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Old 03-15-2010, 10:29 AM   #1 (permalink)
 
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the obama administration pressures israel to stop building settlements

Quote:
Israel claims Jerusalem settlement plan would not harm Palestinians

Netanyahu makes comments after ambassador to Washington says ties with US in 'crisis of historic proportions'



The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, stepped up the row over Jewish settlement plans in East Jerusalem today, saying they would not hurt the city's Palestinian residents.

Speaking to Israel's parliament, Netanyahu said the construction of homes for Jews in the city's eastern sector "in no way" hurts Palestinians. His comments came after an admission by the Israeli ambassador to Washington that Israel's relations with the US are at their worst for 35 years.

US officials are reported to have urged Israel to reconsider sudden plans to build 1,600 homes in the occupied area, after they were described by one of Barack Obama's closest aides as an "affront" to the US that could undermine peace efforts in the Middle East.

Earlier, Netanyahu apologised for announcing the plans during a visit last week to Israel by the US vice-president, Joe Biden. "I recommend not to get carried away and to calm down," he said yesterday.

But he refused to cancel the programme and his attempt to downplay the dispute was exposed today when Israel's ambassador to the US, Michael Oren, admitted that relations between the two countries had reached a historic crisis.

"Israel's ties with the United States are in their worst crisis since 1975 … a crisis of historic proportions," Oren was quoted as saying in the Israeli media.

Unnamed Israeli officials have told Associated Press that the US is pressing Israel to scrap the building project. Israel's foreign ministry has refused to comment on either report.

Senior figures in the Obama administration have been unusually forthright in expressing frustration at the plans. On Friday Hillary Clinton, the secretary of state, said the announcement was "insulting", and yesterday David Axelrod, one of the architects of Obama's election victory, said the timing was "very destructive".

Speaking on NBC's Meet the Press, he said: "This was an affront, it was an insult but most importantly it undermined this very fragile effort to bring peace to that region."

The announcement last Tuesday that thousands of new homes were planned in Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem came on the eve of Biden's arrival in the region for discussions to restart "proximity talks" between Israel and Palestinians, with the US mediating. Almost immediately, the news prompted Palestinian leaders to pull out of the new round of talks.

Israel has agreed to slow construction of settlements in the West Bank but has refused to halt building in East Jerusalem. Israel considers East Jerusalem, which it captured in the 1967 war, its sovereign territory and Netanyahu has spoken frequently in defence of settlements there.
Israel claims Jerusalem settlement plan would not harm Palestinians | World news | guardian.co.uk

in case you weren't following this, right about the time biden was saying that the us committment to israel, whatever that means, is "iron-clad" netanyahu, that rightwing disaster, announced this:

Israel approves more construction in West Bank settlement | World news | guardian.co.uk

in case you don't have a sense of the extent of israeli colonial occupation of the west bank, here is a map from 2009:

La Cisjordanie occupée

and two other maps (these from 2007) that show the israeli take-over of east jerusalem:

Comment Israël confisque Jérusalem-Est
Comment Israël confisque Jérusalem-Est (II)

it seems to me pretty obvious that the israeli settlement program and the american position up to now of looking the other way are **the** primary obstacles to any coherent peace, any possibility of an autonomous viable palestine, any possibility of an end to israeli occupation.

but i am wondering if netanyahu managed through a singular combination of arrogance or ignorance (where's the line? it's not always obvious) and cloddishness has managed to bring about a pretty abrupt change in the american relation to the israeli settlement program. in response to what the obama administration obviously sees as a deliberate attempt to embarass it, there is actual pressure coming from the united states on israel to not build more settlements, to stop.

this seems to me quite new.

how lasting a change in american policy toward israeli settlement programs do you see this as being?
what do you think of this shift?
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Old 03-15-2010, 10:48 AM   #2 (permalink)
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What Israel is doing in re: East Jerusalem settlements is underhanded and mean, I agree. However, there are a ton of other issues and acts being perpetrated by both sides that stifle the peace process. I think saying the settlements are the one big issue is buying into the media machine a bit too much. If the settlements were razed tomorrow, do you honestly think so much would change?
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Old 03-15-2010, 10:59 AM   #3 (permalink)
 
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on the map of the west bank ("cisjordanie occupée"), the orange represents israeli settlements. these are all more or less off-limits for palestinians. the grey triangles are outpost-type settlements started before 2001; the black triangles outpost-type settlements started since 2001. the yellow squares represent military checkpoints. it should be obvious from this alone that the settlement program is not some "media machine" fiction, but a real, grinding, brutalizing reality that if anything is radically down played in american domestic media.


you could map water supply points on. then things would be clearer still.

i have a meeting, so more later.
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Old 03-15-2010, 12:03 PM   #4 (permalink)
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During my visit to Jerusalem this past year I didn't notice the tension since I wasn't allowed to go to the contested areas. I did want to go, but that would have been dangerous in the company that I had. On the way to Masada, there was only 1 checkpoint going both directions but we were not in contested territory.

