 Israeli officials on Sunday tried to downplay tensions looming with the United States after George Mitchell, the Obama administration's Middle East envoy, suggested in a PBS interview that the US could consider withholding support for loan guarantees for Israel. Israel's finance minister, Yuval Steinitz, said on Sunday that Israel has "no indication that there is any intention to pressure us through the guarantees ... only a few months ago we reached an agreement with the US treasury and state departments on the extension of their guarantees." However, he also said that Israel could do without the guarantees, if necessary. "We don't have to use those guarantees. We are doing very well without them," Mr. Steinitz said Sunday. He added in his comments that Israel late last year agreed with the US on the guarantees for 2010 and 2011, and no conditions were placed on Israel at that time.
Israeli Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar also addressed Mr. Mitchell's remark at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday, saying that Israel would act in its own interests and not according to external pressures.
"The American administration knows that those who are holding up the negotiations are the Palestinians," said Sa'ar. "Israel made many concessions while the Palestinians didn't do a thing."
From the Israeli point of view, Netanyahu's offer of a ten-month freeze in settlement construction back in November was a peace-making gesture that has not been met by Palestinian willingness to come back to the negotiating table.
But from the Palestinian viewpoint, President Mahmoud Abbas is finally "standing up" to Western pressure to return to negotiations by insisting on a full moratorium on building of Israeli settlements, including in East Jerusalem.
The Palestinians see the eastern half of the city – under Jordanian control until 1967 -- as their future capital, but Israel annexed the territory and does not consider East Jerusalem neighborhoods as settlements. US backing for Israel's loan guarantees has been a hot issue in the past, most pointedly in the early 1990s when the administration of George H. W. Bush faced a head-on collision with the Likud premier, Yitzhak Shamir, who refused to curtail settlement building in the West Bank.
Ultimately, the Bush administration decided it would subtract equivalent amounts of money from the $10 billion in loan guarantees for every dollar Israel spent building settlements in the occupied territories. The outcome of the spat was a low-point in US-Israel relations.
"Theoretically of course, the withdrawal of loan guarantees could be an act of pressure, but Israel doesn’t really need loan guarantees," says Peter Medding, an expert on US-Israel relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. "But if they try to do it, as they did very unsuccessfully in the early 1990s, it would have to come from the White House. I don't think it's Obama's style, and I don't think it fits the circumstances.
If anything, they've been trying to persuade Abbas to come to the party, and are still waiting for him. " More at CSM 
 by Daniel Greenfield While the media and politicians wail over Israeli settlements and revisionist historians pen narratives in which Israel’s entire history comes down to a plot to seize Arab land (following in the footsteps of how their American counterparts have reinterpreted US history)... very little is said of Israel’s Arab settlements. But Arab settlements in Israel far outweigh Jewish ones and have far less legitimate roots. Consider East Jerusalem, which Obama and the EU are insisting should be reserved for Arab residency alone. East Jerusalem does indeed have a solid Arab majority because in 1948 the armies of seven Arab nations invaded Israel and occupied half of Jerusalem, dividing it as their Soviet allies divided Berlin, and ethnically cleansed its Jewish population.
Jewish places of worship in East Jerusalem were bombed or turned into mosques and toilets, even the dead were not allowed to rest in peace as their tombstones were used to pave roads. Jewish homes were seized by Arabs and East Jerusalem became wholly Arab. This is the situation that Obama and the EU are fighting to perpetuate by banning any Jewish housing in the eastern half of the now united Jerusalem.
This is what every government that refuses to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital is legitimizing by rewarding the ethnic cleansing practiced by the Jordanian Legion and the Holy War Army (Jaysh al-Jihad al-Muqaddas) of the nephew of Nazi collaborating Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Mohammad al-Husayni. And then there are the so-called Israeli settlements of Gaza, Judea and Samaria—which indeed were built on territory that Israel captured from Egypt and Jordan in 1967, after Egypt and Jordan had captured the territory in 1948, destroying Jewish villages on the territory in the process.
Some Jewish villages like Kfar Darom suffered the fate of being destroyed twice over, once by the Arab occupation armies in 1948, to be reestablished and again destroyed by Fatah’s terrorist militias after Israel agreed to ethnically cleanse its own population from Gaza to appease Arab terrorism. That is the truth behind the so-called Israeli Settlements issue, but it is not by any means the whole truth. Because the UN, the EU and the State Department have only applied the term “settlements” to Jewish towns and villages, never Arab ones, regardless of their legality.
This double standard that is defined purely by ethnicity and religion, and by no other factor whatsoever, represents the real international Apartheid that targets Jews for ethnic cleansing to the benefit of Arab Muslims. That means that the Arab Muslim seizure of land for the creation of settlements has been mostly unregulated and is widespread. Not only that it’s often aided and abetted by foreign activists who regularly come to “help” Arab villagers harvest olives. In reality this is often a charade in which those same villagers have marked the territory by planting on the land of Jewish villages nearby, resulting in calculated clashes that are broken up by soldiers and police, and filmed by the same activists resulting in international condemnations.
To avoid those condemnations, Israel eventually seizes the land from the Jewish farmers and turns it over to the Arab villagers. This only sets the stage for the next stage of the clashes, recreating in a microcosm the entire “peace process”, in which terrorism results in concessions, which results in more terrorism and more concessions, creating the cycle of appeasement and terrorism that has bedeviled Israel and most of the First World when dealing with Islam. Those same left wing activists, most notably groups such as Peace Now and Rabbis for Human Rights, go on to destroy and damage the land of Jewish farmers. When the farmers attempt to defend their land, the activists videotape the resulting encounter and the farmers are arrested. At which point the land can be easily seized while its owners are tied up by the legal system.
