Diplomatic ambiguity at its best. On the one hand Bibi is prepared to accept Obama’s 67 lines with swaps, but on the other hand he is demanding that Obama interprets it according to the Bush letter. Not only that but he is demanding that Abbas accept Israel as a Jewish state which means the end of the “right of return”. Finally and this is crucial he is demanding that swaps are not to be equal in size but we get to keep 8% of the land where the settlements are and only give half the land size back. Does anyone know whether this 8% we keep includes Ariel and Maalah Adumin. In effect, if Obama accepts Bibi’s position, Obama’s demand is totally negated even though Bibi is accepting it.
This proposed deal is silent on Jerusalem. That doesn’t mean that the fate of Jerusalem isn’t part of it. Bibi previously said we can create creative solutions for Jerusalem. Ted Belman
To clear the way for the Paris summit, Ross recently put before Netanyahu Obama’s revised formula for the starting-point of negotiations with the Palestinians: Israel would accept the 1967 borders with territorial swaps in exchange for Palestinian recognition of Israel as the national state of the Jewish people. Just this week, the Israeli prime minister said that if the Palestinians recognized Israel as the Jewish homeland, the other outstanding issues could be easily and quickly resolved.
However, it is not clear whether the revised formula had won prior Palestinian approval before it was presented in Jerusalem or Washington intended to later squeeze this concession out of Mahmud Abbas and so drive a crack in the deadlock which has frozen the peace track for more than seven months.
At all events, Netanyahu’s reply was qualified. He accepted the new US formula in principle, but batted the ball back into the White House’s court.
debkafile’s sources in Jerusalem and Washington disclose that he made acceptance contingent on President Obama publicly and formally affixing his signature to President Bush’s letter of April 2004 to then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. This letter constituted a presidential commitment to support negotiations with the Palestinians based on UN Resolution 242 (which promised Israel defensible borders), to refrain from demanding Israel’s return to the 1949 lines, and to acknowledge the existence of major Jewish population centers on the West Bank as demographic changes occurring in the years since the Six-Day War.
The prime minister is now waiting for an answer from the White House.
Our sources in Jerusalem explain that this exchange encapsulates the US-Israeli-Palestinian debate over how much territory the land swaps would leave Israel and the Palestinians respectively in future agreements on their borders.
Up until now, the Palestinians have insisted on a ratio of one kilometer in pre-1967 Israel for every kilometer awarded Israel on the West Bank. This ratio Jerusalem has found to be unacceptable. A comprehensive study commissioned by the prime minister’s office from the National Security Council found that the big settlement blocs on the West Bank cover roughly 8 percent of West Bank area. Giving up an equal area of Israeli territory would imperil its security no less than a flat return to the 1967 borders. Israel cannot therefore afford to cede more than 4 percent of its sovereign territory at most. The Palestinian demand for parity in the mutual exchanges of land is therefore rejected by Jerusalem.
Jerusalemis reverting to the Bush letter and its reaffirmation of UN Resolution 242 – not just because it better addresses Israel’s security needs more advantageous, but also because, “You can’t just toss out UN Resolution 242 and Bush’s letter to Sharon,” Netanyahu has been saying in recent private talks. In his view, the Obama White House cannot simply ignore a presidential commitment given by his predecessor personally to an Israeli prime minister.
In the opinion of the prime minister and his advisers, the formula incorporated in Obama’s May 19 speech requiring Israel to return to the 1967 borders with mutual land swaps and accept a non-demilitarized Palestinian state is tantamount to giving up on secure borders. The UN 242 and the Bush commitment upheld this principle and is therefore the option preferred in Jerusalem.
@gurza –
But also that every man should eat and drink, and enjoy pleasure for all his labour, is the gift of God.
I know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever; nothing can be added to it, nor any thing taken from it; and God hath so made it, that men should fear before Him.
Wherefore I perceived that there is nothing better, than that a man should rejoice in his works; for that is his portion; for who shall bring him to see what shall be after him?
Not hard to figure out! Ans: FEAR!!! What would Uncle Laban say?
At any rate, there won’t be any agreement as long as BB sticks to the recognition issue as a precondition for anything else. And he will. No worries there, mates….Now, what to do about Iran?
