Netanyahu Corrects Obama in his own Speech

It was sort of a "Elder-statesman-schools-'man-child'-in-history" speech

June 17, 2009

First published here on ForcedExile.com

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech on Sunday night was directed at the Obama administration and addressed historical errors and key omissions in President Barack Obama’s Cairo speech, including the history of the Jewish state and the reasons a Palestinian state has yet to be established, analysts say.

“Netanyahu responded to his main aversary and it is not the president of Iran. (Obama) made mistakes that were historically incorrect; Netanyahu corrected him,” Gil Hoffman, a political analyst from The Jerusalem Post, said in an interview with reporters.

Netanyahu stressed several times in his foreign policy address that he was speaking on behalf of a “consensus of Israelis,” which Hoffman says was an implication that Obama’s policies are not merely coming down against the Likud leader and right wing, but against the majority of the nation.

“He said (to Obama) ‘you’re wrong about certain things and these things have major implications,’” said Jonathan Rynhold, senior research fellow at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies.

One of the issues Netanyahu clarified was the establishment of a Jewish state. Obama said in Cairo that “the aspiration for a Jewish homeland is rooted in a tragic history that cannot be denied.” Netanyahu instead went back 3,500 years and pointed to Abraham and continuous Jewish history in the region as the reason Jews claimed this land as home.

“The right of the Jewish people to a state in the land of Israel does not arise from the series of disasters that befell the Jewish people over 2,000 years - persecutions, expulsions, pogroms, blood libels, murders, which reached its climax in the Holocaust, an unprecedented tragedy in the history of nations,” Netanyahu said. “The right to establish our sovereign state here, in the land of Israel, arises from one simple fact: Eretz Israel (the land of Israel) is the birthplace of the Jewish people.” 

Netanyahu also focused on oversight in Obama’s Cairo speech of why a Palestinian state has not been established despite overtures, peace talks and international agreements. Obama asserted that Palestinian suffering stems from dislocation, lack of a homeland and “the daily humiliations, large and small, that come with occupation.”

Countering that, Netanyahu said the Palestinians had a chance to create a state first in 1947 when the United Nations proposed the Partition Plan for a Jewish state and an Arab state. The plan was rejected by Arab states.

“Whoever thinks that the continued hostility to Israel is a result of our forces in Judea, Samaria and Gaza is confusing cause and effect,” he said. The prime minister outlined attacks in the 1920s, a war in 1948, continued attacks in the 1950s and another war in 1967 on the eve of the Six-Day War that occurred “nearly 50 years before a single Israeli soldier went into Judea and Samaria.” 

“A great many people are telling us that withdrawal is the key to peace with the Palestinians. But the fact is that all our withdrawals were met by huge waves of suicide bombers,” Netanyahu said.

As Barry Rubin, director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, noted, “What has brought Palestinian suffering is the priority on total victory and Israel’s destruction rather than merely getting a homeland.” 

 

Even Palestinians, while overwhelmingly disappointed with the speech, said it was critical of Obama’s Cairo address. Mustafa Barghouti said  Netanyahu’s address was an indirect swipe at Obama, particularly for clarifying his mention of the Holocaust.

“We were hoping that after Obama’s speech to have some flexibility,” he said. Instead, “this speech was a plan for war and not for peace. He negated all possibilities of negotiations.” 

Mark Regev, spokesman for Netanyahu, said that while the address may have seemed like a response to Obama’s Cairo University speech, it was in fact a reiteration of positions the prime minister has taken before, except for calling for a Palestinian state. “You could have said the same things last month,” he said. 

Nevertheless, Rhynhold said Netanyahu particularly emphasized Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state because of the historic connection to the land. 

“He took Obama to task for not recognizing Jewish ‘peoplehood,’ the link of the people to the land,” he said.

The prime minister recognized the need for the Palestinian population to have a state, but his recognition, as opposed to opposition leader Tzipi Livni’s call for a “two states for two nations,” is based on the pragmatic issue of a displaced population, not on their claims to the land. 

“He accepted Palestinian statehood, but not as a nation,” Rhynhold said. “He was saying ‘I recognize there’s a practical problem here, but I still think the Jewish people’s claim to the land is more significant.’”

