I know I’ve been inactive lately (“lately” being very loosely applied here!), but I came across this and was so inspired and enthusiastic about sharing it that I had to find my way back to my blog if only to share this.

Apparently, the NY Times—in its warped sense of “balance”—figured it would balance its recent track record of 19 anti-Israel op-ed pieces (out of 20 Israel-themed pieces total) with a single op-ed solicited from Netanyahu.

That the NY Times isn’t actually looking for real balance, but simply a token piece, is evident by the fact that they rejected a pro-Israel piece recently submitted by majority leader of the House of Congress, Eric Cantor (R-VA) and the minority whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD), in which they jointly oppose the Palestinian Authority’s recent unilateral statehood bid.

Ron Dermer, Netanyahu’s senior advisor, had this beautiful response to the NY Times:

Dear Sasha,

I received your email requesting that Prime Minister Netanyahu submit an op-ed to the New York Times. Unfortunately, we must respectfully decline.

On matters relating to Israel, the op-ed page of the “paper of record” has failed to heed the late Senator Moynihan’s admonition that everyone is entitled to their own opinion but that no one is entitled to their own facts.

A case in point was your decision last May to publish the following bit of historical revision by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas:

It is important to note that the last time the question of Palestinian statehood took center stage at the General Assembly, the question posed to the international community was whether our homeland should be partitioned into two states. In November 1947, the General Assembly made its recommendation and answered in the affirmative. Shortly thereafter, Zionist forces expelled Palestinian Arabs to ensure a decisive Jewish majority in the future state of Israel, and Arab armies intervened. War and further expulsions ensued.

This paragraph effectively turns on its head an event within living memory in which the Palestinians rejected the UN partition plan accepted by the Jews and then joined five Arab states in launching a war to annihilate the embryonic Jewish state. It should not have made it past the most rudimentary fact-checking.

The opinions of some of your regular columnists regarding Israel are well known. They consistently distort the positions of our government and ignore the steps it has taken to advance peace. They cavalierly defame our country by suggesting that marginal phenomena condemned by Prime Minister Netanyahu and virtually every Israeli official somehow reflects government policy or Israeli society as a whole. Worse, one columnist even stooped to suggesting that the strong expressions of support for Prime Minister Netanyahu during his speech this year to Congress was “bought and paid for by the Israel lobby” rather than a reflection of the broad support for Israel among the American people.

Yet instead of trying to balance these views with a different opinion, it would seem as if the surest way to get an op-ed published in the New York Times these days, no matter how obscure the writer or the viewpoint, is to attack Israel.

Even so, the recent piece on “Pinkwashing,” in which Israel is vilified for having the temerity to champion its record on gay-rights, set a new bar that will be hard for you to lower in the future.

Not to be accused of cherry-picking to prove a point, I discovered that during the last three months (September through November) you published 20 op-eds about Israel in the New York Times and International Herald Tribune. After dividing the op-eds into two categories, “positive” and “negative,” with “negative” meaning an attack against the State of Israel or the policies of its democratically elected government, I found that 19 out of 20 columns were “negative.”

The only “positive” piece was penned by Richard Goldstone (of the infamous Goldstone Report), in which he defended Israel against the slanderous charge of Apartheid.

Yet your decision to publish that op-ed came a few months after your paper reportedly rejected Goldstone’s previous submission. In that earlier piece, which was ultimately published in the Washington Post, the man who was quoted the world over for alleging that Israel had committed war crimes in Gaza, fundamentally changed his position. According to the New York Times op-ed page, that was apparently news unfit to print.

Your refusal to publish “positive” pieces about Israel apparently does not stem from a shortage of supply. It was brought to my attention that the Majority Leader and Minority Whip of the U.S. House of Representatives jointly submitted an op-ed to your paper in September opposing the Palestinian action at the United Nations and supporting the call of both Israel and the Obama administration for direct negotiations without preconditions. In an age of intense partisanship, one would have thought that strong bipartisan support for Israel on such a timely issue would have made your cut.

So with all due respect to your prestigious paper, you will forgive us for declining your offer. We wouldn’t want to be seen as “Bibiwashing” the op-ed page of the New York Times.

Sincerely,

Ron Dermer
Senior advisor to Prime Minister Netanyahu

In this breaking news video, Netanyahu clearly explains the situation involving the Mavi Marmara, the motives of Israel, and the dangers that Israel (and the rest of the world) face. Also in this video is new footage of yet more damning evidence of the activist/terrorist savages part in instigating the violence.

Dr. Albert Arking graciously sent me the following proposed declaration (“in the event that Netanyahu wakes up in the middle of the night, cannot sleep, and sits at the computer to read blogs”, as he amusingly puts it) that the State of Israel should make in response to the ridiculous and outrageous statements and actions by Obama and his puppets:

1. Israel is willing to enter direct negotiations with the appropriate representatives of the Palestinians and the Arab countries to whom they look for support. This has been Israeli policy since repelling attacks from Arab countries in 1948 and 1967, despite repeated rejection of negotiation by the Arab side.

2. We welcome the encouragement and support of this policy from countries throughout the world who want to see peace established. However, we reject any interference and any attempt to impose conditions by countries outside the region of conflict.

