The United States has decided to abandon its efforts to persuade Israel to freeze its settlement construction, saying the tactic has failed. The Palestinians’ leadership in the West Bank, the Palestinian Authority, has been demanding a total settlement freeze as a condition of attending direct talks with Israel under US mediation. Israel’s self-imposed 10-month settlement freeze expired in November which caused the direct talks also to end; Israel refused to extend the freeze on illegal construction of settlements in the occupied territories for 90 more days as requested by the US.
The US offered a proposal with incentives such as jet fighters and security guarantees in return for the 90-day extension. The Israel cabinet rejected the proposal. On the other hand, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu offered to freeze construction if the Palestinians recognised Israel as a Jewish State, but the Palestinian Authority dismissed that idea.
It is not clear what the US is planning. Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said the talks with the Americans were postponed because the US was busy dealing with the Wikileaks release of diplomatic cables. However, this was denied by US State Department spokesperson P J Crowley. The US made clear that abandoning efforts towards settlement freeze does not mean giving up efforts entirely. It said it recognised there was a need to change tactics to resume the peace talks.
Maen Rashid Areikat, the Palestinian Authority’s chief representative in the US, said that Israel should be made to comply with international laws and resolutions, adding that the Palestinian Authority had not changed its position on settlement construction. However, the BBC reported that the negotiators would be in Washington next week and US secretary of state Hillary Clinton would give a speech on the Middle East.
If the Palestinian Authority bends to the US's pressure tactics, it could be suicidal to the Palestinians’ interests. The US has been weakened in international forums such as the G20, APEC and the IMF. The EU and emerging market economies such as China and Brazil are increasingly defying pro-US tactics on international relations. As a result, it seems the US is attempting to retain its supremacy with the help of Israel by integrating the Middle East and South Asia into the battlefield. Israel could become a crucial partner to the US in the future in its efforts to assert its hegemony in the global arena of economic, military, and political relations. There are plenty of chances for Israel’s position to be strengthened further because of the US’s weakening situation.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Fivish
Yes, Israel and the USA MUST abide by international law and treaty! The San Remo Treaty, the British Mandate and the Anglo-American Treaty all require Jews to settle all the land west of the Jordan river and cede no land to a foreign(Arab) entity.
The Arabs and the UN have ignored international law and treaty for far too long. The UN apparantly has no regard for its charter, article 80 which forbids it from interfering in the pre-existing legislation. The Arabs have no legal, historic or moral right to any part of the Land of Israel.
2 - Ruvy
Fivish is right in his assertions. But beyond that, this report is a bit late - and wrong. The US is still trying to shove its big imperialistic garbage down our throats - now it's using proxies like Australia and Japan to do the job. And now there are no promises of anything on the table, just raw demands.
The Americans were never willing to put in writing what they were alleging to promise Israel for yet another suicidal freeze on building construction in Judea and Samaria. And they are still not.
Promises by the Americans are worth shit and definitely not worth the paper they are written on. American oral reassurances are worth less than shit. To be blunt, the Americans are no more reliable than the Arabs they enable to kill us.
When the Americans show that they actually have the balls to do some good on the planet - like stopping permanently the Persian nuclear drive for weapons - then I'll think of regarding them as anything more than pitiful collapsing giants.
While I'm on the topic of pitiful collapsing giants, check out the price of silver.
3 - Irene Athena
I note after reading the first two lines: whoever edited this piece has a better grasp of apostrophe positioning than the overwhelming majority of Anglophones.
4 - Irene Athena
does.
5 - Irene Athena
By that I mean, the comments can go back to being what they ought to be about. Good article, Sekhar, and kudos to the editor.
6 - Irene Athena
Gotta love it. The U.S. offers jet fighters (to drop things on Palestinians?) as an incentive for Israel to wait 90 more days before resuming... let's call it, diplomatically... Palestinian-provoking architecture in the occupied territories.
