US pressure on Israel mounts

By Ted Belman

Kerry is back in town and he is carrying a big stick.

According to DEBKA he is threatening Israel with a European economic boycott.

    “Sources in the Israeli prime minister’s office said the pressure the US was bringing to bear on Israel for concessions was unfair, especially the threat of a European boycott, and disproportionately greater that US demands of the Palestinians.”

Meanwhile PLO Secretary-General Yasser Abed Rabbo said “No Palestinian state will be created without Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley.” Thus the PA is at odds with the Israel right that will not cede Jerusalem nor the Jordan valley.

Unfortunately Netanyahu is trying to have it both ways. He hasn’t rejected Kerry’s framework outright but has indicated that there are parts of it he can accept.

But Netanyahu is holding on to power in Israel with great difficulty. He is caught between the rock of American pressure and the hard place of the Likud party.

I am told by a very reliable party, that Likud is ready to oust Netanyahu and replace him with Moshe Yaalon as prime minister. It is just waiting for Yaalon’s word.

For the last few weeks Yaalon has been charting a different course for Israel. At the Saban Conference last month he said “We will not negotiate an inch, a millimeter of land if we don’t realize that we have a partner that discusses recognition, the end of conflict and conceding the right of return.”. In October he promised that he would set up a committee to develop a legal framework to prevent illegal building in Judea and Samaria that would apply to all residents. This is long overdue.

During a keynote speech last week at an economic conference, Ya’alon openly referred to proposals by Kerry to replace Israeli’s security presence on the ground in the West Bank with an array of advanced remote surveillance capabilities.

Ya’alon revealed why he had rejected the proposals, and in doing so, signaled a major impasse in the diplomatic process with the Palestinian Authority and US efforts to lead to a breakthrough.

“When I’m told about the security answer in Judea and Samaria, and when they talk about satellites, drones and technologies, I say, ‘guys, you’re wrong.’ The principal problem is education. If in Nablus and Jenin they continue to educate the young generation as it is being educated today, to idolize terrorism and jihad, and that the Jewish people have no right to this land, if this is how they’re educated, than technology stops nothing,” he said. “If the education does not change, we’ll have the same pressure from the inside. And then there will be a Hamastan in Judea and Samaria, like in Gaza. It’ll hurt us, it’ll hurt Jordan and it’ll hurt other interests in the area.”

Perhaps that’s why Netanyahu has lately been making a point of the PA incitement.

Finally a few days ago he said that if compromises in peace negotiations would lead to “rockets from Nablus, Ramallah and Jenin onto Ben-Gurion Airport, then I would rather have a European boycott” on Israel.

I say bring on the boycott.

January 3, 2014 | 58 Comments »

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50 Comments / 58 Comments

  1. @ mar55:
    When she started to talk in Ladino I froze as if I was having a vision.

    Ladino is not classic Spanish, certainly not the Spanish of Cervantes.

    It is a Spanish-Hebrew hybrid, as Yiddish is to German.

    NOT CLASSIC SPANISH.

  2. @ mar55:
    I had goose pumps listenig to the language of Cervantes in its original form.

    Cervantes is an amazing fellow. Lost use of one arm fighting the Ottoman Muslims.

    I wish my Spanish were that good that I could read him. I consider him the equal, if not the superior of Shakespeare.

    Don Quijote [the modern Spanish spelling] is Lo Mejor. I read it with footnotes and realize that I am missing half the jokes.

    All of this is lost in an Anglophonic world. But Cervantes is the absolute greatest author in the last 1000 years, surpassing even Shakespeare.

    Don Quijote inspires us 400 years later.

    People do not even begin to realize the effect that Don Quijote has on history.

    It was required reading in universities. Diplomats would read it as a guide on how to interact with people. It was considered a guide on human nature.

    It was the first modern novel; yet it was also poetry. Puns all over the place.

    Sancho Panza == Panza means belly

    Dulcinea = Sweet one

    The Arab = Cide Hamete Benengeli, in the opening of the story has a name which means eggplant head.

    It gets better with every reading. I read it as a kid. I got it from the library a few years ago, and read through some of it again. I was laughing my head off.

    More operas have been written about Don Quijote than any other theme

    Ben Gurion learned Spanish so he could read it in the original.

