Israel's War Against Palestine: Documenting the Military Occupation of Palestinian and Arab Lands
“President Obama should not interfere with the rights of the Jewish people to live in Jerusalem,” said Danon. “This… is a racist demand, saying that Jews cannot live in Jerusalem, only Arabs.”
IOA Editor: Israeli decision-makers know that the surest way to ignite the ME and stop the “peace process” is to expand Jewish development activities in East Jerusalem. Is this why they’re doing just that? Your move, Mr. President.
If to Israelis, “what goes for East Jerusalem goes for Tel Aviv,” as Netanyahu says, then as far as the Palestinians are concerned, “what goes for East Jerusalem goes for Ramallah,” as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas says. A freeze on Jewish construction in East Jerusalem therefore was and remains the key to the peace process.
The White House expressed disappointment in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent visit to Washington, with officials saying that they had hoped that the prime minister would present a concrete plan to scale back Israeli construction in West Bank settlements, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.
Obama – Netanyahu meet: “The president reaffirmed our strong commitment to Israel’s security, and discussed security cooperation on a range of issues,” said a statement issued by the White House after the closed-door session that lasted an hour and a half concluded.
Obama has made clear that the United States intends to retain a long-term major presence in the [ME] region. That much is signaled by the huge city-within-a city called “the Baghdad Embassy,” unlike any embassy in the world.
The time has come for Obama to summon both sides for serious, continuous negotiations, accompanied by a timetable for establishing a Palestinian state alongside Israel on the basis of the June 4, 1967 borders. There could be no clearer expression of the United States’ commitment to Israel’s security and its future as a Jewish and democratic state.
IOA Editor: There could certainly be no clearer expression of US commitment to all peoples in the Middle East, the inherent conflict between a “Jewish” and a “democratic” state notwithstanding.
The US House of Representatives has rejected as “irredeemably biased” the findings of a UN-sponsored report which says Israel committed war crimes during its military assault on the Gaza Strip… vot[ing] 344 to 36 in favour of a non-binding resolution calling on Barack Obama, the US president, to maintain his opposition to the report.
The hawks seem to think that if only J Street is crushed, American Jews will obediently fall back into line behind Israel’s every action. But I think they misread the mood of the Jewish community, the changes it has undergone in recent years, and the extent to which J Street is designed to play a moderating, rather than a radicalizing, role on Jewish public opinion.
IOA Editor: Indeed, a moderating role – AIPAC-lite. Moderately against the Occupation? Perhaps an Obama-like Occupation policy? Only time will tell. In the meantime, already behaving much like AIPAC, J Street Booted a Poet from its conference program. This after having pleaded with right-wing Israeli ambassador Oren to speak there (“what J Street shares in common with you far outweighs that on which we disagree”)… Alas, they were snubbed by Mr. Ambassador – maybe for being Occupation-lite?
Human rights activists monitoring the West Bank report that… widespread building activity commenced three weeks ago in at least 12 settlements: ground preparation, pouring concrete and drilling construction foundations. This work is not part of the projects that Israel and the United States had reached an understanding on.
IOA Editor: Occupation as usual.
His Middle East policy is collapsing. The Israelis have taunted him by ignoring his demand for an end to settlement-building and by continuing to build their colonies on Arab land. His special envoy is bluntly told by the Israelis that an Arab-Israel peace will take “many years”. Now he wants the Palestinians to talk peace to Israel without conditions.
For Netanyahu, the threat of peace has passed. At least for the time being. It is difficult to understand how Obama allowed himself to get into this embarrassing situation.
Only one thing does bother the Israelis, according to the polls: fear of a diplomatic embargo and an international boycott. The Goldstone Report and the International Court of Justice in The Hague are arousing concern and interest, far more than Obama’s peace speeches.
IOA Editor: The importance of this commentary is the confirmation of the growing public concern in Israel about possible global isolation due to the boycott campaign and the increasing, however slowly, diplomatic pressure. The assessment of Obama’s ME failure is rather narrow, leaving out the close alliance between the US and Israel – the fundamental reason for Obama’s non-action. See: US ships arrive ahead of joint drill, covered here earlier this week.
Write your Senator: The threat that cluster munitions pose to civilian populations is well known due to their wide area effect and large number of unexploded submunitions or bomblets. In some cases, up to 40% of cluster submunitions fail to explode initially and, in effect, become de facto landmines.
Netanyahu’s message is that the Goldstone Commission report hinders the United States’ war on terror. The Foreign Ministry decided Wednesday to focus their efforts to combat the report’s accusations on the United States, Russia and a few other members of the United Nations Security Council and the Human Rights Council that are involved in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
IOA Editor: The Israeli propaganda machine is going full blast. To protect democracy from terrorism, the UN report deserves every possible rejection, naturally.
See also Norman Finkelstein’s interview and Gideon Levy’s commentary on the UN report.
He came into office amid much hoopla. The Cairo speech ignited half the globe. Making settlements the top priority gave rise to the hope that, finally, a statesman is sitting in the White House who understands that the root of all evil is the occupation, and that the root of the occupation’s evil is the settlements. From Cairo, it seemed possible to take off. The sky was the limit. Then the administration fell into the trap set by Israel and is showing no signs of recovery.
Alan Solow, the chairman of American Jewry’s powerful umbrella group, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, raised eyebrows among political observers after his organization issued a statement criticizing President Barack Obama over his stance on Israeli construction in East Jerusalem.
America’s best Jewish minds are wracking their brains, trying to find a magic formula that will put the settlements close to the hearts of Israel’s supporters, not to mention its critics. A new guide to the perplexed, disseminated by the leadership of the Israel Project, the organization spearheading Israel’s public relations efforts in the United States, offers a glimpse into its very own internal confusion
If I were Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas I would be deeply insulted by the negotiations U.S. President Barack Obama is conducting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over building permits in the settlements. Who authorized the Americans – this administration or the previous one – to do business with Palestinian land?
The outposts are a continuation of the settlements by other means. The sharp distinction Israel makes between them is artificial. Every outpost is established with a direct connection to a mother settlement, with the clear aim of expanding the takeover of the territory and ensuring an Israeli hold on a wider tract of land. Construction in the outposts is integrated into the overall plan of the settlement project and is carried out in parallel to the seizure of lands within and close to the settlements…
Behind every settlement action there is a planning and thinking mind that has access to the state’s database and maps, and help from sympathetic officers serving in key positions in the IDF and the Civil Administration. The story is not in the settlers’ uncontrolled behavior, though there is evidence of this on some of the hilltops, but rather in conscious choices by the state to enforce very little of the law.
IOA Editor: Irrespective of Amos Harel’s assumption that the Obama administration is the enemy of Israel’s settlement project, which has yet to be evidenced by actions, this is an important update report on the status of on-going settlement activities, and on the historically tight relationship between the settler movement, all Israeli governments, and the IDF – a partnership which is a crucial ingredient for the success of Israel’s 42 year old colonial project in the West Bank.
Rydberg slammed the settlements as creating a new reality on the ground in the occupied territories and spawning obstacles… He said the ideology that guides most settlers is based on utter denial of the rights of Palestinians in the occupied territories.
NOAM CHOMSKY:
