The Obama administration continues to undermine the peace process, continues to justify Arab and Palestinian anti-Jewish racism, and continues to tell Jewish people just where we may be allowed to live on our ancestral land.
Much to the consternation of the Obama administration, Israel has decided to recognize the three "outposts" of Rehalim, Bruchin and Sansana. Of course, Jews living and thus building on land where Jews originally came from is entirely anathema to the Obama administration. There are no other people on the entire planet wherein the Obama administration believes it has a right to tell them where they may be allowed to live.
Chinese people living and building in Japan? No problem. Protestants living and building in Catholic countries? No problem. Rosicrucians living and building in Piscataway, New Jersey? No problem. Jews living and building in Judea? Now, that cannot be allowed.
Only the Jews and only the Jewish state.
The United States on Tuesday also expressed "concerned" over the move and was seeking clarifications from Israel, according to a State Department statement.
"We are obviously concerned by the reports that we have seen. We have raised this with the Israeli government," US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters. "We don't think this is helpful to the [peace] process, and we don't accept the legitimacy of continued settlement activity."
What is harmful to the so-called "peace process" is not Jewish people building housing for themselves, but an administration which provides all the excuse that Abbas needs not to negotiate. Every time an Obama administration official complains about Jewish building within "settlements" they make it virtually impossible for Palestinian dictator, Mahmoud Abbas, to sit down at the negotiating table.
It harms the potential for peace (if there is any potential for peace) and it justifies Arab and Palestinian anti-Jewish racism.
The Obama administration has clearly learned nothing and continues to make the very same mistakes that they have made from the beginning. Over and over and over again they continue to make the same mistakes thereby undermining any possibility for peace, while blaming the results of their own mistakes on Israel.
Of course, it is Israel, and not the United States, that must ultimately pay the price for Obama's failures in the "I-P" front and, yet, Israel gets the blame for the predictable results of Obama's own behavior.
The Obama administration has proven itself to be neither just, nor effective, in its engagement of the Arab-Israel conflict. Given this fact, G-d only knows what havoc Barack Obama will create in the region once he gets his second term... that is, if we are so foolish as to allow him a second term.
"Officials said the decision to formally authorize the three communities as settlements did not violate a pledge Israel made not to create new settlements, because these communities were created prior to that promise."
ReplyDeleteThis isn't rocket science Obama et al.
The Obama administration seem incapable of learning from experience and they continue to blame Israel for their own failures and for Palestinian intransigence.
DeleteAnd, sadly, they have a whole army of dhimmitudenous Jews who jump up and down and clap like monkeys every time the administration smacks around Israel.
I find it grotesque.
“One can be critical of the Israeli settlement policy, that’s everybody’s right, but you can’t tell me that the Israeli government has built new settlements, and you can’t tell me this is legalizing unauthorized outposts,” said the Netanyahu spokesman, Mark Regev. “These decisions are procedural or technical. They don’t change anything whatsoever on the ground.”
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/25/world/middleeast/israel-legalizes-3-west-bank-settlements.html
Israel Matzav points out the hypocrisy at work:
"Now these unity deals don't ever seem to work out. However, the differing treatment of these two stories illustrates a disturbing dynamic. "Settlements" are automatically designated an obstacle to peace. Any Palestinian objections to existing or potential settlements are taken at face value - by the media, even by the American government - though it isn't at all clear that the Oslo Accords forbid them.
However, a Fatah-Hamas deal demonstrates a blatant rejection of the premise of the peace process - that the PLO would reject terror. No NGO's who have reporters' attention object to this. The State Department yawns.
In the end the Palestinian Authority's objections and actions are what drives the peace process, not the documents they signed with Israel. As long as Palestinian obstructionism continues to be tolerated and rewarded, there will be no peace."
http://israelmatzav.blogspot.ca/
Y'know, Doodad,
Deletethe bottom line is that non-Jewish leaders, including Israel's BFF, do not get to tell Jewish people where we may, or may not, live on historical Jewish land.
Not so long as the "Palestinians" refuse to come to a negotiated end of hostilities.
Obama can go screw himself, as far as I am concerned.
