print“In a 45-minute telephone call Friday to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, [Secretary of State Hillary] Clinton upbraided him and demanded that he take more steps to show his nation’s commitment to peace,” writes the LA Times. The confrontation between the shrewd and the shrew was the latest round in a “dispute this week between the Obama administration and Israel,” which “has ballooned into the biggest U.S.-Israeli clash in 20 years, adding to months of strain between Washington and one of its closest allies,” the LA Times again.
Israel’s decision to move ahead with 1,600 new housing units in East Jerusalem, announced during a visit by Vice President Joe Biden, drew criticism from Washington in language rarely directed at even Iran or North Korea. …
Clinton’s criticism, authorized by President Obama, was aimed at trying to obtain concessions from the conservative Israeli government at a moment when Netanyahu may be politically vulnerable, officials said.
The U.S. goal is to win Israeli agreement to back off the housing project and to forgo announcements of additional Jewish construction in East Jerusalem, officials said. The administration also wants Israel to agree to discuss substantive issues in new peace talks that could begin in coming days, U.S. officials said.
Netanyahu responded today:
“With regard to commitments to peace, the government of Israel has proven over the last year that it is commitment to peace, both in words and actions,” said the statement.”
The statement cited as examples Netanyahu’s inaugural foreign policy speech made at Bar Ilan University, the removal of hundreds of roadblocks across the West Bank, and its decision to freeze temporarily construction in West Bank settlements. The latter, said the statement, was even called by Clinton an “unprecedented” move.
Netanyahu’s office added in its statement that the Palestinians were continuing to thwart the political process by demanding preconditions before the resumption of peace talks. “They are orchestrating a de-legitimization campaign against Israel in international institutions.”
East Jerusalem is the issue here. Netanyahu will have to stand strong on the unity of Jerusalem. The rest is a sideshow the Obama administration has chosen to amplify, or so I suspect.
“The Muslim Claim to Jerusalem” is political, not religious or historic, argues Daniel Pipes. It is also a recent project.
Centuries of neglect, as Pipes puts it, “came to an abrupt end after June 1967, when the Old City came under Israeli control. Palestinians again made Jerusalem the centerpiece of their political program. “Mecca, of course, is the eternal city of Islam, the place from which non-Muslims are strictly forbidden. Very roughly speaking, what Jerusalem is to Jews.”
[SNIP]
HISTORY NOTWITHSTANDING, What of Palestinian families who’ve resided in the city for generations? Sure, they will have soaked in the disingenuous, bogus political case for a Palestinian religious or historical claim on the Holy City. This, I would go further than Pipes and argue, is of a piece with the Palestinian historical identity theft project. That aside, the question of generational attachment to place and property is a simple one to solve if intentions are good. People remain on their properties and extend to their Israeli neighbors—residents of the 1,600 new housing units Biden protested included—-the courtesy their brethren receive in Israel proper.
Update I (March 17): Daniel Pipes provides an updated analysis of the Washington-Jerusalem spat:
“A recent poll of American voters shows an astonishing 8-to-1 sympathy for Israel over the Palestinians,” Pipes points out. So, “picking a fight with Israel harms Obama politically – precisely what a president sinking in the polls and attempting to transform one-sixth of the economy does not need”:
“On the surface, that the Obama administration decided one fine day to pick a fight with the government of Israel looks like an unmitigated disaster for the Jewish state. What could be worse than its most important ally provoking the worst crisis (according to the Israeli ambassador to Washington) since 1975?
A closer look, however, suggests that this gratuitous little spat might turn out better for Jerusalem than for the White House.
(1) It concerns not a life-and-death issue, such as the menace of Iran’s nuclear buildup or Israel’s right to defend itself from Hamas predations, but the triviality of the timing of a decision to build new housing units in Israel’s capital city. Wiser heads will insist that White House amateurs end this tempest in a teapot and revert to normal relations.
(2) If Obama et al. hope to bring down Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s government, they can’t count Knesset seats. Peeling away Labor will lead to its replacement by rightist parties.
(3) An Israeli consensus exists to maintain sovereignty over eastern Jerusalem, so provoking a crisis on this issue strengthens Netanyahu.
(4) Conversely, U.S. histrionics make the Palestinian Authority’s Mahmoud Abbas more reluctant to enter into Washington’s counterproductive negotiations.”
Update II (March 18): Petraeus’ Palestinian Protectorate. According to Debkafile:
“President Obama and secretary of state Hillary Clinton turned down their initial proposals for easing the upset and laid down three pre-conditions for restoring normal relations with Jerusalem:
1. The Netanyahu government must extend the 10-month freeze on West Bank settlement construction to include East Jerusalem;
2. When the moratorium runs out in September, it must be renewed for the duration of peace negotiations with the Palestinians;
3. Israeli must make more concessions to the Palestinian Authority and its chairman Mahmoud Abbas.
The Israeli government was informed that until those conditions were met, its ministers would not be received in Washington by high-level American officials …”
American officials are openly insinuating that, “Israel’s settlement policy is the root-cause of Iran’s drive for a nuclear bomb and of the conflicts endangering American lives in combat in Afghanistan and Iraq. … Vice President Joe Biden … reportedly attacked Netanyahu for the announcement of 1,600 new homes in East Jerusalem by saying: ‘What you are doing here undermines the security of our troops who are fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.’
It is rumored that, “A much-admired American military figure, CENTCOM chief, Gen. David Petraeus, wants the Palestinian Authority added to CENTCOM’s turf” so that the US can protect the PA from Israel.