    I have to go back and read it again. Unfortunately, I am forced to read a translation.

    The songs were originally written in English but sound better in Spanish

    The Impossible Dream in Spanish Sueño Imposible
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpZDnjMF4CI

    Dulcinea
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lPftb6wbm0

    I AM I DON QUIJOTE
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_21LkdBHoM&t=1m20s

    Some Jews try to claim Cervantes was a Marrano Crypto-Jew. I am sure Yamit will try.
    I doubt Cervantes was a Jew; but I would not be too surprised if I was wrong
    http://www.jewornotjew.com/profile.jsp?ID=81

    Cervantes eclipes even Shakespeare

    http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/13/arts/13conn.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

    But aside from its literary achievements, “Don Quixote” sheds oblique light on an era when Spain’s Islamic culture forcibly came to an end. Just consider Cervantes’s playful account of the book’s origins. One day in the Toledo marketplace, he writes, a young boy was trying to sell old notebooks and worn scraps of paper covered with Arabic script. Cervantes recounts how he acquired a book and then looked around for a Moor to translate it. “It was not very difficult” to find such a Moor, he writes. In fact, he says, he could have even found a translator of Hebrew.

    The Arabic manuscript, the Moor tells him, is the “History of Don Quixote de la Mancha, written by Cide Hamete Benengeli, an Arab historian.” Cervantes brings the Moor to the cloister of a church and commissions a translation.

    We know this is all a jest, as is the very name of the historian: “Cide” is an honorific, “Hamete” is a version of the Arab name Hamid, and “Benengeli” means eggplant.

    But this eggplantish historian is no more a jest than anything else in the novel, whether it is Don Quixote tilting at windmills or Sancho Panza governing an island not surrounded by water. Benengeli is, apparently, just as earnest as Don Quixote, just as peculiar and just as important to understanding what this novel is about.

  3. @ mar55:
    She talked and I had goose pumps listenig to the language of Cervantes in its original form.

    Spanish in its old form is spoken in Texas and New Mexcio among the old Spanish whites.

    It is also spoken in Chile.

    The same is true of English where old English was spoken in West Virginia.

    White settlers got isolated in the 17th century, cut off from Europe, where the mother tongue kept evolving.

    Hence West Virginia speaks old English.

    Texas and New Mexico speak Old Spanish. Believe it or not, Honeybee may speak the Spanish of Cervantes.

    Chile, Costa Rica, and Argentina use the old vos form, which was 16th century Spanish.

    However Argentina has absorbed a lot of Italian; so Chile is probably the best example.

  4. @ yamit82:
    I doubt our christian missionary would be very impressed or interested. He is more interested of Jewish soul snatching.

    Oh! Yes! quite so. But the real prize is an Ashkenazi Cohen soul. They fetch top dollar on Ebay.

    You are an unmitigated clown with your soul snatching nonsense?

  6. @ honeybee:
    “small, ‘unbelievably small’.”

    “meeeeee oooooooooooooooooowwwwwwww”

    No “meow” here. The remark sounded bizarre when he made it, and it still does, to this day.

    And that’s the long & the short of it. . . .

  8. “Kerry is back in town and he is carrying a big stick.”

    Somehow I recall Kerry talking recently about something he insisted was very small, “unbelievably small.”

    — Are you sure it wasn’t that “stick” he was talking about?

  9. yamit82 Said:

    Jewish soul snatching.

    Don’t worry Darlin, I have already been “snatched” and then rejected. Thank you for the article. Did you watch Fox last night Linda Chavez [ the conservative columinist] was on,she is a bonfide Cryto-Jew although a practicing RC. She is married to a Jew interesting enough. Love the photos on the article, will incorperate them into a painting. The TV program “The Vikings” begins again Feb 27 on the History Channel.

  13. Got relatives in Colorado.

    But seriously New Mexico beats them all.

    When I was about 30, I wanted to move to NM. Didn’t happen.

    Truth or Consequence (Hot Springs) NM.

    When the sun sets over the NM mountains you get every color of the spectrum

  14. CuriousAmerican Said:

    Do you got Yucca plants in Texas?

    Spanish Dagger,witch is yucca with elbows!

