First things first, the last paragraph of Juan Cole’s article: Abbas Reported to have Withdrawn from Israeli-Palestinian talks; Obama Mideast Policy Sabotaged by Netanyahu.
Much of this has to do with Netanyahu’s insult of Vice President Joe Biden on his visit to Israel, when in succession, Israel announced the planning of 1,600 and then 50,000 new homes in East Jerusalem. For that matter, just before the visit, Ehud Barak had announced the building of 110 new homes in an Iraeli settlement in the West Bank, contrary to the alleged freeze. According to Juan Cole, due to Abbas’ withdrawal from negotiations (now a wavering threat), “Obama’s Mideast policy lies in tatters and US credibility as a broker of any future settlement was deeply wounded.”
Obama is in real danger of seeing his allies lose respect for the United States once they see that Israel can treat him in this humiliating way with impunity. The security implications for the US are enormous. Many European allies feel strongly that Israel is an aggressor state in the region, and when Obama asks them for help in the fight against al-Qaeda, they may feel that Washington’s coddling of Israeli colonialism produced much of the radicalism that they are now asked to spend blood and treasure combating. Moreover, many leaders may be emboldened to treat Obama and Biden just as Netanyahu did, if the latter faces no consequences for his impudence.
(snip)
The argument that Israel is a security asset for the United States is undermined if the Israelis are provoking enmity toward the United States among 1.5 billion Muslims by their inexorable annexation of Palestinian land and daily oppression of the Palestinian people.
Netanyahu reportedly apologized for the timing of the announcement, but not its substance, and apparently the plan to build remains viable. But who doesn’t believe the obvious, that Netanyahu engineered the embarrassment in order to throw another monkey wrench into peace talks. In doing so, he slapped Obama’s face, and the face of its greatest benefactor, the United States.
Israeli colonization of Palestinian territory lies at the heart of the Mideast conflict. It isn’t a complicated issue in the law, since Israel’s actions are clearly illegal and unethical to boot. But might makes right and Israel is the most powerful country in the Middle East, so all the protests on legal and humanitarian grounds have amounted to nothing.
The talks were likely deliberately sabotaged by Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who had his Interior Minister announce the construction of 1600 new households in Occupied East Jerusalem the day before they were scheduled to begin. In fact, Israel is actively planning 50,000 further housing units on occupied Palestinian territory. US Vice President Joe Biden had come to kick off the process with visits to Netanyahu and Abbas, but he has now been sent home empty-handed by Netanyahu’s sheer effrontery.
Netanyahu’s far rightwing coalition includes many members of the Knesset or Israeli parliament who are bound and determined to colonize every last inch of the Palestinian West Bank and to reduce the Palestinians to landless beggars. Were the prime minister to make too many concessions to the Obama administration, some of them might well pull out of his government, and it could easily fall. Netanyahu is convinced that the Clinton administration undermined him the last time he was prime minister, and he is determined not to allow that to happen again. So acted as though he was complying with US demands for a settlement freeze, but exempted part of Palestinian territory from the freeze. Then shortly before proximity talks were to begin he had his Interior Ministry announce further colonization, knowing that it would complicate or (better) nix the talks. Netanyahu knew that if he was pressed on the announcement, he could get himself off the hook by apologizing for his flat-footed minister’s poor timing. Biden did not buy this lame shadow play and neither will anyone else with any common sense.
And on the matter of Israel being security threat to the United States, Biden agreed:
“This is starting to get dangerous for us,” Biden castigated his interlocutors. “What you’re doing here undermines the security of our troops who are fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. That endangers us and it endangers regional peace.”
.
Perhaps, Obama will engage George W. Bush as ME broker. He is loved by most parties involved: US radical rightwingers, AIPAC, christian evangelists and of course all Israeli citizens. After sending Bill Clinton on the North Korean mission and getting both involved in Haiti Relief, Obama has used George Bush to tackle the unrest in North Ireland. Bush talked with Unionists, results seems not to be very successful. What is next, will Obama rely on Cheney and Rumsfeld to solve Iraq and Afghanistan?
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Sending George Bush, who egged on the Israeli slaughter in Lebanon, 2006, is like return Tony Blair for another round of nothingness.
Here a few words from Alan Hart:
.
Laura Rozen publishes translated (I assume because there is no link) excerpts of a Shimon Shiffer piece in Thursday’s Yediot Aharonot.
While standing in front of the cameras, the U.S. vice president made an effort to smile at Binyamin Netanyahu even after having learned that the Interior Ministry had approved plans to build 1,600 housing units in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Ramat Shlomo. But in closed conversations, Joe Biden took an entirely different tone. …
People who heard what Biden said were stunned. “This is starting to get dangerous for us,” Biden castigated his interlocutors. “What you’re doing here undermines the security of our troops who are fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. That endangers us and it endangers regional peace.”
