PRESIDENT OBAMA ATTEMPTS TO SHORE UP SUPPORT AT AIPAC CONFERENCE
BY: FERN SIDMAN
In an address aimed at placating his disgruntled Jewish supporters, President Barack Obama told his audience of over 10,000 at the annual AIPAC policy conference in Washington, D.C. on Sunday that "a strong and secure Israel is in the interest of the United States and the bond between our two vibrant democracies must be nurtured."
He maintained that he did not say anything fundamentally new in his Thursday speech,, when he mentioned the "1967 borders" as a basis for future peaceTaking intense criticism from pro-Israel supporters since then, when he called for Israel to negotiate a future Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders, he sought to heal wounds by enumerating actions taken by the US to foster Israel's security."We have made the most advanced technologies available to Israel including the 'iron dome' anti-rocket system. We have imposed the toughest sanctions on the Iranian regime as we remain committed to stopping Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. We have told the United Nations that it will meet resistance from the US as we stand in steadfast opposition to their efforts to isolate and delegitimize Israel. We responded to the Goldstone report by reasserting our belief that Israel has a right to defend herself", declared President Obama. Obama said "demographic realities are making it harder to maintain Israel as both a Jewish and democratic state and a just and lasting peace can only be achieved through the establishment of two states for two peoples. Warning that procrastination on a peace deal with the Palestinians will only serve to "undermine" Israel's security, President Obama said that any borders for a proposed Palestinian state would be predicated upon "mutual swaps" and recognition that geo-political realities have changed since 1967. "We must acknowledge that a failure to try and make peace is not acceptable," he said.
He insisted that his statement last week, in which he mentioned the 1949-1967 borders as the basis for a peace agreement, was a continuation of the policy of previous administrations. Regarding the phrase “1967 lines,” Obama repeated part of his Thursday speech verbatim.
“Let me reaffirm what ‘1967 lines with swaps’ means,” he then added. “The parties themselves will negotiate a border that is different than the one that existed in 1967. That is what ‘mutually agreed swaps’ means. It allows for the parties to take account of the changes that have taken place over the past 44 years, including demographic facts on the ground and the needs of both sides.”
Disclosing the essence of his meeting on Friday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Obama said, "As friends often do, we may disagree. We have an open and honest relationship.".
“Core issues can only be negotiated in direct talks between the parties,” he said, and reaffirmed that no country can be expected to negotiate with a terror organization bent on its destruction. Hamas, he said, must recognize Israel’s right to exist, reject violence and adhere to all existing agreements between the Palestinian Authority and Israel.
He called on Hamas to release captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit – and received a rousing ovation.
“What I did Thursday was to say publicly what has long been acknowledged privately,” he explained. “I did so because the world is moving too fast for us to wait another decade. Delay will undermine Israel’s security.”
He concluded with a quote from the Talmud, which says that as long as a person breathes, he should not abandon faith.
There was speculation that Obama would use the opportunity to announce a visit to Israel in late June, but he did not do so.
In his speech, which began shortly before 11:00 EDT, Obama told the audience that in his meeting with Binyamin Netanyahu, "We reaffirmed the fundamental truth that the bonds between the U.S. and Israel are unbreakable and the commitment of the US to Israel’s security is ironclad."
The US and Israel do not just share strategic interests or common dangers – like terrorism and the spread of nuclear weapons, he said. Rather, America’s commitment to Israel’s security flows from common values.
Obama reminded his audience of his visit to Israel before the 2008 election, and of his meeting with a Sderot boy who lost his leg in a Kassam attack.
He promised to continue to stand up to Hizbullah, and to block any attempt to delegitimize Israel. He cited the Durban conference, from which the US withdrew. “In both word and deed we have been unwavering in our support of Israel’s security,” he told the audience.
The conference is the largest in AIPAC history and includes more than 10,000 delegates, from all 50 states. According to AIPAC, the Policy Conference is the largest annual bipartisan gathering of U.S. senators, representatives, administration officials, diplomats and foreign ambassadors except for the State of the Union address.
 by Khaled Abu ToamehNow it’s official: the honeymoon between the Palestinians and the administration of President Barack Obama is over. It was a honeymoon that lasted for nearly one year.
Many Palestinians were convinced that because of his color and background, Obama “was on our side.” They believed that in the White House there was finally a president who was more sympathetic to their causes and who would abandon Washington’s “bias” in favor of Israel.
Over the past year, mainstream Palestinian and Arab media outlets had been heaping praise on Obama, especially what they perceived to be his hostile attitude toward settlement construction. Reports about a crisis in relations bewteen the US and Israel were welcomed by many. It is hard to remember when the last time a US president had received positive coverage in the Arab media.
The Palestinians and Arabs liked Obama especially because he was not George W. Bush.
They liked him because he said he would close Guatanamo Prison. They liked him because he traveled all the way to Cairo to address Arabs and Muslims and offer them an olive branch. They adored him because he seemed to be exerting heavy pressure on Israel.
Now, however, they feel betrayed by the Obama Administration. They have discovered that Obama is actually “continuing the Bush doctrine” with regards to the Middle East conflict. As far as they are concerned, Obama has “succumbed to pressure from the Jewish lobby in the US.”