Update III (March 19): Gunning For A Jewish Neighborhood. The American Thinker (via Larry Auster):
Ramat Shlomo, is a Jewish neighborhood and has been so for thirty years. It is surrounded by other Jewish neighborhoods, and no Israeli in his right mind would consider surrendering it in any final peace deal with the Palestinians. Giving up Ramat Shlomo would be the equivalent of giving up the world-famous Hebrew University on Mount Scopus, the tony Jerusalem suburb of French Hill, and even the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City. All three are just as integrated into the Jewish identity of Jerusalem as Ramat Shlomo. Only by accepting the Palestinian narrative — that all of Jerusalem belongs to the Palestinians — could anyone possibly envision the suburb as future Palestinian territory.
AND:
There is absolutely no connection between the construction of apartment units in Ramat Shlomo (still two years distant) and the intent of Islamic martyrs to kill American soldiers thousands of miles away. The same number of American servicemen will be targeted and killed in the Middle East no matter what happens in northern Jerusalem.
So from what playbook are Barack Obama and his administration reading in breathing life into a crisis that should never have been? It is, I believe, simply this: Obama sees the world in terms of a rather protean struggle between the weak and the strong, the poor and the rich. The weak in his eyes are almost always innocent purveyors of righteousness while the powerful personify greed and oppression. The same worldview permeates his domestic policies…
NON-INTERVENTIONISM is the proper US foreign policy, not bribing Israel, bribing the Palestinians, or interfering in whether Jews build homes in Al Quds (which certain Zionists call Jerusalem!). If 10 million Chinese wanted to do Aliyah and emigrate to Israel, it is NOT American business.
It reminds me of a time when I used to object to the US government running a Holocaust museum and got all sorts of flack for my stance. Years later, the US government wanted Yassir Arafat, Nobel PEACE Prizewinner (like Obama, Carter, Kissinger, Le Duc Tho, and Gore) to be the Holocaust museum honored guest – and many finally understood my objections. It is the same with American “policy” in the Middle East.
By the way, how (for example) would Ilana Mercer putting an addition on her house threaten ME if there was any semblence of any remote desire on my part to coexist in peace? The entire process is a self-evident sham.
The Israeli government obviously has it’s shortcomings, much like ours. (Of course not as bad or corrupt.) But it seems to me that they should know what to do in their part of the world and we should suupport them. However it seems that we are too busy trying to toady up to the Muslim world. For us to actually support the Palestinians as opposed to an ally such as Israel is the height of foolishness. Of course with Curly, Larry and Moe(Barack, Biden and Hillary) heading up our foreign policy team we are proving that we don’t know, as a nation, our collective backsides from third base about foreign policy. And here we are mucking about in the middle east. A disaster waiting to happen.
This is the beginning of a setup. We’re coaxing Israel to do our dirty work in Iran. If Israel believes itself isolated further from the U.S. then it will take care of the problem on it’s own.
The U.S. government needs to stop interfering in Israeli affairs and it needs to cut off the welfare checks to Tel Aviv (and Arab countries as well).
The story of the “Tower of Babel” is being reenacted in the Obama one world system, with the same forecast. They are so dense, that I see no hope for them to find their back pockets, even if they use both hands. I find myself in the position of having to cheer on the present administration in the hope that; if we can tick off the Japanese enough they’ll send our military bases packing. If we can tick off the Israeli’s enough, they’ll see the light and kick the US(N)out and take care of business. Reverse psychology is all that remains open anymore.
Israel has every right to defend itself. The United States should stay out of Israels business. Unfortunately it looks like we can not do that.
The rather laughable Petraeus memo:
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/…/03/petraeus_makes_his_move.php
constitutes a wonderful example of the sickness of the American Empire mentality. So buck-toothed Pushtun tribesmen would really LOVE us when we blow up their poppy fields or their cousin’s wedding party as long as Israel stops building condos in Jerusalem! And those in Pakistan and Kashmir are more worried over the Zionist Entity than the Hinduist Entity! And then this worry about how Israel “weakens the legitimacy of moderate regimes in the Arab world” – which is a double farce that presumes that Medieval despotic cesspools like Saudi Arabia and Mubarakland are both “legitimate” and “moderate”.
Oh, I forgot, our troops are “spreading democracy”. I also forgot that those random Pushtun tribesmen, not Cheney, Bush, Obama, and Pelosi who “threaten our freedom”. When Americans are forced to buy health insurance, file income taxes, attend politically-correct indoctrination schools, or strip at the airport, it is because some Pushtun is pissed off at some Jew who is living in the Old City of Jerusalem! Where would our freedoms be without Princeton-educated geniuses like Petraeus and Lady Michelle?
I want even more freedom – can we blow up a few more Tribesmen, General??
The administration is pushing Israel into a corner which will eventually lead to an all-out war in the region. The Palestinians will exacerbate the situation beyond control and will become the chief recipient of the carnage which is to follow. I don’t believe it is too far-fetched to envision our administration mobilizing American troops to try to save them.
When Americans are forced to buy health insurance, file income taxes, attend politically-correct indoctrination schools, or strip at the airport, it is because some Pushtun is pissed off at some Jew who is living in the Old City of Jerusalem!”
Myron,
They hate us for our Freedom!! Didn’t you know?
The biggest issue in the middle east is Iran’s existential threat to Israel. So what does this administration do? It picks a fight with Israel over 1600 units in East Jerusalem. Clearly there are two sets of “reality” in play here. There is Obama’s reality and then there is the situation at hand. Unfortunately Obama’s reality doesn’t improve anything, it makes the situation worse.