If it’s true that Obama and Netanyahu are at the point of no return, then it’s clear that Netanyahu and his ultra-right allies must go. With the U.S. military flatly asserting that Israel is a security and diplomatic burden to our national interests in the Middle East, the Israeli government must respond. And they cannot respond with bullshit like this:
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday said that he is building in Jerusalem on his own accord and not because coalition partners are pressuring him to do so, senior officials told Haaretz.
In closed talks, Netanyahu clarified that he has no intention of breaking up his rightwing coalition to form a more moderate centrist alliance, despite continuing pressure from the United States for a compromise over Israeli building in east Jerusalem.
“I do not need coalition partners to pressure me into continuing to build in Jerusalem,” he said. “I, myself, plan to continue building in Jerusalem as all previous prime ministers did before me.”
Netanyahu added: “I am not building in Jerusalem just because [Foreign Minister Avigdor] Lieberman or [Interior Minister Eli] Yishai are pressuring me to do so.”
The administration claims that they don’t want Netanyahu’s coalition to collapse, but that’s ridiculous. Of course they do.
In Israel, officials said they could not imagine how Mr. Netanyahu could agree to a substantial reduction in building in Jerusalem and still expect to hold on to his office. “The expectation and demand that there be no more construction in Jerusalem is unreasonable,” said Limor Livnat, culture and sports minister and a member of Likud, on Israel Radio. “It is an expectation that the Israeli prime minister cannot accede to.”
Given that, there is no way forward until not only Netanyahu goes, but the far-right lunatics he needs to form a majority go, too. Consider:
The Arab League is scheduled to meet this weekend in Libya and is likely to repeat demands for a freeze on Israeli building in occupied areas before giving a final endorsement to the return of the Palestinian Authority to peace talks with Israel. Mr. Abbas, the Palestinian president, has sought pan-Arab cover for his decision to return to the talks.
With Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak recovering from surgery and unable to attend the Arab League talks, and with our Gulf allies (and Britain) still furious about the Mossad assassination team unleashed on Dubai, the administration must show naked resolve and displeasure with Israel in order to have any credibility whatsoever. Not to mention, humiliating Joe Biden when he traveled to Israel was bound to be returned in kind two-fold by a president who knows how to watch his number two’s back.
After failing to extract a written promise of concessions on settlements, Mr Obama walked out of his meeting with Mr Netanyahu but invited him to stay at the White House, consult with advisers and “let me know if there is anything new”, a US congressman, who spoke to the Prime Minister, said.
“It was awful,” the congressman said. One Israeli newspaper called the meeting “a hazing in stages”, poisoned by such mistrust that the Israeli delegation eventually left rather than risk being eavesdropped on a White House telephone line. Another said that the Prime Minister had received “the treatment reserved for the President of Equatorial Guinea”.
The actions of the President of Equatorial Guinea don’t put the lives of our soldiers and civilians at needless risk. After Netanyahu’s recent actions and in light of his continued intransigence, he’s lucky he wasn’t treated worse.
“The Prime Minister leaves America disgraced, isolated and altogether weaker than when he came,” the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz said.
In their meeting Mr Obama set out expectations that Israel was to satisfy if it wanted to end the crisis, Israeli sources said. These included an extension of the freeze on Jewish settlement growth beyond the ten-month deadline next September, an end to building projects in east Jerusalem and a withdrawal of Israeli forces to positions held before the second intifada in September 2000.
Newspaper reports recounted how Mr Netanyahu looked “excessively concerned and upset” when he pulled out a flow chart to show Mr Obama how Jerusalem planning permission worked and how he could not have known that the announcement that hundreds more homes were to be built would be made when Mr Biden arrived in Jerusalem.
Mr Obama then suggested that Mr Netanyahu and his staff stay at the White House to consider his proposals so that if he changed his mind he could inform the President right away. “I’m still around,” the daily newspaper Yediot Aharonot quoted Mr Obama as saying. “Let me know if there is anything new.”
There wasn’t anything new. Netanyahu went home and doubled-down on the bullshit. The people of Israel need to wake up. Our military brass is out of patience and our president doesn’t have time to deal with Bibi’s nonsense. East Jerusalem may not be a settlement, but it isn’t part of Israel either.
Finally, someone stands up.
“Talk amongst yourselves.
I`m busy.
Call me, I`ll be around.”
If it goes much further, Obama will hint about the US budget deficit and the massive amount of blood and treasure the US has expended in protecting Israel’s security. And say, “The reality is that this can’t go on forever.” And withdraw more than bunker buster bombs from the foreign aid going to Israel.