 By Elliott Abrams In an op-ed on Sunday ["The Elders' View of the Middle East"], former president Jimmy Carter, speaking on behalf of a self-appointed group of "Elders," described a rapacious Israel facing long-suffering, blameless Palestinians, who are contemplating a "nonviolent civil rights struggle" in which "their examples would be Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela." As with most of Carter's recent statements about Israel and the Palestinians, instead of facts we get vignettes from recent Carter travels. And while he finds "a growing sense of concern and despair" among "increasingly desperate" Palestinians, polls do not sustain this view. The most recent survey by the leading Palestinian pollster, Khalil Shikaki (done in August, the same month Carter visited), shows "considerable improvement in public perception of personal and family security and safety in the West Bank and a noticeable decrease in public perception of the existence of corruption in [Palestinian Authority] institutions." This does not sound like despair. In fact, positive views of personal and family safety and security in the West Bank stood at 25 percent four years ago, 35 percent two years ago and 43 percent a year ago, and they have risen to 58 percent in the past year, Shikaki reports. There are other ways to measure quality of life in the West Bank: The International Monetary Fund recently stated that "macroeconomic conditions in the West Bank have improved" largely because "Israeli restrictions on internal trade and the passage of people have been relaxed significantly." Read more here ... Source: Washington PostH/T: GH
 The recent eruption of anti-Semitic bigotry in Sweden, amid lurid allegations published in the country’s top selling newspaper about Israeli soldiers conspiring with American Jews in harvesting the organs of Palestinian children, has now been pushed to the top of the European agenda.
According to a report in Israel’s Haaretz newspaper today, Italian foreign minister Franco Frattini has brokered an agreement with his Swedish counterpart Carl Bildt that a statement will be issued condemning anti-Semitism at a European Union foreign ministers meeting later this week. However, given the Swedish government’s dissembling on the affair what matters now is whether the statement is as clear and unambiguous as Frattini would like it to be or whether it will be watered down. Frattini told Haaretz that the allegations in Aftonbladet were: “terrible conclusions, lying and hurtful, and they have the power to assist all those who seek to incite against Jews or who oppose the existence of the State of Israel.” Sweden, by contrast, has adamantly refused to condemn the allegations.
The issue arises following allegations in the Aftonbladet newspaper that Israeli soldiers routinely kill Palestinian children to cut out their bodily organs and sell them on the international black market.
The reporter of the story himself admitted that he had “no clue” whether the allegations were true, as has the Palestinian source of the allegations, suggesting that the editorial team at Aftonbladet had simply ignored basic journalistic standards in order to smear the Jewish state in a manner reminiscent of medieval blood libels. The affair has sparked a major diplomatic row between Sweden, the current holder of the EU’s rotating presidency, and Israel. The Israeli foreign mininstry said it would be watching how the EU handles the situation closely. Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor was quoted by Haaretz as saying: “Every initiative against anti-Semitism is welcome… But if the declaration is general and does not specifically relate to the article in Aftonbladet, it will not resolve anything.” To read the full article, click here: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1111229.html Source: Robin Shepherd
 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ISRAEL is believed to be considering a compromise deal on Jewish settlements in the West Bank but will refuse to back down over Jerusalem, which Israelis and Palestinians claim as their capital. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived in London yesterday for talks with US special envoy George Mitchell and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Detailed talks between Israeli and US officials have continued since President Barack Obama and Mr Netanyahu met in May. Although Israel publicly refuses to stop activity in its settlements, arguing "natural growth" needs to continue, Israeli officials say privately they would like to make some compromise to the US, which is trying to restart peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians. It is believed this could involve a freeze for up to a year on all settlement activity. Mr Netanyahu surprised many this week when he said it was possible he could be sitting down for renewed talks next month with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. "Israel, the US and others are interested in resuming direct talks with the Palestinians," he told his cabinet meeting on Sunday. "This can possibly be done in late September, but will first require reaching understandings with the Americans and the Palestinian Authority." He said areas of disagreement between the US and Israel had been reduced. The US suggested yesterday that the resumption of peace talks was getting closer. Israel's preparedness to compromise follows the US bringing forward its deadline for Iran to commit to allowing international inspectors into its nuclear facilities. Mr Obama had said he wanted this commitment by "the end of the year" but US Secretary of Defence Robert Gates has said since that the deadline was the end of next month. Israel has made clear to US officials that although it is prepared to address the Palestinian issue, the problem of Iran is more urgent. Read more here ... Source: The Australian
 Aftonbladet editor Jan Helin The family and relatives of Bilal Ahmed Ghanem, the Palestinian at the center of the organ-theft story in the Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet, said on Monday that they didn't know if the accusations were true or not. The family lives in the tiny village of Imatin in the northern West Bank. Ghanem, 19, was killed by IDF soldiers during the first intifada on May 13, 1992. He was a Fatah activist who was wanted by the IDF for his involvement in violence. His mother, Sadeeka, said he was shot by an IDF sniper as he walked out of his home. "The bullets hit him directly in the heart," she said. Ghanem's younger brother, Jalal, said he could not confirm the allegations made by the Swedish newspaper that his brother's organs had been stolen. "I don't know if this is true," he said. "We don't have any evidence to support this." Jalal said his brother was evacuated by the IDF in a helicopter and delivered to the family only a few days later. The mother denied that she had told any foreign journalist that her son's organs had been stolen. However, she said that now she does not rule out the possibility that Israel was harvesting organs of Palestinians. Jalal and two cousins who claimed that they saw the body said the young man's teeth were missing. They also said they saw stitches that ran from the chest down to the bottom of the stomach. Read more here ... Source: JPost Jan Helin
Aftonbladet
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 JERUSALEM (CNN) - Israel on Sunday withheld the press credentials of a Swedish newspaper in retaliation for a controversial piece that suggested the Israeli army kidnapped and killed young Palestinians to harvest their organs.The journalists need the credentials to report from Gaza. "We have no duty to supply them with press cards immediately; (we) have 90 days to decide about their status," said Danny Siman, the head of the government press office. The article, "Our sons are being stripped of their organs," appeared Tuesday in Aftonbladet and was an opinion piece written by freelance journalist Donald Bostrom. Bostrom told CNN he had no proof that Israeli soldiers were stealing organs, and that the purpose of his piece was to call for an investigation into numerous claims in the 1990s that such activity was going on in the West Bank and Gaza. Even though the Swedish embassy distanced itself from the report, the country's foreign ministry refused to condemn it -- saying Sweden has a "free press." The refusal has rankled Israel, which said it will submit an official complaint. "This is an anti-Semitic blood libel against the Jewish people and the Jewish state. The Swedish government cannot remain apathetic," said Israel's Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz. "We know the origins of these claims. In medieval times, there were claims that the Jews use the blood of Christians to bake their Matzas for Passover. The modern version now is that the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) soldiers use organs of Palestinians to make money." He continued: "It makes no difference whether this comes from a neo-Nazi organization or from an honorable newspaper. The Swedish government must renounce itself from this anti-Semitic publication." The article centers around the case of Bilal Ahmed Ghanem, a 19-year-old Palestinian man who was shot and killed in 1992, allegedly by Israeli forces, in the West Bank village of Imatin. Bostrom, who witnessed the man's killing, said Ghanem was taken away by Israeli forces while he was still mortally wounded. His body was returned five days later with a cut in his midsection that had been stitched up. Ghanem's family said they believed that his organs had been removed. After that incident, at least 20 Palestinian families told Bostrom that they suspected the Israeli military had taken the organs of their sons after they had been killed by Israeli forces and their bodies taken away -- presumably for routine autopsies. Bostrom said he balanced those claims in his article by including a reaction from an Israeli military spokesman who told him that the Israel Defense Forces routinely carries out autopsies on Palestinians killed by their troops. But, as he stated in his article, Bostrom said he has doubts about the necessity of the procedures if it is clear how the person died. Last week Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman compared the Swedish Foreign Ministry's hands-off position to the country's neutrality during World War II. "It's a shame that the Swedish Foreign Ministry fails to intervene in a case of blood libels against Jews," Lieberman told Sweden's ambassador to Israel on Thursday evening. "This is reminiscent of Sweden's stand during World War II, when [it] had failed to intervene as well." Source: CNN Donald Bostrom
Aftonbladet
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 Attempts in Europe to portray Israel as the modern incarnation of Nazi Germany were once the preserve of the extremists. Islamists, fascists and communists — each acting for reasons of their own — have employed the technique to portray the Jewish state as the epitome of political evil with which no compromise can be made and for whom total eradication is the only acceptable outcome. It is a sign of the times, however, that the Nazification of Israel as a technique of denigration has begun to invade the mainstream. In my forthcoming book — A State Beyond the Pale: Europe’s Problem with Israel — I provide an entire section on the Nazi analogy as well as some opinion poll evidence on just how widespread its usage has become. A commentary in today’s Guardian by the prominent Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek offers a perfect illustration of how the technique is now employed.
Zizek, who has near iconic status among Europe’s liberal-Left, begins his piece with some familiar distortions about the eviction earlier this month of two Palestinian families from their homes in the east Jerusalem district of Sheikh Jarrah.
Zizek presents what was in fact an eviction due to non-payment of rent as merely one instance of a broader policy of ethnic cleansing — a policy which is reminiscent, he infers, of the way the Nazis treated the Jews. “The state of Israel is clearly engaged in a slow, invisible process, ignored by the media,” he says. “One day, the world will awake and discover that there is no more Palestinian West Bank, that the land is Palestinian-frei, and that we must accept the fact.” (My itallics) There is plenty to be said about Israeli settlement policy and much that can be criticised. But what possessed Zizek to use, and the Guardian to allow, the term “Palestinian-frei”?
It is obviously an inversion of the Nazi term Judenfrei, literally meaning free of Jews. (Linguists suggest that it is not as strong as the term Judenrein (cleansed of Jews) but its purpose and etymology is clear.) There is no repetition of the term. It is not dwelt upon. There is no great fanfare. It is just slipped casually into the narrative in a manner which suggests that its usage is considered by both author and newspaper as normal. And that, of course, goes to the heart of the problem. The denigration of the Jewish state in modern Europe has now become part of such an edifice of hatred and bigotry that there are no longer any taboos. It is now possible to say anything, literally anything, about Israel, however grotesque and defamatory, and to feel no shame, to invite no censure. No other state in the world is talked about in such a manner. And yes, it is anti-Semitism. And yes, it’s back. To read the full article, click here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/aug/18/west-bank-israel-settlers-palestinians Source: Robyn Shepherd Slavoj Zizek
The Guardian
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 Civilians ducking for cover at the sound of a sirenHuman Rights Watch publishes new report on Islamist group's attacks on Israel since November '08; says Hamas violated international law by targeting civilian population in south, unnecessarily risking Palestinian civilians in Strip
A new Humans Right Watch report determined Thursday that Hamas rocket fire on Israel's south constitutes a war crime.The 25-page report documents rocket fire from the Gaza Strip towards Israel starting November 2008 – a period when three Israelis were killed and dozens of others injured as a result of projectiles. The report states that the rocket fire caused extensive damage and forced people out of their homes. Contrary to international law, the fire was aimed at civilian population within a 25-mile radius, endangering some 800,000 Israelis.
During the same time period, several rockets fired at Israel landed on the Palestinian side of the security fence, killing two girls and injuring numerous other Palestinians. Moreover, said the report, armed militants firing rockets from densely populated areas in the Strip were putting Palestinian civilians in harms way by risking Israeli counter-strikes, thus grossly breaching the rules of war. The report further states that Hamas rocket fire on Israeli civilians is illegal, unjustified and constitutes a war crime. As the ruling authority in the Gaza Strip, it added, Hamas must publicly renounce rocket fire on populated Israeli areas, and punish those responsible for it, including members of Hamas' own military wings. According to internationally accepted Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC), anyone who sanctions and/or initiates indiscriminate or direct attacks on civilian population is guilty of war crimes. The report focuses on events which occurred from November 2008 and on, which is when the Palestinian militant groups renewed their fire on southern Israel.  Home damaged by Grad rocketHuman Rights Watch based its report on eyewitness reports, field reports and various media reports. The brief details many cases in which Israelis and Palestinians were killed or injured as a result of Hamas fire, but nevertheless, it states that it found no deliberate pattern by Hamas, to use civilians as human shields. Still, HRW did find that the Palestinian groups systematically breached the LOAC code by failing to take every possible precaution to avoid putting Gazans at risk. Hamas' military wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, has claimed the attacks which resulted in three Israeli deaths. The Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades and Islamic Jihad's al-Quds Brigades claim they fired 820 rockets on Israel during Operation Cast Lead in early 2009. The incessant, years-long rocket fire on Israel's south, concluded the report, has taken a serious psychological toll on the area's residents. The rules of war prohibit launching attacks aimed solely at terrorizing civilian population. Source: Ynet
By Joel B. PollakA grave injustice is being committed against the Palestinian people -- perhaps among the greatest in their history. Thousands are being systematically robbed of their citizenship, made stateless once more by a hard-hearted government that pays lip service to peace and the two-state solution, but which seems determined to undermine both.
Israel? No -- the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, the monarchy that occupied the West Bank from 1948 to 1967 and which has long had an uneasy relationship with its Palestinian majority. Now, cynically claiming that it has the Palestinians' best interests at heart, the regime of King Abdullah II has begun removing the citizenship of Palestinians with roots in the West Bank.
Article 15 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights reads:
(1) Everyone has the right to a nationality.
(2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.
The Jordanian policy is a clear violation of these fundamental rights. Thus far, it has been met with protest in Amman and mild complaint from the Jordanian media. Yet the rest of the world has been silent.
That includes the world's leading human rights organizations. As of this writing, the front page of Amnesty International's website features an appeal for Israel to cooperate with the UN's "independent" fact-finding mission on Gaza, but nothing on Jordan. Human Rights Watch, which recently bashed Israel for the benefit of donors in Saudi Arabia, has yet to react.
The official explanation given for the decision to revoke the citizenship of Jordanians of Palestinian origin is that Jordan wants to send a signal to the Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu: Jordan will not allow Israel to "resettle" Palestinians in Jordan. Never mind that the people who are losing their citizenship were "resettled" in Jordan decades ago.
It seems probable that the real motive of the Jordanian decision is to entrench the control of the Hashemite monarchy to stave off demands for democratic reform. The rise of democracy in Iraq and the recent protests in the streets of Tehran have created new expectations that the region's autocrats are desperate to subdue.
So, too, with Jordan. Though it is among the more liberal Arab states and enjoys both peace with Israel and free trade with the U.S., the monarchy is fragile. Its decision to strip Palestinians of their citizenship puts the peace process at risk by creating the false expectation that Israel will absorb millions of Palestinians currently outside its borders. Yet that is a risk the monarchy seems prepared to take to protect itself.
The Kingdom's decision may be also regarded as a response to President Barack Obama's new Middle East policy. Emboldened by Obama's harsh approach to Israel and his meek support for democratic movements in the region, Jordan has taken the opportunity to restore "stability," using Palestinians once again as the political pawns of the Arab world.
Neither Obama nor Secretary of State Hillary Clinton -- voluble in recent days on the need for Israeli concessions and "self-reflection" -- has criticized Jordan, though the U.S. has a great deal of leverage there. The Palestinian diaspora, so quick to protest when Israel defends itself against Hamas terror, is nowhere to be seen.
When Netanyahu appointed Avigdor Lieberman as his foreign minister, there was global alarm. Lieberman was already notorious for his radical and reprehensible suggestion in 2004 that Israel might one day strip its Arab citizens of their citizenship. Yet now Jordan has begun to do exactly that, and the world has encouraged it through stark indifference.
The issue ought to be an urgent priority for the UN Human Rights Council. Ironically, Jordan was re-elected to a seat on the council in May -- the same election that saw the U.S. join the council as well. If U.S. membership is to mean anything more than a legitimization of the council's anti-Israel bias, it must raise the issue of Palestinians in Jordan before the council's next session opens in September.
Until then, this episode serves as a reminder not only of the casual disregard of Palestinian human rights in the Arab world, and the anti-Israel bias of much of the human rights community, but also of the risks of subjecting American prerogatives to the judgment of international institutions run by countries that violate at home what they try to enforce abroad.
The Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, passed in the aftermath of the Civil War, prevents the government from depriving any American of his or her citizenship. Theoretically, Jordanian citizens enjoy constitutional rights of their own, but the Jordanian constitution begins its section on rights with a disclaimer: "Jordanian Nationality shall be defined by law."
For the Palestinians of Jordan, their country's leadership in the UN Human Rights Council and subscription to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are of little use or comfort against the arbitrary powers of their government and the passivity of the international community. As the U.S. takes its seat on the council, theirs is a sobering example, and a warning worth remembering.
Joel B. Pollak is a recent Harvard Law graduate and the author of Don't Tell Me Words Don't Matter: How Rhetoric Won the 2008 Presidential Election.
By HERB KEINON Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu lifted the shroud from his diplomatic endgame on Sunday night, saying at the BESA Center at Bar-Ilan University that he would support a Palestinian state if he received international guarantees that it would be demilitarized, and if the Palestinians accepted Israel as the Jewish homeland.  Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu delivers his speech at Bar-Ilan University, Sunday.
Photo: AP "If we receive this guarantee regarding demilitarization and Israel's security needs, and if the Palestinians recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people, then we will be ready in a future peace agreement to reach a solution where a demilitarized Palestinian state exists alongside the Jewish state," Netanyahu said to applause - the first time he has said he would accept a Palestinian state. US President Barack Obama welcomed the prime minister's speech, calling it an important step forward. "The president is committed to two states, a Jewish State of Israel and an independent Palestine, in the historic homeland of both peoples," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said in a statement. "He believes this solution can and must ensure both Israel's security and the fulfillment of the Palestinians' legitimate aspirations for a viable state, and he welcomes Prime Minister Netanyahu's endorsement of that goal." But Palestinian Authority officials in Ramallah expressed outrage and shock over Netanyahu's call for a demilitarized Palestinian state and his demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state. The officials said the speech was much worse than they had expected. They also warned that Netanyahu's policies would trigger a new intifada. In his much anticipated, 30-minute speech that was broadcast live both in Israel and in much of the Arab world, the prime minister not only dealt with the two-state issue, but also confronted the contentious issue of settlement construction head-on, saying that he would not - as the US and the Arab world are demanding - freeze all settlement construction. "The territorial question will be discussed as part of the final peace agreement," he said. "In the meantime, we have no intention of building new settlements or of expropriating additional land for existing settlements." But, he added, "There is a need to enable the residents to live normal lives, to allow mothers and fathers to raise their children like families elsewhere. The settlers are neither the enemies of the people nor the enemies of peace. Rather, they are an integral part of our people, a principled, pioneering and Zionist public." Regarding Jerusalem, Netanyahu said it "must remain the united capital of Israel with continued religious freedom for all faiths." He did not tackle the issue of a Palestinian state, or the settlement issue, until well into his remarks, and until after he corrected the impression Obama left with his Cairo address on June 4, that Israel was the product of the Holocaust, and not the result of a timeless Jewish connection to the Land of Israel. The connection between the Jewish people and the Land of Israel goes back more than 3,500 years, the prime minister said. "This is the land of our forefathers. "The right of the Jewish people to a state in the Land of Israel does not derive from the catastrophes that have plagued our people," he said. "True, for 2,000 years the Jewish people suffered expulsions, pogroms, blood libels and massacres which culminated in a Holocaust - a suffering which has no parallel in human history. "There are those who say that if the Holocaust had not occurred, the State of Israel would never have been established. But I say that if the State of Israel would have been established earlier, the Holocaust would not have occurred." Netanyahu, clearly relating to Obama's narrative in the Cairo speech, said the Jews' right to a sovereign state in Israel "arises from one simple fact: this is the homeland of the Jewish people, this is where our identity was forged." Alongside this truth, he said, is another: "Within this homeland lives a large