By Ted Belman
Israel has made a switch from concessions based diplomacy (its about time) to security based diplomacy. So I was informed when I attended a panel discussion in Jerusalem which was organized by Hadar-Israel.
The panelists included Maj-Gen (ret) Amidror, Maj. Gen. (res) Uzi Dayan and Amb Dore Gold. It was chaired by Dan Diker. It was a great evening. These people are at the top of their game and know what they are talking about.
Amidror focused on rejecting an international force as our security blanket arguing that the last thing Israel needs is for American soldiers to go home in coffins. Besides only the IDF will fight the terrorists in defense of Israel. History teaches us this.
In this context he dropped a bomb. He made it absolutely clear that Israel was not asking the US to bomb Iran. How did he know? “We’re making plans to do it ourselves”. No way did he want Israel to seen in need of US protection.
Dayan dealt with our need for defensible borders which Israel has just started putting forward. Israel will never agree to borders before all the other things are agreed upon. He pointed out that Rabin’s policies just prior to his assassination are now Likud’s policies, including an undivided Jerusalem belonging to Israel, no retreat from the Golan, no right of return and defensible borders. Our security needs require Israel to be on the Jordan and be in control of the airspace.
Dore Gold gave an overview. Many countries are now recognizing Palestine. He said that there is a possibility that the US will get both sides to state their positions and that the US would then table bridging proposals. Something appears to be in the air. With this in mind, he said Erekat wrote an article for the Guardian, which was quite unprecedented, in which he took a very hard line on the right of return. Abbas recently took a hard line on the new Palestinian state being Judenrein and on ’67 borders.
Gold argued that they were setting down markers in anticipation of the US position and Israel must do the same. It will no longer suffice for Israel to avoid stating its demands preferring to embrace platitudes of peace. It will now go hardline and demand what Rabin demanded.
Gold raised the issue of whether we can expect the US to veto any untoward Security Council resolution. In this context, he informed the audience that in 1975 the US came to an understanding with Israel which she put into writing, that the US would not allow a substitute for Res 242 in peace negotiations. I wasn’t aware of that but I was aware that the US inserted the Saudi Plan in the Roadmap in 2003, apparently in contravention of this pledge. One year later in the Bush to Sharon letter on the eve of Disengagement, Bush ignored the Saudi Plan and referred only to Res 242 as the basis of settlement. This resolution also mandates a negotiated settlement. It remains to be seen whether the US will honour its commitment.
Finally, Gold reiterated the need for an undivided Jerusalem saying it was impossible to divide it because all the Jewish and Arab areas in the eastern part of Jerusalem were intermingled. He said that in 2006 there were just under 200,000 Jews living in this area and now there are much more. He also reminded that audience the the Jewish population in Jerusalem was shrinking. Jews were leaving the city. The reasons given by them were, no housing and no jobs. Accordingly, he strongly argued for much more building, particularly of low cost housing, and for a national program to invigorate job prospects. He considered this a national priority.
Retaining Jerusalem was a strategic necessity. You can’t cut out your heart and survive. Zionism was about the return to Zion. Enough said.
Obviously, going hardline, will not lead to peace but the end of the peace process. The parties, he said, were now playing the blame game for when this becomes apparent.
KISS!
Ted
That is fair enough!
Yamit
Ditto
Yamit
It is not fair to say I do not defend you. I do defend the discussion and therefore I do defend everything you say
As I see it the focus of the Jihad, and the focus of the antisemitism against Israel, will be this year the Arabs declaring their state, the Europeans rushing to support, and Obama working moves through the UN to have US support as well
All that adds up to a very big and explosive situation, even without Iran bomb.
How can Israel meet this. I see all the leaders as at present unprepared, some even traitorous.
My position Ted, the position of 4international, IS correct. Time is going to prove.
Ed Katz, it is not so much that he is in his 80s as we all will be, but that he like so many others has been confused by a false reading of history.
I said the Jews have been lied about.
