WOULD YOU BUY A USED CAR FROM THIS MAN?

UPROOTED PALESTINIAN
July 11, 2009
Khaled Amayreh

My $.02 of Snippits and Snappits are in this green

The Israeli government headed by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is making concerted efforts to avoid a looming crisis with the Obama administration over the issue of Jewish settlement expansion in the West Bank.

United States President Barack Obama is demanding that Israel freeze all settlement expansion projects in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in order to enable the creation of a viable Palestinian state.

Obama is playing good guy in this. I do believe, however, he knows this situation well enough to know how things will play out. Occupying these lands so there is no way that the Palestinians can return has been the Israeli stated intention since before the "non existent" Nakba. Either he believes he can do this against the wishes of his owners, or it is a sorta clever game he plays to buy time. Besides, it is a great diversion for the people while he goes behind their backs and works on very dark genocidal medical politics in the US. This way they will be eyes on Palestine while he is consigning millions of seniors and unwell, and the poor, to surefire death in America through changes to the medical system.

However, Netanyahu has so far been defying American demands, resorting to diversionary tactics and vague statements about accepting a Palestinian entity in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

"Natural growth" in the middle of what was once a land of verdant olive and fruit groves.

On Monday, 6 July, the Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak, who is effectively acting as an extraordinary foreign minister in lieu of the widely- despised Avigdor Lieberman, met once again in London for 90 minutes with US Peace Envoy George Mitchell.

AMAZING we have not yet heard Lierberman scream anti semitic to the world yet! He has been all too quiet since his election.

Barak was trying to sell the Obama administration its usual bill of goods, offering to dismantle "illegal outposts" in return for obtaining an American consent for allowing construction of settlement buildings in "legal outposts".

There is no such thing as a "legal outpost". Jeez this man talks with a forked tongue.

The two had met earlier in New York and held "intensive discussions" on the settlement expansion issue. Barak described the meeting as "positive and constructive", saying that "there was no crisis in relations between the US and Israel."

Dons blank look of a bored teenager, twiddles hair and rolls eyes sky high.

A side effect of "natural growth"

However, subsequent reports indicated that the New York meeting was a failure as Mitchell refused to accept salesman Barak's used-cars which would allow Israel to continue building thousands of settler units under the rubric of "natural growth".

A few weeks ago, a Western diplomat confronted Israeli officials on the "illegal settlements", asking them why Israel, an ostensibly democratic state where the rule of law is upheld, (OMG THAT made me spew tea all over my monitor! The only law upheld is that of the Ashkenazim Jews.) allowed illegal outposts to be established in the first place. The officials evaded the question, arguing that the issue was "more complicated than it seems."

HOW complicated is this? "The Partition of Palestine is illegal. It will never be recognized. Jerusalem was and will forever be our capital. Eretz Israel will be restored to the people of Israel. All of it. For Ever. ~ Menachem Begin, the day after the U.N. vote to partition Palestine.

According to the Israeli media, Barak has been trying to impress Mitchell with an offer to dismantle 26 outposts, three of which have already been dismantled. The Americans, however, have a list of at least 100 outposts they insist Israel must dismantle. The bulk of these outposts were established after the end of the "Oslo era", especially since 2000, and are built mostly on private Palestinian land seized at gunpoint by settlers, often in coordination with the Israeli occupation army.

In 2005 and 2008 Israel made commitments to dismantle the very same outposts, but to no avail. This probably explains why Barak gave Mitchell no timetable for removing the posts, a sign that Israel doesn't really intend to carry out this old commitment, which is part of the American-backed roadmap.

As I mentioned before, Barak is going through the motions.

Some Israeli commentators have labelled Israeli efforts to cajole the US to accept a "compromise" on settlement expansion "playing on borrowed time". Writing in Haaretz this week, Akiva Eldar said that Israel should realise that the US considers all Jewish settlement activities illegal, even in East Jerusalem. "There is no magical formula by which Israel can convince the Obama administration to accept the settlement expansion."

The technique was called "talk and log" during the days of protesting against logging. They talk uselessly but meantime carry on with the illegal activity under question, and end the talks when they have what they want. Only here it is "talk and steal".