Palestinian community. We do not want to rule over them, we do not want to govern their lives, we do not want to impose either our flag or our culture on them." The prime minister said that in his vision of peace; two peoples will "live freely, side by side, in amity and mutual respect. Each will have its own flag, its own national anthem, its own government. Neither will threaten the security or survival of the other." Any peace agreement would need to be based on two principles: the first is a clear and unambiguous Palestinian recognition of Israel as the state of the Jewish people, and the second is that a future Palestinian state "must be demilitarized with ironclad security provisions for Israel," he said. Unless these two conditions were met, he said, "there is a real danger that an armed Palestinian state would emerge that would become another terrorist base against the Jewish state, such as the one in Gaza. We don't want Kassam rockets on Petah Tikva, Grad rockets on Tel Aviv, or missiles on Ben-Gurion Airport. We want peace." Netanyahu did not spell out what type of international guarantees he had in mind, but said that to achieve peace, "we must ensure that Palestinians will not be able to import missiles into their territory, to field an army, to close their airspace to us, or to make pacts with the likes of Hizbullah and Iran." In an apparent reference to unceasing calls from the US administration for Israel to declare it is willing for a Palestinian state to be established, Netanyahu said, "It is impossible to expect us to agree in advance to the principle of a Palestinian state without assurances that this state will be demilitarized. On a matter so critical to the existence of Israel, we must first have our security needs addressed." He began his tightly written speech by stressing the importance peace has always played in Jewish civilization, and then by saying he supported Obama's vision for regional peace and security. "I turn to all Arab leaders tonight and I say: "Let us meet. Let us speak of peace and let us make peace. I am ready to meet with you at any time. I am willing to go to Damascus, to Riyadh, to Beirut, to any place - including Jerusalem," he said. Read the rest here... Source: Jerusalem Post
 By: Alan M. Dershowitz
Rahm Emanuel is a good man and a good friend of Israel, but in a highly publicized recent statement he linked American efforts to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons to Israeli efforts toward establishing a Palestinian state. This is a dangerous linkage.
I have long favored the two-state solution, as do most Israelis and American supporters of Israel. I have also long opposed civilian settlements deep into the West Bank. I hope that Israel does make efforts, as it has in the past, to establish a Palestinian state as part of an overall peace between the Jewish state and its Arab and Muslim neighbors.
Israel in 2000-2001 offered the Palestinians a state in the entire Gaza Strip and more than 95% of the West Bank, with its capital in Jerusalem and a $35 billion compensation package for the refugees. Yassir Arafat rejected the offer and instead began the second intifada in which nearly 5,000 people were killed. I hope that Israel once again offers the Palestinians a contiguous, economically-viable, politically independent state, in exchange for a real peace, with security, without terrorism and without any claim to "return" 4 million alleged refugees as a way of destroying Israel by demography rather than violence. Read more ...
Source: FrontPage
May 11 Stephen Suleyman Schwartz
Executive Director, Center for Islamic Pluralism The Durban Review Conference held by the United Nations in Geneva last month featured peace offerings to radical Islam. Specifically, it provided a platform for the ignorant blustering of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and for an unsuccessful campaign by Saudi Arabia to criminalize critical expression about religion. Although Ahmadinejad framed his denunciations as castigation of all the world’s ruling elite, his favored target was Israel. And while the Saudi campaign against “defamation of prophets” is phrased as a defense of all the monotheistic religions, it is clear the effort, which will doubtless be ongoing, is intended to suppress discussion of extremism and other problematical aspects of contemporary Islam. The Geneva meeting also enabled the dictatorships of Libya and Cuba, along with that of Iran, to usurp presumptive responsibility for the global defense of human rights. Some might leap to the assumption that the UN, and especially its Western European members, take such a position out of weakness in the face of an expansive and aggressive Islam. But UN pusillanimity when facing tyrannical arrogance is nothing new and did not begin with Islamic issues, notwithstanding the powerful influence in the world body of the Arab and other Muslim energy states. The UN in Geneva has faithfully maintained the syndrome observed in its predecessor, the League of Nations; both were created to secure peace, rather than freedom. This reflects a dissonance between Europe, which historically favored peace over freedom, and America, which has supported freedom over peace. The American-European contradiction over freedom and peace has remained an unchanging paradigm, reflected in the failure of the League of Nations through appeasement of the fascist dictators, and the many and various misadventures of the UN. In the name of peace, rather than the freedom of an elected liberal government, the League of Nations imposed a naval embargo on the Spanish Republic, contributing to its defeat in that country’s civil war. A desire for peace caused the French to surrender to the Germans. Love of peace drove the Dutch to provide the largest number of foreign volunteers to the Waffen-SS and hand over to Hitler’s minions the biggest national percentage of Western European Jews to die in the Holocaust. For the same reasons, Stalin was allowed to occupy half of Europe and granted three seats in the UN. As described in Geneva last month by my journalistic colleague, Khaled Abu Toameh, the UN and the European leaders of the so-called “international community,” by financing the corrupt Palestinian Authority, imposed a “peace agreement” on Israelis and Arabs that has failed to secure freedom for either nation. But the evils of the UN in the Israeli-Arab chapter of Middle East history are old news. Everybody has heard of “war crimes” - but “peace crimes” can be more devastating, and more permanent. The UN has refused to act on Tibet, denying any assistance to a people demanding freedom from Chinese imperialism. During the Bosnian war of 1992-95, the Europeans and the UN reproduced exactly their attitudes toward the American and Spanish civil wars - they succeeded, in the interest of peace, in continuing the partition of Bosnia-Hercegovina and maintaining a mafia state, the so-called “Republika Srpska.” More ...Source: Hudson New York
