to negotiate with the Palestinians in place of Jordan). The “1967 lines” are the 1949 armistice lines, which neither Israel nor the Arabs have ever treated as anything other than accidental.

But by saying that negotiations will be based on the lines and the Palestinians will be compensated by ‘swaps’ — land from pre-1967 Israel — the President implies that Judea and Samaria belong to the Palestinians today, and that Israel must pay for any of it that they keep.

This is a far cry from resolution 242, which recognized that the 1949-1967 lines were not “secure and recognized boundaries” and that such boundaries need to be negotiated.

3. The state of Palestine is understood to include Judea, Samaria and Gaza (the issue of Jerusalem is left for later in Obama’s proposal). Demanding that it be “contiguous” is a demand that Israel be cut in half.

Previous proposals — which were never accepted — called for some form of ‘free passage’ between Gaza and Judea/Samaria. This is a much less stringent requirement than a demand for territorial contiguity (it could theoretically be met by a bus or railway line).

Now let’s look at what President Bush said, which Harris claims was ‘similar’:

Any final status agreement must be reached between the two parties, and changes to the 1949 Armistice Lines must be mutually agreed to. A viable two-state solution must ensure contiguity on the West Bank, and a state of scattered territories will not work. There must also be meaningful linkages between the West Bank and Gaza.

My analysis:

1. The final borders, which are understood to be different from the 1949 lines, must be mutually agreed upon. That’s exactly what resolution 242 said. There is no presumption that the territories to the east are Palestinian, as there is in Mr. Obama’s formulation.

2. The “West Bank” part of Palestine must be contiguous. There is no requirement that all of Palestine, including Gaza, has to be — only “meaningful linkages” are required. Israel need not be cut in two.

Yes, you can say the statements are ‘similar’. But there are very significant differences. Harris also listed a number of Obama’s feel-good remarks, which did not represent concrete commitments.

And that’s not all. Harris did not mention the most dangerous part of the proposal, which represents a huge shift in US policy.

Until now, it’s been understood that nothing is permanent until the main final-status issues are resolved. So while more than 95% of the Arab population of Judea and Samaria today is under Palestinian Authority control, it is not a sovereign state and will not be, under Oslo, until the status of Jerusalem, refugees, etc. are settled to the satisfaction of both parties. But here is the Obama proposal:

As for security, every state has the right to self-defense, and Israel must be able to defend itself -– by itself -– against any threat. Provisions must also be robust enough to prevent a resurgence of terrorism, to stop the infiltration of weapons, and to provide effective border security. The full and phased withdrawal of Israeli military forces should be coordinated with the assumption of Palestinian security responsibility in a sovereign, non-militarized state. And the duration of this transition period must be agreed, and the effectiveness of security arrangements must be demonstrated.


These principles provide a foundation for negotiations. Palestinians should know the territorial outlines of their state; Israelis should know that their basic security concerns will be met. I’m aware that these steps alone will not resolve the conflict, because two wrenching and emotional issues will remain: the future of Jerusalem, and the fate of Palestinian refugees. But moving forward now on the basis of territory and security provides a foundation to resolve those two issues in a way that is just and fair, and that respects the rights and aspirations of both Israelis and Palestinians.

This means that Israel will give up territory permanently to a sovereign Palestine before the issues of Jerusalem and refugees are agreed upon! This means that Israel will have zero leverage in subsequent negotiations over these issues, in which Palestine will of course push its maximal demands — demands which, if met, include the loss of the Jewish people’s holiest sites, and the resettlement of millions of ‘refugees’ in Israel and its conversion to an Arab-majority state.

And these claims against Israel will be pressed by a sovereign Palestine in international fora such as the UN, the International Court of Justice, etc. — exactly as Mahmoud Abbas has said would happen if he is successful in getting a unilateral declaration of Palestine via the UN in September!

There’s even more wrong with this proposal, if we look at what Obama did not say. He did not say that the US would live up to its promises in President Bush’s 2004 letter, in particular that the US would oppose resettlement of refugees in Israel. And here is what he said about the incorporation of the racist, genocidal Hamas in the future Palestinian government:

Recognizing that negotiations need to begin with the issues of territory and security does not mean that it will be easy to come back to the table. In particular, the recent announcement of an agreement between Fatah and Hamas raises profound and legitimate questions for Israel: How can one negotiate with a party that has shown itself unwilling to recognize your right to exist? And in the weeks and months to come, Palestinian leaders will have to provide a credible answer to that question.

Nice sentiments, but where is the statement that the US demands that Hamas agrees to recognize Israel, renounce violent ‘resistance’, etc. before it can take part in the Palestinian government?

In fact, the reference to “com[ing] back to the table” seems to imply that Palestine will receive sovereignty before the Palestinians will be required to provide an unspecified “answer” to the question of Hamas! This, too, represents a major change of US policy.

I’ve said that the Obama Administration is the worst one for Israel since its founding in 1948. Now I think I’ve proved that.

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Love of the Land: Obama’s policy is different — and terrible for Israel

Love of the Land: Horovitz: Obama’s failure to internalize Palestinian intolerance

Horovitz: Obama’s failure to internalize Palestinian intolerance

David Horovitz
Editor-in-Chief
JPost
20 May '11

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=221510

The president’s new parameters show him blind to the significance of the demand for a "right of return."

