U.S. mulls more steps in response to Israel’s land designation in Gush Etzion

Ted Belman: The US is obviously determined to control Israel. Apparently we can’t make a move without consulting them. Why would Israel agree to this abdication of independence.

The author writes that Israel’s Civil Administration “announced the expropriation of around 4,000 dunams of land near five Palestinian villages in the Bethlehem area. It declared the land state land.”. This is outrageous. It is not an “expropriation”. He ignores that the land is in the center of 4 Jewish communities that existed before ’48. He also ignores that the Arabs who can prove that they own part of the land, get to keep it. If not it is designated “state land”. No expropriation here. In the title, Haaretz called it a “land grab”.

If the Government actually said “response to the abduction and murder of three Jewish teenagers in the Hebron area in June”, it should be chastized. Israel is simply exercising its right and obligation.

Israeli official says expropriation announcement ‘drove the Americans nuts’; Netanyahu’s advisers say move was not coordinated with them. Apparently Israel has been making moves to mollify the “administration’s anger”. Wrong again. Israel should assert their independence and not undermine it.

By Barak Ravid, HAARETZ Sep. 5, 2014

The Obama administration is considering taking further action regarding Israel’s expropriation of 1,000 acres of West Bank land this week, on top of the condemnation Washington has already issued.

“Maybe our reaction will find expression in other ways,” a senior U.S. official told Haaretz, but declined to give details.

On Sunday, the Civil Administration governing the West Bank, which is subject to the Defense Ministry, announced the expropriation of around
4,000 dunams of land near five Palestinian villages in the Bethlehem area. It declared the land state land.

The Civil Administration said the move had been ordered by the government in response to the abduction and murder of three Jewish teenagers in the Hebron area in June. The expropriation was designed to create contiguity between the Green Line and the settlements Betar Ilit, Kfar Etzion and Gva’ot.

A senior Israeli official said the expropriation announcement “drove the Americans nuts.” In recent days senior officials in the Obama administration have sent extremely sharply worded messages to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office.

The protest by Washington was also expressed in a telephone conversation between U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Netanyahu on Tuesday night.

The State Department said in a statement that Israel’s expropriation was “deeply concerning.” It urged Jerusalem to “reverse the decision.”

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the decision to expropriate the land, and reports of further settlement construction in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, sent a “very troubling message.” These moves ran “contrary to Israel’s stated goal of a two-state solution” and a peace deal with the Palestinians.

Sources have told Haaretz, however, that this statement did not fully convey the administration’s anger.

In recent days attempts have been made by the national security adviser, Yossi Cohen, and other Netanyahu advisers to calm the Americans down. The Israeli officials told the Americans it would take years until any construction was carried out in the area. The move was a long process that still required a number of stages of approval.

Netanyahu’s advisers added that the move had taken the prime minister’s aides by surprise; Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon had not coordinated it with them. The aides had not been informed in advance about the Civil Administration’s announcement, or the timing.

An aide to Ya’alon confirmed that the prime minister’s aides had not been told of the move; he said this was not necessary because it was only a technical procedure.

A senior Israeli official said the move began at a meeting of the security cabinet after the murder of the three teens. At the session, Ya’alon
suggested that as part of the response to the killing, Israel should turn the Gva’ot outpost in the Gush Etzion area into a new settlement.

The establishment of a new settlement requires a cabinet decision, but no decision on the issue was made at that security-cabinet meeting.

Despite the absence of a decision, Ya’alon instructed the Civil Administration to advance the administrative procedures for expropriating the
land. The Civil Administration surveyed the area to make sure the land intended for Gva’ot was not privately owned by Palestinians.

The Civil Administration found that no land in the area was privately owned and thus announced the expropriation.

Palestinian residents of the area will be able to submit objections to the move in the next 45 days.

September 6, 2014 | 31 Comments »

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31 Comments / 31 Comments

  1. SHmuel HaLevi 2 Said:

    Weapons storage facilities huge stockpiles transferred across several borders without design?