But if so why only the Jews? Trotsky too has been lied about most infamously!
That is the problem of Ed Katz. He has been effected grievously by history and tragically has only ever understood that history partially…
Shy you are incorrigible!
laura…Your statement re marx is false,
Ted Belman
It is no secret that Israeli Air force units has been training for missions to attack Iranian nuclear sites.
That is a contingency that might come into effect, and then it might not. But remember the Israeli military, as in America, does not make policy. That is a matter for the civil authorities to decide. Whether Israel attacks or not is not for Amidror to judge.You may be sure whether Isreal attacks is information classified as top Secret and would not be disclosed in a public forum.
It is now roughly 10 years since Israel was announced a pending attack with a six month deadline. I’ll believe it when I see it.
Definitely this one.
I dunno about Trotskyism as a dynamic movement. Here in the US of A it consists of a couple bearded janitors at Brooklyn PS 162, a Walmart greeter in Houston, and three laid-off welders in Akron, Ohio.
Felix I don’t know Katz or anything about him. I will say that whether I agree with him or not I reserve commenting on him or his comment till I gauge who he is and where he is coming from. I don’t like his use of the plural we as he is only entitled as far as I’m concerned to speak for himself. I am suspicious when a new name appears with an apparent familiarity of the regular pundits and makes a general statement all inclusive like WE!
Since you haven’t ever defended me in any sense and are one of my fondest critics, why the hell do you think it’s incumbent on me to rush to your defense? The comment of Katz pales in comparison to some of the nice things you’ve said about me over the years. That said Felix we are friends and comrades who disagree on most things but I respect your steadfastness in your beliefs while at the same-time affording them little merit.
All in all I do like you Felix and I always read your comments, Your point of view is more thoughtful and knowledgeable than most who comment here and on other similar blogs and in many ways closer to my views than most but sans your idol Lev Davidovich Bronstein and what he stood for.
Communists?!?!??!?!?!?!?!??!
Puke!
Felix. I find nothing at all wrong with what Laura wrote. Katz came on too strong but keep in mind, Katz is in his eighties and lived a life where Communism was the enemy. It is safe to say he hates communists.
the central conflict in the US today is whether it turns socialist or stays capitalist. Extreme socialism is not far from communism, so conservative are fighting a war against both. You don’t have to be self described Troskyite to raise their hackles. The fact that Omaba has been schooled in Communism and radical politics adds to the problem.
So you comment here in ignorance of the milieu. People can’t separate Trotsky from communist theology. I believe that you think he differs from Communists of his time in that he was pro Jewish. You recommend a revolution or coup if you like. For most, that’s strong medicine. What has far greater currency on Israpundit or elsewhere in Israel is whether you are a follower of Jabotinsky or Ben Gurion. Jabotinsky’s philosophy is much better know in the Israeli context and he decidedly wasn’t a communist. So if you were to recommend what Jabotinsky would recommend rather than Trotsky that few know, you would receive a better reception.
It is yopu that is caught up in the left right bullship. Jabatinsky is right, Labour is left. Everyone knows the difference in this context. You meanwhile struggle with classic definitions of left and right and see them at odds with my use of the terms. Granted. Next.
Katz was over the top with his strong language and I removed one very offensive remark.
fELIX I don’t have the time to read all the comments. I did not notice the ones you spoke of by Laura and Katz. I will react to them as soon as I have read them.
Yamit
But Yamit you are proceeding as if Laura and especially Katz with his extreme violent language has said nothing!
You are as slippery as you are treacherous. You have the cunning of the fox but without the principles of the fox because the fox is part of nature and has no ulterior motive other than to survive
But here you are Yamit and you allow this discussion crunching comment of Katz also Laura to go by
katz calls me a “puke”!
Is that not “violent”!!!!
What does one do with “puke” one wipes it from the face of the earth because it is vomit.