Keep dreaming if it makes you feel better.
Hurria, I sympathize. But somehow I think Obama is serious re this one.
Loved this, BooMan:
Heck yeah.
I don’t think so, Lisa, but if I am wrong that is one plate of crow I will eat with great relish and enthusiasm.
This was encouraging too. A bit of cynicism is probably called for here. The track record and all. But…
…..
The writers opinion maybe but this:
If the military is pissed the president has a lot more room to pressure the Israeli apartheid government. Really encouraging would be Obama and his generals talking about how the Nakba damaged the standing of the U.S. Its the original sin of the nation of Israel. Overlooked here in the states.
Sometimes I wonder if our genocide of native Americans somehow influences the U.S. to see Israel as the good guys. To condemn them is to condemn our own history. We faced up to our sins but 150 years later when there was no turning back. We have provided the Israelis with a blueprint called “Manifest Destiny”.
None of that means they will ever do anything about it. In any case, regime change in Israel will make absolutely no difference, except that another regime might be less likely to rub the U.S. government’s nose in it. Israel will do what Israel has always done, regardless of who was in power.
Hurria,
I am encouraged by Obama walking out of the Bibi meeting. The comments by Obama’s generals same thing. Some good can come out of regime change in Israel. Breaking the blockade for the people of Gaza is a worthy cause. Lets take a first step and get Bibi’s stupid ass out. Politicians are about getting and keeping power. The next Israeli prime minister will take note if we break Bibi.
<3
Pull the combat troops out of Iraq, get the bombers ready, gather the Navy in the Mediterranean. It’s time for regime change in Israel.
Except that it won’t make a damned bit of difference. Every single Israeli government beginning in July, 1967 has played its part in the colonization of Jerusalem and the other Occupied Territories. Every single one of them has done its part to secure “greater Israel”. The main difference between Likud and Labour has always been that Likud does more talking while Labour just quietly builds, and the “liberals” have murdered more than their share of Palestinian, Lebanese, and other civilians and children, and destroyed more than their share of homes, businesses, and infrastructure. The fact that Netanyahu is more brazen than most does not make him any worse than any of them.
Make that June, 1967 for East Jerusalem. They didn’t waste any time there. In June they methodically ethnically cleansed entire areas of East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and even Gaza, forcing tens of thousands of Palestinians to wade across the Jordan river with only what they could carry, and if the water ruined it, oh well… At times the “encouraged” the refugees to hurry it up with rifle shots over their heads (sources available on request).
They won’t be happy till the control the oil. Problem is they are doing it on our dime.
There is no oil in Jerusalem. There is no oil in the West Bank. You COULD make a case that they want to control the natural gas reserves along the Gaza coast but they certainly are not going to do that by colonizing and enforcing a system of apartheid in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
What looks clear to me is that they 1) want to fulfill the Zionist vision of Greater Israel from the Mediterranean to the Jordan, 2) want control of the water aquifers in the West Bank – what the heck, they already HAVE control over those as it is, and are using a lot of that water inside the green line as well as in their colonies. They are also sucking so much water out of the Gaza aquifers that the sea water is leaching into them causing the water to become increasingly brackish, which does not bode well for human life, or for agriculture. It is so bad that visitors who wear contact lenses have to wash their hands and rinse their lenses with bottled water in order to avoid burning their eyes when they put the lenses in.
We have been asked for years to buy into the notion that Israel is a defensive asset in the Middle East, when in reality there are no wars fought by Israel that have in anyway made America safer.
To the contrary, it would seem that the opposite has occurred, given what our military analysts are now reporting. We are less safe for our carte blanc support of Israel and what it has been doing to the Palestinians for 42 years, and maybe 60 years.
I am beginning to think they have even greater designs. If they control Gaza gas reserves and annex West Bank, they are going to have a LONG time war on their hands, and they know it. Democratizing the rest of the mid-east might give them what they want. Control. I just don’t see West Bank colonization as a short term strategy.
Or maybe maybe…they don’t know what the hell they are doing and only have short term radical goals.
It is tempting to chalk everything up to oil. My sense is and has always been that they are driven primarily by Zionist ideology, and a lust for power. They want to achieve the dream of Ben Gurion and others for land, they want to control the water, and they want to feel they wield power over the enemies that surround them, therefore they need to feel at all times that they are surrounded by enemies. For that reason, they cannot afford to have peace with the neighbors. That is the peculiar psychology of Israel. I do not believe that oil drives them at all.
No oil, no war machine.