    CuriousAmerican Said:

    Of all the States in the Union, NEW MEXICO is the prettiest.

    Colorado, I love Aspen and Steamboat Springs, I go to Denver often. Visit the art museaum,stock show is coing up.

  15. Adobe houses are wonderful – but when every house is adobe the beauty is washed out.

    Do you got Yucca plants in Texas? They are all over NM.

    There is NOTHING like a 40 foot tall Arizona Saguaro to impress you.

    Of all the States in the Union, NEW MEXICO is the prettiest.

  19. mar55 Said:

    I have never been in Taos or Santa Fe

    May I suggest you watch the movie,”‘The Milargro Bean Field War”. The movie is ok,but he photography is fantastic.

  24. @ Ted Belman:

    CuriousAmerican

    I do not know that this is so much a threat from the USA but more of an assessment that if the US bows out, the EU will be worse.

    Wrong. The US and the EU are working in tandem. America counsels them on when to apply pressure and when to back off. They are a team

    Maybe so.

    Do you have proof of that?

    I see America’s role as passive. She does not tell the Euros what to do, but rather keeps them at bay. If Israel does not comply, then America backs off and lets the Euros have their way.

    It may look like America sics the Euros on Israel; but I not sure she does.

    Effectually, the difference may be little, except motive.

  25. CuriousAmerican Said:

    I do not know that this is so much a threat from the USA but more of an assessment that if the US bows out, the EU will be worse.

    Wrong. The US and the EU are working in tandem. America counsels them on when to apply pressure and when to back off. They are a team.

  26. “Sources in the Israeli prime minister’s office said the pressure the US was bringing to bear on Israel for concessions was unfair, especially the threat of a European boycott, and disproportionately greater that US demands of the Palestinians.”

    I do not know that this is so much a threat from the USA but more of an assessment that if the US bows out, the EU will be worse.

    If Obama bows out and says: “Okay do what you think is right for Zionism, but when the EU boycotts you … I can’t help you.

    Would you consider that a threat or a good thing?

  28. mar55 Said:

    Thank you for the Psalm. I used to read them more often I do not know why I do not read them so often. They are a source of great comfort

    Tx bought me the Bible on DVDs, I listen at night, with ear plugs, it is as if the Almighty is speaking directly to you. My Father lost his eye sight,due to diabeties, I bought the tapes for him. He listen to whole Old Testament. He said,” all my ancestors do is begot and kill,begot and kill”. He love the King James version because of the beautiful English.
    Have a good trip,enjoy!

  29. @ honeybee:

    Amos 9:13-15
    Behold days are coming, says the Lord, that the plowman shall meet the reaper and the treader of the grapes the one who carries the seed, and the mountains shall drip sweet wine, and all the hills shall melt.

    And I will return the captivity of My people Israel, and they shall rebuild desolate cities and inhabit [them], and they shall plant vineyards and drink their wine, and they shall make gardens and eat their produce.

    And I will plant them on their land, and they shall no longer be uprooted from upon their land, that I have given them, said the Lord your God.

  30. @ mar55:
    mar55 Said:

    you are allowed to leave before it ends.

    I can’t sit still for nothing. I play CDs while paint, the music influences my paintins.

    Give Nani my love and Mazeltov yawl !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  31. mar55 Said:

    Wagnerian opera

    I love the “Ring Cycle” am half Swedish. My Mother was Brunhilda, Once in a fit of anger I threated to sent her down a river in a firey viking funeral, like Sigried. She loved the idea. Recorded James Levines Cycle on DVD, but lost it when the electricity went out.

  32. mar55 Said:

    I think you might consider taking her to Santorini. I think she will love it. You both will enjoy it.

    Dear marr55,you should come to Santa Fe, Toas,Las Vegas,Penasco,Cordova New Mexico and meet you Shephdic cousins who have here since the 1500!

    Beatiful child and scared to death,so brave, just needs maturity.

  35. yamit82 Said:

    I think this guy is a better singer

    You’re correct again: http://youtu.be/vPh7y_KkyjI He is a better singer.

    yamit82 Said:

    Handle was an idiot

    He was a greedy,grasping little man who wrote some of the most beautifull music in the World.

    yamit82 Said:

    I’ll share royalties with you. OK?