Attempting to reestablish ownership then becomes next to impossible in a political system constantly afraid of international condemnation and in a legal system controlled by the Anti-Israel left all the way up to the Supreme Court, which actually refused to seat a Justice for being too conservative. Read it all at CFP
 By KHALED ABU TOAMEH Hardly a day passes when Mahmoud Abbas does not reiterate his refusal to return to the negotiating table with Israel unless certain conditions are fulfilled. This has been Abbas's position since US President Barack Obama entered office earlier this year. By setting conditions for resuming the peace talks, Abbas appears to have climbed a very high tree - one that he finds too difficult to climb down from. Abbas and his top aides point the finger of blame at Obama. They point out that almost immediately after he entered the White House, he demanded from Israel a freeze of settlement construction. In an interview published this week in the London-based Asharq al-Awsat, Abbas explained that he could not afford a situation in which Obama appears more Palestinian than the Palestinians. "Obama laid down the condition of halting the settlements completely," he noted. "What was I supposed to say to him? Should I say this is too much?" Responding to criticism that he had never made such a demand before Obama was elected, Abbas said, "Halting the settlements is the second article of the road map and it's something I want. At the end they blame me, and they say that the condition of halting settlement construction was not on offer during the negotiations with former prime minister Ehud Olmert. Bear in mind that at every meeting with Olmert, the issue of the settlements was discussed." ABBAS SEEMS to be more worried about his credibility than the construction in the settlements. In the past year, his standing among his constituents was severely undermined because of his policy of zigzagging. First, Abbas told the Palestinians that he would never meet with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu unless he recognized the two-state solution and halted all settlement construction in the West Bank. However, under pressure from Obama,Abbas was forced to sit with Netanyahu at UN headquarters in New York. Second, Abbas's failure to back a resolution endorsing the Goldstone report on Operation Cast Lead drew strong condemnations from many Palestinians, including some belonging to his Fatah faction. As the outcry in the PA territories and the Arab and Islamic countries intensified,Abbas rescinded his decision and decided to back the resolution that was brought before the UN Human Rights Council. But as far as his critics and enemies are concerned, it was too little and too late. Third, Abbas's frequent threats to resign or not run in a new election are no longer taken seriously, not even by some of his top advisers. As one aide put it, "Abbas has threatened to resign at least 40 times in the past few months alone." Abbas's empty threats and zigzagging have hurt his reputation so badly that now he's being forced to play tough with Israel and the US. To demonstrate this uncompromising approach, Abbas most recently came up with a new condition for resuming the talks: That Israel and the international community recognize beforehand the 1967 boundaries as the official and final borders of the future Palestinian state. Abbas's aides in Ramallah say that he needs a "major concession" from Israel before he returns to the negotiations. "President Abbas does not want to repeat the mistakes of the past," explained one aide. "If he succumbs and resumes the talks with Israel unconditionally, our people will throw him out." According to one of his advisers, Abbas has reached the conclusion that there's nothing to talk about with the Netanyahu government, especially when ministers like Avigdor Lieberman, Moshe Ya'alon and Bennie Begin are among the prime minister's inner circle. To support his argument that there's no peace partner inIsrael, Abbas shows visitors a copy of an article written by journalist Gideon Levy in Haaretz, entitled: "Netanyahu should admit Israel doesn't want peace." Abbas also appears to be very disappointed with the Obama administration, on which he was pinning high hopes in the beginning. The Palestinian leadership in Ramallah was seriously hoping that Obama would forceIsrael not only to freeze settlement construction, but to pull back to the pre-1967 borders, including the entire eastern part of Jerusalem. But now Abbas and his officials are accusing Obama of "caving in to pressure from the Jewish lobby" by endorsing Netanyahu's stance. In this regard, the PA officials say, Obama has shown that his policy toward the Middle East is almost the same as that of his predecessor, George W. Bush. Abbas is now hoping that the Europeans will counterbalance the US "bias" in favor of Israel by supporting the Palestinian leadership's demands. As one official put it, "The Americans can be on Israel's side, while the Europeans will be on our side. Let's turn it into a conflict between the Europeans and Americans." It's hard to predict Abbas's next move as the man has been anything but consistent in his statements.
Yet the question that many Palestinians have been asking themselves is not whether the talks withIsrael would be resumed or not, but if there's anything left to negotiate about.