Last Sunday, the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Palestinian Arabs who had left Israel while the Arab world tried to murder our state at birth, attempted a symbolic “return,” with varying degrees of success, across the Syrian, Lebanese, Jordanian and Egyptian borders, and from the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

They were warmly praised in this effort by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, the ostensibly moderate successor to Yasser Arafat with whom Israel has been trying for almost eight years to make peace. Abbas -- who later in the week, in a New York Times op-ed, rewrote the history of Israel’s reestablishment to air-brush out the Arabs’ rejection of what would have been their independent state alongside ours -- movingly praised those who had died in Sunday’s “Nakba Day” assault on Israel’s borders (most of them killed by Lebanese Army forces) as the latest “martyrs” to the Palestinian cause.

Sunday’s Nakba onslaught against sovereign Israel, and its moving endorsement by Israel’s putative Palestinian partner, was the latest bleak demonstration of the Palestinians’ insistent refusal, for close to two-thirds of a century, to internalize the fact that the Jews have a historic claim to this sliver of land, and that their demands for statehood cannot be realized at the cost of ours.

Amid all the “differences” that Binyamin Netanyahu and Barack Obama on Friday acknowledged in their visions for the way forward to Israeli-Palestinian peace, it is the president’s evident incapacity to appreciate the uncompromising Palestinian refusal to countenance Israel’s legitimacy that is most damaging the vital American-Israeli relationship and most dooming his approach to peacemaking.



An indication of his failure to internalize that Israel, in any borders, is regarded as fundamentally illegitimate by much of the Palestinian leadership and public was evident in Obama’s 2009 Muslim world outreach speech in Cairo. He failed, before that most vital of audiences, to mention Israel’s historic tie to this land – the fact that this is the only place where the Jews have ever been sovereign, the only place where the Jews have ever sought sovereignty, a place we never willingly left and one to which we always prayed to return.

No Palestinian leader will advocate viable compromise with Israel until this sovereign Jewish connection is accepted, and yet the president opted not to utilize that extraordinary opportunity to emphasize our sovereign rights here, and thus to encourage the necessary compromise.

Two years on, the president all too obviously has not changed. There were positives for Israel in his Thursday speech on the Middle East – including the insistence that a Palestinian state be demilitarized, and the criticism of Palestinian moves to seek UN support for statehood without negotiating peace with Israel. These were outweighed by the negatives, however. And common to those negative formulations -- from a president who may well truly believe that he is being fair to Israel, and that we are hamstrung by a prime minister incapable of taking the decisions necessary to ensure Israel’s Jewish and democratic future – is the refusal to acknowledge Palestinian intolerance for Jewish sovereignty, and press urgently for the measures needed to reduce and eventually eliminate that intolerance.

It is immensely troubling for many Israelis to recognize that our most important strategic partner is now publicly advocating, before any significant sign of Palestinian compromise on final status issues has been detected, that we withdraw, more or less, to the pre-1967 lines – the so-called “Auschwitz borders” -- from which we were relentlessly attacked in our first two fragile decades of statehood. But only a president who ignores or underestimates Palestinian hostility to Israel could propose a formula for reviving negotiations in which he set out those parameters for high-risk territorial compromise without simultaneously making crystal clear that there will be no “right of return” for Palestinian refugees.

Obama is urging Israel – several of whose leaders have offered dramatic territorial concessions in the cause of peace, and proven their honest intentions by leaving southern Lebanon, Gaza and major West Bank cities, only to be rewarded with new bouts of violence – to give up its key disputed asset, the biblically resonant territory of Judea and Samaria, as stage one of a “peace” process. But he is not demanding that the Palestinians – whose leaders have consistently failed to embrace far-reaching peace offers, most notably Ehud Olmert’s 2008 offer of a withdrawal to adjusted ’67 lines and the dividing of Jerusalem – give up their key disputed asset, the unconscionable demand for a Jewish-state-destroying “right of return” for millions, until some vague subsequent stage, if at all. He merely suggests that the refugee issue, along with Jerusalem, be addressed later on.

Our prime minister and the president of the United States may not get on terribly well. They may mistrust each other. Each may well think that the other is unrealistic, naïve, arrogant or worse. But the common interest and values shared by our two countries ought to dwarf any such antipathies, and bilateral communications should be coherent enough for vital messages and concerns to be effectively conveyed and addressed.

Yet the president’s new formula for Israeli-Palestinian peace is so unworkable and so counter-productive as to indicate a complete breakdown in such communication. No international player, and certainly no Palestinian negotiator, is now going to defy the Obama framework and declare that the Israelis cannot possibly be required to sanction a dangerous pullback toward the ’67 lines unless or until the Palestinians formally relinquish the demand for a “right of return.” And so we can look ahead to another period of diplomatic deadlock, of an Israel appearing recalcitrant in not meeting the publicly stated expectations of its key ally, of the Palestinians garnering ever-greater international legitimacy even as they are freed of the requirement to acknowledge the legitimacy of Israel by withdrawing their demand to destroy it by weight of refugee numbers.

Some commentators are suggesting that, in his public remarks alongside Netanyahu at the White House on Friday, Obama was trying to show greater empathy for Israel, attempting to reduce some of the frictions caused by his Thursday speech. The president did move just a little on the matter of the Fatah-Hamas unity deal by invoking the Quartet principles in connection with Hamas’s viability as a partner.

For the most part, however, Obama returned to the parameters he had set out on Thursday, coming back to some of what he’d said using very similar wording, and declining to introduce elements that he had chosen not to include a day before.

