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Originally Posted by willravel
My first thought is... finally the Dems created a viable clone and replaced the monkey. I believe his words were that the illegal settlements "ought to go". For a man who uses the word "strategery", these are strong words.
Color me confused, but grateful.
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I can't take any of this seriously. Bush and Olmert are politically irrelevant jokes, in their own countries.
It doesn't matter what Bush says or does related to the Israel/Palestine "problem" now, and that is why he is showing interest now, and why he destroyed the continuity in "the peace process" that existed on Jan. 20, 2001.
Quote:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...32&ft=1&f=1001
Bush Aims to Reignite Israel-Palestinian Peace Talks
(Because of intense interest in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, NPR makes available free transcripts of its coverage. View related web coverage or listen to the audio for this story)
All Things Considered: January 8, 2008
MICHELE NORRIS, host:
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Michele Norris.
ROBERT SIEGEL, host:
I'm Robert Siegel. And we are of course following the voting in New Hampshire today. Turnout is expected to be very high as voters choose Republican and Democratic presidential candidates.
We'll check in with one of our correspondents in Manchester in a few minutes. But first, the other major story we're following today.
NORRIS: President Bush is setting off on a weeklong trip to the Middle East which will include his first visit as president to Israel and the Palestinian territories. He'll try to reinvigorate the peace talks that got going again at the Annapolis summit back in November. Those talks quickly bogged down with new violence and disputes over the expansion of settlements in parts of Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank.
From Jerusalem, here's NPR's Eric Westervelt.
ERIC WESTERVELT: Whatever political momentum came out of the Annapolis peace conference stalled <h3>in large part over new construction in Har Homa in south Jerusalem.</h3> Here, big billboard ads picture a windmill, flowers, a woman in a colorful Dutch outfit, encouraging people to buy into the Dutch village with a view of the hills.
Another sign offers new Euro-view apartments. In fact, the view is of Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank. And what Israeli officials call expansion of a neighborhood of the united Jerusalem, the Palestinians call an illegal settlement. Har Homa is built on land Israel captured and annexed after the 1967 Mideast war, annexation the Palestinians and much of the international community view as illegal.
(Soundbite of drilling)
WESTERVELT: Construction in Har Homa today is booming. Just one week after the Annapolis conference restarted long-stalled peace talks, the Israeli Housing Ministry announced tenders to build more than 300 additional housing units here. The move enraged Palestinians.
Mr. SAEB EREKAT (Chief Palestinian Negotiator): They're poking me in the eye. They are (unintelligible) me in front of Palestinian people. If they think they can have settlements and peace, forget it.
WESTERVELT: That's Saeb Erekat, a senior Palestinian peace negotiator and adviser to President Mahmoud Abbas. Erekat and Palestinian leaders see the expansion of Har Homa as part of an Israeli effort to cut off formerly Arab East Jerusalem from the West Bank and undermine plans to make East Jerusalem the capital of a future Palestinian state.
In 1997, the start of construction of Jewish homes in Har Homa contributed to a violent collapse in peace talks. Erekat warns that ongoing construction in East Jerusalem and expansion of West Bank settlements could one again undermine negotiations.
Mr. EREKAT: Just the total pity politics was the reason of Israel. (Unintelligible) Har Homa, (unintelligible), remember they said no. We decided already, we have dictated on this Palestinians, so we are preempting the reasons for negotiations before they begin, and will determine the faith of Jerusalem by adding all these settlement blocks to us.
WESTERVELT: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert last week announced what many saw as a de facto order to halt all new construction. But Olmert did not block the plans to build the additional homes in Har Homa.
Construction of Jewish homes is hardly the only issue dragging down peace talks. Near-daily mortar and Qassam rocket fire from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel continues to prompt deadly Israeli operations into the territory now controlled by Hamas.
Last week, a longer-ranged 122 mm Katyusha rocket fired from Gaza hit north Ashkelon, injuring no one but deeply unnerving Israelis. The 10 miles the Katyusha traveled is the deepest Gaza rocket strike into Israel so far. And security problems continue to plague the West Bank - the only area the Abbas-led Palestinian Authority now controls after losing Gaza to Hamas. Two West Bank settlers were recently gunned down while on a hike near Hebron. The attackers, two Palestinian males, were employed by the Palestinian Authority.
Olmert spokesman Mark Regev says Israel cannot allow a security vacuum in the West Bank. It's in this context of mistrust, division and violence that President Bush arrives to try to get peace talks back on track.
Hebrew University political scientist Reuven Hazan says it's a tragedy the president waited until his final year in office to get directly involved in the peace process.
Dr. REUVEN HAZAN (Political Science, Hebrew University): A president has to decide that he really wants to deal with the conflict. But presidents who come here late in office, who have lost both houses of Congress - all these and American think too little too late.
WESTERVELT: Prime Minister Olmert and President Abbas met for two hours today in Jerusalem on the eve of President Bush's visit. A spokesman for Olmert said the two agreed to get the fledgling talks going again with, quote, "direct and ongoing negotiations on all the big core issues." The two leaders made a similar pledge more than six weeks ago in Annapolis.