Katz engages in the discussion at a level which introduces total confusion. Any reading of Jihadwatch would show that the Jihad proceeds full pace in Russia and the countries of Eastern Europe, and that was what the rise and support of Izetbegovic by US Imperialism in the Balkans was all about.
Katz manages to confuse and hide all of that.
He also talks about the above as if communism was still in power in Russia, and tries to obscure Trotskyism and the historical fight by Trotsky against Stalinism.
Now I realise Yamit that you are well out of your depths in such areas and are liable in answer to throw down on the page a big chunk of scripture, but what did that ever solve here Yamit.
Katz are you going to come back and argue your point of view or are you using the method of the stealth political assasin here.
So read again what you wrote. I ave one question in particular to ask of you Katz: When you Ed Katz use the word “WE” what do you have in mind?
Do you mean that the issue of Israel, the issue of the defence of Jews against antisemitism, the issue of the possibility many would say probability that the present leaders like Dore Gold will sell out the Jews, and thereby create conditions for a New Holocaust, is only an issue for “WE”
And is thereby not an issue for an Irish person, Trotskyist, who is fighting in alliance with the Jews?
By no means are these small issues Katz…
What did I say? I haven’t even commented yet.
Dayan is as much a right winger as is Obama. He is so solid in the left that to call him right wing is like calling day night and night day.
He has changed his public rhetoric as most people change with the going fashion. At best consider him a self serving unprincipled political wannabe who has failed to even muster the barest min. of public support. discount anything he says even if it has a nice ring to the ear.
Dore Gold is largely responsible for most of our current weakness vis a vis the Palis. He was BB’s FP adviser during his first term and has been in BB’s inner policy circle ever since. He is part of the problem not it’s solution.
Ted Belman
I AND WHAT I STAND FOR HAVE BEEN KNIFED BY LAURA AND KATZ! YET…
You are silent Ted! You do not defend me Ted even though I have written on this website since shortly after it was founded.
You write this following sentence very very consciously and this reminds me very much of the time that you literally knifed young Pearlstein in the back over the Oliver Kamm affair on Israpundit (Kamm was and is a lethal enemy of Serbs and of Israel)
.
Now Ted you are far from being dim and so you will have read my initial comment in which I stated very clearly and in this I quoted from Francisco Gil White and Jared Israel, both of whom are very astute recorders of the Israeli struggle and are totally on the side of Israel, that use of the terms right and left in relation to Israel is FALSE, and gives a FALSE analysis of what is really happening
Yet you persist in using this term right wing and left wing.
Now Ted Belman you know very well that I am a Trotskyist and I am as left wing as it is possible to be.
You are not dim and thus you slip in this sentence VERY DELIBERATELY
You do something else as does every other person on Israpundit (silence Yamit82 is the same thing).
You line up with Laura in her hateful and prejudiced attack on that great defender of the Jews and rights of Jews and against the antisemitism of Bakunin Karl Marx, and on Marxism, therefore on Trotskyism.
And in relation to this hate filled and EXTREMELY VIOLENT attack on myself and on Trotskyism (by Katz though the violence of Laura is implicit) you all line up through your silence with Katz
The position of Katz and of Laura is one of total character assasination. Neither Katz not Laura has ever put forward one practical proposal as to how to go forward and in particular has completely ignored what I wrote above in comment 1
This is rotten rotten politics, the rotten politics of the Israeli middle class and the Israeli traitors.
Thank goodness the future of the Jewish people does not depend on Ted Belman, on Laura, on Katz no more than it depends on Haaretz or Livni.
It will depend more on more on a new Trotskyist leadership in the world, in Israel on a new Trotskyist leadership which will fight alongside GENUINE JEWISHH PATRIOTS WHO WILL BE BOTH JEWISH RELIGIOUS AND NON RELIGIOUS.
NOW address the points I made in Comment 1 because if these points are not addressed (Laura and Katz notwithstanding) Israel cannot survive!
I bet he’s as “right wing” as Netanyahu. I bet he’s a prop.
Kushner told me that she was surprised how right wing he had become.