Why Running is Fun in Israel

Jogger finds roadside bomb in the Galilee

June 1, 2009

A jogger discovered a roadside bomb, possibly intended to detonate as a car or school bus drove by, at the entrance of the Avtalion neighborhood in the Galilee, police said.

Police released this news two months after the discovery. They believe the device, packed with fireworks in addition to other explosive materials, was planted by an organization of Israeli Arabs.

Ynet reports: 

"It is clear to us that the planting of the bomb was nationalistically-motivated," a source in the police's Northern District told Ynet on Sunday. 

He said the bomb was laid there in an attempt at carrying out a terror attack, and that there was no doubt the attempted attack "could have caused casualties."

...The official added that the explosive device was "amateur, but no different from others that were previously used to cause casualties".

"It included gunpowder among other things, and if it had gone off the damage would have been extensive. Ninety percent of these amateur bombs can maim and kill," he said.

PA official to Lebanon TV: Two-State solution will cause Israel's collapse

Yet another reason Israel doesn't want a two-state solution. Can you blame them?
May 26, 2009

In an interview with Lebanese TV, PLO Ambassador to Lebanon Abbas Zaki aired the Palestinian strategy: Give us two states so we can wear down the Zionist mindset. Once that happens, the Palestinians can take over all of the land, so Zaki told ANB TV on May 7, 2009. He actually lays out the strategy in two separate interviews and, besides rocks and rockets, it includes ideological warfare: "When the ideology of Israel collapses, and we take, at least, Jerusalem, the Israeli ideology will collapse in its entirety, and we will begin to progress with our own ideology, Allah willing, and drive them out of all of Palestine." 

"With the two-state solution, in my opinion, Israel will collapse, because if they get out of Jerusalem, what will become of all the talk about the Promised Land and the Chosen People? What will become of all the sacrifices they made - just to be told to leave? They consider Jerusalem to have a spiritual status. The Jews consider Judea and Samaria to be their historic dream. If the Jews leave those places, the Zionist idea will begin to collapse. It will regress of its own accord. Then we will move forward."

(To view this clip on MEMRI TV, visit http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/2109.htm) 

Zaki, who is part of the 'moderate' Fatah party, has made other enlightening statements in the past: 

"In light of the blood that is being shed in Gaza, and the crying of the men - not only of the women... The hardest thing is to watch the men crying in Gaza. I now support any operation that will make the women and men in Israel cry. When the Al-Qassam Brigades and all the other forces were told to strike everywhere, I expected things to be carried out quickly. All those who always flex their muscles, and say they want to slaughter Israel - this is their opportunity. Soon, the world will view us as those responsible for the crime. Currently, in light of what is happening to the children of Gaza, any martyrdom operation is permissible, I swear by Allah."

..."Don't forget we're Arabs - we believe in blood vengeance. No one can treat our blood like water. We should have afflicted them with three or four operations, and then their women would have said to those sons of bitches: 'Come home, we are getting killed here.' When Israel focuses on one front, other fronts should be activated.

New TV, January 6, 2009(to view this clip on MEMRI TV, visit http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/1980.htm ).

And then he tags the U.S. too, for good measure.

Abbas Zaki: "We consider the U.S. to be an enemy because its only strategic alliance is with Israel."

Interviewer: "How can you consider Israel to be your enemy, if you signed a peace treaty with it?"

Abbas Zaki: "Allow me... This enemy... If I had the capabilities of the U.S. - would I be fighting it or negotiating with it?"

Interviewer: "Israel ceased being an enemy once you signed a peace treaty with it. I don’t know how it could be your enemy. Do you talk to the Israelis as if they were your enemies? Do you talk to Israel as a friendly or enemy country?"

Abbas Zaki: "An enemy country, which owes us certain things. The heroic Vietnamese used to negotiate with the French, while they were slaughtering them."

Interviewer: "I can assure you that in his speeches, Abu Mazen says the U.S. is a friendly country."

Abbas Zaki: "Well, this isn’t true. Perhaps Abu Mazen, in his position, needs to use diplomatic language, but he is the greatest critic of the U.S."

OTV, November 7, 2008 (to view this clip on MEMRI TV, visit http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/1933.htm ).