You are very knowledgeable on the subject of Israel/Palestine, but I think you are barking up the wrong tree here. Israel is mainly driven by the Zionist ideology along with the notion that Jews have to be the toughest, meanest guy on the block bolstered by the self image of “Jews as archetypal eternal victim”, of which, of course, the Holocaust is the ultimate proof.
Earlier you said “Democratizing the rest of the mid-east might give them what they want. Control.“
No one who understands the Middle East even a little bit believes that for a moment. How can anyone possibly believe that giving the people a say in their government would give Israel more control? It is buyable dictators like Mubarak, not democracy, that give Israel control over the Egyptian government. Didn’t they see what happened last time they allowed free and fair elections in Palestine? All things being equal, do they seriously believe the people of the Middle East would voluntarily choose Israeli and American allies as leaders?!
Maybe I am barking up the wrong tree. But look what’s happening in Iraq. They will now have a zionist friendly government.
I was also thinking about the neo-con Clean Break Plan.
Iraq is a very poor example. First, Iraq is a country under foreign military, political, and economic occupation, and is therefore by definition not a democracy, elections notwithstanding. Second, I doubt very much Allawi and his party had being Israel-friendly as any part of their platform, so just wait until the people figure that part out. Third, after the horrors of the last seven years Iraqis are not ready to concern themselves with much more than their basic needs, of which security and basic services are still overwhelmingly at the top.
“I was also thinking about the neo-con Clean Break Plan.“
As I said, no one who knows even a little bit about the Middle East believes that democratizing it will give Israel control over its governments.
There’s not much recognition that there was a second ethnic cleansing in 1967, smaller but much like 1948, and more acute than the slow ethnic cleansing which followed after 1967. But I have never seen data published about its extent.
I have reliable material on this in my personal library, but it’s pretty obscure and was difficult to obtain. Right now I am cataloging and reorganizing my library using a book collectors’ database program (finally), so I have hundreds of books all over the floors, tables, on the hearth, the mantle – everywhere – but I think I can find at least a couple of the references I have collected over the years (when I put the books back into the book cases, I plan to add a location field to the database, which at least theoretically should make it easier to locate what I need when I need it. We will see how well that works). If I have time this weekend I will try to write a diary on this very important and greatly overlooked topic.
Another topic that is hugely overlooked is the near-complete, and very systematic – and selective – ethnic cleansing of the Golan Heights in 1967. In terms of percentages this was Israel’s most successful ethnic cleansing project to date, and yet it is the least known. They expelled some 95% of the Syrian population, and demolished 96% of the villages and towns. In a number of documented cases they gathered the residents together, put Arabs on one side and Druze on the other, expelled all the Arabs, and allowed the Druze to stay. The reason for this was that the Druze religion dictates that its adherents accept whoever is in power without resistance, so the Israelis believed they would get a docile workforce, and have an illusion of self-governance in the Syrian towns and villages they allowed to remain. And then, of course, there is Quneitra……..
And of course, the situation in the Golan Heights IS largely ignored except by Syrians and a few concerned persons. When I am in Syria later this year I may try to do some research and talk to some Golanis about their experience. I do plan to visit Quneitra and take a lot of pictures.
As I just noted in Shergald’s latest diary, an appropriate response would provoke a sh*tstorm in the Democratic Party. And I have no doubt the reaction would be strongly pro-Israel.
So what should the President do?
Yes, and god forbid doing what is right should override party politics.
I’m not saying I like the situation. But I think I’ve described it accurately. Do you disagree?
No, I don’t disagree, and I think any truly progressive American should be deeply ashamed of it.
So the lesson for future politicians would be, don’t mess with Israel. How does that help?
That’s always been the lesson, and I expect it always will be the lesson unless and until the Zionist propaganda machine, and the Zionist lobbies begin to lose their death grip on public opinion, and on the U.S. political system. The grip was loosened ever so slightly for a while as a result of the horrors Israel brought on Lebanon in 2006, and a bit more after the 2008-9 wanton rampage in Gaza, but there is a still a long way to go, and the Israeli P.R. machine has been going full bore trying to counteract “those who would delegitimize Israel”.
Finkelstein at Harvard: Gaza wasn’t a war
by Philip Weiss on March 26, 2010 · 5 comments
http://mondoweiss.net/2010/03/finkelstein-at-harvard-gaza-wasnt-a-war.html?utm_source=feedburner&
;utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Mondoweiss+%28Mondoweiss+%28Posts%29%29&utm_content=My
+Yahoo
Jews do not control America’s government but it doesn’t really matter what the administration wants. Israel controls the actions of the US Congress in regards to itself.
Plus as Yglesias points out, American support for Israel is a point off it’s all time high.
