By Ted Belman
Abbas announced a reconciliation with Hamas within five weeks with elections soon thereafter. Israel decided to blame him for choosing Hamas over peace.
But it took a 6 hour cabinet meeting to decide what to do. Livni and Lapid on the one side and Bennett on the other with Netanyahu wavering in the middle. In the end, the Cabinet settled for a suspension of talks and for sanctions. The suspension is meaningless as there were no talks and no agreement to extend the non-existing talks beyond April 29. If the parties decide to do something, the same agreement that gets the suspension lifted will get the talks extended.
As for possible sanctions giving the mood of the Cabinet, they will not be meaningful.
Jpost reported, Netanyahu agreed to talk borders, settlement freeze prior to Hamas-Fatah deal,
According to Channel 10, while Netanyahu refused Palestinian demands to explicitly present his position on borders, he did give consent to his government’s chief representatives in the negotiations – Justice Minister Tzipi Livni and attorney Yitzhak Molcho – to present maps on which both sides would then proceed to sketch the contours of the political boundary that would separate Israel and a yet-to-be-created Palestine.
The prime minister also agreed to a freeze of all new construction in the Jewish settlements of Judea and Samaria, though he insisted that Israel would complete all construction that has already been initiated, according to Channel 10.
It appears to me Netanyahu is prepared for “painful concessions” to achieve peace but Abbas isn’t. With Abbas adamantly sticking to the ’67 lines, never mind the other sticking points, what could Bibi possibly offer that wouldn’t be laughed off the stage by Abbas or the Israeli Right?
yamit82 Said:
Look what oil and gas did for a good Ol’boy like Perry. He went to NY and Gov. Cuomo out.
@ yamit82:
I suspect the evidence will be forthcoming. The IRS intimidation of the Tea Party and other conservative entities during & prior to the campaign — Google: “IRS + pro-Israel, pro-Life, pro-gun, pro-family” — does seem to have contributed heavily to depressing the GOP vote.
The problem is that the only element likely to have legal standing to petition the Court for redress in the matter is the party leadership, RNC
— and if they do that, their OWN shenanigans in pushing all other GOP candidates out of the way — in favor of the one candidate who couldn’t make use of the most powerful weapon in the GOP arsenal that year (Romney, ACA), and for their own selfish reasons — will probably ALSO come to light. So why would they take such an action?
@ ArnoldHarris:
Sounds dandy. But what would you bet that every sheikh & mukhtar who came on board with such an agreement would assume constant room temperature in a permanently horizontal position within 72 hours of signing on the dotted line? — whereupon their successors would likely back away from the proposition altogether. . . .
Wasn’t that the problem Sharon ran into in 1982 with the Village Leagues?
It’s clear GOI would have to do somewhat more than merely “drop all connection with Fatah”
— know what I mean?
Bear Klein Said:
I don’t think annexation is on BB’s political or diplomatic horizon. His storm trooper tactics against settlers, restricting building for Jews while allowing them for Arabs, killing several times legislation making Israeli law the law of the Jewish settlements in-place of military rule and military Law. Every positive concession has made to Jews over the Green Line are concessions on paper taking years to implememet or killed because of ostensible pressure fro America and the EU. Many if not most of public pro settlement directives and laws made or enacted under BB have later been reversed, died in birthing or rescinded outright.
BB came into office in 2008 ready and prepared to give up at least 90% of Y&S including Eastern parts of Jerusalem…Even today most of the actual building in Y&S are private initiatives and not Government sponsored or funded. BB is a pure Thatcherist who believes peace through economic development and economic goodwill will bring the Arabs around to be “good Arabs”…. Like all ideologues he refuses to accept any facts that refuter and diminish his ideological belief and vision. Yes the idiot is genuinely surprised each time the Palis don’t act and behave according to his script.
Erdan just lost his battle to wrest our Homeland security away from the Defense Ministry. He is looking for a cause to stay in the public limelight and gain browny points with the Likud right wing.
@ yamit82: Could Bibi in your opinion be in favor of annexing Area C? Erdan and him are supposedly close. Could this be a trial baloon?
Vinnie Said:
Let’s see? Maybe internal politics could be holding up BB’s show?