3. To the extent that countries outside the region interfere by casting Israel as an “obstacle to peace” and applying pressure on Israel to make unilateral and unreciprocated concessions, the probability of establishing a permanent peace agreement is diminished. Such outside interference will serve to encourage the Arab side to withhold from making any agreement and wait until they can try again to destroy Israel militarily. A continual barrage of undeserved criticism, interference in negotiations, and attempts to impose conditions by the countries of the world will make negotiation useless and lead to further military conflict. If these circumstances persist, Israeli policy will adapt accordingly.

Unfortunately, Obama, in his boundless arrogance, will likely continue his bitter aggression towards Israel and Netanyahu, and will continue bowing and prostrating himself in front of one Arab dictator after another, continuing his shameful display on behalf of our embarrassed country.

John Podhoretz, editor of Commentary Magazine, actually captured the shockingness and preposterousness of it in a great editorial in the latest issue of his magazine, entitled, “Mr. President, Your Animus Is Showing“. He writes:

The declaration this morning on the front page of the New York Times that the Obama administration has made an explicit shift in the U.S.-Israel relationship brings to mind words I published in COMMENTARY 10 months ago about the relationship between the United States and Israel in the Age of Obama: “There is no question that we have entered a new era, one that I expect will be characterized by tensions and unpleasantnesses of a kind unseen since the days when George H. W. Bush was president, James A. Baker III was secretary of state, and the hostility toward Israel oozed from both men like sweat from an intrepid colonial traveler’s brow as he journeyed across the Rub-al-Khali.”

Prophetic? Perhaps, but if you wish to credit me with visionary foresight, I have to confess that the reports of President Obama’s conduct toward Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during their deliberately unphotographed White House meeting in March still came as a cold shock to me. We still don’t know quite what happened, but it appears that the president came into the room with a list of unilateral demands, that he grew impatient with Netanyahu’s answers, and that he left unceremoniously by claiming he was going to have dinner with his wife and kids but that he would “be around” in case the prime minister “changed” his tune.

Even if the meeting was only half as confrontational and chilly as the reports indicated, it would still represent a display of rudeness and high-handedness unprecedented in the annals of American diplomacy. But since the target of Obama’s startling behavior was Israel, something especially complicated was at work. The president’s conduct was so extreme that it would be unthinkable for him to act in such a fashion toward the leader of any other nation, friend or foe. Obama knows that Israel needs the United States so much it is in no position to complain—particularly since the president was supposedly still in a snit over the ham-handed revelation in Israel, in the midst of Vice President Biden’s March visit, of the construction of 1,600 new housing units in Jerusalem.

Maybe Obama was operating, even unconsciously, in the unique spirit of informal aggression that can only be expressed between familial intimates. For who else would feel free to express such open rudeness at a special occasion? More likely, he was behaving in the manner of a liege lord demanding compensation from someone he considers his vassal. This attitude might explain as well the president’s otherwise perplexing treatment of other friendly leaders—Gordon Brown of Great Britain, Nicolas Sarkozy of France, Silvio Berlusconi of Italy—who may not seem to Obama to possess sufficient rank for him to treat them as allies of comparable stature.

Obama’s open hostility toward Netanyahu and his disproportionate reaction to the unintentional slight delivered to Biden are important, and deadly serious, because there is no doubt they were authentic expressions of real emotion. We’ve seen Obama be a little churlish and somewhat peevish, but rarely more openly negative than that. Nothing in the course of his presidency has made him angry, so far as we know, in the way that Israel and Netanyahu have made him angry. Not Iran’s defiance and game-playing. Not the supposed chicanery of Wall Street and the monstrous insurance companies that have served as his populist targets. Not even Rush Limbaugh.

This is meaningful. It suggests not merely that Obama differs with Israel on matters of policy but also that he takes these differences personally. And that, in turn, demonstrates there is an animus at work here, a predisposition to think badly of Israel—to view the Jewish state at best as an impediment to the good working order of a fairer world and at worst as a sower of discord. This is a bitter truth, but it is a truth, no matter how many Jews Obama knows or likes or employs, no matter how many Potemkin Passover seders he stages in the people’s house in which he is a temporary resident and in which he chose to treat a friend he ought to cherish instead like an enemy he cannot abide.

Arutz Sheva is reporting that sources within the PA are saying that the Obama administration is backing anti-Israel rallies in Jerusalem.

If this outrage is true, then this signals a huge escalation in the hostility towards Israel by the United States and, if true, Netanyahu will have no choice but to publicly repudiate Obama’s demands and incitement.

This is an incredibly dangerous and foolish game that Obama is playing with Israel’s security and this undoes years, maybe decades, of diplomacy and friendship with Israel. It also serves to continue emboldening Palestinian terrorists, as well as to give the PA leadership a free pass to shun the negotiating table.

The silver lining in this dark cloud is that at least Israel can clearly see Obama for what he is: an enemy of Israel. Had he taken the “friendly but forceful” tactic that had been used at times in the past, he would have been more successful at dividing Israel’s public opinion and possibly chasing Netanyahu out of office through public pressure and ultimately getting some or most of what he wants.