Eric Westervelt, NPR News, Jerusalem.
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Quote:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/20/re...jerusalem.html
Many new and affordable residences are <h3>being built in the Jewish settlement of Har Homa, located between Jerusalem and Bethlehem.</h3>
By JESSICA STEINBERG
Published: December 20, 2006
<img src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2006/12/19/realestate/greathomes/20israel_span.jpg">
December 20, 2006
Seeking Affordability in Israel
By JESSICA STEINBERG
JERUSALEM — When Neta Gabbay got married two years ago, she assumed that she and her husband, Omer, would buy an apartment in Jerusalem, the city where she was born and raised.
But high property prices, partly a result of wealthy American, British and French Jews buying apartments as investments and for vacations in the holy city, have stalled the Gabbays and a lot of other young couples and families.
“The foreigners have money and they push up the prices in every neighborhood in which they buy,” said Motti Zelkovitch, managing director of Ambassador Israel, a local real estate agency. “The locals don’t have the same kind of money and they get pushed out to the peripheral communities.”
Home ownership is widespread in Israel, where some 70 percent of the country’s 5 million citizens own their own homes. But when the Gabbays began looking for a fairly standard three-bedroom apartment in the city, it quickly became clear that they could not afford the roughly $250,000 that such a place would cost.
They had been renting a two-bedroom apartment in Arnona, a middle- to upper-middle-class neighborhood in southern Jerusalem. Mrs. Gabbay, 31, who works for a nonprofit student organization, wanted to stay in or around the area. That was fine with her husband, 30, who is studying for a degree in animal husbandry. He had grown up in a rural community outside of Jerusalem.
But the American consulate is moving to Arnona from downtown Jerusalem, increasing demand — and prices — for apartments for the consular staff.
Eventually, the Gabbays paid $190,000 for a duplex apartment of 120 square meters, or 1,290 square feet, in Modi’in, a fairly new city of about 35,000 halfway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
“I have to get used to it,” Mrs. Gabbay said. “I’m really a Jerusalemite, I’m tied to the city. Even now, my dream is to buy an apartment in Arnona; that’s where I would return in a second.”
According to Stacey Ben-Menashe, who owns Revadim, an agency in Arnona, the Jerusalem market is moving because the country’s continual conflicts are not at a high pitch now.
“Any time there’s a quiet period, the market starts moving again,” Mr. Ben-Menashe said. “People who have money come in, buy land and put millions into a nice property. For them, coming to Israel to put a million dollars into a nice property compared to what that would buy abroad, it’s not a lot of money, and it’s not all the money that they have.”
Most wealthy buyers focus on the central Jerusalem neighborhoods of Talbieh, Rechavia and the German Colony and, more recently, in Baka, which is known for Arab-style stone buildings with arched windows and tiled floors. “Israel is a small country and there’s a limited number of properties,” Mr. Ben-Menashe said.
For many American and European Jews with strong ties to Israel, an apartment here, particularly in Jerusalem, is a tangible connection to the center of Judaism. Jeffrey Mark, an interior designer who works in New York, lives in Israel and has several clients who are setting up local apartments that they use for just a few weeks a year.
“Some say they might end up here one day,” Mr. Mark said of his clients. “It’s a long-term dream, but in the meantime, it’s very chic to have a million-dollar apartment in Israel.”
Paul Scheiber, a lawyer from Philadelphia, and his wife bought two apartments in Jerusalem, one in the northern neighborhood of French Hill, the other in Baka. They rent both places, one to graduate students, and the other to a local family.....
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Quote:
http://www.juancole.com/2004/10/susk...-suskinds.html
posted by Juan Cole @ 10/17/2004
...It turns out that the idea to let the Israeli-Palestinian issue just drift and fester, and to let Ariel Sharon commit crimes against humanity in Gaza and the West Bank, was also Bush's:
' at the Bush administration's first National Security Council meeting, Bush asked if anyone had ever met Ariel Sharon. Some were uncertain if it was a joke. It wasn't: Bush launched into a riff about briefly meeting Sharon two years before, how he wouldn't ''go by past reputations when it comes to Sharon. . . . I'm going to take him at face value,'' and how the United States should pull out of the Arab-Israeli conflict because ''I don't see much we can do over there at this point.'' Colin Powell, for one, seemed startled. This would reverse 30 years of policy -- since the Nixon administration -- of American engagement. Such a move would unleash Sharon, Powell countered, and tear the delicate fabric of the Mideast in ways that might be irreparable. Bush brushed aside Powell's concerns impatiently. ''Sometimes a show of force by one side can really clarify things." '
So I guess "things" have been "clarified" in the Mideast, after three years of shows of force on both sides. What is now clear is that there is not going to be a Palestinian state, and that the Israeli "democracy" now owns three million Palestinian plantation slaves indefinitely. It is to the point where a major Israeli newspaper <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20041019021515/http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/489479.html">runs a piece today</a> on how killing children is no longer a big deal for the Israeli military. This disastrous outcome, which harms Israel, devastates the Palestinians, and makes America hated, is in large part the result of a deliberate policy decision to disengage taken by George W. Bush....