Oh, he won’t take advantage of this weakness because it will provoke “Intifada Three”..and he’ll be blamed for this. But I agree with you, he should do it anyway. And cut off the free electricity for Gaza – which should never have been there in the first place. Can’t figure that one out at all.@yamit82 –
Yeah, I never understood all these press reports I keep hearing about “impressive growth” in the PA-administered areas of J&S. Based on what??? Lots of money from suckers pouring in? Hey…if someone gave me a bunch of free money, I’d have a grea “personal” economy myself! What do they PRODUCE? Honestly, I’ve NEVER seen a product – much less owned a product – produced by the PA. @yamit82 –
You are RIGHT ON TARGET, particularly concerning Bibi’s intellectual superiority (well, overall superiority in just about any quality one can think of), relative to Obama.@AmericanEagle –
Yamit82.
VANITY, VANITY, ALL IS VANITY.
Ecclesiastes
or
IT ALL WILL COME OUT IN THE WASH.
If BB doesn’t use this weakness to Israel’s advantage then he should be hung for criminal stupidity and then shot for treason.
Palestinian financial crisis puts squeeze on Abbas to drop UN initiative
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report
04 July. The Palestinian Authority is broke. Prime Minister Salam Fayyad appealed to “donors and our Arab brothers” Sunday, June 3, for urgent assistance after being forced to halve civil servants’ July wages. PA finances are suffering from the backlash of recession in the West and the Arab revolts. The US, Turkey and Saudi Arabia could save the PA from bankruptcy – in theory. But, DEBKAfile reports, the Saudis prefer to channel cash to Jordan and Washington’s bailout is conditional on Mahmoud Abbas dropping his unilateral UN initiative and going back to negotiations with Israel.
To obtain even crumbs of Saudi largesse, the Ramallah-based Palestinian government would have to follow Jordan’s lead and break away from America’s Middle East orientation. This PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas is deeply reluctant to do.
Just who are these Palestinian ‘civil servants’?
Palestinian officialsThe touted Palestinian economic miracle has proved to be a mere bubble, created by massive donor funding. Now that the world crisis has reduced the donations, the Palestinian economy is in free-fall.
Fayyad cut the salaries of Palestinian civil servants in half, which proves that the vast majority of his government employees are actually terrorists who were given sinecures so that they would abstain from militant activities and racketeering.
The Israeli government can use Palestine’s troubles to strengthen our grip on the enemy and extort maximum concessions from it, but Jews will instead continue to subsidize the Muslim enemy through tax transfers. This will create the worst possible situation: plenty of jobless Arabs who will spend their free time listening to radical propaganda and engaging in terrorism.
And our ally, the US, will continue subsidizing the PA even if it turns to the UNGA for unilateral recognition of statehood.
@David Sternlight –
Yes it is! In the negative. For him it was good diplomacy, for Israel it was a disaster for which we are still paying.
In a New York Times interview dated October 19, 1980, he boasted: “Poor Menachem [Begin], he has his problems … After all, I got back … the Sinai and the Alma oil fields, and what has Menachem got? A piece of paper.”
A year after signing the March 1979 peace treaty with Israel, Sadat ominously declared: “Despite the present differences with the Arab ‘rejectionist’ rulers over the Egyptian peace initiative, the fact remains that these differences are only tactical not strategic, temporary not permanent.”
By the way, in his Knesset speech of November 20, 1977, Sadat used the name of God 10 times in his first ten sentences. Surely a man of God would not lie about his desire for peace—a word he used 95 times in his 50 minute performance! 😛
Arab and Israeli Statecraft
July 8th, 2008 – ? ???? ? ????
Prof. Paul Eidelberg
Arab rulers, for example, Syrian dictator Bashir Assad, have learned from Anwar Sadat how to get territorial and other strategic resources from Israel for nothing. Thus, in an interview with the New York Times dated October 19, 1980, Sadat boasted: Poor Menachem [Begin], he has his problems … After all, I got back … the Sinai and the Alma oil fields, and what has Menachem got? A piece of paper.