    Reminds of the Westerns where the Apache scout puts his head to the ground and says to his Captain, “me hear plenty horses coming”.

    Hawks still here, they decimating the rabbit population.

  2. Max Said:

    It’s absurd to rewrite World History just because some Jews or Israelis are angry at America for personal reasons.

    Cant figure out what this comment means, please elaborate. Which version of world history are you using: the white House version of benghazi, the MSM version of Gaza and Syria, the wikipedia version of everything….????

    Or perhaps you can use the Brookings Institute perspectives as a basis for a version of “world history”….here is todays factoid:
    http://www.algemeiner.com/2014/09/07/hamas-backing-qatar-also-funding-brookings-institute-home-of-former-u-s-mideast-envoy-indyk%e2%80%8f/

  3. Ted Belman Said:

    It is not too much a stretch to believe the attack on Gadaffi was all about liberating his arsenal for use by Islamists in other parts of the ME.

    They could have gone right to the arsenal that ISIS just liberated. there are many speculations as to the reasons for the ghaddafi deposing but I think that by now few subscribe to the notion that it was a spontaneous democratic uprising, a twitter revolution of democrats. Most are aware of intelligence service strategies and tactics for creating lightning rod orgs to attract dissenters, planting moles as leaders of those orgs, etc. It would be easy as pie for intelligence services to twitter demonstrations which then act as a cover for the introduction of paid mercenary rebels/jihadis.
    In my view it appears that the arab spring was staged and that we should not look to ideology as the motives but rather the use of paid jihadis as a tool. There may be one or many motives for this string of rearrangements in the mid east: Abdullahs revenge for assassination attempt, the massive ghaddafi china future oil deals, ghadaffi seeking to replace dollar and euro with his gold dinar, offshore med gas, Libya as a gateway to african resources to europe, a conflict of the west with china and russia over global resources, control of energy resources to europe, etc etc. One or all of these are valid motives.

    Qatar appears to have stepped in to fill saudis traditional role as covert liason between the west and the Jihadis. Saudi has backed away from this image. I still beleive that we shall see overt rapprochements between the GCC and qatar(they are still in GCC) and Obama with sisi when the time is ripe and when the published split has served its purpose.

  4. SHmuel HaLevi 2 Said:

    Weapons storage facilities huge stockpiles transferred across several borders without design?

    Max has difficulty dealing with facts that do not agree with his preconceived notions of what is going on. His notion of what the arab spring was about, if you remember from a couple of years back, is that they were spontaneously generated democratically inspired social revolutions. He has the same notions regarding Hefter in Libya as a white knight. he never noticed, or disregarded, the significance of Heftars overt CIA training written in his own citation from wikipedia. He took Heftars statement as proof of his motives. Although Max has “elite” conspiracy theories about North America he follows the MSM for his ME ideas.

    Note his juvenile response of posting the twilight zone music to you when you asked him about simple facts to consider. He has opinions but there is nothing behind those opinions.

  5. Max Said:

    Benghazi! Booya!
    One trigger word and the flood of irrationality flows.

    In other words, you are saying as usual that you are as clueless about this important event as about many others. Like I said, you run away and smear the messenger like a little boy to avoid being shown up as an ignorant charlatan. Thats why you ran from my questions the other day, because you would have to demonstrate some knowledge of the facts to engage in a discussion.

    I notice that you did not respond to one fact that I brought up. It was nice that you actually attempted to make citations, superficially and incorrectly, but you never responded to my reply to your citation wrt Heftar drawn from your own citation. It appears that you wanted to look intelligent by posting a bevy of irrelevant links that you never even read. You are indeed a perfect example of the adage: “it is better to remain silent and be considered a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt”

    You do the same with Shmuel who points out what most of us here realize by posting the Twilight Zone theme. Simply another display of your ignorance when he brings up relevant facts for you to grapple with. This is what a child does when he does not know how to deal with uncomfortable issues or facts.