And a growing number of Palestinians have long been wondering whether the man who is often referred to as the "governor of the West Bank," and whose term in office expired about a year ago, really has a mandate to negotiate on their behalf. JPost
 PALESTINIAN leader Mahmoud Abbas has declared that a final-status agreement between Israelis and Palestinians can be completed within six months if Israel freezes all construction in Jewish settlements and in East Jerusalem. In the most optimistic timeframe given by any key player in the Middle East in recent times, Mr Abbas said he had put a fresh proposal to Israel's Defence Minster, Ehud Barak. Mr Abbas made the comments in a wide-ranging interview with the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. Israel has announced a 10-month freeze on new construction in the West Bank but Palestinians say it is inadequate because it fails to include Arab-dominated East Jerusalem and allows for at least another 3000 new houses and public buildings to be built. The Abbas comments suggest that East Jerusalem -- the most sensitive issue of all as both Israelis and Palestinians want Jerusalem as their capital -- is the major obstacle to new peace talks. "But I demanded that construction stop . . . during this time, we can get back to the table and even complete talks on a final-status agreement. I have yet to receive an answer. "They tell me I had not previously demanded a construction freeze in the settlements. True, in 1993 we didn't do so, but then there were no agreements about a freeze. Now there is the road map." The road map was an agreement brokered in 2003 by the Middle East Quartet -- the UN, US, Russia and the European Union -- and backed by former US president George W. Bush. With the aim of a formal agreement by 2005 leading to a two-state solution, Israel agreed to halt all settlement activity and gradually withdraw from the West Bank while Palestinians agreed to cease all terrorist activities and incitement to violence against Israel and to improve security in the West Bank. "So come and see what we did," Mr Abbas said in the interview. "The security situation throughout the West Bank is excellent. But what steps have you (Israel) taken so far? "You have not met a single clause in the road map. You removed a few roadblocks and there are still 640. Every day there are arrests, house demolitions. I don't understand why. We have security co-ordination, so why do this?" Mark Regev, the spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told The Australian yesterday that in a speech Mr Abbas gave in Arabic yesterday to a Palestinian conference, he included preconditions that he did not include in the interview. "What is of concern to us is that yesterday in the speech in Arabic, Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas) placed more reasons why we can't start negotiations," Mr Regev said. "Up until now, he was talking about a settlement freeze. Now he is adding (a return to) 1967 borders. It's like we have to accept the outcome of negotiations before negotiations start. We are concerned that they are trying to avoid negotiations. "The reason we haven't been negotiating is the Palestinians have been placing new preconditions on talks." Asked about Mr Abbas's claim that he had put a proposal to Mr Barak and had not received any response, Mr Regev said: "Let's be fair: the 10-month cessation of new housing in the West Bank is unprecedented and has been called as such internationally. "No Israeli government has ever gone so far. "Internally in Israel, groups such as Peace Now have called it historic. "Yet he (Mr Abbas) ignores it. "It doesn't make sense to me." The Australian
 By Aaron Klein JERUSALEM – A group of hundreds of prominent Israeli rabbis here today slammed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's decision to freeze Jewish West Bank construction as an "irresponsible move that will only cause bloodshed in the region." "This move not only jeopardizes the residents of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) but will ultimately endanger every Jew in every part of Israel," read a statement from by the Rabbinical Congress for Peace, a coalition of more than 300 Israeli rabbinic leaders and pulpit rabbis, including some of the most respected rabbis in Israel. The leaders of the Congress asked for an immediate meeting with Netanyahu to "point out his suicidal actions and present to him Jewish law rulings regarding a true and durable peace for the Jewish nation and stability in the region as well." "There is a clear ruling in the Jewish Code of Law [Orach Chaim Chapter 329] that warns against giving up land to foreigners," the rabbis statement read. Netanyahu last week announced in a national address that his government had approved a 10-month halt to the construction of new Jewish homes in the West Bank as a bid to restart talks with the Palestinians. He said Israel would not stop construction in eastern Jerusalem and would still allow the building of West Bank synagogues, kindergartens and necessary municipal structures. Describing the decision as a "painful step," Netanyahu said he was "taking the issue out of broad national security considerations with the goal of renewing negotiations to achieve peace with our neighbors, the Palestinians." The Palestinian Authority, however, immediately rejected the freeze and demanded more. Nabil Abu Rudaineh, a top aide to PA President Mahmoud Abbas, told reporters the Palestinians "reject returning to peace talks without the complete cessation of settlement activities in the West Bank and Jerusalem." Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat urged the U.S. to pressure Israel to freeze all construction activity completely in both Jerusalem and the West Bank. Fatah's strongman Mohammed Dahlan stated Netanyahu's offer "proves once again that Israel is interested not in peace, but in creating facts on the ground" and stated that "overlooking ongoing construction in Jerusalem will put the peace process in jeopardy." Never in the history of regional talks here did restarting Israeli-Palestinian negotiations depend on any freeze of Jewish construction. The issue largely began after President Obama demanded Jewish construction be halted in the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem, leading to a hardening of the PA's bargaining position. WND
 After handing out construction freeze orders to all West Bank council heads, the Civil Administration on Monday sent supervisors to patrol West Bank settlements and enforce the orders approved by the cabinet. The supervisors carry different documents that are meant to help them determine whether any changes were made on the construction grounds. They will also receive aerial shots taken last Friday, to help compare the existing land conditions with any changes made in the future. According to the directive, all construction work that began by last Friday and did not lay foundations, must be stopped. Violation of the directive will prompt an immediate order to halt construction. If construction continues, work tools can be seized and enforcement forces can be called on scene. Violators may be charged and face up to two years in prison. As of Monday, a few orders were handed out to seize construction in several locations; however no unusual incidents were reported. Data published by the Central Bureau of Statistics confirms the claim that construction in the West Bank region was already at a low point prior to the cabinet's decision to freeze construction. According to the data, 1,199 new construction projects began between January and September – a 27.6% decrease from last year's number. Despite the nation-wide decline in construction, an increase was recorded in several areas such as Jerusalem, which recorded a 25% increase. The sharpest decline was recorded in the Tel Aviv area (39%), while the West Bank region came in second. Meanwhile, controversy among cabinet ministers over the freeze order continued. Minister Silvan Shalom, who was out of the country during the cabinet vote on the construction freeze, said he did not know the vote was scheduled to take place – but would have voted against it. "Freezing the construction is unnecessary, and will not bring Palestinians back to the negotiations table," Shalom said. Communications Minister Moshe Kahlon called for the establishment of a governmental committee that will deal with the hardships facing West Bank residents under the new conditions. Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Sunday announced the recruitment of an additional 40 construction inspectors that will help the 14 currently employed inspectors enforce the temporary freeze. Environmental Protection Minister Gilad Erdan criticized Barak, saying "he is not so innocent; he has a political agenda." The Legal Forum for the Land of Israel filed a petition with the High Court of Justice to revoke the decision to halt construction, until a suitable governmental decision is made. The petition, which was filed against Defense Minister Ehud Barak and the Security Cabinet, claimed the construction freeze severely harms the basic rights of West Bank residents. The petition further claimed that the decision was not rooted on defense considerations and therefore should be made by the government and not the cabinet. YNet