Ted, try digging back a few years ago to see what Uzi Dayan was thinking and saying. Hint: Dayan is not a leopard.
Arlene Kushner reminds me in her record of the evening
The peace-process is, and has been a farce all along.
I have been having second thoughts about what Dore Gold said, so I wrote to him.
Israel has always defeated it’s enemies, no matter how large or not. Livni always has been a sell-out; something we have currently in the White House.
Amidror is right; and I hope he follows through-it’s about time, that someone is not afraid to speak the truth. Bullies always backing down, when confronted by strenght.
Obama won’t honor George Bush’s letter in 2004, ho won’t even honor his own promises, as a matter of fact he will never do anything on behalf of Israel-remember he bowed to the Saudis.
We really don’t need any Communist’s advising us on how Israel should be governed. Look at what’s happening in the Caucuses, in Moscow, the fringe countries and, yes, in Ireland. Quigley, take your shit and peddle it elsewhere.
Karl Marx was anti-Jewish.
Gold and co raise a lot of new questions but answer nothing, neither new nor old
Fact is Zionism is in great crisis.
Jews are moving out of Jerusalem!
He answers this by saying more jobs, more houses.
When Karl Marx visited Jerusalem in 1852 he wrote of his wonder at the oppressed Jews, bottom of the ladder, spat at and continually insulted by Arab Muslims and Ottomans, living in hovels…he marvelled at the depth of their devotion to Zion
I think Karl had it righht and Dore has it wrong.
Or rather Dore is adapting to modernist materialism
Your whole approach Ted is wrong and always has been. You and others have emphasised Res 242 which along with everything that the UN produced is reactionary and lethal for the Jews.
These guys here on this forum are adapting like crazy to Obama and the “Small Jihad” of Abbas, backed by the “Great Jihad” of Hamas and Iran
At one time I thought that Netanyahu had one strategic service to carry out for the Jews, which was to hit Iran in order to delay the Nuclear Bomb long enough for the world revolution against capitalism (as it breaks up and moves to Fascism) takes place, in other words a time saver, never to be laughed at
I still do and this is the basis of our United Front with Netanyahu and with the IAF
But things have moved even beyond that.
I can see here that hitting Iran (thus saving Israel and Jews from Holocaust) is introduced as part of an adaptation to Obama and the Jihad
I see these people Ted who you praise at this conference as being the sell out merchants in the situation.
They are all contemplating setting up the Arabs in a Palestine Arab state
All of them! Every minute of their conscious life they are doing this.
This therefore becomes an explanation as to why people like Gold are able to work in a state alongside of Haaretz, along with Livni in politics (she should be banned from political life forever) and why Labour is in coalition
Meanwhile Liebnecht is one more variation of providing the enemy with a state
Meanwhile Feiglin (what a silent character that guy is) is unheard of and anyway is and will always be ineffectual because he cannot address the reality of todays world.
Feiglin is so far removed from reality that I compare him to the conspiracy freaks which now abound as thhe capitalist crisis deepens and the lizards come out to graze.
So what to do:
Start by arresting these people immediately
Abbas and Erekat
All of the leaders of the PA
Close down Haaretz, place the worst of those Nazi journalists in prison
Break with the US elite while intensifying our friendship with CUFI and other Americans and Canadians
Strike Iran immediately.
Destroy Hamas and Hizballah immediately
Throw everything into the revolution in Iran to overthrow the theocrats
declare to all Arabs in the Middle East and to the World that only Jews who love Israel can live in Israel
Any non Jews living in Israel are there merely as guests. They must love Israel in order to remain
Make this our policy and do not change.
Central…Bring the history of not only Trotsky but all revolutionary struggle into the situation.
Stop using the evil and lethal terms of rightist and leftist in relation to Israeli politics, terms of speech which have long ago been exposed and opposed by Francisco Gil White and by Jared Israel.
Fight on principles and on principles alone.
Do not be swayed. Say what is at all times.