We were in a private vehicle, but all the buses carried rifled guards.

What does this mean? Well even though I was there and I didn't have media to influence me, I still couldn't get any idea as to how it was since it's the same as not having any idea as to what the reality of life going on in Brooklyn just a mile or two away.

thanks for the clarification of the map legend. I don't speak French.
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Old 03-15-2010, 12:14 PM   #5 (permalink)
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Aah. So Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden have seen fit to dare speak a word against Israel. They're outraged. They're disappointed. They're just all different kinds of pissed off. None of this however, will change the facts;

1: The US will continue to pour "aid" into Israel in amounts that could supplant the GDP of some small European countries. This "aid" will come not only in the form of billions of dollars of giveaways, but also in the form of billions more in "loans" that Congress will happily write off in next year's budget, just as they've been doing since before I was born.

2: Israel will continue to use aforesaid "aid" mostly to prop up it's economy (hard to sell tourism when things keep blowing up) and military, which leads us to....

3: A significant secondary form of "aid," ie All Our Best Toys, will -also- continue unabated. F-22? Probable check. F-35? Definite check. Radars? ELINT equipment? Crypto? Check, check, and check. And what's the second thing Israel usually does with all this Really Cool Shit (right after they use it to blow up two camels, one wellhead, an abandoned car and an apartment block, plus steal identites for Mossad and Shin Bet)? Sell it to China. That's right; one of Israel's biggest customers for Our Best Toys (which we keep giving them) is the single military power which may soon be in a position to challenge the US. Anybody wonder where the Chinese got the guidance systems for their new generation of carrier-killing ballistic and cruise missiles, rocket-propelled torpedoes, and bottom-rising rocket-propelled naval mines? It wasn't from the Russians, the Indians, or the Japanese, I promise you that. None of these facts stopped any of the previous four presidents, and I doubt they'll stop Mr. Obama.

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Old 03-15-2010, 12:18 PM   #6 (permalink)
 
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here's a little more translation of the map...sorry to use a french one, but it's the most recent i could find online...the most recent english-language map is from 2002. things have changed. at the bottom left, the map lists the principal mechanisms the israelis use to prevent palestinian movement around the west bank.

1) the settlements and the roads which are built or diverted to get to them all of which are completely forbidden to palestinians
2) 500-600 obstacles that cut up other roads--beyond the network of military checkpoints there roads are cut off with things like that puncture tires or with barricades. these are simply left in place, so the roads are impassable.
3) closed military zones
4) strictly controlled passes which are required to move south-to-north (or vice versa) across the west bank.

the only reason any of these controls exist is the settlements.

for example.

later: here's a larger-scale map from 2006 linked via wikipedia that's in english:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Westbankjan06.jpg

mostly for comparison's sake.

=======

one more addition:

here's a short web-piece that at least broaches the question of water access:

http://www.ifamericansknew.org/cur_sit/water.html

so the settlements are a big deal, but they're caught in other conflictual situations.
like water, who gets it, who does not.
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Old 03-15-2010, 01:56 PM   #7 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by evilmatt View Post
What Israel is doing in re: East Jerusalem settlements is underhanded and mean, I agree. However, there are a ton of other issues and acts being perpetrated by both sides that stifle the peace process. I think saying the settlements are the one big issue is buying into the media machine a bit too much. If the settlements were razed tomorrow, do you honestly think so much would change?
It would not solve the conflict by itself, no, but it would remove an intractable obstacle. Take a look at the maps that have been posted in the thread. Does the area emerging under eventual Palestinian control - shut off from Jerusalem to the west, and hemmed in by a string of settlements and military installations dotting the Jordan river valley to the East - look like a viable state to you? Keep the scale in mind here - the distance from Jerusalem to the dead sea is only something like 15 miles.