Most gallingly, as on Thursday and now again at this most obvious of opportunities, he chose not to state clearly and firmly – as there can be no doubt predecessors like George W Bush and Bill Clinton would have done in such a context – that the Palestinian refugee problem will have to be solved independently of Israel. He did not make clear that just as Israel built a vibrant state absorbing the hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees from the Middle East and North Africa six decades ago, a new “Palestine” would finally have to resolve its assiduously perpetuated refugee crisis and abandon the dream of a “return.” The repeated omission will have delighted all of Israel’s uncompromising enemies. The dream lives on.

Netanyahu, of course, filled the breach. Netanyahu spoke about the impossibility of a “right of return.” “It’s not going to happen,” he said, as the president sat impassive alongside him. “Everybody knows it’s not going to happen. And I think it’s time to tell the Palestinians forthrightly it’s not going to happen.”

But Obama did no such thing. For the second day in succession the president, in the same week as the Nakba assault on Israel’s borders, when it came to this central demand by the Palestinians that simply cannot be accepted because it would spell the demographic demise of our state, was dismayingly, insistently, resonantly silent.

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Love of the Land: Horovitz: Obama’s failure to internalize Palestinian intolerance

Love of the Land: What Netanyahu Did Today (Friday)

What Netanyahu Did Today (Friday)

John Podhoretz
Commentary/Contentions
20 May '11

Has there ever been a moment like the one Benjamin Netanyahu had today following his meeting with President Obama? I can’t think of one. When has a president ever made a joint appearance with the leader of an ally in the wake of a controversial policy proposal, only to have that ally push back against him publicly? Netanyahu’s powerful—and surprisingly graceful, considering the context—remarks can be read in full here. The only moment that even remotely compares wasn’t a diplomatic one; it was when Elie Wiesel, during the dustup over Ronald Reagan’s visit to the Bitburg cemetary in West Germany in 1985, was given a Medal of Freedom and with beautiful understatement said to the president, “This place is not your place.” We got a glimpse of the Bibi that so electrified the world in the late 1980s and early 1990s when he was serving as Israel’s chief spokesman in the English language in this stunning passage:

We’ve been around for almost 4,000 years. We have experienced struggle and suffering like no other people. We’ve gone through expulsions and pogroms and massacres and the murder of millions.


But I can say that even at the dearth of — even at the nadir of the valley of death, we never lost hope and we never lost our dream of re-establishing a sovereign state in our ancient homeland, the land of Israel. And now it falls on my shoulders as the prime minister of Israel at a time of extraordinary instability and uncertainty in the Middle East to work with you to fashion a peace that will ensure Israel’s security and will not jeopardize its survival.


I take this responsibility with pride but with great humility, because, as I told you in our conversation, we don’t have a lot of margin for error and because, Mr. President, history will not give the Jewish people another chance.

It was very nervy of Bibi, and certainly opens him up to the charge of being chutzpahdik with Israel’s greatest ally. But what exactly did he have to lose? He faces a hostile president, but one who governs a country overwhelmingly supportive of Israel. Could things get worse with Obama than they were last year? And could things get better for Netanyahu if Obama finds he is paying a price for being at odds with the American people on one of the few foreign policy issues they care about?

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Love of the Land: What Netanyahu Did Today (Friday)

Love of the Land: But President Obama— There is No Such Thing as ‘Israel’s Pre-1967 Borders’

But President Obama— There is No Such Thing as ‘Israel’s Pre-1967 Borders’

Jeff Dunetz
bigpeace.com
19 May '11




Today President Obama called for any Israeli/Palestinian peace agreement to be based on the pre-June 1967 borders:

So while the core issues of the conflict must be negotiated, the basis of those negotiations is clear: a viable Palestine, and a secure Israel. The United States believes that negotiations should result in two states, with permanent Palestinian borders with Israel, Jordan, and Egypt, and permanent Israeli borders with Palestine. The borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states. The Palestinian people must have the right to govern themselves, and reach their potential, in a sovereign and contiguous state.

Forgetting for a moment whether Obama was right or wrong for making that declaration, there is a serious problem with his statement…the pre-June 1967 borders do not exist!

What President Obama refuses to admit is that there is no such thing as pre-1967 borders. That “green line” running through the West Bank is the 1949 Armistice Line. The armistice line was created solely because that’s Israeli and Arab forces stopped fighting at the end of the War of Independence (with some added adjustments in certain sectors). It was if the whistle blew and everyone dropped their gear. That 1949 line, that people call 1967 border, is really only a military line.

But don’t believe me, believe the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan:

Article II of the 1949 Armistice Agreement with the Jordanians explicitly specified that the line that was designated did not compromise any future territorial claims of the two parties, since it had been “dictated by exclusively by military considerations.” Of course the Jordanian rationale for that clause is to allow them to claim territory inside the armistice line for their very own.

Even the “famous” UN Resolution 242 which was passed by the UN Security Council five months after the Six-Day War recognized that the 1949 Armistice line was not supposed to designate final Israeli borders.

(Read full 'But President Obama— There is No Such Thing as ‘Israel’s Pre-1967 Borders’")

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Love of the Land: But President Obama— There is No Such Thing as ‘Israel’s Pre-1967 Borders’

Love of the Land: Did Obama Think He Was Giving a Pro-Israel Speech?

Did Obama Think He Was Giving a Pro-Israel Speech?

John Podhoretz
Commentary/Contentions
19 May '11

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/05/19/did-obama-think-he-was-giving-a-pro-israel-speech/

I expect the president is going to be flabbergasted at the angry response to his speech today from friends of Israel. I think he thought he had given the most pro-Israel speech of his life.