If the sought "compromise" with the US fails to materialize, it is widely expected that Israel will declare its "willingness" to freeze settlement construction in return for far-reaching concessions from the Arab camp: first, a recognition by the Palestinians of Israel as an exclusively Jewish state in which non-Jews have to accept racial inferiority or leave, and, second, a deep multi-faceted normalization between Israel and the entire Arab world.

"We shall reduce the Arab population to a community of woodcutters and waiters" ~ Uri Lubrani.

Israel, of course, realizes that the Palestinians and other Arabs would never accept such humiliating preconditions which amount to a kind of capitulation to Israeli intransigence. Hence, such a declaration would be a continuation of the policy of posturing, which represents the modus operandi of the Netanyahu government discourse.

It is also an indication that Israel is not really interested in reaching an honest and dignified peace with the Palestinians but is only trying to throw the proverbial ball into the Arab or at least the American court.

If anyone ever thought otherwise, they were living in a fool's paradise. Israel has been very clear from the beginning but no one was listening to THAT part of their rhetoric.

"This country exists as the fulfillment of a promise made by God Himself." This statement by American Golda Meir tells just how honestly the Zionists approach peaceful solutions. "It would be ridiculous to ask it to account for its legitimacy."

Netanyahu has actually been bragging about succeeding in creating "a national consensus" on the restrictions and proscriptions that would make his "acceptance" of Palestinian statehood null and void.

In his speech at Bar Ilan University last month, Netanyahu, who barely uttered the word "Palestinian state" once, said Israel would have to tightly control of the borders, border crossings, air space, water resources, and foreign relations of such a state which he said had to be completely demilitarised.

Netanyahu also said the Palestinians would have to give up the right of return for millions of refugees uprooted from their homes when Israel was created in Palestine in 1948. He also said occupied East Jerusalem would remain part of Israel in the context of any peace agreement with the Palestinians.

Preferring to appease and please his extreme right-wing coalition partners rather than to deal honestly with growing international demands for ending the 42-year-old Nazi-like occupation, Netanyahu is increasingly betting on Barak, who is mendaciously marketed by the Israeli hasbra machine as "leftist" and Israeli President Shimon Peres, the presumed "dove of peace".

Many cartoons I have seen depict Obama and the Leader of Iran shaking hands as if they are allies. Letters to the editor in Ha'aretz indicate the people of Israel are buying this fabrication. Also, is it not the Jewish way, as Netanyahu is here, to shift the blame onto someone else? To pose as athe wronged innocent not at fault for a thing?

Last week, Peres, who participated in an interfaith conference in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, called on Saudi King Abdullah "to meet me in Jerusalem, or Riyadh or any other place to make the promise of peace come true."

Viewed widely as a master of hypocrisy and moral duplicity, Peres utterly ignored the fact that the dream of peace has been virtually killed by the inexorable Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank and also by consistent Israeli rejection of all Arab peace offers, including Saudi Arabia's own Arab peace initiative.

Nonetheless, it is increasingly clear that neither Netanyahu's prevarication, nor Barak's salesman tactics, and not even Peres's public relations magic are making many people give Israel the benefit of the doubt.

On Monday, 6 July, former Israeli foreign minister and opposition leader Tzipi Livni accused Netanyahu of being dishonest and disingenuous about his declared commitment to the two-state solution.

I never thought I would hear myself saying "Go Tzipi! Go!"

"He doesn't know that this is the right path for Israel, but he understands this is the right thing to say. The world is demanding it, so he says 'I have to say it,' this is how he explained his speech to his faction members," Livni was quoted as saying.

Meanwhile, the expansion of settlements goes on unabated as if there is no crisis over the matter. The Jerusalem Post on 6 July reported that the government was providing financial inducements to encourage settlers to buy homes in the West Bank.

Over this summer, an influx of at least 3000 Americans will be moved into the settlements. There was wide advertising and many of them, already dedicated Zionists, see this as a wonderful opportunity to escape the problems of America for a better home and place to be. Few probably know the reality of life in Israel, but they are going anyhow. As well, many of the most extremist settlers and rabbis are ~ yes ~ American. And some of the most violent leaders are or were ~ again yes ~ American. There is NO WAY Obama could not be aware of this going on.

The heavy subsidies, said Peace Now, which monitors Jewish settlement expansion in the West Bank, would help potential settlers move to the settlements. "In this way, the government proves its rejection of the two-state solution."