Instead, here the Israeli public can clearly see him for the enemy that he is to them, and his hostility has so far only served to rally the public behind Netanyahu (a few leftist newspaper pieces notwithstanding).

A high noon showdown seems to be looming.

UPDATE

A friend of mine commented to me:

which diplomats and what did they do by way of encouragement. Its so vague…

…the whole source for this is some unamed PA official. I assume you dont trust the PA to report things accurately?

Being that those are valid questions, I’ll take a moment to answer them here.

Yes, it is very vague, but the fact remains that there should be no U.S. diplomats getting involved on any level, and that if any do get involved they should be dealt with harshly.

Especially in light of the recent tensions with Israel, Obama should refute these reports if untrue, and should publicly reprimand those diplomats if true.

After all, when it recently reached Qaddafi’s ears that a Foggy Bottom diplomat ridiculed his U.N. “speech” (if anyone could even call it a “speech”), he was then made to publicly apologize to Qaddafi, and essentially to grovel for his forgiveness.

So, again, with tensions being what it is, and in light of Obama’s recent hostility towards Israel and Netanyahu, something like this needs to be addressed immediately… and it’s not. After all it has been two days since the original WND report broke.

As for trusting unnamed PA officials, no I certainly don’t trust the PA. It wasn’t that long ago that Saeb Erekat was decrying a “massacre” in Jenin. But, the difference here is that in this case this was apparently someone believable enough to be quoted in by reputable news sources.

And, again, the Jenin “massacre” flew in the face of all common sense. This, however, makes plenty of sense as part of continuing hostile escalations by Obama since his inauguration and especially in recent weeks.

After reading this news item yesterday, which reports that Netanyahu actually asked permission from Obama to construct housing in settlements and got a “one-time permission” from him… I am a bit in shock. Did Netanyahu lose his backbone? Is he going the path of Sharon and many of his other predecessors who apparently went spineless not too long after assuming the prime ministerial position?

If there was ever a time for any world leader to take a stand against a U.S. president, this is it. After all, you’re talking about a president who is used to getting denied his requests all the time (remember this great post?), and who bows down to dictators and despots the world over.

In fact, for a man who has a humongous individual superiority complex, he has what is amazingly an equally humongous national inferiority complex.

So, for Netanyahu to be one of the only world leaders to actually give a damn about what Obama thinks, is just monumentally disappointing and not a good sign of things to come in Israel.

The despicable Goldstone Report is still very much in the news, as the United Nations picks up the debate on the report again today. The wishy-washy Palestinians who can’t make up their minds whether they want their human rights violations aired out or not are currently pressing for the debate (as opposed to recently when they wanted to postpone debate).

Israel once again is taking a bold stance regarding the report by stating that if this report is not dropped, the peace process is essentially over, no more negotiations, no more overtures. This strong statement was previously made by Netanyahu when the report first came out (see my recent post about it) with the logical and understandable explanation that endorsing such a report only serves to discourage Israel from taking any further risks for peace for fear that Israel will once again not receive international support when the need to defend itself arises.

This time it’s Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Gabriella Shalev, in the news with a similar statement. She said today that

as long as the Goldstone report is on the table and everywhere they are quoting it and supporting it—also states that are considered our friends—we cannot make progress in the peace process… We will not sit at the table and will not talk with bodies and people who accuse us of war crimes. That is simply unacceptable… If they expect us to renew the peace process and to freeze settlements, we expect the international community to enable us to take risks (for peace) and not deny us—as this report does—our right to self-defense.

Interestingly enough, even the self-hating Jew Goldstone himself is starting to show signs of backing away from his own report, at least when speaking to Jews.

Alan Dershowitz writes:

In an interview with Jewish Forward, Goldstone denied that his group had conducted “an investigation.” Instead, it was what he called a “fact-finding mission” based largely on the limited “material we had.” Since this “material” was cherry-picked by Hamas guides and spokesmen, Goldstone acknowledged that “if this was a court of law, there would have been nothing proven.” He emphasized to the Forward that the report was no more than “a road map” for real investigators and that it contained no actual “evidence,” of wrongdoing by Israel.

“Nothing proven!” No “evidence!” Only “a road map!” You wouldn’t know any of that, of course, by reading the report itself or its accompanying media release. In the text of the report itself, Goldstone neither sought to clarify nor explain what he now claims is the limited scope and legal implications of the report. The language of the report reads like a judicial decision, making findings of fact (nearly all wrong), stating conclusions of law (nearly all questionable) and making specific recommendations (nearly all one-sided).

…It is as if there were two entirely different “Goldstone Reports.” The first submitted to the United Nations and the second to the Jewish community. In speaking so differently to different “audiences,” Goldstone is reminiscent of Yassir Arafat, who perfected the art of double-speak, by using bellicose language when addressing Arab audiences and more accommodating language when addressing western audiences.

Goldstone apparently lacked the courage to stand up to the other members and staffers of his commission and to insist that his clarifying language be included in the report itself. Nor did he have the courage to file a dissenting or concurring statement. Instead, he spoke out of both sides of his mouth, sending one message to those who read the actual report and a very different message to those who read his words in the Jewish Forward (and the New York Times for whom he wrote a more ameliorative op-ed on the day after the release of the Report). In doing so, he is trying to have it both ways.