Why? Because of this line: “Too many leaders in the region tried to direct their people’s grievances elsewhere. The West was blamed as the source of all ills, a half-century after the end of colonialism. Antagonism toward Israel became the only acceptable outlet for political expression.” This acknowledgment of the use of Israel as a two-minute-hate object for the Arab street by the region’s dictators was surprising and remarkable.

And this passage: “For the Palestinians, efforts to delegitimize Israel will end in failure. Symbolic actions to isolate Israel at the United Nations in September won’t create an independent state. Palestinian leaders will not achieve peace or prosperity if Hamas insists on a path of terror and rejection. And Palestinians will never realize their independence by denying the right of Israel to exist. As for Israel, our friendship is rooted deeply in a shared history and shared values. Our commitment to Israel’s security is unshakeable. And we will stand against attempts to single it out for criticism in international forums.” This is the promise of a veto at the UN in the future, which for him, is like promising to undergo a root canal.”

And this: “Now, ultimately, it is up to the Israelis and Palestinians to take action. No peace can be imposed upon them—not by the United States; not by anybody else.” By saying he would not “impose a peace” on them, he might have believed he was doing Israel a huge favor.

And this: “The recent announcement of an agreement between Fatah and Hamas raises profound and legitimate questions for Israel: How can one negotiate with a party that has shown itself unwilling to recognize your right to exist? And in the weeks and months to come, Palestinian leaders will have to provide a credible answer to that question.” Since he didn’t pose a comparable “question” for Israel, Obama might have thought he was being rhetorically generous.

Given what he probably truly believes of Israel in his heart, his acknowledgment of its utility as a scapegoat, its security concerns, its right to determine its own future, and the problems raised by the Fatah-Hamas agreement surely seemed like the height of generous good feeling. And you should expect that interpretation any minute now from his Jewish apologists.

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Love of the Land: Did Obama Think He Was Giving a Pro-Israel Speech?

Love of the Land: Obama’s Partition Plan: A Trap for Israel

Obama’s Partition Plan: A Trap for Israel

David M. Weinberg
A Citadel Defending Zion
20 May '11

http://davidmweinberg.com/2011/05/20/obamas-partition-plan-a-trap-for-israel/


Over the past twelve hours, most news outlets and commentators have focused on President Barack Obama’s partition plan: the 1949 (or “1967”) armistice lines for Israel and Palestine. This is of course a significant departure from US policy and great achievement for the Palestinians. (Read Robert Satloff’s analysis of this matter).

What may be worse than this, however, is Obama’s suggestion to immediately negotiate borders and security arrangements, and delay discussions on core issues such as Jerusalem and refugees.

This is a trap for Israel!

The very impatient Obama is demanding that the Palestinians “urgently” get a West Bank state without settling the conflict with Israel; a Palestinian state that will not be at peace with Israel.

According to Obama, first Israel withdraws – a “full and phased withdrawal of Israeli military forces” to allow for “a sovereign and contiguous Palestinian state” – then the Palestinians continue to struggle for Jerusalem and refugee return. This, of course, means continuation of the conflict and no real recognition of Israel’s right to exist. It will provide another opportunity for Palestinians to swarm the 1949/1967 lines and to ramp up BDS and lawfare efforts until Israel accepts suicide through refugee “return” or the division of Jerusalem.

This is not a recipe for Israeli-Palestinian peace.

Obama even left open the possibility that the US would support some sort of refugee return! Where was the standard US statement – previously quite clear — that Palestinian refugee rights would have to be satisfied in the context of a Palestinians state or though resettlement elsewhere in the Arab world? Why introduce doubt into what was previously a settled topic and thus allow the Palestinians to continue dreaming of drowning Israel with refugees?

Note also that Obama did not repeat the Quartet’s established stance on Hamas: that it cannot be a partner for peace unless it recognizes Israel, accepts past agreements, and forswears terror. Instead, he mumbled something about how the Fatah reconciliation with Hamas “raises profound and legitimate questions for Israel.”

Apparently the “questions raised” – what a weak formulation for referencing the genocidal Hamas platform regarding Israel! – don’t bother Obama all that much, since he just commanded Israel to facilitate a 1967-borders-state for the Palestinians including Hamas – without an end-of-conflict situation for Israel.

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Love of the Land: Obama’s Partition Plan: A Trap for Israel

Love of the Land: The President’s solution for an Israel-Palestinian agreement is a non-starter

The President’s solution for an Israel-Palestinian agreement is a non-starter

Fresnozionism.org
19 May '11

http://fresnozionism.org/2011/05/the-presidents-solution-for-an-israel-palestinian-agreement-is-a-non-starter/

President Obama made his much-awaited speech on the Middle East this morning (the full transcript is here). I’ll comment a bit on the part relating to Israel.

1. Although Obama told us what he wanted to see happen — a negotiated settlement between Israel and the Palestinians, he did not say what, if anything the US would do to bring that about.

2. He implied (but did not say directly) that the US would not support a unilateral declaration of ‘Palestine’ in September.

A UN General Assembly resolution can still be passed and other nations can still recognize the state, but I assume the US would veto a Security Council resolution.

3. He referred to Israel as a “Jewish state” and the “homeland of the Jewish people.”

The Palestinians have loudly and often said that this is unacceptable to them. Will agreement be a requirement for negotiations to proceed to the border-drawing stage? The President mentioned the Fatah/Hamas agreement as a problem to which the Palestinians will have to “provide an answer”. Will this issue, too, need to be settled to Israel’s satisfaction before implementing changes on the ground?

