Israel Fears Obama Heading For Imposed Mideast Settlement

[Purveyor]

U.S. President Barack Obama's demands during his meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last Tuesday point to an intention to impose a permanent settlement on Israel and the Palestinians in less than two years, political sources in Jerusalem say.

Israeli officials view the demands that Obama made at the White House as the tip of the iceberg under which lies a dramatic change in U.S. policy toward Israel.

Of 10 demands posed by Obama, four deal with Jerusalem: opening a Palestinian commercial interests office in East Jerusalem, an end to the razing of structures in Palestinian neighborhoods in the capital, stopping construction in Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, and not building the neighborhood of Ramat Shlomo.

But another key demand - to discuss the dispute's core issues during the indirect talks that are planned - is perceived in Jerusalem as problematic because it implies that direct negotiations would be bypassed. This would set up a framework through which the Americans would be able to impose a final settlement.

It is not just Obama's demands that are perceived as problematic, but also the new modus operandi of American diplomacy. The fact that the White House and State Department have been in contact with Israel's European allies, first and foremost Germany, is seen as part of an effort to isolate Israel and put enormous political pressure on it.

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HAARETZ: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1159863.html

[DCBob]

1. Good. About f'king time.

That is the only way this problem will ever get settled. IMO.

[Fozzledick]

2. Didn't RTFA, did you?

Senior Israeli sources say that as a result of the U.S. administration's policies, the Palestinians will toughen their stance and seriously undermine the peace process' chances of success.

Moreover, sources in Jerusalem say that the new American positions undermine the principle of credibility that has guided U.S. foreign policy since the end of World War II. Ignoring specific promises made to its Israeli ally would make other American allies lose trust in its commitments to them.

Israeli officials warn that if the United States shirks its past commitments, the willingness of the Israeli public to put its trust in future American guarantees will be undermined - as will the superpower's regional and international standing.

[IndianaGreen]

3. The unnamed Israeli officials are as credible as Bush's White House

And frankly, who cares what they say? Bunch of rightwing whiners!

[Donald Ian Rankin]

4. "The Palestinians will toughen their stance, this will be bad" is nonsense.

It's something I hear incredibly often from the Israeli side, and it's utter claptrap - it's based on the idea (common in Israel, but clearly absurd) that peace would be possible without Israel withdrawing to its own borders everywhere or almost everywhere if the rest of the world would only put pressure on the Palestinians to stop demanding it.

In actual fact, as any even vaguely impartial observer can see, the obstacle to peace is illegal Israeli settlements, not Palestinian objection to them, and putting pressure on Israel to remove them is the only way to bring peace.

The PA have been making the same, entirely reasonable, demand of Israel for decades: end the occupation, withdraw to the Green Line. Pressure on Israel to do that will not make them demand even more, and - crucially - it will help them compete with Hamas, who *do* demand more, at least officially, and have who without external pressure have exactly as much chance of achieving their unreasonable demands as the PA do of achieving their reasonable ones.

[azurnoir]

7. LOL across the board

lets see the Palestinian "toughening their stance and undermining the peace process" Abbas grows a backbone and poor little Israel doesn't get to play winner take all or what ever it wants

and causing American allies to lose trust?????? puleez America is regaining trust post Bush era and in ending our support of Israel we would be keeping in pace with our allies who are tiring of Israels antics too

[Violet_Crumble]

8. Do you agree with what those Israeli sources say? n/t

[DCBob]

11. The world is tired of listening to all the excuses... from both sides.

Impose a peace deal.

[LeftishBrit]

12. Both sides have been 'toughening their stance and seriously undermining the peace process' for years

'the new American positions undermine the principle of credibility that has guided U.S. foreign policy since the end of World War II. Ignoring specific promises made to its Israeli ally would make other American allies lose trust in its commitments to them.'

As though the USA had ever been seen as having full 'credibility'. That's nothing unique to the USA; it's true of all countries (ultimately self-interest generally comes first in international relations); but the USA has more power and influence.

The war based on lies, into which the so-called 'Willing' were dragged, did more to undermine American credibility with its allies than anything else. We now have more trust in America under Obama than Bush.

I would prefer a peace deal that didn't depend on American 'imposition' as that would be more genuine and stable. But a peace deal, however formed, is better than the mess of the status quo, even if it means that Obama has to bang Netanyahu's and Haniyeh's heads together, at the serious risk of getting splinters.

