US fury as Israel defies settlement freeze call
Times Online
Israeli plans to authorise the construction of hundreds of houses in the occupied West Bank sparked furious protests from American and Palestinian officials yesterday.
In a nod to US requests to suspend all building work at Jewish settlements, Binyamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister, is offering a freeze on construction at a later date — a peace gambit that did little to mollify those involved in the negotiations leading to a new Middle East peace process.
President Obama had hoped to start formal talks between Palestinians and Israel later this month.
“We regret the reports of Israel’s plans to approve additional settlement construction,” Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman, said. “As the President has said before, the United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued settlement expansion and we urge it to stop.”
Another US official said: “In the end America will be forced to do what is necessary to bring the Israelis and the Palestinians back to the negotiation table. But the Netanyahu Government has proven difficult to work with.”
Settlement growth has been a key impediment to the peace talks. The Jewish settlements, built on land earmarked for a future Palestinian state, are strongly supported by much of the right-wing constituency that elected Mr Netanyahu.
The new plan, drawn up by Mr Netanyahu and outlined by officials close to him yesterday, seeks to placate the right-wing elements of his coalition, while moving forward on conditions laid down by the Obama Administration.
It proposes that Israel would agree to a freeze of settlement building for up to nine months, excluding 2,500 housing units that are already under construction, and settlement projects in east Jerusalem.
In exchange Mr Netanyahu hopes that Arab states will begin to normalise ties with Israel and allow it to open offices in Arab countries and grant overflight rights for Israeli aircraft. He also plans to approve the construction of approximately 500 additional housing units, bringing the total number to 3,000, aides said.
The proposal infuriated Palestinian negotiators, who accused Israel of posturing for peace while attempting to “worm” more illegal construction into the deal. “What the Israeli Government said [about the planned construction] is not useful. It is unacceptable for us. We want a freeze on all settlement construction,” Mahmoud Abbas, the President of the Palestinian Authority, said. He reiterated that the entire Middle East peace process hinged on a freeze of all Israeli settlement construction.
Mr Abbas is under US pressure to accept Israel’s conditions before a planned summit with Mr Netanyahu and President Obama on the fringes of the UN General Assembly meeting. George Mitchell, Washington’s Middle East envoy, who is due in the region next week, has been pressing Israeli and Palestinian negotiators to reach a basic understanding before the meeting, brokered by the US Administration.
It appeared unlikely, however, that the US knew of Mr Netanyahu’s plan to add an additional 500 homes to those already approved. Kurt Hoyer, a spokesman for the US Embassy in Tel Aviv, said that Washington would be unlikely to accept anything “contrary to the spirit of negotiations they’ve been undertaking”.
American officials have been pushing for a settlement freeze, with a senior State Department official telling the Jerusalem Post newspaper that a nine-month halt to construction would be “long enough to be credible and for negotiations to proceed”.
There has been much speculation over the concessions that Mr Netanyahu is willing to make. In a speech this year he declared for the first time that Palestinians should be granted an independent state.
Nevertheless, construction of settlements in the West Bank has continued, albeit at a slower pace, since he took office. Government figures showed that construction fell by a third in the first half of 2009.
Palestinians hope to make Jerusalem their capital, and the 1967 green line, which roughly demarcates the border upon which the negotiations are being conducted, establishes east Jerusalem as part of a unified Palestinian state.
“Jerusalem is the one issue that Netanyahu will not compromise over,” one MP in the Prime Minister’s Likud party said. Palestinian negotiators have made it clear that no final peace accord will be reached without a Palestinian stake in Jerusalem.
Wild Thing’s comment……..
“US fury as Israel defies settlement freeze call “…
The fury is limited to the socialist in our White House and others who hate Jews.
“Another US official said: “In the end America will be forced to do what is necessary to bring the Israelis and the Palestinians back to the negotiation table. But the Netanyahu Government has proven difficult to work with.””
Thats the key line. ominous sounding coming from an American administration.
First BiBi has seen children blown up, civilians beheaded and tortured and faces threats of death to his family and himself daily not by ballerinas name Rahm with Napoleonic complexes Obama but by real terrorist that have murdered hundreds.
Secondly the Mossad…..name says it all.