 Amir Taheri | April 21 As Palestinians wonder about what they could do next, they would do well to remember that their starting point is a double failure shaped over the past decade. The first of the two failures is that of Al Fatah, which has dominated Palestinian politics since the 1960s and exercised control over the Palestinian Authority in the wake of the Oslo accords. At some point in its history, Al Fatah may well have devoted its energies to a grand, though so far futile, struggle to create a Palestinian state. Since 1991, however, Al Fatah has been principally interested in one goal: its own survival and the prosperity of the elite that sustains it. With the late Yasser Arafat showing the way, Al Fatah has kicked its former national aspirations into tall grass. Each time its narrow interests clashed with the broader interest of the national struggle, Al Fatah clung firmly to the former and jettisoned the latter. Al Fatah, and beyond it the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which it controls, have danced to every tune of the day in the same way western teen-agers go for pop "tubes" of the season. The Oslo accords were designed to drown the fish, that is to say bury the national aspirations of the Palestinians under tons of paper. The PLO adopted them with excessive zeal. Then we had the so-called Road Map, presented by President George W Bush, a kind of political bikini, revealing everything except the essential. Again, the PLO, and Al Fatah, bought into it without a flutter. Finally, we had the "two states" formula, also presented by Bush. The PLO adopted this as a slogan but did all it could to prevent any step towards achieving it. Arafat's departure from the scene did not change the essentials. Amir Taheri's new book, "The Persian Night", is published by Encounter Books, New York and London. More.... Source: Hudson New York
OVER the next year or two, probably for as long as it stays in office, there will be a sustained effort to demonise the Israeli Government of Benjamin Netanyahu. The speech last week by Netanyahu's Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, in which he explicitly supported a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute but was reported as if he had said the opposite, is a case in point. But even the way Netanyahu and Lieberman are typically described is entirely misleading. Netanyahu, not least in the Australian media, is almost always called "hardline right-wing". This would be the equivalent of calling the government of John Howard or Malcolm Fraser hardline right-wing, or calling the recently defeated government of Helen Clark in New Zealand hardline left-wing. Netanyahu leads the Likud Party, which has been Israel's main centre-right party for decades. Under Menachem Begin in the 1970s, a Likud government gave up the whole of the Sinai desert in a land-for-peace deal with Egypt. Netanyahu, who has held many portoflios in previous governments, has as part of his coalition the left-of-centre Israeli Labour Party. It would be much more honest to label Netanyahu's Government centre-right. This question of language is of the first order of importance. The ancient Chinese sage Confucius, when asked what would be the main political reform he would carry out if he achieved state power, replied: "It would certainly be to rectify the names." Israel's enemies, heirs to ancient anti-Semitism, are on a relentless quest to delegitimise and demonise it at every point. Mislabelling a democratic government of mainstream, democratic politicians as hardline right-wing is an important part of that quest. What about Lieberman's speech? Lieberman is the leader of the Yisrael Beiteinu party. Lieberman too has previously been a cabinet minister. His party is mainly supported by Russian immigrants. It is fair to say he is to the right of Netanyahu but not fair to say he is an extremist. His policies mix a hard line on national security with social liberalism. Russian Israelis often have a somewhat attenuated connection to Orthodox Judaism and can therefore be disadvantaged in rulings concerning conversion, marriage and other family matters, where religious parties have considerable influence. There is nothing sinister about this. It is the sort of debate Ireland had in recent years about allowing divorce. Lieberman wants to secularise these matters. On security issues his sharp language marks him out as a polarising figure. But there is no doubt he is a democrat and, by broader Middle East standards, an extremely mild politician. He is most famous for wanting all Israelis to take a loyalty oath. This is seen as insulting to Israel's Arab citizens. I think it is an unhelpful and unnecessarily polarising proposal, but it is not the black hand of fascism. Similarly, Lieberman wants all Israelis to be forced to undertake military or other national service. This is also seen as hitting at Israeli Arabs, as they may not want to serve in the Israeli Defence Forces. But Lieberman also wants this provision enforced on Orthodox Jews, who do not do military service either. Further, in Lieberman's vision of a two-state solution he is keen to transfer Israeli Arab towns into a Palestinian state. Some territorial swap is inevitable if a two-state solution is to work, but presumably no Israeli citizen would be forced to give up their citizenship, whatever happened to the land underneath them. So Lieberman's proposal cannot remotely be classed as ethnic cleansing or anything like it. I think Lieberman's rhetoric is often unhelpful to Israel and exacerbates problems, but it is certainly not unreasonable for Lieberman to want to debate the civic identity of Israel's Arab citizens. In his initial speech as Foreign Minister on March 30, Lieberman said the Annapolis peace process, which has been running for the past couple of years, is dead. But Lieberman fully committed himself to the road map negotiated and endorsed in 2002 by the US, the European Union, the UN and Russia, which also involves commitment to a two-state solution. There is only