    I suggest doing some more reading in depth so as not to draw attention to your elephantine ignorance. Trying to appear intelligent and making ludicrous bravado statements falls flat.

    I have posted over the past couple of years many citations supporting the speculation that the US was arming Jihadis in collaboration with GCC nations. even congress, the NYT and the WT are raising the same issues. You made an arrogant mistake in your “analysis” of Syria and now do the same in Libya. You never even noticed Heftars CIA training on your own wikipedia citation.

    Most amusing is the schizophrenia between your generic “elite” conspiracy theories of how North america runs contrasted with your incredible naivete in the ME.

    From todays MSM WT:
    http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/sep/6/us-security-team-secret-cia-annex-we-were-told-sta/

    any thoughts on the issue? 😛

  6. Ted Belman Said:

    It should be noted that Qatar initiated the downfall of Gadaffi by calling for the UN to call for a no fly zone. Obama quickly carried the ball from behind. It is not too much a stretch to believe the attack on Gadaffi was all about liberating his arsenal for use by Islamists in other parts of the ME. These weapons were apparently not sufficient so the US sold $11B worth of weapons to Qatar. No doubt these weapons will also arm the Islamists,

    It was hardly Qatar alone. France took the lead. It was French Jets that struck first saving Benghazi. All the Western powers had plenty of reasons such as region security etc even beyond the first motivation of all concerned which was to assist the Libyan revolution to relieve the people from a horrendous murderous dictator.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_military_intervention_in_Libya#Proposal_for_the_no-fly_zone

    A little stretch, a big stretch it is still a stretch into the twilight zone of “secret conspiracy. Stretching the ordinary everyday truth into conspiracy is fantasy thinking.

    Obama was dragged in reluctantly – a one week revolution took seven months. NATO’s strategy was to try to force Gaddafi to surrender to them hence the limited slow bombing campaign. They did not want the rebels to enter Tripoli But it didn’t work, they underestimated Gaddafi’s resolve and didn’t understand the nature of tyrants – that they fight to the death.

    Obama is a do-nothing foreign policy President. By withdrawing from Iraq he left a power vacuum for ISIS to fill . Similarly he did the same thing in Syria by abandoning the Syrian people and the Syrian moderate and secular rebels. The people found themselves facing a brutal Tyrant – Assad backed by Iran , Lebanon-Hezbollah and Russia (military aid – pilots etc) . In the face of this Obama only sent limited help. By abandoning them Obama drove a brutalized people into the arms of Al Nusra and ISIS full of hate to America for not helping them.

    Obama created ISIS by neglect not by design.

    Hundreds of thousands, leaders and followers – people of all different groups and motivations fought the Libyan Civil War/Revolution. It’s absurd to say they are all there just to get some weapons and smuggle them elsewhere Any loss of weapons was just opportunistic acts. It’s a trivial and arcane reason – the only people that would dream this up are conspiracy thinkers who are angry at America and want to dream up more excuses to hate Obama etc.
    It’s absurd to rewrite World History just because some Jews or Israelis are angry at America for personal reasons. There is no corroborative evidence for this accepted by any national authority anywhere.

  7. @ Bear Klein:
    We have a number of our people in Yehudah and Shomron checking physically all the claims by Netanyahu.
    So far no one has been able to pick up the Tenders Terms and Contracts. No one has seen the tenders or found any evidence of the set aside of Land in Gush Etzion.
    That type of lies happened before on E1, Jerusalem, Bet El, etc. Netanyahu is badly informed if he believes that people is not aware of his freeze actions.

  8. It should be noted that Qatar initiated the downfall of Gadaffi by calling for the UN to call for a no fly zone. Obama quickly carried the ball from behind. It is not too much a stretch to believe the attack on Gadaffi was all about liberating his arsenal for use by Islamists in other parts of the ME. These weapons were apparently not sufficient so the US sold $11B worth of weapons to Qatar. No doubt these weapons will also arm the Islamists,

  9. Max Said:

    yamit82 Said:
    Weapons from Benghazi ended up in the hands of Islamic State radicals
    Max said:
    Same thing in Iraq. That’s not proof of design – just negligence.