There is going to be a war or an intifada soon, mark my words. If Israel ever appears too radical at some point in time, they provoke a war and then cry that they’re being persecuted.
Like, two IDF soldiers were just killed in east Khan Younis, Gaza. It’s just the build up to that point.
Wash, rinse, repeat. It can’t go on much longer, though. Barak and Olmert have said as much (when they’re out of power, cowards).
I believe in calling things what they are, and I must take issue of your use of the word war to describe Israel’s aggressions. Certainly what happened in Gaza a bit over a year ago was not even remotely a war. There was, in fact, almost no fighting involved. Massacre would be a better description. Neither was what happened in Lebanon in 2006 really a war, though Hezballah did manage to defend the country effectively enough to force the Israelis to end it without achieving much other than killing a hell of a lot of civilians and laying waste to much of the country, not to mention carpeting southern Lebanon with millions of cluster bomblets that are still killing and maiming children, farmers, and the odd sheep, cow, or donkey. And let’s not forget that Israel laid down all those millions of cluster bomblets AFTER the cease fire had been agreed to.
.
Link to original story in the Washington Post …
JERUSALEM — Israel insisted Friday it would continue building in contested east Jerusalem, taking an uncompromising stance against U.S. pressure following a tense visit by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Washington.
Two Israeli soldiers, meanwhile, were killed in a gunbattle with Gaza militants in some of the fiercest fighting in the territory since Israel’s military offensive there more than a year ago. The deaths were the first for the Israeli military in Gaza since January 2009.
Four militants died in the clashes and in another exchange of fire nearby. Gaza’s Islamic Hamas rulers announced that their gunmen were involved – marking a shift from the group’s tendency over the past year to avoid confrontation with Israeli forces.
Israel’s refusal to change its long-standing policy on east Jerusalem signaled that a high-profile rift between the U.S. and Israel remained wide, with stalled Mideast peace talks caught in the middle.
“The prime minister’s position is that there is no change in Israeli policy on Jerusalem,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement. Shortly after, he convened a previously scheduled meeting of key ministers to frame a response to Washington’s demands for Israeli peace gestures.
Netanyahu’s office issued a statement after the five-hour meeting, offering no details of the discussions but saying ministers would meet again soon. Israel Radio said no decisions were made and that Israel likely wouldn’t deliver its reply to the U.S. before the Jewish Passover holiday ends April 5.
Obama Dresses Down Netanyahu: No Photo Ops or Statements
Meanwhile as a goodwill gesture from the U.S. administration:
My recent diary on supporters of Israel:
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Yes, Bibi has got to go. But there is a larger problem with respect to East Jerusalem that goes beyond his replacement. Nakamura post this information on EI a few years ago: who will replace him and does it make a difference, since East Jerusalem has been a stiking point since Camp David:
See the problem?
we need to ask the question what are we getting in return for our aid dollars?
Are you saying that it would be OK with you to have your aid dollars being spent on illegal colonization of occupied territory, oppression of an occupied population, weapons used against civilian lives and infrastructure, and the creation of an apartheid structure if you were getting something worthwhile in return for those aid dollars?
What’s so strange about Israel, is in some ways, it reflects the US and our recent interaction with ultra-conservatives.
Israel is currently in their George W. stage. As faux a cowboy as W, Bibi poses the same danger to the ME as W posed to a slightly larger stage. Arrogance, a conviction that their’s is the only truth, that they must push to the max, or risk defeat – it is a dangerous place to be.
Once you start out on such a wild path, there is no turning back. Pragmatic decision making is simply not acceptable. Rational, logical thinking? It gets lost in the local drama of the situation.
Even though the majority of Israelis think that they are fucking up their own country, especially with Bibi in power, it still becomes a race to see who can piss on more palestinians with the heaviest stream, every time they hold an election.
The remnants of our GOP are bit like that, too. Looking at how they treated Frum, and how they will treat Bartlett (How DARE they tell the truth!) shows the same race to a wrong-headed position.
Once again, Benyamin Netanyahu is not doing anything every other Israeli leader has not done. He is just doing it more brazenly. Every single Israeli leader, and every Zionist leader before them (with the exception of Moshe Sharett, whose career didn’t last long because he was seen as weak for trying to honour Palestinians’ rights) has pissed and shat on the Palestinians and anyone else they wanted to; has committed his/her share of acts of aggression; has committed his/her share of horrific war crimes; has denied basic rights of citizenship to Israel’s Palestinian citizens; has “Judaized” “Arab” areas inside Israel.
