March 10, 2010

Banksy December 5, 2007, in Bethlehem

EDITOR: “Peace Talks” Scene 2

So now we are into the script with earnest. The Peace Talks have started – Mitchell is shuttling between camps, trying work out who wants tea and who is for coffee, and having a difficult time with it, as Israel will not agree to accept any preconditions, and no tea can be ordered until the PNA, with its unelected President, will recognise Israel as Jewish State!

Well he almost succeeded, him with Irish experience of hard bargaining, only to have, together with his Vice President who flew in to be humiliated, the unmitigated pleasure of being spat upon by the Israelis; he did not like it, but took it like a man, and said: “Hey man, isn’t it raining?’

If only Joe Biden would read this website, he will face fewer surprises. Don’t those guys ever read the script?

Now we are waiting for Scene 3…

Biden: East Jerusalem plan undermines peace talks: Haaretz

Biden: Not a Happy Bunny

Israel’s decision to approve 1,600 new homes in an ultra-Orthodox East Jerusalem neighborhood is undermining Middle East peace talks, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said in Jerusalem on Tuesday.
Earlier Tuesday, the Interior Ministry approved the building of 1,600 new housing units in Ramat Shlomo, with a ministry official saying the plan will expand the ultra-Orthodox East Jerusalem neighborhood to the east and to the south.

“I condemn the decision by the government of Israel to advance planning for new housing units in East Jerusalem,” Biden said.
Advertisement
The American vice president added that the “substance and timing of the announcement, particularly with the launching of proximity talks, is precisely the kind of step that undermines the trust we need right now and runs counter to the constructive discussions that I?ve had here in Israel.”
“We must build an atmosphere to support negotiations, not complicate them,” Biden said adding that the “announcement underscores the need to get negotiations under way that can resolve all the outstanding issues of the conflict,” Biden said.
“The United States recognizes that Jerusalem is a deeply important issue for Israelis and Palestinians and for Jews, Muslims and Christians.”
Biden also said that the U.S. believed “that through good faith negotiations, the parties can mutually agree on an outcome that realizes the aspirations of both parties for Jerusalem and safeguards its status for people around the world.”

“Unilateral action taken by either party cannot prejudge the outcome of negotiations on permanent status issues. As George Mitchell said in announcing the proximity talks, ‘we encourage the parties and all concerned to refrain from any statements or actions which may inflame tensions or prejudice the outcome of these talks,'” Biden said.
The Palestinian Authority had also remarked on the announced plan Tuesday , saying that it ended efforts to renew negotiations with Israel.
The statement approving the 1,600 new houses, released by the Interior Ministry’s Jerusalem district planning committee, headed by Ruth Yosef, said that at least 30 percent of the units will be allocated to young couples.
Public facilities and spaces which were, the statement said, lacking in the existing parts of the neighborhood, are also to be added as part of the new plan, including a new central park.

PA:
Also Tuesday, the Palestinian Authority said that Israel’s decision to approve new East Jerusalem houses effectively prevents any peace negotiations from taking place.
Director of policy and strategy of the U.S. pro-peace organization J Street, Hadar Susskind, said in a statement that the organization joined Biden “in condemning Israel’s announcement of new East Jerusalem construction that only serves to hinder Middle East peace efforts, particularly as the Israelis and Palestinians begin proximity talks.”
“Continued construction in East Jerusalem and the West Bank only diminishes the chances of achieving a viable two-state solution to the conflict,” Susskind added.

The statement also said that Israel’s approval of new East Jerusalem homes marked a “disappointing inflaming of tensions and undermining of trust – and is particularly surprising given Vice President Biden’s present visit to Israel aimed at underscoring the U.S.-Israel relationship and the American commitment to a two-state resolution of the conflict.”
“We echo Vice President Biden’s call for all parties to refrain from unilateral actions that may inflame tensions and prejudice the outcome of peace talks,” the J Street statement added, saying that “If we are to achieve a true resolution to the conflict – and secure Israel’s future as a Jewish, democratic homeland – all sides must demonstrate their commitment to the diplomatic and constructive engagement needed to succeed.”

Meir Margalit, Meretz’s representative to the Jerusalem city council, claimed that the statement was meant to disrupt the Biden visit, saying that he had “no doubt that the timing isn’t coincidental,” calling the announcement Interior Minister Eli Yishai’s “answer to Netanyahu’s willingness to renew indirect peace talks with the Palestinians.”
“The fact that Eli Yishai couldn’t restrain himself for another two-three days until Biden left Israel means his intention was to slap the U.S. administration in the face,” Margalit said, adding that the announcement was “a provocation to the U.S. and to the prime minister.”

Following a request for a statement by Prime Minister’s Office, Yishai said in response that the timing of the announcement had no connection to Biden’s visit.
The Interior Ministry had announced the decision to build 1,300 new homes in Ramat Shlomo, in 2008, with the approval of the regional planning board as part of Jerusalem’s housing master plan.
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat at the time called the announcement part of “a systematic policy to destroy the peace process,” urging then secretary of state Condoleezza Rice to make the issue her top priority

Joe Biden steps up pressure on Israel over E Jerusalem: BBC

Joe Biden: Israeli government’s decision “undermines trust”

US Vice-President Joe Biden has again condemned Israel over a controversial building project, saying approval had undermined trust in the peace process.
Mr Biden was speaking after meeting the Palestinian Authority President, Mahmoud Abbas, in Ramallah.
Mr Abbas also said the approval of 1,600 more Jewish homes in East Jerusalem threatened the peace process and called for it to be cancelled.
Israel insists the move has nothing to do with Mr Biden’s visit.
The timing of the move, shortly before Mr Biden’s visit, angered the US.
Israel and the Palestinians had agreed to hold indirect “proximity talks” in a bid to restart the peace process, which has been stalled for 17 months.
However, the Israeli settlement announcement has cast a shadow on those talks, with the Palestinian Authority saying the approval showed Israel believed US negotiation efforts had failed before they had even begun.