“Israel is confronted by enemies who have risen to power not by the spin of democratic politics but by unmitigated cunning and ruthlessness. They succeed or fail to the extent they are well attuned to Machiavelli. They are not concerned about winning elections or seats in a parliament. They are not preoccupied with public opinion polls. They study war and therefore history. If they engage in peace talk or hudnas, its only as a means of gaining some strategic advantage over Israel.”
Sadat isn’t a persuasive example.
@ David Sternlight:
David Sternlight Said:
But what if they did agree? Sadat did!! Arafat agreed Oslo, Wye Plantation and Road-map. Now Abu Mazen Arafats deputy and the brains behind him might agree.
Not good diplomacy to count on rejection of enemies.
@ Bill Narvey: We know that the Arabestinians won’t agree, but it provides some atmospherics for others to justify thwarting their U.N. strategy.
Obama and Netanyahu continue to talk about the need for negotiations, while the Palestinians show no interest in it, at least now that they are putting all the Palestinian eggs into the UNGA Resolution that they are pushing. Both Obama and Netanyahu need to shut up about wanting negotiations because the Palestinians are not listening.
The only way the Palestinians will entertain the idea of negotiations is if Obama stands against any UNGA Resolution and any other effort that the Palestinians engage in to sidestep negotiations.
If and when the Palestinians see the only path open to them is to the negotiating table, then maybe they might take that path.
Until then Netanyahu laid out his thinking at the joint session of congress. He should stick by it with no compromises.
The question is how long Israel can play the Palestinians’ game of making conditions they know the other side cannot accept. Both Israel and the PA are playing the same game with Obama; buying delay via diplomacy, not action.
Make no mistake, as a Conservative, I like it. Let’s see how Glenn Beck’s Israel event in August plays out with public opinion.
The case can be argued that Israel, like many Americans, is betting on damage control with Obama until he can be voted out of office.
Of course it is always possible that in his eagerness to be reelected, Obama blinks. If he seems to, Bibi needs to get it in ironclad writing. Simple public declarations won’t help; Obama has a long history of lying. I still recall the most blatant in this context; his campaign address to AIPAC in which he said Jerusalem is the undivided capital of Israel, only to reverse himself the next morning when the Arabs didn’t like it.
Ted Belman Said:
As I have said before Bibi is on a higher intellectual plane than most of his detractors, and knows how to play Imam Obama’s game better than that incompetent moron.
@ Ilana Levy:
Thank you Ilana for this imperative comment! It’s about time that WE ALL start to speak this language because, in reality, IT’S WHAT G-D IS WAITING FOR US TO DO. And it’s the ONLY THING THAT CAN HELP US- PERIOD.
@ :
Ditto!
But Why wont They- The Leftist-Israeli Government face that fact once and for all? The answer is in the question itself- BECAUSE they are Leftist and hence it would be unethical to demand your own self-preservation at the expense of your arch enemy- Simple.
Ilana Levy Said:
My brother and I have discussed this before…the Lord allowing for Israel to be divided.
Read the prophet Joel . He states that they will divide the Land. This division of Hashem’s land will bring judgement on those responsibe for this act.
The Messiah will come.
Now I ask you a question… what can you delay by argument ? Absolutely nothing.Messiah is coming .We should be busy preparing ourselves for this event, not arguing amongst ourselves or blaming others. Look to yourselves.Keep Torah and believe what Hashem has told us .
Israel will “give up the ghost” and abandon large parts of Judea and Samaria along with East Jerusalem. The end of Israel as we know it today will be gone forever.
FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA, PALESTINE WILL NEVER BE, ONLY ISRAEL YESSIREE!!!
The PA wants Arabs in all parts of Israel. They will not agree to a Jewish state.
Any agreement with Obama should make Bibi nervous.
I see that Discus posts hierachical replies. If Bibi or anyone is offering “swaps”, this is a nonstarter. Israel holds all the cards, and the Arabs have nothing to “swap”. If the Arabs are serious about wanting autonomy or independence, they need to petition the Israeli government, not go wailing to Obama and other world leaders. They are not proposing to become OBAMA’s neighbors, but Israel’s.
I agree
I don’t think Bibi’s offer will be accepted by Obama or Abbas.