Goldstone went so far as to tell the Forward that he himself “wouldn’t consider it in any way embarrassing if many of the allegations turn out to be disproved.” This is total nonsense. Goldstone has put his imprimatur—and his reputation—behind the reports’ conclusions. The only reason anyone is paying any attention to yet another of the serial condemnatory reports by the United Nations Human Rights Council is because Richard Goldstone—a “distinguished” Jew—allegedly wrote it and signed on to its conclusions. If he really doesn’t stand by its conclusions—if he doesn’t care one way or another whether they are true or false, proven or unproven—then no extra weight should be given to its findings or conclusions because of the “distinguished” reputation of its Jewish chairman.

But weight is being given by some to its “unproven” and uninvestigated allegations which Goldstone admits may be wrong. There have been calls for boycotts, divestments, war crime prosecutions and other forms of condemnation based on the conclusions reached (or not reached, depending on which side of Goldstone’s mouth one is listening to) by the Report.

If Goldstone stands behind what he told the Forward, then he must come forward and condemn those who are treating his report as if the allegations were based on “evidence” and “proven.” Don’t hold your breath, because such a statement would be heard by both of Goldstone’s audiences at the same time.

In a justifiably bold move, Netanyahu announced today that if the Goldstone Report is accepted and endorsed by the UN Human Rights Council following the vote tomorrow by the 47 member countries of the council, the peace process is effectively over.

He said in a televised speech, “I hope a majority [of the Council] will come to their senses… if a majority is found to negate this report, it will avoid this severe blow, but if not, the responsibility will be on those countries who didn’t pull themselves together in time.”

In that speech he pointed out the three main repercussions of accepting such a mockery of a report:

• It would legitimize the Hamas terrorist practice of attacking civilian targets while hiding behind other civilians.
• It would deal a severe blow to the UN status and respectability (not that it’s exactly riding a high lately anyway), reducing it to a body of countries making “absurd” decisions.
• It would deal a mortal blow to the peace process by discouraging Israel from taking any further risks for peace for fear that it will not receive international support when the need to defend itself arises.

Here is the video of the speech:

In what is obviously a rhetorical question, Netanyahu today slammed the United Nations General Assembly, asking them “have you no shame?” for giving Holocaust-denier Ahmadinejad a forum to speak. View the clip here:

And here is the full speech, in four parts:

Tom Gross brings us this great example of CNN’s anti-Israel bias and their complete and utter antipathy towards Israel’s state of living under constant terror and attack from Hamas:

Below is a transcript of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s interview on CNN yesterday, in which he is repeatedly asked by Wolf Blitzer about Israeli “war crimes”.

(To remind readers, since CNN doesn’t, Netanyahu wasn’t even in government at the time of the Gaza offensive earlier this year, and he opposed the 2005 Israeli withdrawal from Gaza precisely because he foresaw the kind of attacks on Israel that then followed from Gaza.)

Netanyahu was being interviewed on the occasion of his meeting in New York with President Barack Obama and Palestinian leader Mohammed Abbas, who wasn’t, incidentally, asked about war crimes.

BLITZER: You know this United Nations commission, which just came back with a scathing report suggesting that Israel, your military, committed war crimes or something close to that, crimes against humanity, perhaps, even, during the fighting in Gaza. And I know you strongly disagree, but I want you to react to that United Nations report.

NETANYAHU: Now you’re being a diplomat. I strongly disagree? I think this is preposterous. It’s absurd. Israel was rocketed, pummeled for eight years by thousands of rockets that came from Gaza. We vacated all of Gaza, hoping that this thing would stop, and they fired not one rocket, but thousands of rockets, after we left Gaza.

So, what’s a country to do? I mean, what would you do if thousands of rockets fell on – Where are you talking from, Wolf, Washington, right? – Washington, D.C., or any part of the United States? You know what the United States would do.

BLITZER: The argument, though, Mr. Prime Minister, in this U.N. report is that you overreacted, and, in the process, you killed a lot of civilians.

NETANYAHU: We overreacted, did we? Well, let me tell you, after a million or so of our people were under rocket fire, progressively larger and larger circles of rockets falling on our cities, we did what every reasonable country would do. We tried to get at the rocketeers, those terrorists firing those missiles and rockets who placed themselves, embedded themselves in homes and schools and mosques, and you name it.

And we tried to target these people. We even sent them SMS text messages, telling the Palestinian civilians, please get out of harm’s way, cellular phones, you name it. So, we did everything possible to minimize the loss of innocent civilian lives.

And yet the Hamas actually was committing a double war crime, firing on civilians while hiding behind civilians. That’s a double war crime. They’re the ones who sort of get a free bill out of this biased U.N. report, and Israel, that is defending itself, is accused.

BLITZER: All right.