Every single Israeli leader since June, 1967 has done his share in ethnically cleansing, and colonizing the Occupied Territories including the usually-ignored Golan Heights; oppressed the non-Jewish residents of the Occupied Territories; murdered large numbers of innocent people; committed numerous large and small acts of aggression; and so on and on and on. The only thing that makes Netanyahu even a little bit different is that he is in power at this particular time, and has been more brazen about it than most.
So, let’s stop pretending that the problem is Benyamin Netanyahu and if only we could get rid of him everything would be fine. It has never been fine with or without him, and regime change is not going to change anything.
many good observations and points here.
why am I reminded of that early star trek episode with the half black/half white tribes fighting each other?
I don’t recall that episode, so pardon me if you had a different point, but this is not about two warring tribes, nor is it about some “intractable ancient enmity”, and no one should allow such an assertion to pass unchallenged. This conflict is only about a century old – less, really, because it took the Palestinians until around the 1930’s to fully catch on to what the Zionists were there to do and to begin to seriously oppose it – and it is not about this group hating that group. At its core it is about an ethnically-specific group of Europeans coming from another continent to colonize and eventually ethnically cleanse and take over land that was already inhabited, and utterly disregarding the rights, wishes, and welfare of the indigenous population. It is, in fact, about European colonization with a special twist.
The hatred is a product of the conflict, not vice versa.
Each tribe had a white half (vertical line) and a black half. Except, the two were mirror images of each other. They each found the other to be so distasteful, ugly, and evil, that . . . .
their societies killed each other off.
Thanks. Yes, I have a visual image of what you are talking about, including the mirror image part, but did not recall the specifics. I did recall vaguely that it was about two very similar groups with an unreasoning hatred of one another.
I can’t see any analogy here. The conflict with Israel is not about unreasoning hatred on the part of two similar peoples. It is about a group of European Jews deciding that they have rights to a piece of land in Asia that are superior to those of the non-European, non-Jewish indigenous natives of that land (including, by the way, the indigenous Jews, many of whom opposed a takeover by Europeans), succeeding in declaring it theirs, and taking it over to the extreme detriment of the indigenous natives. It is about egregious injustice by the strong against the weak, the weak party’s attempts, both violent and non-violent, to have those injustices acknowledged and redressed, and the strong party’s violent reactions to those efforts. As I said before, in this case the conflict is not the result of baseless hatred, the hatred is a result of a conflict that began with one party usurping the patrimony and the rights of the other.
It is also not a battle between two equal parties with equal grievances and equal desire and ability to resolve and end the conflict, despite efforts on the part of advocates of the stronger party to pretend it is. Israel has taken the ancestral land of the Palestinians, and day by keeps taking more and more and more of it. Decades ago the Palestinians agreed, and have agreed repeatedly to accept as a resolution independence on a mere 22% of that land. Israel’s response has been to step up its illegal colonization of and establishments of “facts on the ground” in that very 22% the Palestinians have agreed to accept.
Since 2002 the Arab league, which consists of every Arab country, has unanimously affirmed and reaffirmed a peace proposal that includes peace and fully normal diplomatic and economic relations with Israel. All this proposal asks of Israel is that Israel grant the Palestinians independence on 22% of their homeland, and reach a mutually acceptable agreement for redress to the 1948 refugees. Since 2002 the Israelis have refused to even consider this proposal as a starting point for negotiations.
Hurria,
Thank you for everything you bring to my better understanding of the history of this area.
I mean that sincerely.
Thanks. Knowing that someone is listening and heeding makes it worthwhile.
Deliberate willfulness and ever-growing geographic claims can never be sustained. At some point, such unwise behavior will backfire. And Bibi’s just the guy to push the bubble to the bursting point.
Ever read any of his books? He pretty much laid out a roadmap of how he planned to forcibly remove those pesky dirty folks in his way. There is a layer of civility in those pages, but it is so thin that it fails to mask his hatred for all things palestinian and muslim.
I will concede that this is a very poor time for Netanyahu to pull out his brazen style. Israel’s stock is at an all-time low just about everywhere, and so it is time for the Israelis to play things more subtly.
Look, just about every Zionist and Israeli leader beginning with Herzl has made clear in word and mostly in deed their hatred, or at least their distain of and their ultimate intentions toward the Palestinians at one time or another. Admittedly some have been more careful with their words than others. Most of Ben Gurion’s public official statements were quite different from his private ones, though even he slipped from time to time. Netanyahu is different from the others only in presentation, and I repeat that replacing him will not make an iota of difference, except, perhaps, that a return to a more subtle approach would allow the Israelis to continue their agenda with less opposition.