 RAMALLAH, West Bank — Palestinians appealed to the United States on Thursday to raise pressure on Israel, saying an Israeli plan to halt new construction in the West Bank was insincere. Yasser Abed Rabbo, a top presidential adviser, said he hopes U.S. envoy George Mitchell can bring about what he called "a real peace process" that would halt all settlement construction. Mitchell is expected in the region soon in his latest attempt to bring the sides back to the negotiating table. On Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced a 10-month halt to new construction in West Bank settlements as a step toward restarting Mideast peace negotiations. The Palestinians swiftly rejected the plan because it did not include a building freeze in Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem, the sector of the city they want as the capital of a future state, and because it would not apply to some 3,000 homes already under construction. "Netanyahu's declaration yesterday doesn't signal any intention of Israel to go through a genuine and serious peace process because it doesn't include a serious settlement freeze," Abed Rabbo said. He said a "genuine peace process" must include a complete settlement freeze and guarantees that future borders be based on the lines that existed before Israel captured the West Bank and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war. Netanyahu says such matters must be resolved in negotiations. "We believe that Mitchell can continue his efforts to have a real peace process," he said. More at FoxNews
 How did the media report building plans for a Jerusalem suburb?Israel has recently come in for international criticism over the approval for construction of 900 housing units in the southern Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo. Irrespective of one's views on this policy, it is the responsibility of the media to report on Gilo accurately and with the relevant context. So how did some of the media refer to Gilo? -
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The "Gilo settlement in Jerusalem." - Reuters -
A "Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem." - BBC -
A "controversial settlement on the outskirts of east Jerusalem." - The Guardian -
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"one of a dozen Israeli settlements in mostly Arab east Jerusalem." - AFP -
A "part of Jerusalem claimed by Palestinians." - LA Times
The Christian Science Monitor could not even decide on Gilo's location, introducing it as a "Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem" in the first paragraph of the story and then referring to the "area in southern Jerusalem" in the next. The prize for the worst inaccuracy, however, goes to The Times of London, whose staff editorial spoke of "Israel's decision to go ahead with new settlements around Jerusalem." Of course, Gilo is certainly not new and, while some existing areas are being developed within existing boundaries to allow for natural growth, there are no plans whatsoever on the part of the Israeli government to create any new settlements in the Jerusalem region. Is this symptomatic of the journalistic laziness surrounding the entire issue of settlements and precisely what these actually refer to? After all, many media outlets do nothing to dispel the largely mistaken image of all Israeli settlements as a collection of isolated homes on windswept hilltops. In the case of Gilo, this is as far from the truth as could be possible. And who then is influencing the language of those international politicians who are critical of the Israeli building plans? Are the media responsible for creating a skewed impression of Gilo due to past indiscretions regarding the language of settlements? As Maurice Ostroff, writing in the Jerusalem Post, explains: The $64,000 question then, is whether Gilo is in fact a settlement and if so, what type of settlement it is. To all who prefer to analyze a situation before arriving at a conclusion it is important to look at the facts in context. ... The reality is that Gilo is very different than the outposts in the West Bank. It is not in east Jerusalem as widely reported.
It is a Jerusalem neighborhood with a population of around 40,000. The ground was bought by Jews before WWII and settled in 1971 in south west Jerusalem opposite Mount Gilo within the municipal borders. There is no inference whatsoever that it rests on Arab land. The current building approval was not a deliberately provocative political decision by Binyamin Netanyahu as reported in some media. The plan was initiated a long time ago by the Israel Land Administration.
Since Gilo is an integral part of the city, the approval was given by Jerusalem's Construction and Planning Committee and, as Jerusalem mayor Nir Barkat said in a statement released by his office, "Israeli law does not discriminate between Arabs and Jews, or between east and west of the city. The demand to cease construction just for Jews is illegal, as in the US and any other enlightened place in the world. The Jerusalem Municipality will continue to enable construction in every part of the city for Jews and Arabs alike." The Washington Post, at least, was more nuanced in its language, describing Gilo as a "disputed neighborhood of Jerusalem" and providing a map to put Gilo in some geographical context. CNN also referred to Gilo as a "disputed neighborhood on Jerusalem's southern outskirts". Indeed, CNN is one of a number of media outlets including The New York Times, Washington Post, Associated Press, Boston Globe and CBS News, which have all, in the past, recognized the particular geography of Gilo, referring to it as a "neighborhood." For more background, see this Jerusalem Post article and keep an eye out on how your local media outlet reports on Gilo. HonestReporting
 The security cabinet approved Wednesday evening Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's proposal to halt construction in the West Bank settlements for a period of 10 months. Eleven ministers voted in favor of the plan, while Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau opposed the initiative, which was coordinated with the US in an effort to jumpstart the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. Interior Minister Eli Yishai (Shas) and Housing and Construction Minister Ariel Atias were absent from the vote. Shortly after the vote Netanyahu told a televised press conference at his Jerusalem office that the step was designed to "encourage resumption of peace talks with our Palestinian neighbors." "It's not an easy step and we are taking it out of broad national considerations," he said, adding, "I hope that the Palestinians and the Arab world will be wise enough to take this opportunity to move forward in the path of peace," he said. Netanyahu stressed that the settlement freeze would not be implemented in east Jerusalem. "We do not put any restrictions on building in our sovereign capital," the prime minister said. "Now is the time to begin negotiations, now is the time to move forward towards peace. Israel today has taken a far-reaching step toward peace; it is time for the Palestinians to do the same," he added. "Israel's government has made an important step toward peace today, let us make peace together." Netanyahu further told reporters, "As soon as the suspension period concludes, my government will resume the West Bank construction policy of previous governments." "I have promised to allow our 300,000 brothers residing in the West Bank to continue to lead normal lives, and therefore construction that is already underway will not ne halted. We will continue to build synagogues, schools and kindergartens," he said. Among those who backed the initiative were hardliners Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Ministers Moshe Yaalon and Benny Begin. Industry, Trade and Labor Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer (Labor) said after the vote, "It’s an important and historic decision, one of the most important decisions this government has made. The decision will leave the Palestinians with only one choice – join the political negotiations. They have no reason to stall anymore." Earlier, a US official said the United States hopes Netanyahu's proposal can help revive Middle East talks, "We're hoping this will in some way contribute to the resumption of negotiations" between the Israelis and Palestinians, the official told AFP on condition of anonymity. Israel has been under heavy international pressure to halt its construction in settlements built on captured lands claimed by the Palestinians. Some 300,000 Israelis live in the West Bank, in addition to about 180,000 people living in Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem. Netanyahu earlier floated the idea of suspending construction in existing settlements. Wednesday's offer was the first time he has given a firm timeline for how long he is willing to stop the building. Palestinians already rejected the move before the announcement because the freeze does not include construction in Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want as the capital of their future state. Israel captured east Jerusalem from Jordan in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and annexed it soon after. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has demanded a total halt to settlement construction before peace talks can resume. On Wednesday, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said there was nothing new in Netanyahu's announcement, pointing to the 3,000 new housing units under construction in the West Bank. "This is not a moratorium. Unfortunately, we hoped he would commit to a real settlement freeze so we can resume negotiations and he had a choice between settlements and peace and he chose settlements." Palestinian presidential adviser Nabil Abu Rdeneh said the proposed freeze would be unacceptable if it didn't include east Jerusalem. "Any Israeli offer that doesn't include Jerusalem will be rejected immediately," he said in a phone interview from Argentina, where he was traveling with President Abbas. "No Palestinian, no Arab can cross this line." Netanyahu, a traditional ally of the settler movement, has argued that some construction should be permitted to allow for "natural growth" in their communities. His latest offer applies only to "new construction permits", meaning that some 3,000 homes already approved for construction would not be affected. YNet
 By Daniel Greenfield The same media which can’t be bothered to notice that there is a proxy war going on between Iran and Saudi Arabia in Yemen, with Saudi jets bombing civilian targets.
