By Ted Belman
Evidently, US asks Israel for 90-day settlement building moratorium. Israel should refuse the offer.
The only reason given for the freeze is so that negotiations can start with a view to agreeing on borders.
If borders can be agreed upon in three months, whether or not there is a building freeze is totally immaterial. This is all about giving another victory to Arab intransigence. If the Arabs intend to agree on borders within three months, why do they insist on the freeze.
The answer is obvious, borders can’t be agreed upon. But if they get the freeze it will be another victory and will show Netanyahu’s weakness.
Equally interesting is why the US is prepared to give so much, in their view, to get it. Does the US think they can get an agreement on borders? Can’t imagine how they would do it. Do they have a trick up their sleeves. Wouldn’t put it past them.
Israel seems to have the advantage now. They should push it for all its worth. The more the US offers, the more Israel shows its determination to keep the Shomron by refusing it.
Most Likud MKs against New Freeze Plan; Jewish Home Split
It’s like a battered wife saying “hit me again!”
It looks very much like in theory the settlement freeze is dead ( satisfying Israel’s Right wing), in practice it is very much alive by the simple expedient of delaying construction long into the future- we call it defacto- thus satisfying Obama. A simple case of having your cake and eating it.
Maybe it will act as a kinda trigger that will bring BB down and out of here. I doubt it but one never knows.
I like G-d hardening Pharaoh’s heart.
I see no ideological difference between BB and Livni but Livni is at least honest. I’ll take Livni over BB, going away.
Only Lieberman and or a large Likud Palace revolt.
If Lieberman wants to be PM he must take the mantle of leader of all of the right. So he will pick his time and bring BB down. If he doesn’t he will never be PM.
Not really. Either the three month re-freeze is back dated to Sept 26, or it starts when it starts. The 112th Congress begins on January 3, 2011.
Expect to see separate appropriations bills, as promised by Boehner, to 1) keep most of the government running, 2) but maybe not paychecks for the State Department :), and 3) other money plays. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen will be far more influential chairing the House Foreign Relations Comm than Berman has been.
I am actually really puzzled by how weak the Obami look with leaking the details of all these promises for a three month extension. It is almost like a magic show – so I am going to assume there is also only six more weeks that the U.S. and France can stage three aircraft carrier groups near the Straits of Hormuz, the same six weeks when the Hariri report comes out, and Obama had to promise the Saudis and Gulf States that the Israelis and Palestinians would be talking during this window in time.
Or maybe they really think they can get to defining the borders in a just a few more direct talks now that Mitchell is gone and Hillary is on this mission.
Or maybe it will take three more months to analyze the voting results by Election District (ED) in New York, Florida, and Pennsylvania. I imagine the NY ED results are already freaking the Dems out. EDs are very small. The maps are fascinating, and they have the voting history for each voter in the ED.
Whatever – the public bribes, especially the free fighter jets, make the U.S. look weak to the rest of the world. Very strange tactic. Maybe the Saudis told the U.S. to add the free jets to THEIR $60BIL tab 🙂
Obama has been weakened domestically but the congress has little control over the Presidents shaping of foreign policy. Obama knows that the Republicans will fight him on everything before 2012 and knows his domestic agenda is mostly on hold till after 2012 if he runs and if he wins. This frees him up to play world leader and he is obsessed with being the one to create a Pali state. Whether this is ideological or that he owes the Saudis and others is open to speculation. Maybe it’s just an ego thing like doing what none before him has done who knows, for is it’s a lose lose proposition unless he forces BB to accept the situation that we must go it alone and do and act only what is right and best for Israel.
I knew BB was a spineless prig but he has even out done my low expectations of him.
In Bibi’s inner cabinet, apparently, Dan Meridor (Likud) and Barak (Labour) support Bibi with the freeze. Yishai (Shas) would support it if it explicitly excluded Jerusalem and Obama put it in writing that after the freeze, building would be allowed in Maale Adunim, Ariel and two other Haredi communities in Shomron. So them three plus Bibi, that’s the majority of four in the 7 member cabinet. So, who’s going to stop Bibi?
Obama has been politically weakened. There is no reason Bibi should give in to any of his demands.
Remember when Feiglin was fighting against Bibi to ensure the elections for the Likud Central Committe were not delayed like Bibi wanted? Remember nobody helped Feiglin? Remember Feiglin’s warning that delaying the elections would give Bibi a carte-blanche to do whatever he wanted and that it wouldn’t be good for Israel? So, Feiglin was right.
But, who is going to challenge Bibi?? because if not soon, it may be too late to save Israel from itself.
Obama’s rationale:
1. Three months is the time between now and when the lame duck anti-Israel Democratic House is replaced by the new pro-Israel Republican House.
2. No further freezes: The freeze brings Abbas back to the table. As the three months comes to an end without an agreement, Obama will impose his own “agreement” on Jewish Israel, favoring the muslims.
3. Obama has already secured Neanyahu’s yes vote on the freeze (after holding him hostage in Washington for seven hours and bribing him). That by itself destabilizes Netanyahus’s government. Any possible further outcome: Netanyahu weakened, Netanyahu’s government falling, Netanyahu attempting to switch to a new left-wing coalition with Kadima and Labor; all result in an advantage to the Jew-hater Obama and his obsession with fatally weakening Jewish Israel at the expense of his fellow muslims.
I agree. Nothing good can come of this.
Ultimately, what is far more precious than airplanes or UN vetos is self-confidence. And of course faith in The Almighty.
And selling out will damage Jewish self-confidence. We will know that we can be bought.
I try not be a messianist, but this does remind me of the golden calf episode.
Yamit, Tzipi Livni is still waiting in the wings, looking out not for Israel’s best interests but her own which is to unseat Netanyahu and grab his chair as PM.
Netanyahu may not be the best for Israel, but it appears thus far that he is the best Israel can come up with in terms of an electable leader. At least he is not mouthing all the platitudes of the left that since 1967 reduced Israel’s quest for peace with the Arabs/Palestinians to the catch phrase question, “a land of peace or a piece of land?” as if the conflict was really over territory.
What is the value of an unwritten agreement by the United States who have reneged most other non binding agreements?: Make Pollard and Shalit a precondition even for considering such a concession. 20 more planes? Delivery when 2016-2020? What restrictions are imposed on us or withdrawn as the case may be? Real concessions today for ambiguous and questionable security considerations years from now. I would say keep the planes and give us ten nuclear subs instead, now from American inventories. America won’t have the money to operate all of them in any case.
Even if BB is blocked by the cabinet from agreeing to this deal, the very fact he is in favor and agreed to it makes him unfit for the job of PM of Israel. He is an embarrassment to us.
May the body temperature of any Israeli, who dares to reintroduce this stranglehold on the people of Yehuda and Shomron, freeze before our eyes.
BB must go, somehow, someway but he must go!
What does Israel get for these concessions? In the 1970s, not even the most left-wing politicians imagined giving away Judea and Samaria in return for a comprehensive peace with Arab countries. Today, we’re giving away this land for a peace treaty with the Palestinian Arabs? So the only ones who will recognize our borders are the Palestinians, who are unable to challenge us in any case. You make such concessions to a superior force not one we can crush in hours or days if necessary.
Clinton’s offer to BB is an outright lie and deception that reminds me of past shenanigans by Olmert and Bush when Olmert offered to the Arabs to transfer jurisdiction of the Temple Mount to a “council of nonpolitical elders.” Just imagine just how nonpolitical would be a council which consists of three Muslims, a Vatican official, and a single Jew. Bush details this perfidious deal in his memoir.