Haaretz reports that Kerry is returning to Israel on Friday. Apparantly Netanyahu has made some concessions which include releasing prisoners over a six month period, construction freeze on settlements outside the blocs and most worrisome,
-
As for basing the talks on the 1967 lines, a senior Israeli official said that if talks are renewed, Kerry will announce that they will be based on the 1967 lines with exchanges of territory. This would allow both the Palestinians and Israelis to present their public objections to the issue, while accepting it in principle.
Is this an agreement to disagree? If so that would be meaningless. But to allow Kerry to say it is not meaningless and will have huge significance.
Apparently Abbas is also being asked to recognize Israel as a Jewish state and is balking..
This is the video to which I refer to above: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385×585741
The following video is very interesting for its manipulation of President GW’s words to support the anti-Israel view.
The anti-Israel, neo-fascist leftists (and many in the mainstream like Jeffrey Goldberg here: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/05/dear-mr-netanyahu-please-dont-speak-to-my-president-that-way/239199/) manipulate the above video to claim that Bush preceded Obama in calling for Israel to return to the 1949 Armistice Lines (a.k.a. Pre-1967 borders – even though these were not political borders, at the request of the Arabs).
Despite the lefts insistance that both presidents called for the same solution, if you listen closely, you can hear the clear distinction between Obama and Bush regarding the a TSS. The former calls for a “return to the Pre-1967 lines with mutually agreed land swaps,” while Bush calls for “mutually agreed adjustments to the armistice lines of 1949.”
In other words, “adjustments” according to Pres. Bush implies that Israel will keep territory beyond the Green line (e.g. Green line adjusted to be larger) and will not be required divulge land within the pre-1967 lines as required by Pres. Obama.
When read in conjunction with his 2005 letter to Sharon this becomes much more clear. He wrote, “In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli population centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949.”
Significantly, he did not make the retention of “Israeli population centers (a.k.a. Settlements)” in the West Bank contingent upon Israel agreeing to land swaps, using territory under Israeli sovereignty from within the pre-1967 borders as Clinton had insisted.
I simply cannot conceive who does Netanyahu think he is?
How can he even dream that he has the authority to give away parts of Land of Israel to the enemies?
Does he think he is a king?
What did Jewish soldiers fight and die for in 1967 and 1973?
Did they make their sacrifices for Netanyahu to squander to please the great Mubarack Hussein Obongo?
Would you recognize Palestine as an independent nation? Of course, not!
Neither side wants to recognize the right of the other to exist.
So avoid that issue. It is a no-win axiom. You cannot criticize an opponent for doing the same things you do.
Since both sides refuse to recognize the other, one has to be persuaded to leave.
PAY THEM TO LEAVE.
Peace is impossible is because the Arabs don’t want to negotiate and they don’t want to make peace with Israel.
No set of Israeli concessions will lead the Arabs to compromise. And if John Kerry really thinks that Jewish niceness, goodwill and turning the other cheek to the Arabs will moderate them – he is pursuing a fool’s errand.
With all the real problems in the world, why he is obsessed with trying to force tiny Israel to surrender Jewish land to a rapacious enemy that has no intention of permanently ending the conflict? His return to the region is going to leave him as empty-handed as on his last visit there.