one difference between the road map and Annapolis. Annapolis was based on the idea that the Israelis and Palestinians negotiate a final status agreement now on who would have what territory, and then one day the Palestinians will be able to form a government that can rule its own territories and provide proper security. The road map, on the other hand, provided for reciprocity: that both the Palestinians and the Israelis had to undertake certain obligations along the way. Israel had to dismantle illegal Jewish settlements (that is, illegal under Israeli law) and prevent any territorial expansion in the existing settlements. (Lieberman is at times even critical of the previous government for not doing this.) The Palestinians had to form a functioning government and suppress terrorism. When the Israelis withdrew unilaterally from Gaza, this was a kind of road test for Annapolis. But all they got, after a temporary ceasefire, was a constant barrage of rocket attacks. The Netanyahu Government is now inclined to stress reciprocity. Indeed, in responding to Lieberman's remarks US spokesmen did all stress reciprocity. Netanyahu, when in office previously, made a number of agreements that involved Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian land and all of which had as their object a two-state solution. Like Lieberman, Netanyahu is committed to the road map, which has as its goal an independent Palestinian state. But this is dependent on the Palestinians forming an effective and sensible government and meaningfully renouncing terrorism. This is completely out of the question at the moment because half the potential Palestinian state, Gaza, is ruled by the terrorist death cult Hamas. Despite the protestations of Hamas sympathisers in Australia, the Hamas leadership, the charter which it still upholds and all Hamas spokesmen say Hamas will never recognise Israel's right to exist or to occupy a single inch of territory. This is not the occupied territories we're talking about but Israel proper. Hamas has also said it will never give up terrorism. Hamas may one day change its mind on all this, but at the moment it is inconceivable that the Palestinians could meet their obligations under the road map. That rules out a Palestinian state for the moment. It remains an ambition of the vast majority of Israelis that they can live in peace beside a peaceful neighbour, both behind agreed borders. In saying this is not available at the moment, neither Netanyahu nor Lieberman rules it out forever in the future. The international press might at least get this basic fact right. Source: The Australian
JERUSALEM
Incoming Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Tuesday that "extremist Islam is trying to bring us down through terrorism from north and south" as his Cabinet prepared to take office. Netanyahu and his Cabinet were sworn in later in the day, after the Israeli parliament confirmed his new government in a 69-45 vote. The prime minister offered an olive branch of sorts to Palestinians but did not hold out the promise of their own state. "In order for there to be peace, our Palestinian allies and partners also have to fight terrorism," he said. "They must bring up their children in the spirit of tolerance and peace. In the last two decades, six heads of government in Israel have failed to achieve a peace settlement, but they were not at fault. I say to the leaders of the Palestinian Authority: If you really want peace, then peace can be achieved. "We don't want to control another people," Netanyahu said of Israel's military control of Palestinian territory, which dates to the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. "We don't want to control the Palestinians. In a final a settlement, the Palestinians will have all the rights to rule themselves except those which threaten Israel's ability to protect itself." A senior Palestinian official immediately responded that Israel must end its "occupation" of Palestinian land if it wants peace. "I hope that Mr. Netanyahu will openly accept the two-state solution, negotiation on all core issues without exception, and stop the settlement activity, including natural growth, so we can have a partner in peace-making," said Saeb Erekat, chief negotiator for the Palestinian Authority. Netanyahu described Israel's neighbors as "moderate," but, like Israel, threatened by radical Islam. "Israel strives to achieve full peace with the Arab and Islamic world, and this is entirely the case today as the Arab and Islamic world -- which is moderate -- faces extremist Islam," he said. Netanyahu, leader of the center-right Likud Party, will lead a mostly right-leaning coalition that includes the hardline Yisrael Beytenu Party and the center-left Labor Party. His Cabinet is the largest in Israeli history, with 30 ministers and deputy ministers. Opposition leader Tzipi Livni ridiculed the size of the government. "The Israeli public is a skinny person who today has had the swollen, overweight government placed on its head. It has ministers for nothing with all sorts of ridiculous titles," said Livni, the Kadima Party leader and former foreign minister who refused to join the Netanyahu coalition. Source: CNN
 By Khaled Abu Toameh During a recent visit to several university campuses in the U.S., I discovered that there is more sympathy for Hamas there than there is in Ramallah. Listening to some students and professors on these campuses, for a moment I thought I was sitting opposite a Hamas spokesman or a would-be-suicide bomber. I was told, for instance, that Israel has no right to exist, that Israel’s “apartheid system” is worse than the one that existed in South Africa and that Operation Cast Lead was launched only because Hamas was beginning to show signs that it was interested in making peace and not because of the rockets that the Islamic movement was launching at Israeli communities. I was also told that top Fatah operative Marwan Barghouti, who is serving five life terms in prison for masterminding terror attacks against Israeli civilians, was thrown behind bars simply because he was trying to promote peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Furthermore, I was told that all the talk about financial corruption in the Palestinian Authority was “Zionist propaganda” and that Yasser Arafat had done wonderful things for his people, including the establishment of schools, hospitals and universities. Read more ...Source: Hudson Institute
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