EU Foreign Policy chief Solana to UN: Accept Palestinian state even if Israel does not
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- Written by Reuters Reuters
- Published: 12 July 2009 12 July 2009
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European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana on Saturday called for the United Nations Security Council to recognize a Palestinian state by a certain deadline even if an agreement is not reached between Israel and the Palestinians.
Solana made the comments on Saturday at a lecture in London. The Palestinians have said they will not revive peace talks unless there is a halt to Israel's settlement activities in the West Bank.
"After a fixed deadline, a UN Security Council resolution should proclaim the adoption of the two-state solution," Solana said, adding this should include border parameters, refugees, control over the city of Jerusalem and security arrangements.
"It would accept the Palestinian state as a full member of the UN, and set a calendar for implementation. It would mandate the resolution of other remaining territorial disputes and legitimize the end of claims," Solana went on.
Advocating a return to Israel's borders before the 1967 Six-Day War with Egypt, Syria and Jordan in which it took the West Bank and other territories, Solana said mediators should set a timetable for a peace agreement.
"If the parties are not able to stick to it (the timetable), then a solution backed by the international community should be put on the table," he said.
The EU, along with the United States, Russia and the United Nations, is part of the Quartet of Middle East Negotiators.
Stolen Beauty: CODEPINK call to boycott Ahava Dead Sea beauty products
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- Written by CODEPINK CODEPINK
- Published: 10 July 2009 10 July 2009
- Hits: 12865 12865
We are writing to ask you to join us in boycotting products from Ahava Dead Sea Laboratories. After watching Israel’s brutal assault on Gaza this past winter, after witnessing the misery caused in Gaza by the continuing blockade, reading about the home demolitions in East Jerusalem, and the land appropriations and violent repression in the West Bank, we at CODEPINK Women for Peace decided that we needed to find a way to join the International Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement for Palestine in order to pressure the Israeli government to comply with international law.
Read more: Stolen Beauty: CODEPINK call to boycott Ahava Dead Sea beauty products
Senator Wyden's The Israel Project attacks opposition to settlements.
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- Written by Douglas M. Bloomfield Douglas M. Bloomfield
- Published: 09 July 2009 09 July 2009
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The Israel Project (TIP): Change the policy, or change the subject?
http://www.njjewishnews.com/njjn.com/070909/opedChangePolicy.html
Douglas M. Bloomfield
by Douglas M. Bloomfield
July 9, 2009
If you can’t convince ’em, accuse ’em. That’s the advice from The Israel Project (TIP) for pro-Israel activists answering questions about settlements. Rather than try to defend Israeli settlements, change the subject. If that doesn’t work, try accusing those who advocate removing Jewish settlements of promoting “a kind of ethnic cleansing to move all Jews” from the West Bank.
TIP calls that “the best settlement argument” in its 2009 Global Language Dictionary, a manual on how to talk to journalists and opinion molders about the Arab-Israeli conflict. I received a copy of the settlements chapter over the electronic transom, but the 140-page document is closely held and not for the public or the press to see. Look for more to begin leaking out soon.
“The single toughest issue” to defend among Americans generally and American Jews in particular is settlements, says the manual, and “hostility towards them and towards Israeli policy that appears to encourage settlement activity.”
The Obama administration is pressing a very reluctant Israeli government to freeze all settlement construction.
Instead of defending settlements, go on the attack, advises TIP, a Washington-based group that seeks to enhance Israel’s image among journalists and policy makers.
According to Ori Nir of Americans for Peace Now, former Amb. Zalman Shoval, a close advisor to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said in a Washington appearance last month that no Israeli government should be expected to engage in ethnic cleansing against its own citizens, i.e., settlers.
Similarly, TIP says the “best argument” for settlements is this: Since Arabs citizens of Israel “enjoy equal rights,” telling Jews they can’t live in the Palestinian state “is a racist idea.” (Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said this week that Jews would be welcome to live in the Palestinian state and enjoy the same rights Israeli Arabs enjoy in Israel.)
Until Israeli policy changes, TIP suggests deflecting critics by mentioning Israel’s “willingness to negotiate” and stressing how “Israel has already sacrificed in the name of peace” and got terrorists’ missiles in return.
It falls back on the old and disproven argument that “the settlements are necessary for the security of Israel.” That may have been true decades ago, but not in this missile age.
And dovish groups believe exactly the opposite — that the settlements are a security liability. “American Jews increasingly realize that settlements undermine Israel’s ability to survive, long term, as a democratic Jewish state and that they undermine America’s national security interest in a stable, peaceful Middle East,” said Nir.
Yehuda Ben Meir, a former Knesset member from the pro-settler National Religious Party who served in Menachem Begin’s government, called Netanyahu’s insistence on expanding settlement construction “harmful to Israel’s security and national interests.”