Now it seems poor losers like you are the ones pushing far out conspiracy theories. If you have proof the elections were rigged then show your evidence and if you have such evidence why haven’t you and dweller who claims the same gone to the courts to get redress and have the election results nullified? Why haven’t you published your evidence there are enough Kooky right wing blogs and even some respected news outlets that would be most happy to publish them.
I still might be right I don’t believe Obama will attack Iran and still have my doubts BB will. That said 2 years and 9 months is an eternity and a lot can happen like new elections here and Obama overplaying his hand with us and others. The American and world economies can collapse or WW3 who knows but anything that forces America to divest from Israel and or Israel to divest from America is only good for Israel in the long term even though some immediate effects will certainly be painful but we can weather the storm today better than at any time in the past.
Notice Israel has pissed off Obama and a lot of congressmen for not voting with America against Russia in the UN on the Crimea vote.
Knesset Speaker Yuli eldelstein said Netanyahu has a secret withdrawal settlement map from 2008 but has never submitted it to his cabinets, The secret map calls for Gaza like removal of all but a few settlement blocks and ceding Jerusalem to the control of the Vatican through the UN. I read it a few days ago but didn’t keep the link and now I can’t find it. When it turns up I will submit. I did find this one : which was an earlier version: http://www.fmep.org/reports/archive/vol.-7/no.-4/netanyahu-presents-his-allon-plus-final-status-map
How will Israel weather International Pressure? By holding firm non flexible positions re: Our rights and borders, by not tolerating even minor attacks against our sovereignty by overwhelming and disproportionate retaliation against any foe, terrorist organization or country. By being consistent. Israel has the infrastructure and know-how to compete with Switzerland as a banking and international financial Hub. We should make Eliat and Ashdod Free ports.
Btw: More Offshore Gas and Oil Found
A new oil and gas field has been found just 50 kilometers off the shores of Tel Aviv, Globes reported today.
Its estimated that the “Oz” field has between 93 to 607 million barrels of oil, and 2.5 trillion cubic feet (TCF) of gas. The Oz license covers a 400 square kilometer area.
The Leviathan field has 19 TCF of gas, and the Tamar has 9 TFC. Israel has found around 30 TCF of gas so far.
According to Israel’s Ministry of National infrastructure, Energy and Water Resources, Israel consumes between 5-8 billion cubic meters (not feet) of gas per year.
Turcas in talks to buy Leviathan gas
The Turkish company notified the Istanbul Stock Exchange that it has initiated talks.
The Bank of Israel is sitting on almost $150 billion in hard foreign currencies.
Average Israeli income tax rate among lowest in OECD
Israel is a mini-economic superpower with strong diversified economy. In the end money talks even over those who hate our guts. Turkey is still our 4th largest trading partner and trade is growing every year.
@ yamit82: Erdan is trying to get Area C annexed. Hopefully he can get this accomplished!
@ bernard ross:
I suspect you read more into these things than you should.
Anything that involves public unknowns can be explained as “drama”. But that is only baseless conjecture. Sometimes one can make educated guesses of this nature, and after the fact, be proven right. If that turns out to be the case with you, I’ll congratulate you in advance.
However, I don’t think this is all that complicated.
I say again, as I’ve said before, if Netanyahu INTENDED all along to sell out Israel for a Nobel or whatever, he could have done that a long time ago. If this is all “drama” to support the same…why, this is one loooooong drawn out play with infinite acts! I don’t buy it.
Again, as I’ve pointed out before, it was Bibi himself who commissioned the Levy Report. Why did he bother to do this? “Drama”, too? With a wink and a nudge to Judge Levy? No, he did this in anticipation of a Romney victory, whom you might recall hung out with Bibi during their grad school days and then maintained some contact afterwards to boot. Bibi hadn’t counted on the U.S. ’12 election being rigged, that’s all.
Bottom line, IMHO, Netanyahu is an extremely risk averse politician. One might go so far as to say a political coward, though what is being asked of him is more than most other national leaders would ever have to face.
He’s got to stand up to Obama. Running the clock – his strategy for dealing with the Obama first term – is not going to work now. Obama is hip to this, and will surely make this exceedingly painful for Netanyahu and for Israel.
Netanyahu is simply scared stiff of risking alienating the U.S. as Israel’s primary major power ally. Obama knows this and is playing on this weakness of Bibi’s for all it is worth.