NETANYAHU: So, the terrorists are exonerated. The victims are accused. That’s an upside-down world. And I think this does grievous harm to the battle against terrorism, because the terrorists are basically being told, you get a free ride. All you have to do is fire at a democracy from built-up areas, from residential quarters, and you will get a clean bill of health. And I think it does a great disservice to peace, too, because we’re asked to take risks for peace. The international community says, if you take risks for peace, we will support your right of self- defense. And yet we did just that. We vacated Gaza in the hopes that this would advance peace. And when we’re rocketed with thousands of rockets and missiles from the places we vacated, people say Israel is the war criminal.

BLITZER: All right.

NETANYAHU: Come on. I mean, this is absurd.

BLITZER: If there is a trial at the International Court and the accusation is that Israel committed war crimes, or crimes against humanity in Gaza, will you cooperate with that?

NETANYAHU: Well, the question is, will any serious country cooperate with it?

I took note of the fact that the leading democracies that were in this U.N. commission, they opposed this. They were against this mandate, because it looked like a kangaroo court in the first place, where Israel was basically hanged, drawn, and quartered morally and given an unfair trial to boot right at the start of these proceedings.

I think this is wrong. But understand this. It’s not only we who will be damaged. It’s you, too. I mean, American pilots, NATO pilots, let alone Russia and other countries that are fighting terrorists, are going to be put on the dock, too, because it’s said that you cannot fight terrorists.

It means that all the terrorists have to do is put themselves in a residential quarter, and they receive immunity. And that’s not something that any country fighting terrorism can accept. And I don’t think you can accept it either.

Score one for Netanyahu.

Haaretz is reporting that the United States has dropped demands for freezing any construction in Jerusalem, indicating that Netanyahu’s firm stance and consistent message of Jerusalem being off the table is paying off.

Just as laudable, though, were the other stipulations that Netanyahu insisted be part of this new “gesture” toward the Palestinians of a nine-month temporary settlement freeze:

• This freeze will exclude some 2,500 housing units on which construction has already started.
• Some natural growth will be exempt, e.g., kindergartens and schools and other special cases where construction is necessary to maintain a “normal life”.
• This freeze must have a clear “exit plan”, i.e., it is a confidence-building measure that must be matched by reciprocal steps from the PA and Arab states. If these fail to materialize, Israel wants an American guarantee that it will not oppose renewed building.

So, although there is some sort of settlement freeze in the works now, it is not at all what Obama had been pushing and its details seem to be almost entirely controlled by Netanyahu.

During a press conference that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had in London with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, he was asked the following question and gave what in my opinion was a strong, intelligent response.

QUESTION: Mr Netanyahu, will you continue while you talk to build homes for Jews in those parts of Jerusalem that Israel captured in 1967?

NETANYAHU: I have made it clear in my conversation with President Obama in Washington and since that Jerusalem is the sovereign capital of Israel.  We accept no limitations on our sovereignty.  This is very clear.  To put a fine point on it, I say Jerusalem is not a settlement.  The settlement issue is outstanding and has to be one of the issues resolved in the negotiations, alongside Palestinian recognition of the Jewish state and effective demilitarization arrangements for any future peace agreement.  But our position is that Jerusalem is the united capital of the Jewish people.  It has only been around for 3,500 years.  We recognise that there are obviously Arab residents in Jerusalem, and they enjoy all the equal rights and all the equal benefits of the Jewish residents.  We do not draw a difference.

(Incidentally, he shortly thereafter gave the following amendment: “I need to amend my response, Jeremy.  We have not been around in Jerusalem for 3,500 years; we have been around there only 3,000 years, so pretty long, I would say.”)

He was also very strong on discussing Israel’s proven commitment to the peace process and the Palestinians lack of any commitment so far, which I think was also a good, necessarily forceful agenda item:

NETANYAHU: …we’re working hard to advance a peace process that will lead to an actual peace result and we hope to move forward in the weeks and months ahead.

We’re not waiting.  We have already moved: my government has removed, to be precise, 147 checkpoints and roadblocks.  The 14 remaining checkpoints, 12 of them are manned 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to facilitate movement.  I have extended the time of passage on the Allenby Bridge on the Jordan River in order to facilitate movement in and out of the Palestinian territories.  I chair a ministerial committee that seeks to remove and has removed roadblocks to economic activity in the West Bank.  We’ve moved on the ground.

I’ve also moved not merely in deed but in word: I have spoken about the need to achieve this balance of a demilitarized Palestinian state next to a Jewish state and I think that this has resonated far and wide.

It wasn’t easy to do, but this is what we have done in the short period of time, the four months that we’re in office, so we have moved.  We expect similar movement from the Palestinian Authority and certainly based on what we’ve seen in the recent Fatah conference there has not been that movement; that’s an understatement.  But there has to be that movement.  There has to be not merely a partner on the other side, there has to be a courageous partner, because I think we’ve shown a certain amount of fortitude and leadership and that’s what’s required from the Palestinian side.  They have to say unequivocally ‘it’s over.  We are going to make a real peace.  It’ll be a final peace.  It will be a peace that will end all claims to further conflict.  It’ll be a peace that will resolve the Palestinian refugee issue once and for all and just as Jews can come to Israel, Palestinians can come to the Palestinian state.’  But not in Israel, because there has to be a Jewish state and if we’re asked to recognise a Palestinian state as the nation state of the Palestinian people, it is absolutely essential that the Palestinian leadership says to the Palestinian people ‘you will have to accept Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people.’  Recognition is the pivot of peace.  The absence of such clear and forthright expressions by the Palestinian leadership of such recognition has been what has been holding peace up and this is what the people of Israel and I think all fair minded people in the world expect.