    😛 😛 😛 😛 somebody is having trouble connecting the dots and the evidence. Perhaps that is because to connect the dots would admit that he was wrong in the past and admission of error is impossible for such people. Perhaps one day they will send you the memo.

    What makes you think that the sudden emergence of ISIS, with Baathist elements, and their sudden blitzkrieg capture of huge swaths of territory, cash, arms …..their capture of the energy fields…was the result of negligence? Does that satisfy occams razor? The planning and execution, the targets, goals and terror propaganda are more characteristic of military and intelligence planning.
    Max Said:

    It’s also negligence for the West and the US (Obama) not to be supporting General Khalifa Haftar and “Operation Dignity”

    Mr. “elite conspiracy” cynic waxes poetic and seems to have found his white knight in the desert sands, his Lawrence of Arabia? HMMM? Has Mr. Max questioned the financing and background of his don Quixote? How did this new shining knight suddenly arise, pray tell? How does such an “elite” conspiracy cynic suspend his cynicism when entering the ME? Its kind of like North American tourists who visit the 3rd world and become the most naive and gullible fools. Why do you think the ME works differently than what you espouse in NA? Perhaps it is because you take your news and ideas from the MSM?
    Max Said:

    …his attempt to preserve the ideals and liberties achieved in the Libyan Revolution.

    What were those achieved ideals and liberties…please elaborate as they appeared to escape me, just like your syrian democratic twitter revolution.

    Do you believe the Libyan revolution was another spontaneous democratic arab spring? Ghaddafi was put in the meat freezer…do you remember that back in 2004 he tried to assassinate the current King of Saudi arabia, abdullah? Spot his error.
    from your wikipedia link:

    the American CIA negotiated a settlement around 1990, enabling Heftar and 300 of his soldiers to move to the United States under the U.S. refugee programme.[6][14]

    Haftar moved to suburban Virginia outside Washington, D.C., living in Falls Church until 2007 and then in Vienna,[15] where he was ostensibly trained by the CIA in Langley.[12][14]

    In March 1996, Heftar took part in a failed uprising against Gaddafi in the mountains of eastern Libya, before returning to the U.S.[14]

  10. @ Max:
    Max, are you serious?
    Weapons storage facilities huge stockpiles transferred across several borders without design?
    It is really not our present problem although it will be in a while. Yet, do be honest with yourself, sinister processes are in place and we must wake up and deal with the fall out.

  11. yamit82 Said:

    Weapons from Benghazi ended up in the hands of Islamic State radicals

    Same thing in Iraq. That’s not proof of design – just negligence.

    It’s also negligence for the West and the US (Obama) not to be supporting General Khalifa Haftar and “Operation Dignity” in his fight against the Islamists and Islamization of Libya in his attempt to preserve the ideals and liberties achieved in the Libyan Revolution.
    Obama simply deserted Lybia at this critical stage.

    Haftar remains resolute that one of the aims of Operation Dignity is to completely dismantle the Libyan branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as what he considers to be any other Islamist terrorist organizations within Libya
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalifa_Haftar#Operation_Dignity

  12. honeybee Said:

    I watch a program on FX new by the contract soldiers who defended the compound in Benghazi. A former Marine and two former Rangers. Such men make Obama and Kerry seem like worms.

    Was this concerning the “stand down order”? I accept that they were told to stand down, the question for me is why? One of the floating rumors is that it was a deal between Morsi and Obama for a false flag kidnapping of stevens, gone wrong, and then a hostage trade for the blind sheik which Morsi had promised to get freed. Stevenson was the most superior officer who could have tied Hillary and Obama to the gun running op. Lots of speculation but why would they be told to stand down, and why wasn’t the team from europe sent. the transfer of command of that unit was made the same night which is very suspicious, perhaps no one was supposed to get there.