7 - Ruvy
Like I said, this article was late as well as wrong. Hillary Clinton aggressively flapped her jaws about construction in Judea and Samaria at the Saban Forum, as well as demanding that we turn over land that is OURS BY RIGHT, AND BY INTERNATIONAL LAW to people who have no right to it at all.
8 - Irene Athena
Well, Ruvy, as you know, I am burdened with an inclination to see both sides, the Jewish and the Palestinian. So, I hope you won't see me as your adversary.
No doubt about it, Ruvy, since I believe the Bible, I have to believe that God gave those lands to the Jews.
And since YOU believe the Bible, YOU have to believe that God took those lands away from the Jews when he sent them into Babylonian exile, as a result of their gross neglect of him.
And since you and I both believe the Bible, we have to believe that God gave those lands BACK to the Jews. A generation later, a Babylonian king, though not a Jew himself, thought that giving them back would be a fair thing to do.
There was no bloodshed involved in moving the Jews into the Holy Land, not like the first time they gained possession, when they had had to wrest it out of the hands of baby-killing Molech-worshippers. The second time the Jews got the land, which was removed from them AS A PUNISHMENT from God, they did not get it back through violence. They had to wait for the miraculous workings of Providence working through a Babylonian king's fair-mindedness. To think of it!
There hasn't been anything by way of what EITHER ONE OF US would consider Biblical Revelation since A.D. 70, when the Jews, for a second time, en masse, left the Holy Land.
Thus, it's impossible for me to point to any specific Biblical support for the notion that the Roman overthrow of Jerusalem happened for the same reasons the Babylonian exile happened, that the restoration of the Holy Land is going to happen when GOD is ready for it to happen, and not a second before.
I would tend to think, though, you'd agree, Ruvy, that the posture of Jews worldwide toward the Creator God is not what it might be, and that a full restoration of the Holy Land to the Jews through violent expulsion of Palestinians who'd been living in villages for centuries (I've heard this happened around 1947) might send Mixed Divine Messages.
9 - Irene Athena
Since the above attempt at persuasion is not accompanied by an offer of jet fighter planes, I trust it does not fall under the heading of "aggressive jaw-flapping." That term of yours pretty accurately describes what passes for "peace talks," I'm sorry to say. The Military Industrial Complex is always working both sides of the aisle.
10 - Ruvy
We Jews have our own reasons for believing why HASHEM blessed the hands of the Romans in their unsystematic attempt at the genocide of my people 2,000 years ago. It was hinted to in the Torah, Irene.
But a Jewish state, faulty as it is, has been restored to us, by our own force of arms, and we remain forced to maintain a powerful military to continue to survive. Since the Arabs chose to fight us, they bear the consequence of loss. That we do not shove those consequences down the Arabs throats with a hobnailed boot is something you should be grateful for.
Perhaps you should take up the cause of Germans returning to the Sudenland; or of Greeks to Ionia. Perhaps you can use the trashy arguments of the el-Husseini clan, the bunch that incited against Jews during the Mandate and who later founded the PLO, in trying to convince Bohemians to give up their homes in the Sudeten mountains to the Germans they forced out - or perhaps persuade the White Russians to allow the Poles expelled from White Russia in 1945 to return to their homes.
As for Arabs driven from their homes in 1947, they could have accepted the illegal resolution 181 dividing up the Mandate. Our leaders were stupid enough to. They didn't. They lost. Too bad. As for REAL international law, the entire territory of Mandate Palestine, the Land of Israel, was under Jewish sovereignty from 25 April 1920. Anyone who says otherwise - and the whole world does - is full of shit. So, we'll just have to do what we've always done. Stand alone against the whole world. It's nothing new - and this time we at least have some nukes to help us out. But in the end, it will be HASHEM, the living G-d of Israel, Who decides how the battle will go. I have the books of Ezekiel and Zechariah to give me a pretty good hint. Read them some time. And make sure you listen to Barry Chamish's radio show on First Amendment Radio before it goes away on Tuesday afternoon.