    We can spend it together in Santa Fe at the Spanish Market.

  37. @ honeybee:

    I like Gomert. Joel Rosenberg is a missionary so you know my attitude.

    I always wondered how believing christians ignore our scriptures when it does not comply with their j beliefs.
    Joel:

    “In those days and at that time,
    when I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem,
    2 I will gather all nations
    and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat.[b]
    There I will put them on trial
    for what they did to my inheritance, my people Israel,
    because they scattered my people among the nations
    and divided up my land.

    If they were true believers they should be crapping in their pants. 😛

    honeybee Said:

    Yamit82 ‘s Father sang at the Met.

    Not father! Father in law.

  42. @ mar55:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NF6LweEA_A

    My father in-law was an opera singer (Tenor) dramatic as opposed to Lyric. He began in the Israeli Opera in it’s beginnings and ‘Nabucco’- was his first part but for a lead tenor it’s a small part. He performed with Plácido Domingo who started his career in the Israeli Opera. They remained friends throughout his career (40 years) when he retired he was the director of the Rubin academy in Jerusalem. He left Israel in the 50’s to study in Italy and later performed in many venues in Holland and Germany but mostly Holland. At the end of his career he was the lead tenor understudy at the met and performed regularly in the NYC opera.

    His second wife an American who was in the chorus at the Met. She was 25 years younger than him 🙂 Star power, few people realize that Lead Opera stars especially tenors have as many groupies as any rock star. He had a Israeli groupie who would have died for him and caused a lot of trouble, she followed him to Italy and married a gentile opera singer just to get even when he rejected her.

    Got lots of opera stories.

    @ mar55:

    I used to get upset, angry and depressed but no more. They say that in the end of days: time (history quickens it’s pace) just like the Mayan beliefs. There may be something to that belief.

    May I recommend you read Psalm 2
    Why are the nations in an uproar? And why do the peoples mutter in vain?
    Kings of a land stand up, and nobles take counsel together against the Lord and against His anointed?
    “Let us break their bands and cast off their cords from us.”
    He Who dwells in Heaven laughs; the Lord mocks them.
    Then He speaks to them in His wrath; and He frightens them with His sore displeasure.
    “But I have enthroned My king on Zion, My holy mount.”
    I will tell of the decree; The Lord said to me, “You are My son; this day have I begotten you.
    Request of Me, and I will make nations your inheritance, and the ends of the earth your possession.
    You shall break them with an iron rod; like a potter’s vessel you shall shatter them.”
    And now, [you] kings, be wise; be admonished, [you] judges of the earth.
    Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with quaking.
    Arm yourselves with purity lest He become angry and you perish in the way, for in a moment His wrath will be kindled; the praises of all who take refuge in Him.

  43. honeybee Said:

    But not always in a negative manner!!!!!!!!!!!

    That’s the point, the negative becomes in the end a positive, even if it’s not immediately understood. You have to see it from historical hindsight.

    “The preservation of the Jew was certainly not casual. He has endured through the power of a certain ideal, based on the recognition of a Higher Power in human affairs. Time after time in his history, moreover, he has been saved from disaster in a manner, which cannot be described excepting as ‘providential.’ (Historian Cecil Roth)

  45. @ Shy Guy:

    G-d’s gift to the Jews.

    Not to worry, In the words of Bernard Malamud: “If you ever forget you’re a Jew, a Gentile will remind you.”

  46. Kerry is back in town and he is carrying a big stick.

    I’d like to tell lurch kerry what he can do with that stick.

    Let Europe boycott. They will discover it might be they more than Israel who will be hurt.

  48. NormanF Said:

    Israel’s spine has always been G-d.

    Sorry but even an agnostic like Ben Gurion had something of a spine.

    You don’t need to preach Hashem to me. That’s where I come from. But Israelis have irrationally and desperately turned into complete worms below any minimal level of sensibility.

  49. Shy Guy,

    I don’t agree – Israel’s spine has always been G-d. Let’s face it, without Him – neither you nor I would be here.

    Let the Americans bring on their boycott!

  50. This time, the inheritors of the empires of Egypt, Persia, Greece and Rome will fade away, while Israel remains.

    Unfortunately at the moment, we are missing a spine.