So, we have moved forward.  We intend to move forward, but we expect the Palestinian partners to be courageous partners for peace that move forward.

The full transcript can be read here.

Mackubin Thomas Owens wrote a great piece in the Wall Street Journal in which he juxtaposes Obama’s hesitation to ‘meddle’ in Iran with his eagerness to straighten out Netanyahu with some tough talk just weeks into his new position as prime minister of Israel.

This absurd policy of “curry[ing] favor with our adversaries at the expense of our friends” is not only a complete about-face in policy compared with that of previous presidents, but is also a terrible precedent being set on the world stage demonstrating many entirely unsavory characteristics about our president: his backstabbing nature, his hypocrisy, and his inability to keep promises (not his own campaign promises and not the international promises of previous administrations).

It also encourages the very worst responses from the very groups of people whom he is trying to placate. Owens explains:

Mr. Obama is woefully wrong if he believes that his confrontational style will provide an incentive for the Palestinians and the members of the Arab League to resolve the Arab-Israeli dispute. It will simply reinforce the long-standing Arab belief that the U.S. can “deliver” Israel if it only has the will to do so, thereby reducing Arab incentives to make concessions in direct negotiations with Israel.

As if on cue, Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of the Palestinian National Authority, announced that he would not negotiate on any issue with the new Israeli government until Mr. Obama’s settlement conditions are met.

In addition to the building freeze in Jerusalem and the West Bank, Mr. Abbas insisted on four other unilateral, non-negotiable concessions: First, an independent Palestinian state; second, that Israel pulls back to its pre-June 1967 borders, minus a Palestinian land bridge between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip; third, a Palestinian “right of return” to Israel; and fourth, resolution of all permanent status issues on the basis of the 2002 Abdullah plan calling on Arabs to normalize relations with Israel in return for Israel’s withdrawal to its pre-1967 borders. The “right of return,” in particular, is a non-starter.

If Mr. Obama seeks a Palestinian Arab state, he is going about it the wrong way. The fact is that Mr. Netanyahu has endorsed a two-state solution and an end to the expansion of settlements in the West Bank—as long as the Palestinians accept Israel as a legitimate Jewish state and cannot militarily threaten it. Israel has been willing to accept a two-state solution since the United Nations partition resolution for Palestine in 1947, but the Arabs have refused. They are not interested in creating a separate Palestinian Arab state but in destroying Israel as a Jewish state.

The Obama approach in the Middle East is predicated on what might be called the Arab “grievance narrative,” which holds that Israel was created as a result of Western guilt about the Holocaust. It is also based on the idea that, as the president suggested in his Cairo speech, there is moral equivalence between the Holocaust and Palestinian “dislocation.”

Such language illustrates an inability to make distinctions. Arabs launched a war against Jewish self-determination and the state of Israel long before any Israeli “occupation” of their lands. When Israel seized land in a defensive war, it was the Arabs, not the Israelis, who kept Palestinian “refugees” in limbo for three generations to await Israel’s destruction.

As Mr. Netanyahu reminded Mr. Obama after the latter’s Cairo speech, the Arab claim that Israel was a land grab by the great powers to salve the collective conscience of the West after the Holocaust is a slander. On the contrary, he observed, Israel’s right to its homeland rests on the longstanding historical connection of the Jewish people to the land of Israel. This right was ratified by the unanimous and legitimizing votes of the League of Nations and the U.N. Security Council’s permanent members, and validated by over 60 years of Israel’s successful, democratic statehood.

Israel’s “right to exist” was expressed best by Israeli diplomat Abba Eban in 1981. He wrote, “Israel’s right to exist, like that of the United States, Saudi Arabia, and 152 other states, is axiomatic and unreserved. Israel’s legitimacy is not suspended in midair, awaiting acknowledgment. . . . There is certainly no other state, big or small, young or old, that would consider mere recognition of its ‘right to exist’ a favor, or a negotiable concession.”

Mr. Netanyahu might also have added that Israel’s control of the West Bank (territory that should properly be called “disputed” rather than “occupied”), was the result of defeating the Arab powers who initiated the Six Day War of 1967. The status of aggressors and defenders is not interchangeable. Neither is the status of victorious powers and defeated ones.

Nonetheless, Israel has taken unilateral steps toward peace, steps not reciprocated by the Palestinians. When Israel unilaterally disengaged from the Gaza Strip, dismantling 21 settlements and displacing over 9,000 residents, it conducted the most comprehensive test of the “land for peace” concept in the history of Israeli-Palestinian relations. Yet Israel was rewarded with the creation of a terrorist enclave governed by Hamas, rather than the peaceful, responsible neighbor Israel would need in order to accept a Palestinian Arab state.

In his remarks to his Cabinet, Netanyahu has thankfully expressed his firm stance on continuing building in east Jerusalem and his sharp disagreement with any policy attempting to render east Jerusalem judenrein.

