Bibi was besieged by settlement talk
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu didn't only hear about settlements from the president last week, but Congress also pressed him over the issue, according to an Israeli newspaper report.
According to a translation of a Yediot Ahronot article provided by Americans for Peace Now:
John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said: The United States expects to receive from Israel a commitment to solve the problem of settlements, to stop construction in existing settlements, to remove unauthorized settlement outposts and to stop saying that construction is for purposes of natural growth.
Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, a veteran Jewish legislator and chairman of the Senate Armed Forces Committee, said to Netanyahu: The issue of settlements is a matter of principle for the administration and Congress. It must be dealt with in conjunction with addressing the Iranian threat. Other members of Congress said similar things to Netanyahu. No one took a favorable line towards Israel on this matter, with the exception of Eric Cantor, a Jewish Republican Congressman from [Virginia].
A senior Israeli official who was present at the meetings defined them as “a fight” and “mutual arm-wrestling,” with Netanyahu trying to put an emphasis on the Iranian issue, and the members of Congress insisting on returning to the issue of the settlements. The senior official emphasized that there was full coordination between President Obama and the members of the Democratic majority in Congress. Netanyahu discovered yesterday how much Congress had changed, the senior official said. In 1996, Netanyahu recruited the Republican majority that existed in Congress against Clinton, the Democratic president. Today, this is impossible.
APN lauded Congress for its focus on the settlements issue:
Americans for Peace Now today sent letters to congressional leaders praising them for making clear to visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the United States expects Israel to follow through on its commitments to stop settlements. ...
"It's hugely significant that Netanyahu heard the same message from both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue: Settlements must stop," said Debra DeLee, President and CEO of Americans for Peace Now. "Settlements undermine the two-state solution, which is the best hope for peace for Israel. It is also a clear U.S. national security interest," she added.
According to one media report, the only Member of Congress not to speak out against West Bank settlements during his meeting with Mr. Netanyahu was Rep. Eric Cantor. "I sincerely hope that this report is wrong, and I urge Rep. Cantor to act as a true friend of Israel and speak out clearly against West Bank settlements," said DeLee.
APN's letter to Rep. Cantor expressed concerns about this account.
J Street also praised Congress for conveying the settlement message in a release yesterday in which it also said it was "deeply dismayed" by Netanyahu's statement that he would not stop the "natural growth" of West Bank settlements:
J Street is deeply dismayed by Prime Minister Netanyahu’s remarks Sunday in which he rejected both a full settlement freeze in the West Bank and limitations on Israeli expansion in disputed areas of Jerusalem.
Just last week, the Prime Minister heard clearly from President Barack Obama and from other American political leaders that settlement construction and expansion must end. We share their concern that further growth of any kind only diminishes the prospects for peace and for the two-state solution that is essential to Israel’s future as a Jewish, democratic homeland.
J Street commends Rep. Gary Ackerman, Chairman of the House Middle East Subcommittee, and the delegation of Committee Members he is leading for carrying this message strongly to Israel’s leadership during a visit this week.
The President, Vice President Biden, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry and these members of Congress all agree that a serious push for a two-state solution – as well as broader peace negotiations between Israel and her neighbors - must begin with a full freeze of Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank.
In speaking out against settlement expansion, these American leaders have widespread support in the American Jewish community. Our recent poll shows that some 60 percent of American Jews firmly oppose the expansion of Israeli settlements, recognizing it as being detrimental to the Israeli-Palestinian and Israeli-Arab peace efforts, which they overwhelmingly favor....
The Washington Post noted over the weekend that efforts to press Netanyahu to stop settlements are complicated by a "secret agreement" President George W. Bush made with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon:
While in Washington, Netanyahu argued that Israel already dismantled settlements in the Gaza Strip, going beyond the road map, and was rewarded with the takeover of Gaza by the Hamas militant group and hundreds of rockets raining on Israeli towns, Israeli sources said. Still, shortly after he returned to Israel, the government tore down an unauthorized outpost, Maoz Esther. Israel is committed under the road map to remove about 26 such outposts, typically small groups of rudimentary structures with a few families. Settlers began rebuilding Maoz Esther almost immediately.