Settlements aren't a silver bullet, but it is hard to negotiate over the division of a pizza when your counterpart is busy eating it.

To address the OP: I don't think this is a lasting shift. If the administration had intended to explore new ground in this relationship, it would have done so in the first year. They have no desire to shake things up in this area. My guess is that Israel/Palestine will remain on the back-burner until a second Obama term. It is a shame - though I'm not at all certain that friendly pressure from the US would change the situation. The stakes for the two countries are wildly at variance. For a US administration, this is one among a huge host of concerns in the region. For the Israelis, it is absolutely central: they are busy drawing the borders of their future. To seriously alter the Israeli calculus would take a lot more than this administration - or any administration - is willing to do.

Last edited by hiredgun; 03-15-2010 at 02:05 PM..
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Old 03-15-2010, 02:54 PM   #8 (permalink)
 
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at the moment i'm not so sure what direction this will take over the longer run, mostly because it's pretty clear that netanyahu is a problem.
but the administration has argued that there has to be a change in us policy toward israel from the outset. my vague sense is that biden is to the right of hillary clinton on this.
it seems to me that the settlements are a fundamental issue, a fundamental problem. they are **the** central obstacle to a two-state arrangement; they are the cause of the more brutal aspects of the occupation; they are the trigger for violence both independently (that is on their own) and in response. the settlers are also a considerable force on the israeli right and ultra-right. and the demolition of existing settlements---which personally i think necessary and justifiable---will self-evidently not be simple thing.

curiously, the model for alot of this seems to be the occupation of native american land.

in principle, i see the settlements as the central problem.
in reality, i think the settlements are the central problem but it's obviously not going to be easy to do anything about them.
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Old 03-15-2010, 03:54 PM   #9 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by The_Dunedan View Post
Aah. So Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden have seen fit to dare speak a word against Israel. They're outraged. They're disappointed. They're just all different kinds of pissed off. None of this however, will change the facts;
...
I agree, I think Israel is doing pretty well militarily and needs to work more on it's diplomacy instead of hiding behind the US. We want to save some money here at home, either make Israel pay us for that technology or live with what they have.
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Old 03-15-2010, 04:14 PM   #10 (permalink)
 
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it is amazing that in 2010 it requires repeating that israel has been built into a regional military superpower since 1967 and that no combination of other countries would be in a position to pose a basic existential challenge. this basically changes the situation as folk seem to imagine it.
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Old 03-16-2010, 01:24 AM   #11 (permalink)
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Ok, this is actually more interesting than I thought.

Biden throwing a fit because he was publicly embarrassed - that is expected, and just as easily forgotten.

But this, on the other hand:

The Petraeus briefing: Biden?s embarrassment is not the whole story, by Mark Perry | The Middle East Channel
Quote:
The team had been dispatched by CENTCOM commander Gen. David Petraeus to underline his growing worries at the lack of progress in resolving the issue. The 33-slide, 45-minute PowerPoint briefing stunned Mullen. The briefers reported that there was a growing perception among Arab leaders that the U.S. was incapable of standing up to Israel, that CENTCOM's mostly Arab constituency was losing faith in American promises, that Israeli intransigence on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was jeopardizing U.S. standing in the region, and that Mitchell himself was (as a senior Pentagon officer later bluntly described it) "too old, too slow ... and too late."

The January Mullen briefing was unprecedented. No previous CENTCOM commander had ever expressed himself on what is essentially a political issue
Notably, it seems Petraeus wants to shift the West Bank and Gaza to CENTCOM (they fall under EUCOM right now), and in a break from tradition, has expressed serious concern over Israeli intransigence.

I'm not entirely sure, but this feels new.
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Old 03-16-2010, 04:19 PM   #12 (permalink)
 
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Quote:
Hillary Clinton piles pressure on Israel over East Jerusalem settlements

US secretary of state says onus is on Israel to restart peace process as Israeli soliders clash with Palestinians

Israeli security forces arrest Palestinians during clashes in East Jerusalem


The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, todaydemonstrated a new-found steeliness towards Israel by making it clear she was expecting it to back down in the row between the two countries and offer concessions needed for a resumption of Middle East peace talks.

As rock-throwing Palestinians clashed with Israeli forces in Jerusalem in protests dubbed "a day of rage", Clinton sent a double-edged message to Israel.

She softened the tone of remarks coming from the Obama administration over the last few days by talking about the deep bonds between the two countries. But she combined this by firmly placing the onus on Israel to make concessions needed to get the Palestinians back into talks.