Who have paid no attention whatsoever to a week of violence between Algerians and Egyptians that included stonings and death threats, are up in arms over the building of 900 housing units in the Gilo neighborhood in Jerusalem. The Obama Administration and the media are naturally not upset by the Jerusalem municipality’s decision to build 500 housing units for Arabs in Jerusalem.
No they’re upset by a private Jewish housing project built on privately owned land. And that double standard aptly conveys their premise that a Jewish house in Jerusalem is a “settlement”, while an Arab house in Jerusalem is just a house.
A Jewish home violates the “status quo” and is “unhelpful for peace”, while an Arab home is just a home. There is of course a name for that sort of policy, it’s one that Jimmy Carter who is still continuing his tour on behalf of Hamas knows quite well, Apartheid. In response to the Nof Zion construction, Obama warned that, “additional settlement building does not contribute to Israel’s security”.But Nof Zion is not about security, as much as it is about an overcrowded Jewish population in Jerusalem looking for someplace to live.
When the Arabs seized half of Jerusalem in Israel’s War of Independence, they forcibly expelled the Jewish population of Jerusalem in a brutal act of ethnic cleansing that goes ignored by the same leftists who focus on elderly Arab men waving keychains in the air. Homes belonging to Jewish families were replaced by Arab families, who in turn were not expelled when Israel liberated and reunited both halves of Jerusalem in 1967. While countries such as England recognized Jordan’s annexation of East Jerusalem, they have failed to recognize Israel’s reunification of the city. This has led to the ongoing absurdity in which children born in Jerusalem are treated as stateless by the US government and the US embassy remains in Tel Aviv, while the US Consulate in East Jerusalem does its best to pretend that it’s in the capital of Palestine, completely refusing to recognize Israel’s existence. Were security the issue, Gilo which faces the Arab towns of Beit Jala and Al Khader, and has been shot at repeatedly from them, would be a poor choice to live in. But Jerusalem is bulging at the seams. The price of housing has shot up, and while US Ambassador Richard H. Jones may have told Jewish residents of Jerusalem that “Sometimes people do have to move to a different location. They cannot always stay close to their families”, the reality is that living next to their families is exactly what people want to do. Regardless of what the State Department thinks about the matter. 1800 years ago the Romans expelled the Jewish population of Jerusalem and renamed it Aelia Capitolina, a pagan city, and renamed Israel, Syria Palaestina. Today Obama and the State Department seem determined to do the very same thing.
By calling a Jerusalem neighborhood, a “settlement”, Obama is actively attacking the right of Jews to live in Jerusalem. If Jewish Jerusalem is a settlement, then effectively every other part of Israel where Jews live is a settlement too. When even even liberal US news outlets such as CNN have described Gilo as a Jewish neighborhood, in contrast to radical left wing British outlets such as the BBC and Reuters, who branded it as a “settlement”, Obama’s shift is a deliberate one. Helpful as always, UN Secretary General Ki Ban Moonbat stepped in to denounce Gilo as a “settlement built on Palestinian land that undermines efforts for peace”.
Considering that Gilo already holds a population of 50,000, the land was privately owned and the Jewish presence there goes back to the Book of Joshua, but the facts are no obstacle to the lies. More at Canada Free Press H/T: gramfan
 JERUSALEM – In defiance of President Obama's demands that Israel cease building in sections of Jerusalem and the West Bank, New York state assemblyman Dov Hikind laid the cornerstone for the second phase of a new Jewish construction project in the Nof Tzion neighborhood in eastern Jerusalem.. Together with Knesset Member Danny Danon, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party, Hikind spoke with reporters about the Jewish right to build in Israel's capital city. Hikind, a Democrat, asserted banning Jews from building in neighborhoods was segregation. He expressed wonder that an African-American president would endorse such a policy in the 21st century. Speaking with the media, Hikind blamed Obama for stalling the peace process. According to the assemblyman, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has latched onto Obama's calls for a settlement freeze as an excuse not to negotiate with Israel. According to Hikind, a Jew cannot even build a bathroom in Jerusalem without international condemnation. Israel recently announced the construction of several hundred housing units in Jerusalem's Gilo neighborhood to the chagrin of the American administration.