4. He called for borders based on the “1967 lines” with agreed-on swaps.

I see this as a retreat from the principle of UNSC resolution 242, which calls simply for “secure and recognized boundaries,” even though Obama used this phrase. The “1967 lines” are in fact the 1949 armistice lines, which nobody — not Israel and not the Arab states — accepted as ‘borders’. They are where the armies happened to be at the end of the war of independence.

You could even call them the ‘lines of ethnic cleansing’, because Jews living beyond them, in eastern Jerusalem and Judea/Samaria, were expelled at gunpoint by the Jordanians in 1948. There is no reason to grant them special status, and no reason that the Palestinian Arabs should be ‘compensated’ with swaps for territory beyond them that becomes part of Israel.

5. He called for a “contiguous” state of Palestine.

What this means is that Israel will be cut in half, rendered non-contiguous. Why is this demand considered legitimate?

6. He proposed a ‘borders/security first’ model.

The first step will be “withdrawal of Israeli forces” from the area that will become ‘Palestine’, which will then become a “sovereign non-militarized state” but which will nevertheless take “security responsibility” for its territory. It has historically proven extremely difficult to enforce demilitarization, even of non-state entities — consider the rearmament of Hizballah in Lebanon under the noses of UN forces. Will the US-trained Palestinian ‘security forces’ become an army? What will keep the sovereign state of Palestine from augmenting them? Will Hamas keep its rockets?

At this point, “Palestinians should know the territorial outlines of their state; Israelis should know that their basic security concerns will be met,” said Mr. Obama. The difficult issues of Jerusalem and refugees will be left for later.

To put not too fine a point on it, Israel is being asked, or told, to surrender an area equal to the area occupied by Jordan in 1949 in return for some kind of security guarantee, without agreement on Jerusalem and refugees. If agreement cannot be reached on these issues, then Israel is left hanging.

But then why couldn’t the Palestinians press their claims for right of return, all of Eastern Jerusalem, etc. against Israel as a sovereign state, exactly as Mahmoud Abbas suggested that they would if a state were unilaterally declared in September? Indeed, it’s absolutely certain that they would.

7. The President left a great deal unsaid, particularly in regard to refugees.

In 2004, the US made a commitment to Israel that to the extent to which ‘refugees’ would be able to ‘return’, it would be to ‘Palestine’, not Israel. Since then there have been indications that the US does not intend to keep the promises it made in the 2004 letter, which was intended as an incentive for Israel to withdraw from Gaza. The fact that Obama did not rule out the resettlement of 4.5 million hostile Arabs in Israel is problematic, since the Arabs will certainly demand it.

Summary

The proposal that borders and security will be implemented before the rest of the issues means that this is is a non-starter, because it requires that Israel must relinquish control over land without agreements on Jerusalem and refugees, which implies that the conflict will continue forever.

It’s nice to know that President Obama believes that Israel is a Jewish state and the homeland of the Jewish people, but this has to be made a precondition of any agreement.

It is distressing that Obama did not explicitly agree to keep the commitments made in the 2004 letter. Israel will never agree to resettle millions of Arabs in Israel and become an Arab-majority state.

He does seem to understand that Israel is within its rights to refuse to negotiate with a PA that contains an unrepentant Hamas. Of course, we know that there cannot be any other kind of Hamas, so I presume that he expects to somehow redefine it as acceptable.

This proposal will clearly never be implemented and I think was included just in order to have something to say about the matter.

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Love of the Land: The President’s solution for an Israel-Palestinian agreement is a non-starter

Love of the Land: Rubin: The West’s Foreign Policy Theme—Like Me Before You Kill Me—Applied to Israel

Rubin: The West’s Foreign Policy Theme—Like Me Before You Kill Me—Applied to Israel

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
18 May '11

http://rubinreports.blogspot.com/2011/05/wests-foreign-policy-themelike-me.html

Recently, it was revealed that President Barack Obama had consulted Tom Friedman in formulating his Middle East policy. Here’s an example of where disastrous policy comes from.

Friedman writes:

“Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu of Israel is always wondering why his nation is losing support and what the world expects of a tiny country surrounded by implacable foes. I can’t speak for the world, but I can speak for myself. I have no idea whether Israel has a Palestinian or Syrian partner for a secure peace that Israel can live with. But I know this: With a more democratic and populist Arab world in Israel’s future, and with Israel facing the prospect of having a minority of Jews permanently ruling over a majority of Arabs — between Israel and the West Bank, which could lead to Israel being equated with apartheid South Africa all over the world — Israel needs to use every ounce of its creativity to explore ways to securely cede the West Bank to a Palestinian state.”

By the way, the picture of “a minority of Jews permanently ruling over a majority of Arabs” has not been accurate since 1994, that’s 17 years ago. The Palestinian Authority rules over the West Bank Arabs. Hamas, which has now merged with the Palestinian Authority, rules in the Gaza Strip. The only non-citizen Arabs that “Jews” are ruling over are those in east Jerusalem, according to an agreement that Israel made with the PLO.

So a big part of Israel's difficulty is that people like Friedman are perpetuating anti-Israel lies instead of attacking them.

In other words, if your enemies lie about you does that mean that you must take huge risks? There’s a clever bumper sticker that says: Never apologize. Your enemies don’t care and your friends don’t need it.