Clinton told reporters at the state department that the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, had to take action to show he was serious about a peace process. She said: "We are engaged in very active consultations with the Israelis over steps that we think would demonstrate the requisite commitment to the process. It's been a very important effort on their part as well as ours. We know how hard this is. This is a very difficult, complex matter. But the Obama administration is committed to a two-state solution."

The rift began last week when the US vice-president, Joe Biden, visited Israel in the hope of getting Israeli-Palestinian peace talks under way. But Israel scuppered the talks with an announcement that it planned to build 1,600 new Jewish homes in East Jerusalem, which the Palestinians hope will one day be their capital. Hours before Clinton spoke Washington demonstrated its anger with the Israeli leader by abruptly cancelling a visit to Israel planned fortoday by the US special envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell. Clinton has privately set out various demands for Israel, including the cancellation or freeze of planned Jewish homes in East Jerusalem, a promise to engage in talks with the Palestinians on matters of substance, and confidence-building measures such as the withdrawal of Israeli forces from parts of the West Bank and release of Palestinian prisoners.

The steady build-up of pressure on Netanyahu has left him in a bind. If he backs down he is in danger of losing the support of the right in his coalition government. Responding to Clinton, his words did not suggest a readiness to bow to US demands, at least in public. In a statement issued by his office, he said: "With regard to commitments to peace, the government of Israel has proven over the last year that it is committed to peace, both in words and actions."

He cited the removal of hundreds of roadblocks across the West Bank and a temporary freeze on construction of settlements on the West Bank. Middle East analysts in Washington said the Obama administration was not trying to engineer the collapse of the coalition but, if it happened, would welcome a more moderate one that might emerge.

One of the underlying motives of the US resolve to get the peace process moving was offered today by the top US military commander, General David Petraeus, the head of Centcom, which is responsible for the Middle East and Asia. Petraeus told the Senate armed services committee yesterday that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was a root cause of instability in the Middle East and Asia and "foments anti-American sentiment due to a perception of US favouritism for Israel".

The Israeli government has long objected to being linked to wider conflicts in such a way. Petraeus said there had been insufficient progress towards a comprehensive Middle East peace deal and this "presented distinct challenges to our ability to advance our interests" elsewhere in the Middle East and Asia.

Simmering Israeli-Palestinian tensions erupted into violencetoday with clashes in East Jerusalem after Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist movement, announced a "day of rage" following yesterday's ceremonial reopening of a synagogue in the Old City.

The Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement faced pressure from its own largely defunct military wing, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, demanding to be allowed to resume armed struggle against Israel. It condemned "the ongoing violation of the al-Aqsa mosque".

Israeli forces tightened a blockade on the Old City, particularly the mosque compound. Israel's Ynet website reported 49 Palestinians injured in confrontations with Israeli border guards and police. Palestinian sources said more than 90 people were injured and some 70 arrested.

Jonathan Freedland
Hillary Clinton piles pressure on Israel over East Jerusalem settlements | World news | The Guardian

this is interesting. the petraus testimony is here anyway being interpreted as a signficant direction change...the us is pressuring israel to make concrete moves to re-start a peace process...and netanyahu's government, which is a coalition affair with elements of the ultra-right, is placed in a really difficult spot. to which i say: good. i hope it collapses.
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Old 03-16-2010, 04:46 PM   #13 (permalink)
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While the sounds coming out of Washington are different from the past, I still can't help but to be cynical about all of this. We've been down these roads before and little has changed. As with anything in Israel/Palestine I try to remain cautiously optimistic but it's really hard given the history.
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Old 03-16-2010, 07:44 PM   #14 (permalink)
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Quote:
Petraeus told the Senate armed services committee yesterday that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was a root cause of instability in the Middle East and Asia and "foments anti-American sentiment due to a perception of US favouritism for Israel".