ANALYSIS
Senior Palestinian officials have described as catastrophic Israel’s decision to push ahead with a planning process for 1,600 new homes in East Jerusalem.
This is a part of the city which the rest of the world sees as occupied territory and which the Palestinians want as a capital for their new state.
The Americans are still hoping that Israel and the Palestinians will begin a round of indirect talks, but now members of the Arab League are threatening to withdraw their grudging support for fresh negotiations.
Before the discussions have even started, accusations of bad faith abound.

Mr Biden said at a joint press conference with Mr Abbas that he would condemn all statements that inflamed the situation or prejudiced the peace process.
He said the US pledged an active and sustained role in the talks process and it was “incumbent on both sides not to complicate the process”.
“Yesterday, the decision by the Israeli government to advance planning for new housing units in East Jerusalem undermines that very trust – the trust that we need right now in order to begin as well as produce profitable negotiations.”
Mr Biden said achieving peace would require both Israel and the Palestinians to take “historically bold” steps.
Mr Abbas said he was addressing the Israeli people in saying that the “time is right for peace based on two states – an Israeli state living in peace and security alongside a Palestinian state”.
He said there should be a “permanent, lasting and just peace” that took in all areas, including Syria and Lebanon.
But he was also highly critical of the planning decision, saying they represented “the ruining of trust and a serious blow” to peace efforts.
Mr Abbas has refused to resume direct negotiations with the Israeli government because of its refusal to put a complete stop to the expansion of settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Israeli denial
In November, Israel announced a 10-month suspension of new building in the West Bank, under heavy US pressure. But it considers areas within the Jerusalem municipality as its territory and the restrictions do not apply.
Israel, deliberately or not, inflicted something close to a humiliation on the Obama administration and the words they chose in reaction reflected that, our correspondent says.

Close to 500,000 Jews live in more than 100 settlements built since Israel’s 1967 occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. They are considered illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this.
During their dinner on Tuesday evening, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Mr Biden that he had no prior knowledge of the decision to authorise the new housing units in the ultra-Orthodox settlement of Ramat Shlomo, officials said.
He said the plans had been submitted three years ago and had only received initial approval that day.
“The district committees approve plans weekly without informing me,” Interior Minister Eli Yishai, the chairman of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, told Israel Radio on Wednesday morning.
“If I’d have known, I would have postponed the authorisation by a week or two since we had no intention of provoking anyone.”
But the US government has not accepted Israel’s explanation that the announcement was essentially part of a bureaucratic process that had no connection with Mr Biden’s visit, says BBC Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen in Jerusalem.
The Arab League will meet in Cairo later to decide on a response.
Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev insisted Israel had “a very good working relationship and a very good personal relationship” with the US.
He dismissed speculation that the interior ministry’s announcement was a deliberate move by some members of Mr Netanyahu’s cabinet to scupper any chance of peace talks.
The US special envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, is scheduled to arrive in the region next week to conduct the second round of proximity talks.

When Israelis degrade Israel by humiliating Joe Biden: Haaretz

By Bradley Burston
Why would Israeli officials degrade Israel by humiliating the vice-president of the United States?
Advertisement
What conceivable advantage is there in the Interior Ministry choosing the occasion of a high-profile visit by Joseph R. Biden, Jr., a mission aimed at soothing strained relations between Israel and the Obama administration, to announce the approval of 1,600 new homes for Israelis in East Jerusalem?

Or to add, in insult to injury, that construction on the new homes could begin as soon as early May.

What could officials here gain from what is, in effect, an Israeli version of the incitement the government so keenly – and correctly -decries in its Palestinian incarnations?
It the same edge that Knesset Deputy Speaker Danny Danon of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud stood to gain by telling the Washington Post, “While we welcome Vice President Biden, a longtime friend and supporter of Israel, we see it as nothing short of an insult that President Obama himself is not coming.”

It is the base sentiment that Avigdor Lieberman’s Foreign Ministry has courted in trying to make Israel appear to loom large by treating dignitaries from overseas to petty indignities and frank disrespect.
The profit, for the hard right, is political. It mines an emotional vein along a relatively small but potent segment of the Israeli electorate, which holds that to insult Israel’s indispensible ally is to assert the Jewish state’s independence.
In their drive to expunge any trace of hitrapsut – groveling to the colonial master – there are those among the ostensible super-patriots of the right who revel in shots across the bow of the American ship of state.

On the whole, the farther right one goes in Israel, the more pronounced the sentiment. Avowedly pro-Kahane extremists, now strong enough to have placed their own representative in the Knesset, have gained shock cred by lining highway underpasses with posters of the “Jew-hater Obama” photoshopped into wearing a Palestinian kaffieh.
Harder to fathom was the Defense Ministry’s Monday announcement that work would resume on 112 homes in the ultra-Orthodox settlement of Beitar Illit, units whose construction had been suspended under a White House-spurred settlement freeze.
Chalk it up, if you like, to the powerful pro-settler presence in certain strata of Israel’s bureaucracy. Or credit the mercurial, not to say, erratic, policy style of Defense Minister and Labor Party Chairman Ehud Barak. Or accept the official explanation that the timing of the decision was coincidence, entirely unconnected with the vice-presidential visit.

In the anarchic swirl of current Israeli governance, the correct answer may well be: all three.

Continue reading March 10, 2010