Well they sure as Hell shouldn't, Israel being a sovereign state and all. Maybe he should go tell the French or the Irish for a change. Yeah, that's the ticket.
DeleteObama is not telling Israel what to do, or people where they may live. Israel and Jews make their own decisions, and he knows this. He wants no more settlement construction, that is for sure.
ReplyDeleteWhat he did was make a decision that has pushed the process farther away from resolution. There are other poor decisions, like working so nicely with the MB and OIC. He seems to think he knows best, but perhaps he actually being played.
The kabuki from both sides is not productive either. It sometimes seems that advocates prefer the status quo from the way they adopt their respective roles pointing fingers at one another.
School, I do not think that either the Israeli government, or the Israeli people, want the status quo. Not most of them, of that I am certain.
DeleteWhat they want more than anything is to stop being harassed. They want to stop being harassed, often violently, from the Arab-Muslim world and they want to stop being harassed by the western left when they defend themselves from that (religiously based) violent Arab-Muslim harassment.
That's what they want.
They do not want their kids to have to join the IDF, generation after generation.
And, I have to tell you, I very much disagree with this:
Obama is not telling Israel what to do, or people where they may live.
Of course, he is.
"We don't think this is helpful to the [peace] process, and we don't accept the legitimacy of continued settlement activity."
"Settlement activity"?
Every once in awhile someone will accuse me of being hyperbolic when I speak in literal terms.
It's not that I do not use hyperbole, because I do. It's that sometimes I get accused of it when I am being the opposite of hyperbolic. That is, when I am being literal.
The Obama administration has on any number of occasions, including just today, expressed their unhappiness with "settlement activity."
What is this "settlement activity"? It is Israeli-Jews building housing in places that Obama, and Abbas, have decided that they must not.
This is quite literally the case.
And it's not about "Israeli nationals." It's about Jews. If those people were Palestinians then no one, including Barack Obama, would care. The only reason that they get grief for building on that land is because they are Jewish.
So, I am sorry, but the Obama administration does believe that it has the right to tell Jews where we may, or may not, live on ancestral Jewish land.
And that, my friend, is racist.
If the Palestinians actually wanted peace in a state of their own next to Israel, I might feel differently.
But clearly they don't.
Where is our disagreement?
I was not speaking of Israel or the Israeli people when I mentioned the status quo, but to many that play the advocacy game of disinformation and demonization when it comes to the opposition. What would they do if there was peace?
DeleteAs to Obama, he can think continued settlements are not legitimate, or helpful to the peace process, but his power and influence only go so far. I suspect that in the end, Israel and Israelis will continue to decide these matters for themselves, as they should.
This is not to say that Obama's position is helpful, only that he has less ability to dictate to Israel and Jews than you seem to think.
For me the problem is the result of his actions and pronouncements. By going hardline on the settlement issue (which BTW is somewhat of a canard when you look at exactly what is happening) he reinforces the Palestinian view and so is complicit in what they then do about it: stall, intifada, etc.
DeleteI understand and do not disagree that the actions have been poor, but don't think the Palestinians would have behaved much differently, even without the reinforcement.
DeleteThankfully, most Americans can see through the haze and realize the intentions of the actors and what is at stake.
Y'know, and the thing of it is, I do not particularly care one way or the other if Jewish people wish to live in Judea and Samaria.
DeleteIt's not as if I am all hot in pursuit of Greater Israel. It's just that I find that while Israel has become the Jew among nations, so the "settlers" are now the Jew among Jews.
I find it unjust.
Let's face facts: The Israeli government no matter which party leads it will ever stop approving new settlements. Nor is any American government going to prevent them from doing so even though they would prefer the building of and expansion of settlements be discontinued.
ReplyDeleteTo you and Israel's other supporters the Palestinians just don't count. No matter what they want or desire the Israeli government will use legislation and the courts to insure that Palestinian lands will be brought under their control thus preventing a Palestinian state from ever coming into existence.
A Palestinian state COULD HAVE come into existence many times. But the Palestinians demurred or in the case of the very first instance, attacked along with a lot of help from fellow Arabs. It's obvious when listening to what they say to each other that their long term goal is the ending of Israel. That will not happen.
Delete