This is known as framing the discussion, of course it’s not about demolition of Palestinian homes in East-Jerusalem. It is about the demolition of talks giving peace a chance.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."You might say that Joe got his Irish up. My only regret is that he was not more public about it, as opposed to smoozing Israel with America’s undying love.
.
The Swing to the Right in U.S. Policy Toward Israel and Palestine
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."“…US credibility as a broker of any future settlement was deeply wounded.“
What is Juan prattling about? The US hasn’t had any credibility as a broker of any settlement, past, present, or future, at least since it became clear that Oslo was little more than a device to buy time for Israel to establish facts on the ground that would obviate a Palestinian state.
.
Speaker of the Knesset, Reuven Rivlin, said he is very concerned about their applause for the American vice president, Joe Biden, after condemning the construction in East Jerusalem during a speech at Tel Aviv University.
“I’m concerned erosion of red lines we set for ourselves, understanding erosion of Israel’s strategic needs, we can not compromise them,” said Rivlin.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Clinton delivers blunt message to Netanyahu on East Jerusalem
Will it make a difference?
.
(Reuters) – Israeli forces sealed off the West Bank and massed riot squads around Jerusalem’s Old City and Arab neighborhoods during Muslim weekly prayers, facing down Palestinian anger over Jewish settlement expansion.
Israel barred Palestinians from crossing from the West Bank into Israel and Jerusalem, and barred men under 50 from al-Aqsa mosque, the flashpoint holy site in the walled Old City.
As hundreds of youths streamed away from noon prayers at a mosque in the district of Ras al-Amud, a Reuters journalist saw men hurl stones at a car carrying Orthodox Jewish children. One rock smashed a side window, but there were no obvious injuries.
Islamists in the blockaded Gaza Strip rallied supporters to protest at Israel’s policies in Jerusalem, “We will redeem al-Aqsa mosque with our souls and our blood,” the crowd chanted.
Clinton calls PM, slams Jerusalem plan
(Jerusalem Post) – The Israeli announcement enraged the Palestinians and Arab states, jeopardizing the proximity talks Mitchell is to mediate. An Arab League advisory committee has already withdrawn its endorsement of the discussions.
In a bid to salvage those negotiations, Mitchell and the top US diplomat for the Middle East, Jeffrey Feltman, called Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Arab League chief Amr Moussa and the foreign ministers of Egypt, Jordan, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates over the past two days.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."We’ve been here so many times before that the play may now be renamed, Netanyahu Unmasked, or even better, Israel Unmasked, but it won’t make a bit of difference. The night before Biden’s arrival, Netanyahu was making a speech before the Christian Zionists meeting in Jerusalem, stating, again, that “Israel will be the eternal, undivided capital of Israel.”
So what’s all this hallabaloo about plans for a few thousand homes in East Jerusalem? That’s Likud, and it was Labor’s view as well in the days of the 75% solution peacemaker who wasn’t, Iztak Rabin.
From U.S. gave Israel green light for East Jerusalem construction
By Akiva Eldar, Haaretz
Oh well. Why didn’t you say so. No problem!
Link: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1155895.html
Clinton Slams Israel’s Settlement Plans: ‘Deeply Negative Signal’
The above Huffington Post story was just posted under the headline: “43 Minutes of Angry Clinton”.
“Secretary Of State ‘Vents Frustrations’ In Long Call With Israeli Leader, Slams ‘Deeply Negative’ Signals Toward Peace Process…”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
Then on the same page, the New York Times is chimed in with: “Settlement Announcement ‘A Slap In The Face To Washington'” or “Diplomacy 102”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03...
Interesting reading.
“‘Deeply Negative Signal’“
“Signal”? “SIGNAL”?!!!! My god, American politicians have such a penchant for understatement when it comes to Israel. 1600 new housing units in one colony, and 50,000 in East Jerusalem is no signal, it is a plan of action clearly intended to sink more Israeli hooks into the supposed future Palestinian state.
Give us a break, Bill, and call it what it is.
The signal seems to be that Israel intends to begin the construction of those homes in several years. How? Netanyahu stated it before a convention of Christian Zionists, Hagee’s group, the night before Biden arrived: Israel is the eternal undivided capital of Israel. In short, the Palestinians are not getting it. And of course, they are also not getting the Jordan Valley, the borders, or lands upon which settlements are already constructed (no withdrawal).
This guy is taking Israel straight into Apartheid, and he has been forewarned. My guess is that at this point he doesn’t care. Israel will be in someone else’s hands in the future to deal with it. We’ll call them ‘cantons’ instead of bantustans as they did in the Netherlands, I believe.
Netanyahu isn’t taking Israel anywhere that it hasn’t been headed all along. He’s just doing it more brazenly than most, plus he has come into power at a time when Israel is very close to reaching “final status”, so it’s a lot more obvious to more people what is going on.
So if it werent a threat to the troops occupying a bunch of other people’s countries in the middle east would it be OK for Israel to continue the colonization?