Danon told WND that Gilo, a neighborhood of 40,000 Jews within the municipal boundaries of Jerusalem, is completely within the Israeli consensus, stating that even Tzipi Livni, opposition leader of the Kadima party, was behind the expansion. Hikind was in Israel leading a solidarity mission of 50 American Jews. During the past week the group met with leaders of Israel's settlement enterprise and national camp. The purpose of the mission was to strengthen Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank and Jerusalem by acquiring property in the disputed areas. Hikind himself expressed interest in buying an apartment in Nof Tzion. A representative of the Ateret Kohanim organization, which reclaims Jewish land in Jerusalem, accompanied the group to Nof Tzion, explaining the history of the disputed areas. The Americans were amazed to learn that such predominantly Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem as Silwan were historically Jewish. Silwan was a Yemenite Jewish community until it was evacuated and turned over to Arabs by the British, following Arab pogroms in the late 1930s. During the cornerstone laying and subsequent press conference, a small group of demonstrators from the extremist Peace Now organization stood nearby calling for the division of Jerusalem. One demonstrator, a Jew from Britain, held a sign which stated, "Hikind – you're a shame to your party." As Hikind attempted to leave, he was accosted by the demonstrator. The assemblyman gave the young man his telephone number, offering to take him out to dinner to speak about the issues in a less charged setting. WND
 AS the shock departure of Mahmoud Abbas sinks in for Palestinians, Ahmad Aweidah is rising fast in the new generation of leaders. Mr Aweidah, 39, insists he is not interested in politics, though he's rarely shy about entering the major debates. He argues that Mr Abbas's successor be Nasser al-Qudwa, nephew of the late PLO chief Yasser Arafat, rather than the contender who polls highest among Palestinians, the jailed Marwan Bargouti. As head of the Palestine Securities Exchange - responsible for $US7 billion ($7.6bn) in deposits and $US2bn in loans - Mr Aweidah refuses to join a political party and abhors Hamas's militant outlook. He says Arafat's major achievement was to give the Palestinians independence from countries such as Iran and Syria. He voted last election for Mr Abbas. On all these measures, he is a moderate, which is why it is ominous that someone like Mr Aweidah reflects a growing view among the Palestinian elite that the pursuit of a two-state solution is over. "In terms of one state, I think we should go with the Martin Luther King call of one man one vote," he said. It would be a federal system under which the Israel Defence Forces would retain responsibility for defence. "Under one state, Jews and Arabs would share power at a local level for things like education and health, while things like water would be decided at a national level," he said. "The Jews would have their own canton and the Arabs would have their own canton. It would be a federal structure. The Palestinian canton would not be responsible for the defence of the country. I am happy for the Jewish canton to remain in charge of defence through the IDF. Not a single Palestinian would serve in the IDF. Jerusalem would be everybody's. Jews would be able to live in Hebron not as settlers but as full citizens. "The Irish and the English resolved their conflict. The English and the Scots. There have been many other conflicts that have seemed as intractable as this one. It's better than continued conflict, is it not?" In two recent interviews - one with foreign journalists and one with The Weekend Australian - Mr Aweidah argued that the possibility of a Palestinian state passed with the growth of Jewish settlements. Palestinian politician Mustafa Bargouti said this week that international pressure had encouraged Palestinians to seek a two-state solution - an independent Palestine alongside Israel - but that this was no longer realistic. Mr Aweidah agreed: "The two-state solution is no longer viable," he said. "I think the only solution now is one state where the Palestinians are the majority and the Jews are a protected minority, just like the whites are now in South Africa. "Time and demographics are on our side. In 15 years' time, Palestinians will be the majority." Mr Aweidah claims the Palestinians have a birth rate of 4.3 per cent. As with everything in this conflict, this is disputed. Israeli analyst Yoram Ettinger described it as "a fairytale". "We have come up with documented data, mostly Palestinian material, which determines that the trend is exactly the opposite," Mr Ettinger, head of research group Second Thought, told The Weekend Australian. He found the number of Arabs in Judea and Samaria had been inflated by 66 per cent, and the number of Arabs in Judea, Samaria and Gaza had been overestimated by 43 per cent.
"The demographic tailwind is Jewish - the Arab birth rate is coming down in a free dive," he said. However, prominent Israelis such as opposition leader Tzipi Livni continue to sound the demographic alarm for the Jewish population. As Washington's push to resume peace talks sinks, Palestinians more frequently are speaking about a unitary state. "What have we got from 15 years of negotiating since Oslo?" Mr Aweidah said. "Today we're sitting behind a wall with 500,000 Jewish settlers. So what will we get from another 15 years of negotiations - one million settlers? The Jews say `never again' about the Shoah. We say `never again' about losing more years negotiating for nothing." Asked of Israelis who would resist his vision out of fear for the end of the Jewish state, he said: "But it would be the birth of the Jewish canton. Don't worry, we will be good to them. They will be treated as a protected minority. We are not interested in oppressing them. Historically, we don't have a problem with Jews.
Anti-semitism is not an Arab or Muslim thing, it's primarily been a Christian thing." Mr Aweidah says his views are typical today. The question is, if the moderates are speaking like this in public, how are the hardliners speaking in private? The Australian
 U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell reportedly asked Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, during one of their recent meetings, to freeze a construction project of dozens of housing units in Gilo. Netanyahu turned him down.
Gilo, one of Jerusalem’s largest neighborhoods with 33,000 people, was founded in 1971 on land in southern Jerusalem that was liberated in the Six Day War.