11 - irene athena
I have those books too, Ruvy, and my interpretation is, "No jaw will go unslacked." Not yours, not mine.
I already have a listen slated for Monday 9 PM US Mountain Time (EST minus 2) Is that before Tuesday afternoon your time?
12 - Sekhar
Irene, your arguments are somewhat interesting.
13 - irene athena
Why, you have my most halfhearted thanks, Sekhar ;)
The comments of most interest to you would be #6 and #9. You may take #5 as the sincere compliment it was.
14 - irene athena
Or maybe I'm wrong about what you found somewhat interesting?
Is the "somewhat" rating a result of including the interest score for #4 in the average?
15 - Ruvy
Irene, I mentioned Tuesday afternoon because it would be your time.
16 - Ruvy
People like Sekhar would believe this video called "Jew World Order" to be true - certainly all those who hate us would believe it to be true. Such brains these haters and swallowers of Arab propaganda have! It is all sarcasm. The truth is this video, called Home by the very same fellow is the truth. WE ARE HOME! FOR GOOD! And we are not going anywhere - ever! You don't like it? That's just too damned bad!
As for the "Palestinian" Arabs, if they find a home, and peace in 77% of the Mandate stolen from us, known as Jordan, may they go with a blessing of peace on their heads. But if they start a war with us - they will die.
17 - Irene Athena
"Jew World Order"-- the title alone screams "White Supremacist Bigot (being parodied.)" So, I'd be surprised to hear Sekhar had been taken in.
But then I don't know the first thing about Sekhar, or you, for that matter. Others erroneously think they know everything about a person just because they've read a few dozen...hundred...of their posts online, or have google-street-viewed their home address.
18 - Irene Athena
So speaking of home, I hope you are safe in yours. I think that's where you are Ruvy, home.
Other people in your vicinity, unhappily, come from families who, who, for two generations, have had no certain idea where "home" might be. I feel sorry for them. You don't. I don't think we're going to be changing each other's minds tonight.
19 - Ruvy
Irene, how little you do know! Most of the Arabs in my vicinity have lived here for less than 25 years, either having moved here when Jews started building Eli, Shilo, and Ma'ale Levona, or being the children of those who moved here. They know where they live, and have cars, satellite dishes, Facebook pages and all sorts of other stuff. Ramallah is a city with tall buildings visible from P'sagot and Bet-El. Unfortunately, the Arabs have a chaotic culture, with serious issues of homosexuality, paedophilia, terrible levels of violence against children, women and animals, far more so than Israelis. I don't hate them. THEY HATE ME. But I feel sorry for them, not because they are "poor 'Palestinian'", but because the chaos in their societies and the levels of hate and savagery in their society. And these ARE NOT THE RESULT OF BEING "REFUGEES" - they are endemic to most Arabs societies.
20 - Cannonshop
Interestingly, when I was in hte sandbox back in the day, we took a trip to the bazaar in Riyadh, and there were copies of "Mein Kampf" for sale in english, and Arabic. This ties into the history of the region-the Waffen SS had good success recruiting both Indian, and Muslims, during WWII, and much of the islamic world openly sympathized and supported Hitler's Third Reich. (No bullshit, they did!).
Historically, during the thirties Jews were expelled from their homes in much of the Middle East (including Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Sudan, Libya, etc), and the White Paper the Brits were using actively opposed the formation of a Jewish Homeland in order to curry favour with the Arab nations created in the breakup of the Ottoman Empire. The British actively avoided allowing Jews into the ranks for fear that Jewish Nationalists would use their training against the Empire, as well as the fear that Jewish troops would commit war-crimes against the Nazis.