Thirdly, Israel can afford to lose only one war. They do not have the benefit of geographic isolation. If they “lose”, they end up in the Mediterranean.
So Obama may huff and puff, Little Rahm the ballerina may bow up and act like a thug, but it’s nothing the Israelis haven’t seen before. ……… if all else fails then they’ve been know to play with the iron fist…… just ask the men involved in the Munich attack about Mivtza Za’am Ha’El…….. oh that’s right, they’re not alive anymore. Good for Israel!
….Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
And there’s this other thing, I hope I’m wrong about.
Iran has until sometime near the end of September to stop the nuke proliferation. If they don’t, I expect Israel to stop it. They’ve done things like that in the past without clearing it with anyone first (like the WH), they sure aren’t going to bother doing it now, with 96% of Israelis thinking that Obama is not on their side.
NK is cooking up their own nukes to sell? to one of these enemy nations.
One of the side effects would be shutting down of oil in the Persian Gulf, making Russian oil more valuable and skyrocketing the price of crude, which we already got a taste of what happens here when the prices go up. Yet we have no effective energy policy.
Meanwhile Zero goes about the task of demoralizing CIA and our troops, expending our supplies, and supporting the wrong side of freedom.
I want them ALL gone NOW.
barack HUSSEIN Obummer is doing a lousy job of pretending to run the USA. He can keep his organizer ass out of Israel. This Christian enjoys the Chutzpah that is the Israeli spirit, and I don’t need to see King HUSSEIN of America trying to tear them down.
Israel- the other Lone Star State
http://www.cafepress.com/frankopinions/6805963
nuf sed
Good, I’m glad to see Bibi not back down to obama’s threats. The Israelis have made offers(Gaza) to the Palestinians and accepted peace plans in the past. None of this has worked toward peace as the muslims have renigged on all the former gestures.
obama obviously thinks that his muslim background will have an allying effect on the Arabs and Persians in regards to Israel. It doesn’t. obama’s failure in this vein just goes to show that muslims will screw over each other as quickly as they will screw over infidels.
I personally am a strong supporter of Israel and feel we should be standing beside her not behind her with a knife ready to go into her back while Obama panders to muzzies. If anyone has not visited RonMossad http://www.ronmossad.com/ he has an excellent post titled:
Why We Fight: In Defense of Preemptive Offense
THIS Conservative Christian supports Bibi and the Bible’s Old Testament GENESIS! The children of Israel are God’s chosen ones…
They keep calling these people Palestinians. Where’d they come from. Last I heard they were nomads and bedoins who were exiled to roam the dessert by Saudi Arabia, Syria and a host of other moslem countries. But these countries don’t want them back. But they hate the Jews more than these useless pieces of camel dung.
I didn’t think Netanyahu would back down, he has made as many concessions as he can. That’s as far as he will go.
I am sure the Mossad is keeping an eye on Iran and if they get to close to achieving a Nuke, I would bet the farm Israel will wipe them off the map before they can mount that thing.
Eden, well put and all of that you said
are factors and could very well happen.
We are living in dangerous times. That is
another reason Obama is so very wrong
for being a leader of any country and
especially ours.
Frankly, Oboama is horrible and the
worst ever to hold office. Especially
now it is really bad, the last thing
the world needs is a USA President with
Obama’s agenda. grrrrr
I clicked your link in your comment.
I LOVE the design Frankly, that is
absolutley awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
WOW!
Tom, that sure is the truth.
“obama’s failure in this vein just goes to show that muslims will screw over each other as quickly as they will screw over infidels.”
Bob A., I agree we should be standing
right along side Israel.
Darth, me too, AMEN to all you said.
Mark, see you were right. When I posted that
article the other day that said Netanyahu
was going to give in to Obama I prayer he
would stay strong but I began to have doubts.
Now we see what you said, that Netanyahu
is doing great and not backing down.
Caroline Glick has two videos about the pallies and Israel and the so called two state solution. Those of us here know that no matter what concessions are given by Israel the muzzy world will want more, even if Israel is totally destroyed they will come for the great white satan. Wake up people.
http://www.onejerusalem.org/2009/09/video-caroline-glick-talks-abo.php
Jack,
you are so right.