"presented distinct challenges to our ability to advance our interests" elsewhere in the Middle East and Asia.
Really different from the past. I wonder if this concept will truly catch.
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Old 03-16-2010, 09:43 PM   #15 (permalink)
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Well this isn't in the paranoia section, but part of me thinks this was planned. It helps US relations in the Middle East to be opposing an Israeli policy, it gives the Israelis something to barter with in the peace talks, and it makes the Palestinians look strong if they make Israel back down.
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Old 03-17-2010, 04:19 AM   #16 (permalink)
 
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i dont think it was planned....it makes no sense, particularly not from the viewpoint of the netanyahu government. but there was a hilarious survey of the israeli press reactions to this in le monde yesterday. bibi is apparently famously maladroit, a master of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory by saying the stupid thing at the wrong moment...but there are folk (and you or i may know such folk typically of course at our peril) who can not only be almost counted on to say the wrong thing at the wrong time (almost is the key here because if you could count on it you could control for it...that's what handlers do....uh oh, burt, he's quinching up his face....he's about to say something stupid...kill the microphones now now now.) but who seem to attract fucking up at a machine level, like they bring it out in the systems they interact with. if they come for a holiday dinner, the turkey is cooked to sawdust and the pool filters begin spitting crap into the water. or the ministry of the interior announces all these shiny new illegal settlement initiatives while biden is visiting.

and it's not really their fault--these folk transcend the limits of personal incompetence and somehow tap into The Higher Incompetence. bibi sounds like he's one of those people.
he ran in part on the idea that this was the ""New Bibi" which lead alot of politico-types to say: "please...old bibi...come resuce us from the new bibi."

i'm trying to think of a fictional version of such a character. all that comes to mind is inspector clouseau.
but clouseau never really hurt other people. well, he did, but not entire populations.


====

later:
as an example:

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1157061.html
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Old 03-19-2010, 05:25 AM   #17 (permalink)
 
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here's something curious to consider. this morning the quartet held a meeting about the various aspects of the israel/palestine situation. the same meeting....the same thing...is written about in the following two ways.

in the guardian:

Quartet blasts Israel over East Jerusalem settlements | World news | guardian.co.uk

in the new york times (i paste it here because of the subscription requirement--even though it's still free---and because i would expect this to change)

Quote:
Clinton Calls Israel’s Moves to Ease Tension ‘Useful’
By MARK LANDLER

MOSCOW — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said on Friday that the proposals offered by the Israeli government to ease a diplomatic row with the United States were “useful and productive,” and that the Obama administration would continue talks in Jerusalem and Washington.

Neither side has characterized the steps outlined in a call Thursday night to Mrs. Clinton by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But Mrs. Clinton’s response signaled the United States was eager to lower the temperature in a dispute that began last week, after Israel announced a housing plan for Jews in East Jerusalem during a visit by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.

Her remarks came as the quartet, a group that focuses on Middle East peace and comprises the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations, condemned Israel’s housing plan for the second time in a week. In a statement, the quartet said it would “closely monitor developments in Jerusalem and to keep under consideration additional steps that may be required to address the situation on the ground.”

Mrs. Clinton, at an international meeting on the Middle East in Moscow, said the United States was focused on successfully launching indirect talks between the Israelis and Palestinians, which would be mediated by the administration’s special representative to the region, George J. Mitchell.

“We all condemned the announcement, and we all are expecting both parties to move toward the proximity talks and to help create an atmosphere in which those talks can be constructive,” Mrs. Clinton said.

Friday’s meeting came amid new fears about the deteriorating security situation in the Middle East. On Thursday night, Israel carried out airstrikes on six sites in the Gaza Strip in what it said was retaliation for a rocket attack from Gaza on a southern Israeli town that killed a Thai worker.

The prospects for reviving the peace process were already murky. The Palestinian Authority insists it will not negotiate until Israel freezes construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Jerusalem. Israel’s housing plan, Mrs. Clinton said, further soured the atmosphere.

Mr. Mitchell plans to meet with Mr. Netanyahu in Jerusalem over the weekend, and the prime minister is likely to see Mrs. Clinton when he comes to Washington on Monday to address the annual meeting of a pro-Israel lobbying group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

The Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, said, “We are convinced that Israel will hear this statement, will understand this correctly.”

By speaking to Mrs. Clinton the night before the Quartet meeting, Mr. Netanyahu may have headed off an even sharper international condemnation. But it was not clear whether his proposals come anywhere close to satisfying the demands that Mrs. Clinton presented to him last week.

She asked him to reverse the housing plan, in the ultra-orthodox neighborhood of Ramat Shlomo, and to freeze other building projects in East Jerusalem. Mr. Netanyahu insisted earlier this week that his government will not cease building in the East Jerusalem, which he said was the declared policy of every Israeli government for decades.