Netanyahu spokesman Mark Regev said there are no plans for a full settlement freeze. "The issue of settlements is a final status issue, and until there are final status arrangements, it would not be fair to kill normal life inside existing communities," he said.
Regev said the Israeli government is relying on "understandings" between former president George W. Bush and former prime minister Ariel Sharon that some of the larger settlements in the occupied West Bank would ultimately become part of Israel, codified in a letter that Bush gave to Sharon in 2004. In an interview with The Washington Post last year, Sharon aide Dov Weissglas said that in 2005, when Sharon was poised to remove settlers from Gaza, the Bush administration arrived at a secret agreement -- not disclosed to the Palestinians -- that Israel could add homes in settlements it expected to keep, as long as the construction was dictated by market demand, not subsidies.
Elliott Abrams, a former deputy national security adviser who negotiated the arrangement with Weissglas, confirmed the deal in an interview last week. "At the time of the Gaza withdrawal, there were lengthy discussions about how settlement activity might be constrained, and in fact it was constrained in the later part of the Sharon years and the Olmert years in accordance with the ideas that were discussed," he said. "There was something of an understanding realized on these questions, but it was never a written agreement."
Regev said Israeli and U.S. negotiators are discussing the degree to which the terms of the 2004 letter will apply under the new administration, but U.S. officials indicated that Obama wants to move beyond the 2004 letter and hold Israel to its commitments under the road map. "The bottom line is we expect all the parties in the region to honor their commitments, and for the Israelis, that means a stop to settlements, as the president said," a senior administration official said.
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Peter Wedlund makes some interesting comments. U.S. respect for private property and settlements. Some settlement land was built on land bought and owned by Jews before the State of Israel was declared. Other land bought after the ‘67 war. Other settlements built on state land, with no private ownership. Some on private land.
As to his declaration that the U.S. bought land from France, Spain and Russia and therefore did not steal it from those originally living there, You buy stolen property from a thief and it is still stolen property.
Israel was attacked in ‘67 and won a defensive war. The allies fought and won a defensive war during WWII. Border adjustments were made and remain to this day in parts of Europe and Asia as a result of the Allied victory. The same should be true for Israel. No rockets are raining down from Judea and Samaria because of the Israeli presence there. The first walls built between Israel and P.A. territory were built to prevent sniper attacks that were taking place against Israeli citizens.
Israel should tell those U.S. members of Congress and B. H. Obama that the survival of Israel cannot and will not be based on promises from the U.S.. The settlement issue must be decided between Israel and Palestinian Arabs once they accept the fact that Israel will not fold or disappear and once their people want peace more than dead Jews.
To rely on J-Street and A.P.N. for accurate polls and numbers of their supporters is like buying a “pig in a poke.”
Israel must look to it’s own survival and make decisions on that.
If Israel did not exist, the Arabs and Moslems would still be fighting each other and the infidels, without the excuse of we’re doing it for the Palestinians.
Howard:
I think arguing about land acquired over 150 years ago is a little silly. Europeans conquered and took control, period. It happened in North, Central and South America between 1500-1800 A.D. , 200-500 years ago. Today we view the treatment of the Native Americans as pretty brutal and inhumane by today’s standards. However, we aren’t going to solve those issues nor will anyone by living in the past. Native Americans have the full rights of any US citizen. The US has tried to resolve its disputes with Native Americans peacefully and equitably. Most legal cases have actually been favorable to Native Americans.
Israel has a right to exist. No one is arguing that point. The peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan have now led to a general recognition of Israel’s sovereignty by the most of the Arab world. The major problem now resides with how Israel deals with its neighbor the Palestinian Arabs. Mistreating your neighbor isn’t going to make them your friend or facilitate peace in the region. Taking their land isn’t going to improve that relationship. Encouraging anger, hate or fear is going to create more and not fewer terrorists.
The US is has always been stuck in the middle of this because of our support for Israel. Israeli’s view our efforts as compromising their security. We are always pressuring them toward peace, while the others in the world view the US as facilitating the abuses by Israel. There are few Americans who relish this precarious position in the middle for the US—we are damned if we do and damned if we don’t.