But leaving all of that aside, let’s start with Friedman’s opening sentence. I certainly don’t speak for Netanyahu and didn’t vote for him, but I really doubt he’s wondering why these things are happening. He knows the reasons, as do most Israelis, even those critical of his policy:

The greater international weight of the Arab world; oil money; well-intentioned but ill-placed sympathy for an apparent underdog; aspects of Islam rejecting ever accepting a Jewish state; Arab nationalist rejection of a Jewish state; a clever anti-Israel propaganda campaign; Western leftist sympathy for its enemies; the rejection of Zionism by some Jews; the honest belief that if you resolve the Israel-Palestinian conflict by Israeli concessions the whole world will be stable and terrorism will disappear; antisemitism; and more.

There’s no mystery here.

But there is a problem. If you equate that hostility to one cause and one cause only: Israel is “permanently ruling” over a majority of Arabs. That’s it. Solve that problem and everything else will fall into place.

Yet what if you know that giving up the West Bank will not solve every problem—a viewpoint almost never aired in the Western mass media and universities nowadays? Then Friedman’s concept and that of most Western policies immediately collapses.

Israel has conducted extensive experiments with this concept, experiments that have cost about the same number of Israeli lives as September 11 took American lives. Since the population of the United States is approximately 40 times that of Israel you can calculate the impact of those costs.

After all, Israel already acted “to securely cede” (the split infinitive is Friedman’s) the Sinai to Egypt, with the result that this peace treaty is about to be abrogated. It tried to “securely cede” the Gaza Strip to the Palestinian Authority, getting rockets and mortars and cross-border attacks in return. It also sought “to securely cede” southern Lebanon and got rockets and cross-border attacks. To see what would happen it acted “to securely cede” much of the West Bank to the Palestinian Authority and then received in return incitement to violence, terrorist attacks, and intransigence.

Might there be a pattern here?

Yes, it would be better to have a stable, two-state solution that ended the conflict and made Israel’s neighbors friendly. But here’s where the gap is between Israel and much of the Western political elites today:

We tried it and it didn’t work.

That is not a “right-wing” statement. It is an Israeli consensus statement. And even if Israel tries and tries again, this doesn’t mean that people don’t know that.

Now, there are people in the Middle East—millions of people—who openly make my point every day. These include the governments of Iran, Syria, Turkey, and the Gaza Strip, as well as probably Egypt’s next government and those running Lebanon. Islamists openly proclaim that no matter how much territory Israel cedes they won’t be satisfied until it has ceded everything and gone out of existence altogether.

What Friedman calls “a more democratic and populist Arab world” means a more radical and Islamist Arab world. In fact, the radicals will remain radicals (Syria, Iran) while the formerly moderate become more extremist (Egypt). Why, then, should Israel make dangerous concessions when these will be taken advantage of to attack it more effectively? Why give things to people who want to kill you no matter what you do?

But there’s one point that is so overwhelming in Friedman’s piece, so symptomatic of everything wrong with the Western vision of Israel, the Middle East, and even the entire world (and especially with the Obama Administration’s policy), that it should resound with everyone who reads that article:

Friedman is telling us that a good public relations’ image is more important than material security. Israel will survive an infinite number of nasty articles or sneering professors without great difficulty. It would not survive concessions that make Israel weak and vulnerable, more than ever at a time when—let’s face it—American and European guarantees are worthless.

Golda Meir already dealt with Friedman’s idea decades ago: Better a bad press than a good epitaph.

That’s a principle which North America and European countries should think about adopting as their motto.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal, and a featured columnist at PajamasMedia http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/ His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center is http://www.gloria-center.org. His PajamaMedia columns are mirrored and other articles available at http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com/.

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Love of the Land: Rubin: The West’s Foreign Policy Theme—Like Me Before You Kill Me—Applied to Israel

Love of the Land: Ettinger: No US pressure on Israel

Ettinger: No US pressure on Israel

Yoram Ettinger
Israel Opinion/Ynet
17 May '11



http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4069618,00.html

Op-ed: Despite Bin Laden success, Obama has no mandate to press Jewish State

President Obama intends to leverage the elimination of Bin Laden and intensify pressure on Israel. However, the ability of an American President to exert pressure in the international arena is a derivative of his domestic clout, especially when it comes to pressuring the Jewish State.

Most Americans consider the Jewish State not only an international issue, but also a domestic issue, related to the Judeo-Christian foundations of the US, enjoying an inherent bi-partisan high-level public and congressional support.

On May 20, 2011, Prime Minister Netanyahu will meet with President Obama, whose frail popularity constitutes a burden upon Democratic incumbents and candidates as we approach the November 2012 election. The president struggles to gain public support for his legislative agenda and for his reelection campaign, in spite of the overwhelming support of his authorization to eliminate Bin Laden (80%).

On May 20, Netanyahu will meet a president who seeks enhanced cooperation with Congress, lest he become a lame-duck president failing to be reelected in 2012. However, most legislators oppose pressure on the Jewish State, whose solid support is a rare bipartisan common denominator during an era of heated polarization on Capitol Hill.

Obama will try to pressure Netanyahu, but will not sacrifice his key goal – a second term – on the altar of the Palestinian issue. Obama is familiar with Tip O'Neal's assertion that "All politics is local." He has learned from his predecessors that external success usually does not rid presidents of domestic woes.

For instance, Bush 41st surged from 39% to 85% popularity following the 1991 Gulf War. Bush also benefitted from the dismantling of the USSR and the fall of the Berlin Wall – significantly more dramatic developments than the elimination of Bin Laden. Therefore, major Democratic candidates were deterred from challenging Bush in November 1992, which paved the road for the relatively unknown Governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton.

Will Bibi leverage US public support?