And lastly, some more thoughts:

"The use of weapons alone will not bring results, and the use of politics without weapons will not bring results. We act on the basis of our extensive experience. We analyze our situation carefully. We know what climate leads to victory and what climate leads to suicide. We talk politics, but our principles are clear. It was our pioneering leader, Yasser Arafat, who persevered with this revolution, when empires collapsed. Our armed struggle has been going on for 43 years, and the political struggle, on all levels, has been going on for 50 years. We harvest U.N. resolutions, and we shame the world so that it doesn't gang up on us, because the world is led by people who have given their brains a vacation - the American administration and the neocons."[...]

..."The P.L.O. is the sole legitimate representative [of the Palestinian people], and it has not changed its platform even one iota. In light of the weakness of the Arab nation and the lack of values, and in light of the American control over the world, the P.L.O. proceeds through phases, without changing its strategy. Let me tell you, when the ideology of Israel collapses, and we take, at least, Jerusalem, the Israeli ideology will collapse in its entirety, and we will begin to progress with our own ideology, Allah willing, and drive them out of all of Palestine."

NBN TV, April 9, 2008(to view this clip on MEMRI TV, visit http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/1738.htm)

Israeli Newspaper: Two states based on false assumptions

May 26, 2009

Most Israeli newspapers are liberal, more left wing than the American media, if you can believe it. So when a newspaper publishes an editorial saying the two-state solution is based on erroneous assumptions, its time to take note. 

Here is Monday's editorial from Yediot Ahronot, which outlines these false assumptions which has become the basis for the "two states for two peoples" principle and American faith in it: 

1. The establishment of a Palestinian state in the 1967 borders is the substance of the Palestinians' national aspirations. A small, truncated state, the establishment of which would require them to agree to the end of the conflict and its claims is the Palestinians' nightmare, not their national dream.  Three times they could have had such a state (1937, 1947 and 2000), and three times they rejected it. 

2. The gap between the Israeli and Palestinian position is bridgeable.  The reality is otherwise.  The maximum that the Israeli Government – any government – will be able to offer the Palestinians and still survive politically is far from the minimum that the Palestinian administration – any administration – will be able to agree to and survive politically. 

3. Egypt and Jordan want to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and will, therefore, render assistance. The reality is opposite: Both Egypt and Jordan prefer the continuation of the existing situation in which the conflict continues and they can continue blaming Israel.  As long as the conflict goes on, the Egyptians have the ultimate excuse to all of their troubles in the region.  For the Jordanians, a Palestinian state on their border, under (it is reasonable to assume) a Hamas administration, would be the end of the Hashemite monarchy.  

4. A permanent settlement would bring stability and security to the region. The exact opposite.  There is no chance that a small, truncated Palestinian state would be viable.  The frustration that would be created in such a situation, certainly in Gaza, with Israel lacking defensible borders is a clear foundation for instability.  

5. There is a chance now that we cannot miss.  If we compare the current situation to that which prevailed in 2000, the clear conclusion is that the chance to reach an agreement then was far greater than it is now – and it did not happen.  Is it possible today to reach an agreement in Judea and Samaria, to say nothing of Gaza, when Hamas is the dominant Palestinian movement?  

6. Progress on the Palestinian issue is essential in order to aid the Arab countries against Iran. What does one have to do with the other?  The Arab countries (Saudi Arabia, Egypt) have a supreme interest in blocking Iran, with or without the Palestinian issue.  

7. There is only one solution to the conflict. Says who? When, either here or in the US, was a deep study ever done on all the possibilities?  One can easily point to alternative solutions that would also free the Palestinians from Israeli control."  The author believes that the chances to conclude a permanent agreement, now, based on the "two state" solution are no greater than they were at Oslo, Camp David or Annapolis and declares, "One hopes that the almost assured failure will not have negative repercussions in other areas, such as stopping Iran or US-Israeli relations."

Christian gravestones vandalized by Muslims in West Bank

May 25, 2009

Reuters reports: 

Vandals desecrated some 70 graves in two Palestinian Christian cemeteries on Sunday in what a Palestinian Authority official said was a rare attack on the Christian minority in the occupied West Bank.

Watch how everyone interviewed goes out of their way to stress that this was a rare or isolated incident.

A church official in the village of Jiffna near Ramallah where the attack took place called in Palestinian security officials to investigate, but neither he nor the investigators said they had any initial clues who was responsible.

