Much is being made of Israeli PM Netanyahu's refusal to back down in the face of Obama's slam at Israel in front of a sympathetic Muslim crowd in Jakarta for building 1,300 badly needed homes in Jerusalem.
The Leftish Jewish mag Tablet attempts to analyze this by going to yet another tired ex-Clintonista who was involved in the Oslo fiasco, Aaron David Miller.
The latest to-do, Aaron David Miller told me this morning, “reflects a much-diminished administration that got off on the wrong foot from the beginning.” Prior history as well as the prospects of continued Israeli-Palestinian negotiations give Netanyahu greater leverage, according to the former negotiator. The prime minister “knows that the administration believes the only way this Israeli-Palestinian problem is going to be resolved is negotiations, and so he’s convinced himself that they need him more than he needs them,” Miller said. “I don’t think he’s looking for a confrontation, but he’s willing to stand his ground.” Especially, Miller added, since we are talking about Jerusalem here: “Building in Jerusalem is as natural as breathing.”
To be fair to Obama: The timing of the announcement again seemed calculated to provoke and to assert Netanyahu’s (new?) upper hand; East Jerusalem lies on the far side of the 1967 Green Line; and Israel also just announced the construction of more than 1000 homes in Ariel, an unequivocal West Bank settlement.
Just a little FYI...both the ‘unequivocal settlement’ Ariel and Har Homa, the neighborhood of East Jerusalem where the badly needed housing will be built are on land Jews legally purchased and have owned for decades, not that it matters.The facts are really quite simple; this Jewish land was illegally seized by Jordan in 1948, the Jewish inhabitants ethnically cleansed and the stolen land held for 19 years until Israel recovered it after Jordan attacked Israel in 1967.Now the rightful owners have it back again.
I can't imagine where our president or anyone else get off telling Jews and no one else where they may build homes on land they own. He's never had a word to say about how the 'Palestinians' are continuing to build erratically all over Judea and Samaria and in East Jerusalem with no regard for zoning laws or planning considerations. In fact, the EU and USAid are actually bankrolling many of PA's projects, including the new city of Rawabi, which is deliberately being built in a primarily Jewish area and will actually encroach on the Israeli town of Ateret. Yet no one, especially Obama or our State Department has ever referred to Palestinian building as 'unhelpful'.
Apparently the Obama Administration's 'displeasure' refers to Jews and Jews only.
It is also significant that Obama made these remarks in front of a Muslim crowd in Indonesia, a country Israelis are not even permitted to enter.
Segregation and apartheid, anyone?
I actually don't expect a reprise of last March, although it wouldn't surprise me. Barack Hussein Obama, fresh from yet another Muslim Apology tour is going to have his hands full in DC with the economic turmoil he precipitated and new Republican Congress, and he's not going to be able to road trip forever.
The ‘Palestinians’ had ten months to come to the table and deliberately delayed things for nine and a half months with the intent of deliberately provoking this Kabuki ‘crisis’ figuring they had an anti-Israel president in the White House.
Like Obama, they’ve overplayed their hand.
The Palestinians didn't overplay their hand.They knew that Obama would do their work for them. Obama is still the anti-Semitic garbage that he always was and his need to kowtow to the Muslim world will just mean he will lean on Israel.
ReplyDeleteI remember the peace talks back in the 1990’s when the Clinton administration devoted so much energy to solve the issue but finally a dispute over access to water called a halt to the negotiations. Even though it will certainly take some time I think there still is a flicker of hope that the final agreement could be reached.
ReplyDeleteLorne, what ended 'negotiations' was Arafat's refusal to commit to ending the conflict and insistence on half of Jerusalem. Dennis Ross wrote an entire book on what occurred, and that's the source behind the famous Clinton quote when Arafat referred to him as a great man: "I'm not a great man, but a failure. And it is you who made me one."
ReplyDeleteAbbas, Arafat's right hand man is no different. You can't 'negotiate' when one side has already proven itself untrustworthy, constantly educates it's people for war in the mosques, media and schools and announces going in that they will settle for nothing less than all their demands.
We have a president who has a jones for the 'Pals' based on his early relationship with people like Rashid Kahlidi, Khalid al-Mansur, Edward Said, Jeremiah Wright and Louis Farakhan. That's why he's been willing to spend so much effort and so much of your tax dollars here on what is essentially an unjust attempt to deprive the Jews of their homeland.
Money quote from another Obama pal, Jesse Jackson: "Now that Obama is in the White House, the Zionists are gonna lose all their clout."