In contrast to Bush, who was preoccupied with foreign and national security issues, Clinton adhered to the advice of James Carville and Paul Begala: "It's the economy, stupid!" As constituents turned their attention back to economic and health problems, Bush's Gulf War "bonus" gradually dissipated. On Election Day President Bush reverted to his real political popularity – 38% - and Clinton won.

Presidents Wilson and FDR were heroes of WW1and WW2 – dramatically more notable events than the slaying of Bin Laden – but they lost Democratic majorities in both congressional chambers in the 1918 and 1946 elections. Bush 43rd gained a 35% popularity bonus following 9/11 and the 2003 apprehension of Saddam Hussein, but he barely won in 2004 (51%:48%). His role in the economic meltdown triggered GOP election devastation in November 2008.

The killing of Bin Laden has accorded President Obama an extremely slim, soft and short-term bonus. The counter-terrorism global milestone is unrelated to the long-term issues haunting Obama at home: Unemployment, the price of gasoline, the deficit, the national debt, taxation, the mortgage and pension funds crises, declining housing values, the threat of inflation and recession, potential insolvency of states and municipalities, health reform, etc.

Ridding humanity of Bin Laden deserves much praise, but its impact on Obama's domestic clout is minimal, and it does not provide the president with a public or congressional mandate to pressure the Jewish State.

Will Prime Minister Netanyahu leverage public and Capitol Hill support and fend off pressure attempts by President Obama, who has been transformed from a coattail-president to an anchor-chained president? Will Netanyahu leverage the seismic developments in Arab lands – which have exposed the marginal role played by the Palestinian issue in shaping the Middle East agenda – and focus on the need to enhance strategic cooperation between the US and the Jewish State, in order to face the mounting threats in the Middle East?

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Love of the Land: Ettinger: No US pressure on Israel

Love of the Land: Glick: Obama's newest ambush

Glick: Obama's newest ambush

Caroline Glick
carolineglick.com
13 May '11

http://www.carolineglick.com/e/2011/05/obamas-newest-ambush.php

It is hard to believe, but it appears that in the wake of the Palestinian unity deal that brings Hamas, the genocidal, al-Qaida-aligned, local franchise of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, into a partnership with Fatah, US President Barack Obama has decided to open a new round of pressure on Israel to give away its land and national rights to the Palestinians. It is hard to believe that this is the case. But apparently it is.

On Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal reported that while Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is in Washington next week, and before the premier has a chance to give his scheduled address to a joint session of Congress, Obama will give a new speech to the Arab world. In that speech, Obama will praise the populist movements that have risen up against Arab tyrannies and embrace them as the model for the future. As for Israel, the report claimed that the Obama administration is still trying to decide whether the time is right to put the screws on Israel once more.

On the one hand, Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes told the Journal that Arab leaders are clamoring for a new US initiative to force Israel to make new concessions. Joining this supposed clamor are the administration-allied pro-Palestinian lobby J Street, and the administration-allied New York Times.

On the other hand, the Netanyahu government and Congress are calling for a US aid cutoff to the Palestinian Authority. With Hamas, a foreign terrorist organization, now partnering with Fatah in governing the PA, it is illegal for the US government to continue to have anything to do with the PA. Both the Netanyahu government and senior members of the House and Senate are arguing forcefully that there is no way for Israel to make peace with the Palestinians now, and that the US must abandon its efforts to force the sides to sign an agreement.

The Israeli and congressional arguments are certainly compelling. But the signals emanating from the White House and its allied media indicate that Obama is ready to plough forward in spite of them. With the new international security credibility he earned by overseeing the successful assassination of Osama bin Laden, Obama apparently believes that he can withstand congressional pressure and make the case for demanding that Israel surrender Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria to Hamas and its partners in Fatah.



THE SIGNALS that Obama is setting his sights on coercing Israel into agreeing to surrender its capital and heartland to Hamas and its partners in Fatah came in three forms this week. First, administration officials are trying to lower the bar that Hamas needs to pass in order to be considered a legitimate political force.

After Fatah and Hamas signed their first unity deal in March 2007, the US and its colleagues in the so-called Middle East Quartet - Russia, the EU and the UN - set three conditions that Hamas needed to meet to be accepted by them as legitimate. It needed to recognize Israel's right to exist, agree to respect existing agreements with Israel, and renounce terrorism.

These are not difficult conditions. Fatah is perceived as having met them even though it is still a terrorist organization and its leaders refuse to accept Israel's right to exist and refuse to abide by any of the major commitments they took upon themselves in precious agreements with Israel. Hamas could easily follow Fatah's lead.

But Hamas refuses. So, speaking to Washington Post columnist David Ignatius two weeks ago, administration officials lowered the bar.

They said Hamas had made major concessions to Fatah in their agreement because it agreed to accept provisions of the 2009 unity deal drafted by the Mubarak government that it rejected two year ago and because Hamas agreed that the unity government will be manned by "technocrats" rather than terrorists.

Even if these contentions are true, they are completely ridiculous. In point of fact, all the 2009 agreement says is that Hamas will refrain from demanding to join the US-trained and funded Fatah army in Judea and Samaria. As for the "technocratic" government, who does the Obama administration think will control these "technocrats"? And as to the truth of these contentions, in an interview last week with the New York Times, Hamas terror-master Khaled Mashal denied that he had agreed to the terms of the 2009 agreement.

Indeed, he said that Fatah agreed to add annexes to the agreement reflecting Hamas's positions.