Until the revelations about the Holocaust, antisemitism was socially acceptable in the west. It remains so in the near-east. The reason that Palestinians live in Camps, is because their fellow-arabs don't want them, but will use them-as instruments of foreign policy to justify ongoing low-intensity warfare against the Jews in Israel. They tried High-Intensity warfare, but after word leaked that the Jews might have the bomb in Israel, it became too risky to wage open warfare with actual armies-and the use of irregular forces also allows them to play a 'sympathy card' with the ignorant Westerners, to try and win it in the American and European media, rather like how the NVA managed to starve out the South before launching their offensive in 1975.
21 - Sekhar
#14 Irene, you have tackled Ruvy with your biblical knowledge. But I don't have it. Ruvy sees the history from biblical perspective. I only have history knowledge. Of course, not that I know every part of the history. Israelis have religious attachments with the land.
I try to get the knowledge of religious attachments of Jews from Ruvy's comments. For the first time, I've read some counter on biblical line to Ruvy's line of analysis. That's why I've felt it interesting. "Somewhat" because of my half knowledge in bible.
Ruvy, sometime you say you don't hate Arabs or Palestinians. Except that, your every word about Arabs or Palestinians demonstrates your hate towards them and you never tried to hide it. Let it be. Why do you try to say you don't hate Arabs or/and Palestinians?
I want to clarify that I don't have any reason to hate Jews. But, I hate hating people simply because they belong to certain race or religion or what ever.
I have a perspective of understanding history. My perspective only depends upon people, their culture, their economic, political and historical evolution. Although religion and religious beliefs form a part of the culture, they are mostly exploited by the rich classes in the societies to suppress economic wishes of the working masses and to perpetuate their economic plunder.
22 - Ruvy
THE SOLUTION: JORDAN IS PALESTINE!
Jordan was cut out of land that was the sovereign property of the Jewish people by the British, who were the occupying foreigners at the time. As this article shows, the majority of the "Jordanians" are really Arabs who from around here or their descendants, who have built lives over several generations. But these Arabs, the majority of the population, are discriminated against, though far less so in Jordan than in Syria or Lebanon, and the possibility for further unrest of this kind can create a war here.
It is the opinion of Arab journalist Mudar Zahran that Jordan should be opened up as the "Palestinian" homeland because HE believes that any attempt to set up a "Palestinian" state in will only result in war and violence. HE says that his people do not have the political awareness to live in peace with Israel.
Speaking of home, we are safe in ours. We just got back on the computer after a 3½ electricity blackout that blacked out the entire region (including the Arab villages in the area).
23 - Cannonshop
Oh...and some (minor) supporting documentation can be found in the bibliography of this page...
Mohammad Amin al-Husayni
24 - Ruvy
Sekhar, I have told the brutal truth about Arab societies in general. It is of little interest to me whether they fit into your "narrative" of bullshit about the Middle East and imperialism.
Note Cannonshop's comment about his visit to Arabia under the rule of the Wahhabi garbage, the ibn Sauds. This is a country with the same kind of viciousness and violence that Iran displays towards it citizens. They persecute Indian and East Asian foreign workers and treat them as lower than dogs, with the general attitude that they exist to labor and to be tortured. YOUR government does nothing to stop this mistreatment of its own citizens. Why is of little interest to me. But the fact that you cannot admit to these unpleasant truths is most telling.
25 - Sekhar
Ruvy, why do you say I don't admit? There are facts of Indians being mistreated in Arab states. Indian rulers have never been for their people's interests. I wrote about them in some of my articles. Not only in Arab countries, they are mistreated in the US and Europe even though they are ambassadors, ministers, scientists and computer programmers. There are also instances Indians are respected and accepted. They constitute another topic.
Here, I am dealing with people of different races, religions and countries. I always see difference between people and regimes. Regimes' interests are different from those of their people. Regimes represent their own interests but not of their people. If you can see this difference, we may not share our views with our governments. For example, I don't see Indian governments, since independence, ever worked for people. They served western countries' interests and developed local rich classes. That's where I see the difference between regimes and their people. That's why we need not hate Iranians by looking at Iranian government and its policies. But, as a sovereign country it has its own rights and interests which one should respect.