Mrs. Clinton also asked him to pledge to enter into substantive negotiations with the Palestinians over fundamental issues like boundaries, the status of Jerusalem, and refugees. Israel has said it viewed the indirect, or proximity, talks as focusing only on procedural issues.

Still, after a week in which some worried that Israel and the United States were on the edge of an historic clash, Mrs. Clinton reaffirmed the underlying strength of the American-Israeli relationship. “Our relationship is ongoing,” she said. “It is deep and broad; it is strong and enduring.”

But Israel continued to face severe international pressure for its treatment of the civilian population in Gaza, where it has imposed a blockade on the delivery of all but humanitarian goods. The quartet said in its statement that it was “deeply concerned by the continuing deterioration in Gaza.”

The United Nations secretary general, Ban ki-Moon, said he planned to tour Gaza this weekend to see the situation.

For the first time, the quartet said it supported a plan by the Palestinian Authority to build a state within 24 months “as a demonstration of Palestinians’ serious commitment to an independent state that provides good governance, opportunity, and justice for the Palestinian people.”

Later on Friday, Mrs. Clinton will meet with President Dmitri A. Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin. They are expected to discuss the completion of an arms control agreement and the effort to devise new United Nations sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program.
Clinton Calls Israel?s Moves to Ease Tension ?Useful? - NYTimes.com

i find the differences between these to be pretty telling.
and americans think they'd don't live in a media bubble.
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Old 03-23-2010, 07:39 PM   #18 (permalink)
 
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The Israelis are not very good at PR.
The Palestinians are not very good either but these events show that the Palestinians might have finaly figured it out and may be passing the Israelis in the are of PR.

Why glorify the murderers? - Los Angeles Times
Quote:
Vice President Joe Biden took umbrage last week when Israel announced during his visit that it had approved new housing construction in East Jerusalem. But another contentious incident that took place during Biden's visit got far less scrutiny.

March 11 marked the 32nd anniversary of the deadliest terrorist attack in Israel's history, and this year the Palestinian Authority decided to honor the 19-year-old leader of the attack, Dalal Mughrabi, by naming a square in a town outside Ramallah after her. The commemoration was scheduled for the anniversary.

The official ceremony was ultimately canceled to avoid antagonizing Biden during his visit, but the square was nevertheless named for Mughrabi, and several dozen Palestinian students from President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement gathered in her honor for an unofficial dedication...
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Old 03-23-2010, 08:57 PM   #19 (permalink)
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Zionism, a sense of entitlement so grand that it's written into a major world religion, is at the center of this ignorance. The UN is impotent because of the US to stop the settlements, and now.. what? The POTUS is using slightly stronger language? Oh please.

The United States is still the grand enabler when it comes to Israel and that won't change until we both end all aid and stop unconditionally backing Israel in the UN. Israel has had ample opportunities to stop building settlements and has chosen not to. They need a clear indication that violating human rights is wrong even for a people that had their rights violated once upon a time.
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Old 03-23-2010, 10:06 PM   #20 (permalink)
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Originally Posted by Willravel View Post
Zionism, a sense of entitlement so grand that it's written into a major world religion, is at the center of this ignorance. The UN is impotent because of the US to stop the settlements, and now.. what? The POTUS is using slightly stronger language? Oh please.

The United States is still the grand enabler when it comes to Israel and that won't change until we both end all aid and stop unconditionally backing Israel in the UN. Israel has had ample opportunities to stop building settlements and has chosen not to. They need a clear indication that violating human rights is wrong even for a people that had their rights violated once upon a time.

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Old 03-24-2010, 06:42 AM   #21 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Willravel View Post
Zionism, a sense of entitlement so grand that it's written into a major world religion, is at the center of this ignorance. The UN is impotent because of the US to stop the settlements, and now.. what? The POTUS is using slightly stronger language? Oh please.

The United States is still the grand enabler when it comes to Israel and that won't change until we both end all aid and stop unconditionally backing Israel in the UN. Israel has had ample opportunities to stop building settlements and has chosen not to. They need a clear indication that violating human rights is wrong even for a people that had their rights violated once upon a time.
Really Will? Because I'll bet I could find a descendant of the Costanoan Tribe who would take your house, should you feel so inclined to return their land back to them. :P
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Old 03-24-2010, 07:40 AM   #22 (permalink)
 