Mitchell reportedly said that the construction risks raising tensions with the Palestinian Authority. Netanyahu refused the U.S. request, explaining that the construction in Gilo, as in most places of the world, does not require government approval. He also explained that the neighborhood is “an integral part of Jerusalem.” A government official said that Netanyahu “is ready to show the maximum restraint when it comes to construction in Judea and Samaria to help restart negotiations, but this policy does not apply in Jerusalem, our capital.” U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has also asked for a construction halt in Jerusalem areas liberated in 1967 – but she has also acknowledged that the negotiating process has never before been made contingent upon a construction freeze in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem. INN
 A top State Department official spelled out on Tuesday that the goal of the United States in its negotiations in the Middle East is to pressure Israel into expelling Jews from Judea and Samaria in order to "end the occupation that began in 1967." William J. Burns, Under Secretary for Political Affairs, said in his address to the Middle East Institute Tuesday that he sees the U.S.mandate as one of "determined leadership" and that American must be straightforward about its intentions.
"Our goal in the region is clear," he said, "two states living side by side in peace and security; a Jewish state of Israel, with which America retains unbreakable bonds, and with true security for all Israelis; and a viable, independent Palestinian state with contiguous territory that ends the occupation that began in 1967, that ends the daily humiliations of Palestinians under occupation, and that realizes the full and remarkable potential of the Palestinian people." Although he made no mention of any demands upon the PA in order to achieve its goal of establishing a new Arab state within Israel's current borders, Burns was blunt about America's expectations of Israel. "We do not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements; we consider the Israeli offer to restrain settlement activity to be a potentially important step, but it obviously falls short of the continuing Roadmap obligation for a full settlement freeze," he said. Further, he said, "We seek to deepen international support for the Palestinian Authority’s impressive plan to build over the next couple years the institutions that a responsible Palestinian state requires. And we also seek progress toward peace between Israel and Syria, and Israel and Lebanon, as part of a broader peace among Israel and all of its neighbors." The highest ranking Foreign Service Officer in the United States, Burns served as Acting Secretary of State until the appointment of Hillary Rodham Clinton. He was the U.S. Ambassador to Jordan from 1998 to 2001, and as U.S. Ambassador to Russia from 2005 to 2008. The Under Secretary's remarks came barely 24 hours after Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu met at the White House with President Barack Obama for talks grudgingly scheduled just hours before he flew to the U.S. on Sunday. The two leaders were accompanied for some of the one hour and 40-minute meeting, held Monday night, by their respective administrative and security teams. On the agenda were the issues of the Iranian nuclear threat, the paralysis in Israel's negotiations with the PA, and the claim by PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas that he will not run again for the leadership in PA elections on January 24. Burns vowed the U.S. "will continue to work hard to bring about the early resumption of negotiations, which is the only path to the two state solution on which so much depends, not only for the future of Israelis and Palestinians, but for the entire Middle East." "We have made limited headway," he claimed, " a shared understanding between the parties about a two-state objective; a shared interest in moving back to the negotiating table; wide international backing for this process; steady progress, in the face of very difficult odds, toward shaping reliable Palestinian security organizations and governmental institutions in the West Bank. Now we need to bear down, move ahead, fulfill our responsibilities for leadership, and challenge every other party to fulfill theirs." Source: INN
 Can anything else possibly go wrong for the Obama administration's Middle East policy?
In the past ten days, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has twice reversed herself publicly on her attitude toward the Israeli settlements.
Palestinians have refused her direct request to rejoin peace talks with Israel, and Palestinian Authority president Abbas has said he will not run for reelection. U.S.-Israel relations are in a state of frozen mistrust. The New York Times and Washington Post, among others, are calling Obama's policy a complete failure--in news stories as well as editorials. The only thing missing is a plague of locusts. The policy is indeed a complete failure.
In ten months the administration has managed to offend and demoralize Israelis and Palestinians, lose the support of Arab governments, and reduce previously excellent relations with the government of Israel to levels unmatched since the James Baker days. Meanwhile, George Mitchell's trips to the region are increasingly reminiscent of the Colin Powell visits in 2002 and 2003--producing little but embarrassment. The Israeli "100 percent settlement freeze" and the Arab outreach to Israel, early goals of the Obama team, are now forgotten, as is an early resumption of serious Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. These disasters are mostly the product of an ignorant and belligerent attitude toward Israel and especially its prime minister. The ignorance was most evident in the administration's view that a total construction freeze could be imposed not only in every settlement but in Jerusalem itself. But the U.S. policy was worse: We demanded a freeze that would apply to construction by Jews, but not by Arabs; could any Israeli leader be expected to support such a position?
One does not need to be a member of the Knesset to understand that such a freeze was impossible for Benjamin Netanyahu and his coalition as it would have been for any Israeli prime minister--but apparently this fact was beyond the understanding of Mitchell, Rahm Emanuel, and all the other "experts" on the Obama team. The belligerence toward Netanyahu has been evident all along, but is best shown by the refusal to tell Israel's prime minister whether or not the president will see him this coming week when Netanyahu (like the president) addresses the United Jewish Communities annual general assembly in Washington. The Israelis gave the White House weeks of notice that Netanyahu had agreed to speak, would be in town, and hoped to see Obama. The White House reaction has been to keep him twisting in the wind, with news stories several days before his arrival saying the president had not decided yet whether to see Netanyahu. Think of it: Our closest ally in the region, critical issues at stake (from Iran's nuclear program and the recent Israeli seizure of an Iranian arms shipment meant for Hezbollah to Abbas's announcement), yet the Israelis get no answer. Obama and his "experts" may think they are reminding Netanyahu who is boss, but they are in fact reminding all of us why Israelis no longer trust Obama--and making closer cooperation between the two governments that much harder. Read more here,,,, Source: Weekly Standard
 Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu left the White House after a one-hour and 40-minute meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama Monday night without speaking to reporters -- a rare occurrence. The meeting had been grudgingly scheduled early Sunday morning by the White House just a few hours before Netanyahu was to leave for the U.S. to speak at the 2009 General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America.
