SWI NEWS: Saturday, March 20, 2010 5 Nisan, 5770
‘Gestures - yes, but not in J’lem’
A source at the Prime Minister’s Office said Friday Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu agrees to carry out goodwill gestures towards the Palestinians, but not in Jerusalem.
Netanyahu reportedly may agree, among other things to release Fatah prisoners as a gesture to the Palestinian Authority.
Earlier this week, Netanyahu reiterated that his government’s policy in Jerusalem is no different than the policy of previous Israeli governments.
Related:
By inflating R. Shlomo gaffe into crisis of faith, Obama encourages Israel’s enemies
White House puts the squeeze on Netanyahu’s coalition
Israel’s 10-month moratorium on settlement construction, which, when announced by Netanyahu, was hailed by Clinton as “unprecedented,” explicitly did not include Jerusalem. It was wholeheartedly embraced by the Americans at the time.
Also Friday, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who at President Barack Obama’s behest gave Netanyahu a 43 minute dressing-down over the phone last week, told BBC that pressure against Israel paid off, and that Jerusalem will now be willing to compromise.
She presented the so-called ‘proximity talks’ with the Palestinian Authority as an achievement of US Middle East envoy George Mitchell. The talks are yet to begin, and the paradigm the US foresees would have Mitchell shuttling between Jerusalem and Ramallah as courier for both sides.
Clinton along with her colleagues in the Middle East Quartet – the US, UN, EU and Russia – issued a statement in Moscow on Friday that demanded Israel fully halt all construction for Jews in Jerusalem, including building necessitated by natural population expansion, while simultaneously not demolishing Arab homes in the capital. A large number of Arab houses are built without municipal permits.
Clinton told BBC that she believed some members in the Israeli government were operating against the government’s interests. She nevertheless claimed that Washington was not trying to meddle in Israeli politics.
Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman arrived in Brussels on Friday for talks with officials of several European Union nations after an official meeting between the EU and Israel was called off.
Lieberman struck a tough position against the Quartet’s statement, also dashing Clinton’s hopes that all ministers in the Israeli government would easily surrender to Washington’s steamroller.
Upon arriving in Brussels, Lieberman said that the Quartet’s statement ignores the fact that the foundations of peace must be set before peace can be achieved. Peace, he was quoted by Israel Radio as saying, is not something that can be forced upon two parties or saddled to an unrealistic timeline.
Lieberman reportedly said that such statements only made real peace between Israel and the Palestinian a more remote possibility.
In the US on Thursday, Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, the largest synagogue movement in the county, called on Israel to enact a construction freeze in eastern Jerusalem.
He expressed his views during remarks to rabbis and members of URJ’s board of trustees.
“There is also a substantive question of great importance that needs to be addressed: Should Israel continue to build now in East Jerusalem? I believe that it should not,” Yoffie said.
Also on Friday Alon Pinkas, formerly Israel’s consul in New York, said the crisis between Israel and the US is deep and would not be resolved during Netanyahu’s visit to Washington next week.
Speaking to Channel 2, Pinkas said the crisis is comprised both of a personal antipathy the Obama administration harbors toward Netanyahu, dating back to his first term when Clinton’s husband was US president, but also a widening gap in policy.
Pinkas said a briefing to the CIA by US Army General David Petraeus, where the Centcom commander said Israel’s actions endanger US troops throughout the Middle East, was tantamount to Petraeus saying that Israel was “no longer an asset, and regards wider US interests in the Middle East may even be a burden.”
Senators to Clinton: Solve crisis
The letter, written by Barbara Boxer (D-California) and Johnny Isakson (R-Georgia) and addressed to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, along with its House companion will be centerpieces of Israel advocates’ lobbying as part of the AIPAC annual conference.
The conference, which begins Sunday and is expected to attract an unprecedented 7,500 attendees, comes as the US and Israel have been embroiled in their most serious crisis in years.
The diplomatic spat began when the Interior Ministry approved 1,600 housing units in east Jerusalem during US Vice President Joe Biden’s trip to the country last week. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who said he was taken by surprise by the Interior Ministry’s decision, apologized several times. After Biden acknowledged the apology and had returned to Washington, Clinton placed a nearly 45-minute call to Netanyahu registering American displeasure and questioning Israel’s commitment to its relationship with the US due to a move she publicly called an “insult.”