The second pitch the administration and its friends have adopted ahead of Obama's address next week is that Hamas has become more moderate or may become more moderate.

Robert Malley, who in the past advised Obama's presidential campaign, made this argument last week in an op-ed in the Washington Post. Malley claimed that by joining the government, Hamas will be more moved by US pressure. A New York Times editorial last Saturday argued that Hamas may have moderated, and even if it hasn't, "Washington needs to press Mr. Netanyahu back to the peace table."

Adding their voices to the din, Middle Eastern leaders like Amr Moussa, the frontrunner to serve as Egypt's next president, and Turkish Prime Minister Recip Erdogan, have given interviews to the US media this week in which they denied that Hamas is even a terrorist organization.

Here it is important to note that none of the administration's statements about the Hamas- Fatah deal and none of the media coverage related to it have included any mention of the fact that Hamas deliberately murders entire families and targets children specifically. No one mentions last month's Hamas guided rocket attack which deliberately targeted an Israeli school bus. Hamas murdered 16-year-old Daniel Viflic in that attack. No one has mentioned the café massacres, the bus bombings, the university campus massacres, the breaking into homes massacres, the Passover Seder massacres Hamas has carried out and bragged about in recent years. No one has mentioned that when seen as a portion of the population, Hamas has killed far more Israelis than al-Qaida has killed Americans.

The final pitch the administration and its surrogates are making is that the deal needs to be seen as part of the overall regional shift towards popular rule. This pitch too is difficult to make.

After all, the first casualty of the Arab world's shift towards popular rule is the 30-year-old Camp David peace treaty between Israel and Egypt. Now that Egypt's citizens have gotten rid of US-ally Hosni Mubarak, they have committed themselves to getting rid of the peace he upheld with Israel throughout his long reign.

Again, despite the difficulties, the Obama administration is clearly willing to make the case. Regarding Egypt, they argue that the Muslim Brotherhood's rise to power is a good. This was the point of Obama's Passover and Israel Independence Day messages.

As for the regional shift, the fact that Obama reportedly intends to place the so-called Palestinian- Israeli peace process into the regional context signals that he sees potential for an agreement between Israel and Syria as well. His advisers telegraphed this view to Ignatius.

Obama's advisers made the unlikely argument that if Syrian leader Bashar Assad survives the popular demonstrations calling for his overthrow, he will feel compelled to distance his regime from Iran because his Sunni-majority population has been critical of his alliance with the Shi'ite mullocracy.

This argument is unlikely given that the same officials recognize that if Assad survives, he will owe his regime's survival to Iran. As they reminded Ignatius, US intelligence officials reported last month that Iran has "secretly supplied Assad with tear gas, anti-riot gear and other tools of suppression."

WHAT IS perhaps most remarkable about Obama's apparent plan to use the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt as an excuse for a new round of diplomatic warfare against Israel is how poorly coordinated his steps have been with the PLO-Fatah. Mahmoud Abbas and his predecessor Yasser Arafat always viewed the US obsession with getting the Arabs and Israel to sign peace treaties as a strategic asset. Anytime they wanted to weaken Israel, they just needed to sound the fake peace drum loudly enough to get the White House's attention. US presidents looking for the opportunity to "make history" were always ready to take their bait.

Unlike his predecessors, Obama's interest in the Palestinians is not opportunistic. He is a true believer. And because of his deep-seated commitment to the Palestinians, his policies are even more radically anti-Israel than the PLO-Fatah's. It was Obama, not Abbas, who demanded that Jews be barred from building anything in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. It is the Obama administration, not the PLO-Fatah, that is leading the charge to embrace the Muslim Brotherhood.

Like his belated move to demand a permanent abrogation of Jewish property rights in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, Abbas arguably embraced Hamas because Obama left him no choice. He has no interest in making peace with Israel, so the only thing he can do under the circumstances Obama has created is embrace Hamas. He can't be less pro-Islamic than the US president.

ALL OF this brings us to Netanyahu and his trip to Washington next week. Obviously Obama's decision to upstage the premier with his new outreach-to-the-Arab-world speech will make Netanyahu's visit more challenging than it was already going to be.

Obama is clearly betting that by moving first, he will be able to coerce Netanyahu to make still more concessions of land and principles.

Certainly, Netanyahu's earlier decisions to cave in to Obama's pressure with his acceptance of Palestinian statehood and his subsequent acceptance of a Jewish building freeze give Obama good reason to believe he can back Netanyahu into a corner. Defense Minister Ehud Barak's hysterical warnings about a diplomatic "tsunami" at the UN in September if Israel fails to capitulate to Obama today no doubt add to Obama's sense that he can expect Netanyahu to dance to his drums, no matter how hostile the beat.

But Netanyahu doesn't have to give in. He can stick to his guns and defend the country. He can continue on the correct path he has forged of repeating the truth about Hamas. He can warn about the growing threat of Egypt. He can describe the Iranian-supported butchery Assad is carrying out against his own people and note that a regime that murders its own will not make peace with the Jewish state. And he can point out the fact that as a capitalist, liberal democracy which protects the lives and property of its citizens, Israel is the only stable country in the region and the US's only reliable regional ally.

True, if Netanyahu does these things, he will not win himself any friends in the White House.

But he never had a chance of winning Obama and his advisers over anyway. He will empower Israel's allies in Congress, though. And more importantly, whether he is loved or hated in Washington, if Netanyahu does these things, he will be able to return home to Jerusalem with the sure knowledge that he earned his salary this month.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post


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Love of the Land: Glick: Obama's newest ambush