[Lil Missy]

5. Good. While you're at it, cut off aid to Israel too.

[Jefferson23]

6. Oh my goodness, look at that...hmm.

[Jefferson23]

9. Israel is sliding toward McCarthyism and racism

snip* In our own case, this past year, Netanyahu has incessantly repeated his mantra that he's merely doing in Jerusalem "what all my predecessors have done for 43 years." The purpose of this pretense is to erase from the public mind, at home and abroad, the fact that two of his predecessors negotiated with the Palestinians and the Americans over dividing the city. The purpose, too, is deliberately to blur the hugely significant difference between building in the Jewish neighborhoods that have been developed over decades and forcibly inserting Jewish settlers into all-Arab neighborhoods like Sheikh Jarrah. The purpose, basically, is to obliterate any chance of implementing the "Clinton parameters" - Jewish areas to Israel, Arab areas to Palestine, Holy Basin to God and thus reaching a fair compromise on Jerusalem.

The demonstrations taking place on Fridays at Sheikh Jarrah offer some smidgen of hope that not everyone has been duped and silenced. The Naomi Chazan front was abandoned. The "Nakba Law" front was lost without a fight. The battle line in Israel's war of survival as a Jewish and democratic state now runs through the Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem. There, alongside the few brave Israelis out demonstrating, the president of the United States has planted his pennant, too. Is that the line, at last, where Israel's decline will be halted?

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1159848.html

[oberliner]

10. Is that from the "Israel wants to be raped" guy?

Interesting character.

[Jefferson23]

13. I have no idea.

In this OP he presents a case for his conclusions, and he is not alone with his opinions. He is also the guy who
defended Israel against the Goldtsone report, not very well imo, but that is beside the point.


The Gaza Report’s Wasted Opportunity
By DAVID LANDAU
Published: September 19, 2009



http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/opinion/20landau.html

[oberliner]

15. Looks like it's the same guy

Thanks for the link to his Op Ed about the Goldstone report.

[Jefferson23]

14. The plague of darkness has struck modern Israelites

29/03/2010

Akiva Eldar


One of the harshest of the 10 plagues has smitten the children of Israel this Passover, and they are stumbling about in pitch darkness, bumping blindly into anyone in their way as they head toward the edge of the precipice. Warm friends, cool friends, icy enemies: Jordan and Turkey, Brazil and Britain, Germany and Australia - it's all the same.

And if that's not enough, the myopic Jewish state also has gone and collided head-on with the ally that offers existential support. Israel has become an environmental hazard and its own greatest threat. For 43 years, Israel has been ruled by people who have refused to see reality. They speak of "united Jerusalem," knowing that no other country has recognized the annexation of the eastern part of the city. They sent 300,000 people to settle land they know does not belong to them. As early as September 1967, Theodor Meron, then the legal adviser to the Foreign Ministry, said there was a categorical prohibition against civilian settlement in occupied territories, under the Fourth Geneva Convention. Meron - who would become the president of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, and is now a member of the Appeals Chamber for both that court and a similar one for Rwanda - wrote to prime minister Levi Eshkol in a top-secret memorandum: "I fear there is great sensitivity in the world today about the whole question of Jewish settlement in the occupied territories, and any legal arguments that we try to find will not remove the heavy international pressure, from friendly states as well."

It is true that for many years, we have managed to grope our way through the dark and keep the pressure at bay. We did so with the assistance of our neighbors, who were afflicted with the same shortsightedness.
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On Sunday, however, the Arab League marked the eighth anniversary of its peace proposals, which offer Israel normalization in exchange for an end to the occupation and an agreed solution to the refugee problem, in accordance with UN Resolution 194. But Israel behaves as if it had never heard of this historic initiative. For the last year, it was too busy realizing its dubious right to establish an illegal settlement in Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, turning a blind eye to reality, has tried to persuade the world that what applies to Tel Aviv also applies to Sheikh Jarrah. He simply refuses to see that the world is sick of us. It's easier for him to focus on his similarly nearsighted followers in AIPAC. Tonight they'll all swear "Next year in rebuilt Jerusalem" - including the construction in Ramat Shlomo, of course.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1159849.html

[azurnoir]

16. I am quite sure how the US would "impose"

a peace deal on Israel after all Israel is an independent country free to choose it's allies, we're told here quite regularly how strong and vibrant the Israeli economy is so it is apparent that if that is true Israel does not really need aid from the US, but in reality only accepts such aid as a favor to US politicians who are looking to garner political favor

However in such an unlikely event the Israeli's who IMO have something to fear would be Israeli-Arabs because given the current political climate in Israel there wouls very likely be a call to expel them to the newly formed Palestinian State, as a Haaretz poll from a few years ago showed almost 1/2 of Israeli Jews favoring such a move and I really do not see that situation improving much right now, in the past such a thing would not have been possible but given the right wing government now in power it is more likely