"This unfortunate incident has brought Muslims and Christians closer and many from the Muslim community have shown solidarity with us and have condemned this action," said Greek Orthodox Church official George Abdo.

Abdo said it was the first time such an incident had occurred in the village.

Issa Kassissieh, a Palestinian Authority official and adviser to President Mahmoud Abbas on Christian affairs, said he believed it was "an isolated act against Christian symbols".

"Palestinian Christians and Muslims have always lived in harmony in the Holy Land," Kassissieh said.

Jiffna, northeast of Ramallah, is home to some 1,600 inhabitants, about two thirds of whom are Christians from the Greek Orthodox and Catholic communities. The Palestinian Authority says 50,000 of the West Bank's 2.5 million Arab population are Christians.

Christians have emigrated from Palestinian territories en masse in the past three decades. The official line is that the Israeli occupation is causing dire economic conditions is forcing them to leave. No mention of Muslim persecution of Christians. They've always lived in harmony. Right.

But the decline of Christian numbers in Bethlehem long pre-dated the building of the security barrier. Scholars note that it even pre-dated Israel’s capture of the West Bank in the 1967 Six Day War. 

Greater Bethlehem, which includes the linked towns of Beit Sahour and Beit Jala, was part of the British mandate of Palestine until 1948, then fell under Jordanian control until June 1967. Israel administered the area until it handed authority to Yasser Arafat’s P.A. in 1995 as a result of the Oslo peace accords.

Israeli political analyst Yoram Ettinger, a former Israeli government liaison to the U.S. Congress, revealed several years ago that in the run-up to the handover to Arafat, former Bethlehem mayor Elias Freij, an Orthodox Christian, lobbied the Israeli government not to transfer Bethlehem, saying it would become a town with churches but empty of Christians. Freij later became a P.A. minister, and died in 1998.

Read more here (http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=48189) and here (http://therealbarackobama.wordpress.com/2009/05/13/pope-in-bethlehem-a-missed-opportunity-aaron-klein-argues-benedict-ignored-murder-persecution-of-christians/).

Israeli Defense Minister: Talk unlikely to halt Iranian nukes

May 25, 2009

Talking to Iran would most likely fail to halt the Islamic regime's nuclear program, Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak told Israel Radio on Monday. 

"I believe that the chance the dialogue has of stopping Iran's nuclear efforts is very low," Barak told Israel Radio. "I also believe the Americans understand this. They only think that there is logic to this, even if the chance is low... in order to contend with what needs to, or is likely to happen in the future." 

President Barack Obama's early diplomatic overtures to Iran have been rebuffed so far. Iran posed one of the most "serious potential threats" to Israel, Barak said, stressing that Israel would not take any options off the table to defend itself.

Bibi to U.S.: Whatever on the settlements

I wonder if he'll take that tack on Iran as well

May 25, 2009

At least one person is willing to stand up to President Boy Wonder Obama. The two-time prime minister of Israel Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu isn't taking orders from the White House despite behaving himself during meetings in D.C. last week.

Netanyahu on Sunday rebuffed U.S. calls for a full settlement freeze in the occupied West Bank and vowed not to accept limits on building of Jewish enclaves within Jerusalem.

The note of defiance set the stage for a possible showdown with U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration, which, in talks with Netanyahu in Washington last week, pressed for a halt to all settlement activity, including natural growth, as called for under a long-stalled peace “road map.”

“The demand for a total stop to building is not something that can be justified and I don’t think that anyone here at this table accepts it,” Netanyahu told his cabinet, referring to Jewish settlements in the West Bank, according to an official.

Netanyahu said Israel had no plans to set up any new West Bank settlements. But he told Obama, according to the official, that his government “does not accept limitations on building” within what Israel defines as its capital, the Jerusalem municipality, an area that includes Arab East Jerusalem and parts of the West Bank captured in a 1967 Middle East war.

Commentary from Ed Morrissey of Hot Air:

One can cheer this in at least one aspect. It sends notice to Obama that Israel will not allow itself to become a doormat to Obama’s ambitions in the Middle East. Israel has no reason to have any confidence in the road map, and Obama’s insistence on unilateral compliance is laughable just a few weeks after Hamas provoked a war in Gaza. The Palestinians have done nothing to comply with the road map requirements, and Israel rightly objects to being held accountable alone for its responsibilities.