Several Jewish groups and some members of Congress responded by calling on the US administration to turn down the volume and find a way to resolve the dispute with Israel. AIPAC took the unusual step of issuing a public statement calling the incident “a matter of serious concern,” and urging the administration “to work closely and privately with our partner Israel, in a manner befitting strategic allies, to address any issues between the two governments.”
AIPAC activists will take to Capitol Hill on Tuesday to meet with individual legislators at the tail end of the conference and are also expected to press for swift passage of Iran sanctions and to back continued aid to Israel.
But the recent tensions have heightened the profile of the letters to be circulated among members backing the US-Israel relationship and looking to move forward on the peace process. The Senate letter also calls on Clinton to “reaffirm the unbreakable bonds between the United States and Israel.”
Report: Saudi Arabia Seeks Strike on Iran
(IsraelNN.com) The German news magazine Der Spiegel has reported that Saudi Arabia is hoping Israel will strike Iran’s nuclear facilities, and is even prepared to open its skies to Israeli warplanes to allow such an operation to take place. Similar reports were published in 2009, and denied by both Israel and Saudi Arabia.
The Der Spiegel report stated that officials in Riyadh had spoken to United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about the importance of stopping Iran’s nuclear program, even if doing so requires the use of military force.
The London Sunday Times claimed in 2009 that Saudi Arabia would allow Israel to use its airspace to attack Iran. The paper quoted a former Israeli intelligence officer as saying, “The Saudis are very concerned about an Iranian nuclear bomb, even more than the Israelis.”
Der Spiegel writer Bernhard Zand stated this week, “These days, the Arabs fear the terrorists of al-Qaeda and Iran’s leadership, with its rabid rhetoric and nuclear program, as much as the Israelis do. Never before since the time of Israel’s creation were Jews and Arabs as united as they are in the face of the Iranian threat.”
Zand accused Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu of failing to take advantage of Israel’s newfound common ground with the Arab world.
Iranian media dismissed the Der Spiegal report. “Der Spiegel is greatly influenced by the Israeli regime and has previously published reports that were meant to serve as an Israeli propaganda campaign or psychological warfare against the Islamic Republic,” accused Iran’s Press TV.
The fear of terrorist takeovers of their governments and of Iran’s weaponization is the reason several Arab regimes, such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, do not protest with U.S. military offensives against al-Kaeda and other terrorist groups in Afghanistan and Iraq, even though they are not part of the CENTCOM coalition that fights alongside the U.S.. These regimes are worried that the U.S. response to Iran will be too little and too late, according to a JINSA (the American based Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs) analysis of the issue this week.
Ex-Ambassador: Obama Knows He Can’t Topple Netanyahu
(IsraelNN.com) Zalman Shoval, a former two-time Israeli ambassador to the United States, says it’s not true that Obama wants to topple the Netanyahu government.
“I don’t believe at all,” Shoval told Arutz-7 Hebrew news magazine host Benny Tucker, “that Obama wants to topple Netanyahu. It could be that there were ideas like this a year ago, when they both first took office, but it is now clear to the Obama Administration and to those close to it that the only game in town is Binyamin Netanyahu. I’m not saying there aren’t some who have hopes and the like, but it is clear now that Netanyahu is here to stay.”
Asked if the cancellation of special envoy George Mitchell’s return trip to Israel is connected with the tensions between the U.S. and Israel, Shoval said he does not think so. “It is more likely that since the Palestinian Authority has not yet agreed to return to the proximity talks, there’s no point in having Mitchell come back,” Shoval said, “as there is no framework for him to work in.”
Shoval, 80, served as Israel’s envoy in Washington from 1990 to 1993, and from 1998 to 2000, when the Likud was in power. He was a Knesset Member from 1970 until 1981, and again from 1988 to 1990, mostly on behalf of the Likud.