    I have always said that the fact of arming jihadis in syria and going back to the 1980’s in afghanistan makes it seem strange that in between AQ, were an enemy. Before and after they are allies but in between they are attacking americans, the WTC, boston, etc.
    the US worked with the saudis in the past the same as they did recently using Jihadis through Saudi. I speculate that one of the reasons for the Saudis recently reinventing themselves as anti terror(which is ludicrous as they promote the worst islam globally) is that they have been up front and under suspicion in all the operations. Now it is qatar who is the lightning rod which relieves saudi to reinvent their image as anti terror.

  13. yamit82 Said:

    Israel Goes on Offensive with Announcement of New Homes in Samaria

    283 homes and he froze 2500 while he gave 2200 to the e jerusalem arabs. Looks like more foot kissing to me.
    yamit82 Said:

    Weapons from Benghazi ended up in the hands of Islamic State radicals

    Gosh, I wonder how that happened, what a coincidence? Looks like the General forgot to send Max a memo as Max still believes its a conspiracy theory and that the Syrian war was a democratic twitter rebellion. Poor Max wasn’t told who did the twittering and who came in afterwards under the cover of the democrats. Poor Max still hasn’t noticed how all those democrats just vanished into thin air. Better send this to Max right away! 😛

    “I’ve actually always suspected that, although I have no evidence, that maybe we were facilitating arms leaving Libya going through Turkey into Syria,” Paul told CNN, adding that he “never….quite understood the cover-up — if it was intentional or incompetence”.
    At the same time it emerged that the U.S. State Department had hired an Al-Qaeda offshoot organization, the February 17th Martyrs Brigade, to “defend” the Benghazi Mission months before the attack.
    Senator Paul was vindicated less than three months later when it emerged that the CIA had been subjecting its operatives to monthly polygraph tests in an effort to keep a lid on details of the arms smuggling operation being leaked.

  14. yamit82 Said:

    Weapons from Benghazi ended up in the hands of Islamic State radicals

    I watch a program on FX new by the contract soldiers who defended the compound in Benghazi. A former Marine and two former Rangers. Such men make Obama and Kerry seem like worms.
    Yes, Kerry is using climate change as a distraction, even going so far as to quote Scripture. ” We have the enemy and they are us”. Pogo

  15. yamit82 Said:

    In a statement, the department described the incident as a “bureaucratic issue.”

    IF YOU BELIEVE THAT DARLIN, I’ve GOT OIL WELL TO SELL YOU.!!!!!!!!!

  16. Kerry: ‘The Real Face of Islam is a Peaceful Religion’

    It’s not Islam it’s climate change. Says Kerry?

    Gen. McInerney: “We Helped Build ISIS”

    During an appearance on Fox News, General Thomas McInerney acknowledged that the United States “helped build ISIS” as a result of the group obtaining weapons from the Benghazi consulate in Libya which was attacked by jihadists in September 2012.

    Weapons from Benghazi ended up in the hands of Islamic State radicals

  17. U.S. military charter plane forced to land in Iran

    Chartered commercial jet carrying Americans makes unplanned landing in Iran

    A military-chartered aircraft carrying about 100 Americans from Afghanistan to Dubai landed unexpectedly in Iran on Friday after Iranian officials questioned its flight plan and ordered it down, U.S. and regional officials said.

    Officials said the pilots landed of their own accord in the city of Bandar Abbas after being warned that the plane would be intercepted if they did not land. One U.S. official familiar with an initial report about the incident said Iranian fighter jets were scrambled, but the State Department later denied any Iranian military involvement.

    In a statement, the department described the incident as a “bureaucratic issue.” 🙂

  18. Eric R. Said:

    The fact that Netanyahu is so openly defying Obama is not only a measure of how much Israel hates that Marxo-Islamist SOB

    reread the article, BB did not know
    bernard ross Said:

    An aide to Ya’alon confirmed that the prime minister’s aides had not been told of the move; he said this was not necessary because it was only a technical procedure.