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there's no particular reason to waste time debating questions on zionist grounds as if that ideology had a role to play in justifying israeli colonialism in fact---in the justificatory narratives of the settlers there's little doubt that variants of kahane-style eretz israel ideology continue to operate and to rationalize the daily brutalization of the palestinian people---and it's no surprise that the settlers find themselves on the extreme right in israel--what the far right in israel and the united states is an affection for loopy nationalism rooted in mythology substituted for history and reality and little hesitation in drawing racist conclusions from the substitution (look around at the teapartiers today in the states...great humanitarians that they are)...one difference between the us and israel at the moment is that the government in israel relies on the support of the ultra-right to hold itself together.

so they've announced this morning that the construction in east jerusalem that was at the origin of this brouhaha can start at any time. of course, it might not start---such is the two-faced game that netanyahu has to play to appease the far right and the us at the same time.

but fact is that kahane-style ideology has no legal standing. the settlements are illegal. they are an obstacle to peace. every last one of them should be taken down.
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Old 03-24-2010, 09:25 AM   #23 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Cimarron29414 View Post
Really Will? Because I'll bet I could find a descendant of the Costanoan Tribe who would take your house, should you feel so inclined to return their land back to them. :P
I was the Tamien (a specific tribe that was lumped together with other tribes by European and American historians that invented the term Costanoan) that inhabited the area now known as San Jose. The story of San Jose is actually quite interesting. The first European settlers in the area were, of course, Franciscan priests. They settled missions, with permission from the natives, and did their proselytization thing. The Spanish government wanted more land in the area, so the priests actually represented the native's interests in debates, and managed to make a strong enough case for the rights of the natives that they basically won. The natives were granted property and ownership rights by the Spanish government, and a few years later they were all made Spanish citizens.

Not all natives were forced from their lands by European settlers. The descendants of the Tamien are still here and never had their land stolen from them. They weren't forced to live in the worst areas of the country, they weren't besieged regularly by one of the most powerful militaries in the world, and they weren't occupied by a foreign military for decades. I'm being totally honest when I say this history was a determining factor in my living here. I don't like the idea of living on stolen land.

But even if it were the case that the Spanish had stolen the land from the natives hundreds of years ago, that's an entirely different circumstance. The Tamien aren't fighting a war to end the occupation of their homes, they're not having the shitty land they were given occupied by a powerful military, and they aren't attacked by said military often They don't have American homes being built farther and farther into what little land they have left. It would be an entirely different situation, you see.

Israel is building illegal settlements and regularly violates the human rights of the Palestinians with deadly attacks.
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Old 03-28-2010, 05:42 PM   #24 (permalink)
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Originally Posted by The_Dunedan View Post
Aah. So Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden have seen fit to dare speak a word against Israel. They're outraged. They're disappointed. They're just all different kinds of pissed off. None of this however, will change the facts;

1: The US will continue to pour "aid" into Israel in amounts that could supplant the GDP of some small European countries. This "aid" will come not only in the form of billions of dollars of giveaways, but also in the form of billions more in "loans" that Congress will happily write off in next year's budget, just as they've been doing since before I was born.

2: Israel will continue to use aforesaid "aid" mostly to prop up it's economy (hard to sell tourism when things keep blowing up) and military, which leads us to....

3: A significant secondary form of "aid," ie All Our Best Toys, will -also- continue unabated. F-22? Probable check. F-35? Definite check. Radars? ELINT equipment? Crypto? Check, check, and check. And what's the second thing Israel usually does with all this Really Cool Shit (right after they use it to blow up two camels, one wellhead, an abandoned car and an apartment block, plus steal identites for Mossad and Shin Bet)? Sell it to China. That's right; one of Israel's biggest customers for Our Best Toys (which we keep giving them) is the single military power which may soon be in a position to challenge the US. Anybody wonder where the Chinese got the guidance systems for their new generation of carrier-killing ballistic and cruise missiles, rocket-propelled torpedoes, and bottom-rising rocket-propelled naval mines? It wasn't from the Russians, the Indians, or the Japanese, I promise you that. None of these facts stopped any of the previous four presidents, and I doubt they'll stop Mr. Obama.

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I agree with everything you've posted, however, hats off to Obama for daring to cross the Israel Lobby as much as he did. We should see the Israel lobby kick into high gear now to get his ass tossed out in 2012 and return (hopefully for them) another fundamentalist Christian like Bush who is actively praying for Armaghedon.

Israel doesn't have too many friends in the world. Really, the USA is about it. You'd think they'd be a little more concerned about what their benefactor thinks about their actions.
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