Tucker asked Shoval if he agrees with the estimations sounded in the media that it was Barack Obama himself who orchestrated the weekend of accusations against Israel. Shoval said, “We only know two things. One is that the original reaction against Israel by Vice President Biden following the news of the approval of the housing came directly from Obama. Afterwards, when Biden spoke to Netanyahu and heard and accepted his explanations, Biden’s new conciliatory approach did not find favor in the eyes of certain people within the Administration… In general, it is not clear who is in charge of foreign policy in the White House – it could be Secretary of State Clinton, or Biden, or David Axelrod, or Rahm Emanuel… There is some confusion in the White House on this issue. In any event, if the anti-Israel campaign is a result of the confusion, then it will be easier to alleviate it.”
“What is supposed to happen in the future regarding housing in Jerusalem?” Tucker asked Shoval. “After all, the city housing committee meets very often to approve various plans; what do you envision?”
“Not everything has to be announced,” Shoval said. “It need not be totally secret, but we should speak softly.”
Israelis say Obama Admin overreacted to Jerusalem building
Israeli Ships Fire on Gaza after Rocket Attack
http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/insideisrael/2010/March/Israeli-Ships-Fire-on-Gaza-after-Rocket-Attack/
Israeli warships struck several targets in Gaza in response to Thursday’s deadly Kassam rocket attack.
Aircraft fired on several tunnels that run under the Gaza-Egypt border near the town of Rafah.
They also hit a metal workshop in Gaza City.
An al Qaeda-linked terrorist group claimed responsibility for firing a rocket from Gaza on Thursday that killed a farm worker from Thailand. They said the attack was for Israel’s “judaization” of Muslim holy places in Jerusalem.
“This is the third rocket attack that has directly targeted an Israeli community in the past 24 hours,” Israel Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said of Thursday’s incident.
Yair Farjun, chairman of the Ashkelon Coast Regional Council, urged the international community to “wake up.”
“All of these incidents are happening not because Israel is building in Jerusalem, or because a synagogue was opened in the Old City in Jerusalem, they are happening because the Palestinians want all Jews out of this land and seek the destruction of Israel,” Farjun told the Jerusalem Post.
“It’s time for the world to know the truth,” he said. “Those who want to see reality should come here.”
US Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday ramped up his criticism of Israel over its approval of 1,600 new apartments in a long-established Jewish neighborhood in Jerusalem.
The new housing project was “obviously designed by some in Israel to undermine a peace process (Mideast envoy) George Mitchell finally got back on track,” Biden told ABC News.
Biden again blasted as “provocative” the fact that the new development in the northeastern Jerusalem neighborhood of Ramat Shlomo was officially approved while he was visiting the Israeli capital.
Biden said that the Israeli-US relationship remains strong despite this incident, but indicated that Washington expects Israel to take steps to regain the American administration’s trust.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has suggested that Israel cancel the Ramat Shlomo project as a gesture of goodwill to both Washington and the Palestinians.
Two separate Israeli polls conducted on Thursday revealed that 75 percent of Israelis feel the Obama Administration’s response to a new Jewish building project in Jerusalem was exaggerated and disproportionate.
The hostile rhetoric coming out of Washington in response to the approval of 1,600 new apartments in the northeastern Jerusalem neighborhood of Ramat Shlomo has caused some to say Israel-US relations are at their lowest point in over 30 years.
One of the polls, which was conducted by the Ma’agar Mohot polling center, also showed that 63 percent of Israelis felt the Obama Administration had put peace even further out of reach by being so openly harsh on Israel.
Severe American criticism of Israeli moves that enjoy Israeli public support have traditionally led to an increase in Arab antagonism and violence and a hardening of Israel’s willingness to compromise.
Israeli lawmakers from across the political spectrum also expressed disappointment at Washington’s behavior toward Israel over the past week, and urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to stand his ground.
In a letter signed by 78 of the Knesset’s 120 members, Netanyahu was encouraged to hold fast to Israel’s long-standing policy regarding control of Jerusalem when he visits the US next week.
Netanyahu is scheduled to attend the annual AIPAC conference in Washington, and Israeli lawmakers fear he will come under intense White House pressure while he is there.
The letter of encouragement was signed by MKs from all the parties in the current government, as well as members of the opposition Likud party. Only the three Arab parties and the radical left-wing Meretz party did not support the letter.