He stresses the status of Jerusalem as an “undivided city” and says:

I would like to re-emphasize that the united Jerusalem is the capital of the Jewish people and of the State of Israel.  Our sovereignty over it is cannot be challenged; this means – inter alia – that residents of Jerusalem may purchase apartments in all parts of the city. . .

There is no ban on Arabs buying apartments in the western part of the city and there is no ban on Jews buying or building apartments in the eastern part of the city.

This is the policy of an open city, an undivided city that has no separation according to religion or national affiliation. We cannot accept the idea that Jews will not have the right to live and purchase in all parts of Jerusalem.  I can only describe to myself what would happen if someone would propose that Jews could not live in certain neighborhoods in New York, London, Paris or Rome.  There would certainly be a major international outcry.  Accordingly, we cannot agree to such a decree in Jerusalem.

I hope he continues this strong, unwavering stance in the face of any pressure he may continue to face.

Just to point out something to those of you who lump east Jerusalem in with the other “occupied” territories: east Jerusalem was officially annexed following the 1967 War, giving it a much different status than the West Bank or Gaza, i.e., making it a proper part of Israel in every way any other city or area is a part of Israel.

On Friday, Peter Beaumont wrote a piece in the Guardian attacking Netanyahu for using the term judenrein and going so far as to accuse Netanyahu of using the term “so cheaply to score a political point”.

In reality, the only one zoning in on this term for cheap political shots is Beaumont himself. Netanyahu is only using a term that has been used many times over by many American and Israeli politicians, all of whom have used it for a good reason: because, unlike Beaumont’s pitiful attempts to whitewash the Palestinians’ ultimate goals, the American and Israeli politicians are simply calling it what it is.

As Beaumont freely admits, judenrein is a word “that meant all trace of Jewish ancestry had been removed.” Yet, when the Palestinians don’t even hide their efforts to destroy every trace of Judaism upon being given any piece of land (think: Gaza, with the utter destruction of virtually every Jewish-built structure), all of a sudden that admitted definition doesn’t seem to suit him anymore.

I’d love to hear what term Beaumont would use to define the practice of destroying everything the Jews built, removing all traces of them, and refusing to allow any Jew to live on Palestinian lands.

Beaumont also attempts to rewrite history by erasing the Jews from the “occupied” territories over history. He says:

For while it is true that Jewish communities existed on the West Bank before the six-day war, the settlement programme that followed the occupation is regarded by most international bodies as a serious violation of international law.

This is complete and utter nonsense for two reasons:

(1) Before “Palestine” even existed as a state (or a mandate) prior to Israel, there were Jews living all along in the now-”occupied” parts of it for centuries. For example, Jews have always lived in places like Hebron (Nablus), long before Israel, long before “Palestine”, and long before any notion of international law. So, for Beaumont to rewind the clock to 50 years ago and freeze it there, disregarding hundreds of years prior, is misleading and deceptive.

(2) Beaumont is addressing the issue of settlements, when that’s not the issue at hand. The issue at hand is the term “judenrein”, which has nothing to do with settlements and has only to do with Jews. The Palestinians don’t just want to dismantle settlements under Israeli control. They want to deport every Jew living there and to prevent any Jew from living there, even under their control. That has nothing to do with settlements and everything to do with “judenrein”. For Beaumont to try to steer the issue towards settlements while attacking Netanyahu for judenrein is also misleading and deceptive.

Beaumont’s summation is that:

To use “Judenrein” so cheaply to score a political point dishonours the memory of history and its victims.

In reality, his blind eye to the Palestinian policies is in effect allowing history to repeat itself and allowing the “memory of history and its victims” that he claims to honor to fall by the wayside while the Palestinians try to finish the Nazis’ job. Now, that is the true dishonoring of the memory of history and its victims.

And, for his part in this, I hold people like the misleading, deceptive, and despicable Peter Beaumont complicit in whitewashing these attempts to finish the Nazis’ job.

So, as the AP reported today, Bibi Netanyahu has finally given his long-anticipated speech in response to Obama’s “address to the Muslim world”.

A good friend, DMB, has summed up Netanhayu’s gameplan very nicely as follows:

1. A demilitarized Palestinian state.
2. No new settlements.
3. Natural growth to continue in existing settlements.
4. No Palestinian “right of return” in Israel.
5. No dividing Jerusalem.

To elaborate a bit on these five points:

1. Netanyahu has for the first time publicly conceded the formation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. However, he has set some obviously necessary conditions only under which he would agree to such a state.  The primary two conditions that he outlined was:

1. the state must be a demilitarized state; and
2. the state must recognize Israel, and recognize it as a Jewish state.

The first condition is obviously necessary because of the lesson learned from Gaza. Seeing how a militarized Palestinian territory like the current Gaza cannot keep itself from launching rockets daily into Israel, it’s obvious that arms must be strictly controlled.

The second condition is also necessary because up until now they have refused to recognize Israel.  Their recognition of Israel will be a historically significant gesture, essentially putting their past grievances behind them.  Not doing so only signals that they still have plans to continue fighting long-lost battles, which means that they really are not in fact ready to move ahead.