The ninth-hour appointment was a clear sign that relations between Washington and Jerusalem remain strained; Netanyahu had requested the meeting weeks ago. Also in attendance for part of the meeting was Defense Minister Ehud Barak, National Security Council head Uzi Arad, Ambassador Michael Oren and Netanyahu adviser Yitzchak Molcho. U.S. officials included National Security Adviser General (ret.) Jim Jones, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, Special Middle East Envoy George Mitchell and National Security Council Director for Near Eastern Affairs Dan Shapiro. On the agenda was the issue of Iran's galloping nuclear technology development, as well as the current paralysis in talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, and the claim by PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas that he is resigning in January. All three matters are being taken "very seriously" by the Prime Minister's Office, said a spokesman. Netanyahu had reportedly been planning to tell the president that Israel was willing to be "generous" in scaling back Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria, and "means business" about rejuvenating talks with the PA. But the brief statement issued by the White House following the talks said simply that the two leaders discussed "how to move forward on Middle East peace." The White House spokesman added, "The president reaffirmed our strong commitment to Israel's security, and discussed security cooperation on a range of issues." Netanyahu declined to comment on his conversation with the president, and cancelled a briefing with the media he had scheduled for the next day. The prime minister departed for Paris on Tuesday morning without speaking to reporters. According to State Department spokesman Ian Kelly, special Middle East envoy George Mitchell is not planning to return to the region anytime soon to pressure either of the parties toward further talks. It is possible that Mitchell has decided to wait until after the PA elections on January 24, when the question of who is actually leading the Palestinian Authority may be clarified. Source: YNet
 US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton defended the US stance toward Israeli settlement building to worried Arab allies on Wednesday, saying Washington does not accept the legitimacy of the West Bank enclaves and wants to see their construction halted "forever." Still, she said an Israeli offer to restrain - but not halt - construction represents "positive movement forward" toward resuming Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. Clinton met for an hour with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak during a hastily arranged stopover in the Egyptian capital to soothe Arab concerns that Washington is backing off demands for an Israeli settlement halt.
The fears were sparked on Saturday when Clinton, with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu at her side in Jerusalem, praised his government's offer as unprecedented. She has since tried to clarify the remarks, saying that the Israeli offer does not got far enough.
Still, she has indicated that the Palestinians should resume negotiations with Israel without a full settlement halt as they demand. On Wednesday, Clinton insisted "our policy on settlement has not changed." "We do not accept the legitimacy of settlement activity. Ending all settlement activity current and future would be preferable," she told reporters after talks with Mubarak. Of the Israeli offer, she said, "It is not what we would prefer because we would like to see everything ended forever." "But it is something that I think shows at least a positive movement forward toward final status issues being addressed," she said. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is sticking to his refusal to resume negotiations until Israel stops building settlements. He rejected the Israeli plan to complete 3,000 housing units in Jewish settlements in the West Bank, and to continue to construct public buildings and other construction in east Jerusalem - a territory Palestinians hope will be their future capital. After Arab criticism of her comments in Jerusalem on the Israeli plan, Clinton delayed her return to Washington after attending an international conference in Marrakech, Morocco, and flew instead to Cairo. Read more here,,,, Source: JPost
 THE Obama administration's quest to restart Middle East peace talks looks increasingly doomed after the influential Arab League yesterday said there was a sense of failure around the US efforts. Secretary-General of the Arab League Amr Moussa said "failure is in the atmosphere" following Israel's refusal to bow to calls from Washington to halt growth in Jewish settlements in the West Bank. His comment was made in Morocco during a visit by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who sought before an Arab audience to soften her weekend praise of Israel that the Netanyahu government had made an "unprecedented" effort by agreeing to a temporary halt to new settlements. While Israel is prepared to resume peace talks, Palestinian leaders insist they will not unless there is a complete freeze of settlements. Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said yesterday Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas had restated this to US Middle East envoy George Mitchell. "We do not put conditions for resuming negotiations, but we want the talks resumed on the basis of the provisions of the road map, which stipulates the cessation of all forms of settlement activity in the Palestinian territories," Mr Erekat said. Mrs Clinton's "unprecedented" comment in praise of Israel led to a backlash in the Arab world, which she tried to address yesterday. Earlier this year, US President Barack Obama and Mrs Clinton repeatedly stated that the US wanted Israel to halt all settlement activity. Israel refused to do this, saying such a policy would prevent "natural growth" of the settlements in which about 300,000 Jewish people live. The US has now clearly accepted that Israel will not agree to their request and is trying to salvage the peace process by crafting a new deal under which Israel will agree to a moratorium -- most likely for nine months -- to new settlement activity apart from 3000 new housing units already approved. Without the support of the bulk of the 22 Arab and Muslim countries in the Middle East, any peace agreement with Israel, which would give Israel landing rights and normalised relations with most of these countries, would be unlikely to hold. Mrs Clinton said yesterday: "The Obama administration's position on settlements is clear, unequivocal and it has not changed. "As the President has said on many occasions, the US does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements." While the Israeli offer of a temporary halt to new settlements "falls far short of what we would characterise as our position or what our preference would be", she said she would support any moves towards a two-state solution. "I will offer positive reinforcement to either of the parties when I believe they are taking steps that support the objective reaching a two-state solution," she said. Clearly seeking to appear to all sides to be balanced, Mrs Clinton yesterday used the same word -- unprecedented -- to praise the Palestinian Authority for improved security in the West Bank. But her balancing act does not appear to be working: Mr Abbas is under enormous pressure from his own ranks to refuse negotiations with Israel without a freeze on settlements. Since Mr Obama first called for a halt to building activity in the West Bank, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced Israel will proceed with 3000 new houses that had already been approved. Both major Palestinian factions -- Mr Abbas's Fatah faction and the militant Hamas faction that runs the Gaza Strip -- are strongly opposed to any talks without a freeze on settlements. Source: The Australian
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Israeli officials on Sunday tried to downplay tensions looming with the United States after George Mitchell, the Obama administration's Middle East envoy, suggested in a PBS interview that the US could consider withholding support for loan guarantees for Israel.
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