  19. suggested that as part of the response to the killing, Israel should turn the Gva’ot outpost in the Gush Etzion area into a new settlement.

    there is only one reason to expropriate and settle that land: It belongs to the Jewish people. by casting it a a reaction to killings it trivializes the inherent right of Jews to that land.

    Netanyahu’s advisers added that the move had taken the prime minister’s aides by surprise; Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon had not coordinated it with them. The aides had not been informed in advance about the Civil Administration’s announcement, or the timing.

    An aide to Ya’alon confirmed that the prime minister’s aides had not been told of the move; he said this was not necessary because it was only a technical procedure.

    Looks like BB is already backing off as soon as Hussein squeaks. the question begs as to why Obama has so much clout over Israeli leaders, everyone other than israel can flout the US. If Israel is existentially endangered by Obama then it is Bb’s duty to honestly inform the Israeli public so that they do not have to wait to prepare for a US betrayal. Obamas snout is too deep into Israels business to be considered normal. They want to rule Israel from the WH. they will screw Israel. Obama has so many scandals you would think the Mossad would be able to covertly release some damning evidence. Perhaps the CIA has all the evidence on those Israeli leaders who regularly call not to upset obama. Every other day another one is indicted. Every one of those leaders is a pawn for a foreign intelligence agency once they are dirty.

  20. Pondering is deadly. Netanyahu must be either removed and true Jewish people elected to lead or he must be set upon the harshest of warnings, credible warnings to return to serve Jewish National interests as we, the people, see them.
    Netanyahu was, is and will be a foreign programmed failure with TV faces on tow and some cardboard props to help him.

  21. Never mind Isis and its savagery, let’s focus on Jewish housing. Obviously Washington considers Jews building housing to be a crisis, not genocide and beheadings.

  22. The fact that Netanyahu is so openly defying Obama is not only a measure of how much Israel hates that Marxo-Islamist SOB, but that somebody is encouraging Israel to break its extra close ties with the USA.

    You have to figure that would be Putin, although with China building the Red-Med rail link, they can’t be ruled out either.

  23. Permanent Israeli control of all lands encompassed by the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River is vital for the long-term future of the Jewish state and for the Jewish nation to redeem all the land of our national heritage.

    Any agreements made by any Israeli government to impede Jewish resettlement of Shomron and Yehuda must be treated by the Jewish nation as treason on behalf of a foreign and basically anti-Jewish power.

    And the retribution for treason in Israel should be the same as it is anywhere else: Removal from power and national influence, and if necessary, death at the hands of the Jewish nation itself.

    Harsh and implacable as these sentiments sound in print, they are vital if the Jewish nation is to be able to develop a necessary level of power that is required to fend off all enemies.

    Further, I count as treasonable any actions taken by any Jewish leader — self-proclaimed or elected — to involve his or herself in any plot to surrender Jewish national rights to any non-Jewish power.

    Arnold Harris
    Mount Horeb WI

  24. This is the correct answer to those who do not understand Jewish and Israeli rights in Judah and Samaria.

    Israel announced on Friday it is issuing tenders for 283 new homes in the community Elkana, located on the western side of Samaria and approximately 10 miles east of Kfar Saba, on the northern edge of metropolitan Tel Aviv.

    The news is certain to draw the ire of the United States at the daily press briefing at the State Dept. which earlier this week virtually ordered Israel to “reverse” its decision to create a new community in Gush Etzion and build homes for Jews in Jerusalem.

    http://www.jewishpress.com/news/breaking-news/israel-goes-on-offensive-with-announcement-of-new-homes-in-samaria/2014/09/05/

  25. Obama is very arrogant and he thinks what he says to Israel should be answered with how should we jump! Take with a grain of salt how tough they will really get. The Haaretz agenda tends to over exaggerate these situations in order to have the Israeli public get mad at Bibi it is a pattern.

    It can be the timing was precipitated by the killing of the three teens however, it is within Israel’s full rights to reclassify this land as State Land.