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Quote:
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5j...18zEgD8U5548O0
Israeli Leader: Outposts Are 'Disgrace'
By ARON HELLER – 1 hour ago
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Sunday declared it a "disgrace" that dozens of unauthorized West Bank settlements were standing four years after Israel promised to dismantle them, following pointed criticism from President Bush.
In a meeting with political allies, Olmert used the harsh word "disgrace" to show his determination to implement his obligations under the "road map," the 2003 plan that serves as the basis for renewed peace negotiations, according to a participant who spoke on condition of anonymity because the meeting was closed.
The "road map" plan calls for Israel to halt settlement construction and take down unauthorized outposts built after March 2001, and for the Palestinians to dismantle violent groups.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Sunday negotiating teams would begin tackling the "core issues," including borders, Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees, at their meeting on Monday. Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev confirmed that teams would begin discussing those issues.
"If we reach an agreement on all these issues, then we can say that we have reached a final agreement," Abbas said in a speech in the West Bank city of Ramallah, adding that a peace treaty must resolve disputes over all the issues.
Israeli settlements are high on the Palestinian agenda. They consider all the settlements, not just the unauthorized outposts, to be illegal encroachment on their land.
In February 2006, just weeks after taking office, Olmert sent police to tear down nine unauthorized homes in the Amona outpost, sparking violent clashes with settlers. In the two years since, he has taken no serious action against outposts.
At a news conference last week in Jerusalem with Olmert, Bush said, "Look, I mean, we've been talking about it for four years. The agreement was, `Get rid of outposts, illegal outposts,' and they ought to go.'"
The Settlers Council issued a statement warning Olmert not to forcefully evict them again.
"In Amona, Olmert thought it was not right to solve the problem in negotiations and he led to an unnecessary conflict and rift in Israeli society. That way failed and brought severe consequences and the prime minister should not attempt it again," the statement read.
In his speech Sunday, Abbas said, "We told President Bush that we can't move ahead in negotiations while settlement activities are going on. We can't have negotiations while they are building houses all over."
Settlers started putting up outposts across the West Bank after Israel reached its initial peace accords with the Palestinians in the early 1990s, in an effort to break up territory the Palestinians want for a state. More than 100 were built without official authorization, but with the tacit or active cooperation of Israeli authorities, according to official reports.
About 400 Israelis live in outposts, according to the anti-settlement Peace Now movement, in addition to about 270,000 who live in more than 120 authorized settlements.
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said he hoped Olmert would follow through on the outposts.
"I really hope that Mr. Olmert will honor his commitment as far as a settlement freeze and dismantling of settlement outposts and other obligations because what we need now is deeds and not words," he said.
http://web.israelinsider.com/Article...tics/12569.htm
No balls, two strikes: Olmert admits impotence, calls outposts a "disgrace"
By Reuven Koret January 13, 2008
.......Under the US-backed "road map" peace plan of 2003, Israel promised to take down about two dozen of the outposts settlers erected across Judea and Samaria (the "West Bank") in an attempt to strengthen their hold on the land and prevent themselves from being expelled like the former residents of Gush Katif and other communities in Israeli Gaza. The outposts were built without official authorization, but with the winks and nods of Israeli authorities. Only Israeli leftists and Palestinian activists called them "illegal" -- until Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and then President Bush started ratcheting up the language condemnation.
At a news conference with Olmert in Jerusalem last week, Bush said that after four years of unfulfilled promises, it was time for Israel to take action. Olmert nodded but his right-wing coalition partners Israel Beitenu and Shas winked. If he tried taking on the settlers by destroying even a small community of caravans, both parties would leaves his coalition with their twenty-something mandates. Despite his blatant attempts at buying off religious ministers with money and despite Bush's blatant attempt to sway renegade ministers, the general feeling is that Olmert was likely to be gone from office before Israel succeeded in taking down even one outpost.
Separately, during Sunday's cabinet meeting, Olmert said Bush assured him that Gaza would have to be part of any future peace deal with the Palestinians. "He repeated the absolute commitment of the US that no agreement between us and the Palestinians can be implemented on the ground before the full implementation of the road map, both in Gaza and in the West Bank," Olmert said. What that is supposed to mean no one really knows. There is no chance of Abbas' "security forces" imposing law and order in the West Bank, let alone Hamas stopping terror in Gaza.
During his first-ever visit to the West Bank last week, Bush acknowledged that "Gaza is a tough situation. I don't know whether you can solve it in a year or not."
It was just another understatement and self-delusion in the continuing charade that is the new and improved "Annapolis Process." <h3>Everybody knows that the chances of Olmert being in power a year from now -- let alone eliminating outposts, clearing settlements, or signing a peace treaty -- are just slightly greater than those of George Bush.</h3>
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