Having grown up watching Israel, it has become much less tolerate and much more militant in its attitude toward its neighbors. That has not been a good direction to head and I say that as a friend. The more you do to encourage hate, anger and fear the more you do harm to yourself. Israel must indeed solve its problems and issues with the Palestinians and if we think about that there are only a few paths by which this can happen.
The preferred path is that you work with the PA and live in peace. You rebuild the lost trust, confidence and hope that you can work together and find common ground. You slowly dismantle the barriers that reflect the physical manifestations of the distrust, hate and anger as you build greater cooperation. This is the path Obama wishes to encourage.
The second path is the one you are on currently. You continue to suppress, take land, abuse and facilitate more hate. The more you try to protect yourself from the fire you feed, the more that fire will threaten to consume you. We know where this pathway leads, it produces more terrorists, more bombings and more snipers because when people have nothing to lose they have no reason not to fight, kill and die.
The third path is what more radical elements in Israel already want to do --wipe out or displace all Palestinians, take everything and have more Jewish settlers immigrate into the new territory. This will meet with major worldwide condemnation and ostracism. It will likely lead to sanctions against Israel by the entire world. Your neighbors will be more not less suspicious of your intentions and your neighbors will likely view any peace with Israel null and void. Israel will have solved one problem only to create a new and bigger one.
The Jewish community has plenty of people who are very intelligent. However, fear prevents rational thinking. Fear dominates over logic. I see many in the Jewish community embracing this fear and let it control them. Palestinians are out to kill them. Iran wants to destroy them. Hamas has vowed death to Israel. The Arab world supports the extremist efforts to destroy Jews. Hyperbole replaces hope. Fear replaces reason. What MIGHT happen replaces what WILL happen. The irrational replaces the rational. Now is the time for thinking about which path to follow instead of being guided down a specific path and accepting it as the only one. The US is happy to support Israel taking the path of peace. Obama would likely provide additional developmental resources to help that process along and encourage it. I can’t see him doing the same for the other two paths. It is Israel’s choice, totally your choice. I have never suggested otherwise.
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Peter Wedlund
05/28/09 11:33 PM
You need to watch what happens with North Korea. It will be a prelude to how the US deals with the Iranian situation. Historically, the US has not favored direct confrontation and rapid escalation of tensions. We have typically favored a graded response. You up the ante as necessary when countries refuse to work with you, you do not go in and bomb them because you THINK they might do something. Some of you are way too reactionary and have no clue as to how high level diplomacy works.
Thus far, I haven’t heard of any missiles raining down on Israel from the West Bank, so what makes anyone feel that will be the outcome of a negotiated peace deal with the PA? That is just an attempt to induce fear and justification for irrational behavior.
Obama has already indicated he would rather not see a divided Jerusalem. I think most of the US public would rather people be free to move freely without the walls and numerous barriers they now endure. It has not always been this way. The real stresses and tension started growing after Arafat failed to sign a peace deal with Israel in 2000. If people would let go of their fear and focus on rebuilding trust between one another instead of being so hell bent on destroying everything at each turn new hope might yet be realized.
Doom and gloom scenarios have a habit of becoming self-fulfilling prophesies. You choose your own path don’t blame anyone else for the road you take. No one can predict the future because it is always subject to change. This much I can assure you. The USA is not going to war with Iran, Russia or China. Obama is interested in working with them to help address the conflicts in the world. Continued conflicts are not in the best interest of anyone. Finding common ground is in everyone’s interest. Opposing that goal are people who merely want to encourage fear, tension and hate. Those who wish to encourage greater conflict are out of touch with the changes already taking place in Washington. Read some of Obama’s speeches. They are neither naive nor detached from reality. That merely talk about a different approach to how he intends to solve problems—listening and working with others – cooperatively building bridges instead of barriers, unions instead of divisions and hope instead of hate. The end of the self-interest driven, control at all costs, threaten and brow beat your adversary is over. The US will be more successful by focusing on common interests, common objectives, common goals that unite and solve problems instead of the policies that increase hate, anger, fear and divisions that divide and lead to war and death.