Begin agreed to a three-month settlement freeze in 1978 to give peace negotiations a chance, and he was no less a Zionist than Netanyahu, Ben Meir said. A six-month freeze today will do “no harm” to Israel and will give the Arabs a chance to “adopt genuine moves toward normalization.”
The Obama administration is trying to turn a settlement freeze into a thaw in Arab attitudes toward Israel through a package of reciprocal confidence-building measures. The advantage for Israel is clear: if the Arabs come through and begin normalization, there is something to build on at the peace table. But if the Arabs respond — as Washington Post columnist David Ignatius predicts — with demands for more concessions, Israel can thaw the settlement freeze, and responsibility for the lost opportunity will clearly be on the Arab side.
The Netanyahu government’s opposition to the freeze is more political than security-minded. Yet despite a letter from half of Netanyahu’s Likud Knesset faction opposing a freeze (and Palestinian statehood), it is unlikely they or other right-wing partners would bring down the government over the issue and lose their fiefdoms and access to the taxpayers’ cookie jar. Netanyahu, on the other hand, by supporting the two-state solution and the settlement freeze, would have a good chance of forming a centrist coalition and healing any rift with Washington.
The TIP manual concedes, “Public opinion is hostile to the settlements — even among supporters of Israel.”
That is evident on Capitol Hill as well as in the Jewish community. Right-wing groups and political partisans are trying to whip up opposition to the administration’s policies — including some virulent personal attacks on Obama reminiscent of last year’s smear campaign — but it isn’t working. A Gallup poll in May showed the President enjoys a 79 percent approval rating among American Jews.
Netanyahu, whose popularity here doesn’t compare, is smart enough to know he’d lose in a head-to-head confrontation with Obama.
“The government cannot stand against the entire world for long without the support of American Jewry, and when the Israeli people itself is divided. The government must demonstrate national responsibility, and the sooner the better,” said Ben Meir.
Douglas M. Bloomfield is the president of Bloomfield Associates Inc., a Washington lobbying and consulting firm. He spent nine years as the legislative director and chief lobbyist for AIPAC.
Six months later, no reconstruction in Gaza
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- Written by Rami Almeghari Rami Almeghari
- Published: 08 July 2009 08 July 2009
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US Agrees to Settlement Building
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- Written by Maariv on PalestineChronicle.com Maariv on PalestineChronicle.com
- Published: 08 July 2009 08 July 2009
- Hits: 4576 4576
The Obama administration has reportedly back-down on its earlier demand for a full freeze of Jewish settlement activities, allowing Israel to continue building 2500 settlement units in the occupied Palestinian territories and linking the freeze to a pan-Arab normalization with Tel Aviv. Israel's mass-circulation daily Maariv reported on Wednesday, July 8, that the understanding was reached during a meeting between Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak and US Mideast peace envoy George Michel in London. It added that Barak conveyed the agreement to Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Deputy Premier and Minister of Intelligence and Atomic Energy Dan Meridor. Under the agreement, Israel would be allowed to continue building up to 2500 housing units in settlements in the West Bank, according to the Israeli daily. Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel's most popular newspaper, said Israel and the US were "close to an agreement on settlements." It said the agreement would allow Israel to continue the construction of the 2500 housing units. While in London, Barak told reporters that he presented to the Americans "the scope of current construction work, which from a practical point of view can't be stopped". Some 280,000 Jewish settlers live in more than 120 settlements scattered across the West Bank, which Israel occupied in the 1967 war. The deal reportedly links the freeze of settlement building to initial steps by Arab states to normalize relations with Israel. Maariv said this includes Syria and Lebanon. A Saudi-sponsored Arab peace initiative, tabled since 2002, proposes full normalization of ties with Israel after its withdrawal of occupied Arab territories and establishment of a Palestinian state with Al-Quds as its capital. Israel has repeatedly snubbed the overture. Concession Western officials said the US was moving in the direction of making allowances so Israel could finish off existing projects. "This is a concession to avoid causing undue hardships on individuals," one of the officials told Haaretz, adding that discussions were still under way. Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said the United States and Israel have been trying to find common ground on the sensitive settlement issue, but he had no comment on the front-page report of a deal. A US embassy spokesman in Tel Aviv also had no immediate comment. The reported deal marks a u-turn for the declared position of the Obama administration. Obama and his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have repeatedly asked Israel for a full freeze on settlement building, including the so-called natural growth. Under the internationally-backed roadmap, Israel must freeze all settlement activities and dismantle 22 outposts constructed after March 2001. The international community considers all Jewish settlements on the occupied Palestinian land illegal. Palestinian leaders have said US-backed peace negotiations with Israel could not resume unless there was a complete halt to settlement activity in the occupied West Bank and Al-Quds. In a damning report issued on Monday, July 5, the European Union said the Israeli settlements were "strangling the Palestinian economy" and perpetuating its dependence on donors. (IslamOnline.net and News Agencies) |