Yamit has opined in the past that a second Obama term would be “…the best thing that could ever happen to Israel”, which one could reasonably assume to mean that it would force Israel to stand on her own two feet and free herself from such dependence on anyone, the U.S. or otherwise. Assuming this would include a decisive action against Iran’s nuke weapons program, this sounds great, and since we are stuck with Obama for yet another two years nine months (Who’s counting?), I sincerely hope Yamit is right about this.
Given Bibi’s behavior up to now, I’m not so sure that he is.
Bibi has just got to tell Obama where to put his little “peace process”, and do so definitively, publicly, and irrevocably. And if he can’t find it in himself to do this, then there needs to be new elections and someone must take the helm who really can do this (Bennett?). That is all this boils down to.
yamit82 Said:
have you ever considered the possibility that everything taking place was pre agreed? If they go back into talks it is likely they already have the outlines of a deal and all the drama is merely played out to keep all the individual politicians constituents satisfied. the leaders may be agreed on a solution that no parties will accept except over a long time. It might not be an overt agreement but a series of defacto unfolding.
If the deal does not continue then it may be that whatever deal is pre agreed cannot be politically accepted by Abbas and must be presented as Israeli unilateral action. this can be the form a covert agreement can take.
If Israel walks away it will be interesting to see what BB does next to indicate the future. Or it may be a series of on and off again situations and in that case one should observe who gets what as it goes along.
the way it is playing out so far seems too absurd to be real, its like a cartoon we’ve seen before.
as long as BB does nothing permanent, that says something; and we will have to see what permanent things the pal gets. Faux states, Faux UN participation can be ways that they are given face saving while they actually get little real stuff. the more they rattle their sabre to their constituents is the more the street feels good, but what do they get? All of a sudden BB looks a little better, Lapid got to look like the peacemaker threatening to walk out,…. So far I see a lot of drama and appearances, everyone making noise. it is interesting that Yaalon, at the same time that freezes are being offered under the table, has begun a campaign to demolish Jewish settlements. it is presented as a reaction to Yitzhar but the timing is strange. If BB were walking away then why should he care. If he were walking away fron dead talks he would want to secure more of C with settlements. he is talking about presenting maps as a “starting point” for both sides to agree borders. I never hear him talk about keeping anything more than the major settlement blocks, so what would he present?
I suspect that more is agreed than what we know.
sorry, couldn’t find an Iran agreement thread.
Egypt and the Saudis are backing the deal. Egypt allowed Mashal into Gaza to sign the agreement and the Saudis are paying the PA 100 million dollars a month to make up for Israeli withholding Tax rebates from the PA.
The PA owes the Israel Electic Company just 1.3 billion shekels. When Israel offered them to allow them to build their own electric power plants they refused.
Bear Klein Said:
You are correct there is no parliamentary majority for annexation.
‘Israel Should Divide the PA into Emirates’
Renowned expert slams ‘lamentation orgy’ over Hamas-Fatah deal, states that pact could be used in Israel’s favor to disarm Hamas.
According to Dr. Keidar, Israel’s answer to the unity pact should be to confiscate the PLO’s weapons while it has a “legitimate reason to do so.”
“Israel should, first of all, confiscate all of the weapons which the Palestinian security organizations have here, especially the American weapons,” he said. “These weapons can come into the hands of Hamas, especially if they win the elections [in the PA], which they have been trying to arrange.”
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/179914#.U1rKZPldWa8
The only dramatic move I know of by Israel in response to Fatah joining hands with Hamas is to immediately annex Shomron and Yehuda, along with action by the Knesset that would make future de-annexations all but impossible.
The Jewish war with the local Arabs is about land, not peace. Take the land, drop all connection with Fatah, agree to talk only with the local clans that run the seven major Arab cities, and negotiate separate autonomy agreements with them. Do not allow the USA or any other outsiders to have any role whatsoever in those negiations.
And if the government that claims to represent the Jewish nation cannot or will not take that action, then the Jewish nation and state are doomed in the long run.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Are there enough votes in the Knesset that would vote to annex or apply Israeli Law to the settlement blocks? I did not see Area C which I would favor because I believe the answer would be no.