Already, the Palestinians have not surprisingly criticized both of these conditions.  ”Not surprisingly”, because it’s apparent that with the hatred permeating their society and their culture of death, there’s no way that they are even remotely ready to move ahead for peace.  With all the pressure increasingly being put on Israel to make peace ever since Obama claimed the “throne”, no one stopped to realize that Israel really has no partner for peace in this process.

2. Netanyahu also made a pretty strong concession in foregoing any new settlements. Settlers are some of the most patriotic people in the country and making a statement like that is going out on a limb in isolating some of the country’s most reliable and loyal citizens.  However, unlike the Palestinians, Netanyahu sees that some hard concessions are necessary to move ahead and, as usual, Israel is trying to lead by example by showing its willingness to make concessions.  My personal opinion is that if this is going to help show the Palestinians a way to negotiate and to make compromises, and consequently bring peace, then I am certainly not against it.  However, I have yet to see the Palestinians provide any reason for believing that they are serious and for Israel to therefore make any real concessions just yet.

3. Natural growth is a very hot topic in Israel. Many people do not realize what this even means.  Natural growth means the ability for growing families to get permits to renovate their homes, to extend their homes, to build new floors or new apartments in building and to build new homes in an existing settlement (without extending any settlement boundaries).

Suppose a boy who grew up his whole life in a particular settlement meets a girl in school and they ultimately get married.  By stifling natural growth, they would be prohibited from living in their hometown, in which they spent their whole lives and in which both their families live.  This newlywed couple would be forced to move away from their hometown and away from their families (especially at a very sensitive period of their lives when they need the most support of their families to build a home and a family of their own).

Another example would be a family who has two or three more children and is running out of space in their home.  In any other town in any other country, it would often be a relatively simple matter to renovate or extend the house and add a room or two, but by stifling natural growth they would be forced to live in increasingly cramped conditions.

As you can see, being that this does not even change the boundaries of the settlements at all, this is strictly a policy aimed at demoralizing families living there and making their lives unnecessary difficult. Whether you agree with settlements or not, this is not a policy whose outcome determines new settlements or removes old settlements; it only determines the living conditions of human beings.

So, in my opinion, Netanyahu should stay firm with this as being a non-negotiable point, especially considering the concession he is making in prohibiting any new settlements.

4. Palestinian “right of return” is another non-negotiable point for Israel. Allowing the numerous descendents of the original Palestinians emigrants to return would, in effect, convert Israel to a majority-Palestinian state and allow the Palestinians to abolish the state by democracy.  Every country in the world has their own ability to determine citizenship—yes, even the United States offers very strict and limited citizenship to immigrants and does so to prevent any imbalance that would affect the essence of the country’s status quo.

So, why should Israel be any different and be forced to accept what is today essentially millions of people who claim to descend from emigrants?  Until every country is forced to start implementing limitless open citizenship, or at least forced to accept all previous residents, then I think the world needs to shut up and not hypocritically pursue this point with Israel.

5. Jerusalem is yet another non-negotiable point for Israel. This is for political and religious reasons.  The religious reasons are mostly obvious, but I will point out one subtle nuance that is only mentioned infrequently:  Jerusalem is the single-most holy city for Jews the world over for three millenia, since the birth of the nation.  As for the Muslims (a younger religion, less than two millenia old, I might add), Jerusalem remains merely their third-holiest city, after Mecca and Medina.  In fact, although Jerusalem is mentioned countless times in the Jewish Bible, it is not even mentioned a single time in the Qur’an (it is only alluded to in the story of Muhammad’s dream).

Religious reasons aside, the political reasons are the ones that matter most in these negotiations.  And, the political reasons are:

1. Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and no capital should be forced to be split.  Remember the militarized mess that East/West Berlin was like back in the day, complete with tanks, guns, spies, tunnels, walls, defectors, etc.; and
2. Jerusalem is one of the most populous cities in Israel. Splitting it would in effect remove a large amount of available residential land for those inhabitants and, more importantly, would position two large volumes of people side by side with a frighteningly small and vulnerable area of separation between them, which does not at all make for comfortable and secure living arrangements.

So, to sum up:  although, as a conservative, I am not 100% in agreement with all of Netanyahu’s points in a vacuum, I do agree that under the current circumstances and given the gesture that he is trying to make for the sake of peace, that his gameplan outlined in this speech is 100% necessary to: (a) establish some firm ground rules to move forward with peace; and (b) exhibit his willingness to make some concessions for the sake of moving forward.

Now, let’s see if the Palestinians will have the sense to see what a generous gesture this is, given the fact that every carrot they have been given by Israel in the past 8 years was merely chewed up and digested by them—and then hastily and thoughtlessly defecated back out onto the Israelis’ feet.

The time has come for them to make the decision if they really want peace, or if they want more of the same:  more of Hamas killing and intimidating their own people in Gaza… more of the decrepit squalor that they’re mired in… more of the corruption that runs rampant among them… more of the hatred that they teach their small children… more of the culture of death that they preach in their mosques and schools…

…in short:  more of the “hated Israel” prospering because they just want to live, while their own people can’t even lead normal lives because they just want to keep hating and to die as “martyrs”.