Israel told: no passport promise means no new Mossad diplomat: The Independent

Miliband demands assurances that identity cloning will never happen again
By Kim Sengupta, Defence Correspondent
The Israeli government will not be allowed to replace the senior Mossad station chief expelled from London over the cloning of British passports used in the assassination of a Hamas commander unless it offers a public assurance that UK citizens’ documents will never be used again for clandestine operations. The Foreign Secretary David Miliband wants his Israeli counterpart, Avigdor Lieberman, to make the pledge. British diplomatic officials are insisting the situation is not negotiable.

Israeli media outlets have claimed that another operative would be sent soon to take the place of the Mossad official working at the Israeli embassy in London, who was asked to leave after a UK investigation concluded that there was evidence that British passports used by an assassination squad were cloned by Israel.

An Israeli hit team used the British and other countries’ passports to travel to Dubai to murder the Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, it has been claimed. A British inquiry established that the documents were cloned at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport and Israeli officials made surreptitious calls to check the travel plans of those whose identities had been stolen.

The Israeli government has shown no signs so far that it will acquiesce in Mr Miliband’s demand that it pledge that “the state of Israel would never be party to the misuse of British passports in such a way”. Such a declaration would be tantamount to an admission of Israel’s guilt in the killing of Mr Mabhouh, something it denies. Mr Lieberman said: “There is no proof of Israeli involvement in this affair.”

However, the Israeli government has also indicated that it will not retaliate by expelling a British diplomat. Officials privately acknowledge that the removal of the Mossad official, although damaging for relations between the two countries, will not impact too severely on the Israeli intelligence agency’s work in the UK.

During a previous confrontation in 1988 when another Mossad agent, Arie Regev, was expelled from the UK, the then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher ordered a temporary ban on the exchange of intelligence. Mr Miliband’s statement to the House of Commons on Wednesday, announcing the expulsion of the Israeli diplomat, made no mention of a halt in information sharing.

Israel’s mass-circulation newspaper Yediot Aharonot said that the Israeli government has got off lightly in the affair: “Whoever forged the British passports knew that he might have to pay the price. And the price set by the British was a clearance-sale price.”

However, Israeli government officials say they are reconciled to other countries following Britain’s lead. Australia, France, Germany and Ireland are all investigating the use of their citizens’ passports in the assassination and, it is expected, will announce sanctions. In the Australian capital, Canberra, the Foreign Minister, Stephen Smith, said the Australian Federal Police would receive the report compiled by the UK’s Serious Organised Crime Agency. “We take the misuse of Australian passports very seriously,” he said.

Britain Expels Israel Diplomat Over Fake Passports: NY Times

LONDON — In a rare move by a friendly government, Britain expelled an Israeli diplomat on Tuesday to rebuke the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for what it says was the fraudulent use of a dozen fake British passports in the assassination of a Hamas official in a Dubai hotel earlier this year.
David Miliband, the British foreign secretary, said there were “compelling reasons” suggesting that Israel was behind the misuse of the British passports and called Israel’s actions “intolerable.”
“The fact that this was done by a friendly country only adds insult to injury,” he said in remarks to the House of Commons. “The actions in this case are completely unacceptable and they must stop.”

A host of other lawmakers used even harsher language to excoriate Israel on the floor of Parliament, calling for the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador, urging criminal prosecution of those involved and going so far as to say that Israel was becoming a “rogue state.”
The British decision to expel the diplomat is a new turn in Israel’s recent frictions with its closest Western allies. Earlier this month, the Netanyahu government announced 1,600 new Jewish housing units in East Jerusalem, embarrassing Vice President Joseph R. Biden as he visited Israel and eliciting a furious American reaction.
The Israeli government was shaken by the expulsion but chose to issue only a curt official expression of regret and to take no countermeasures against Britain, top officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were unauthorized to talk publicly.

“The relationship between Israel and Britain is mutually important,” Yigal Palmor, the foreign ministry spokesman, said by way of official reaction. “We therefore regret the British decision.”
Other officials suggested, however, that Britain should have let the issue of the forged passports die quietly out of friendship and the shared goal of fighting radical Islam. The fact that it chose to pursue the case and to take the very public step of expelling a member of the Israeli diplomatic mission in London showed ill will, they said.
In his remarks, Mr. Miliband refused calls from British lawmakers to identify the expelled Israeli official by name or title, or to say how he was connected with the faked passports. But he said that “a state intelligence service” was most likely behind the forgeries, an apparent reference to the Mossad, Israel’s spy agency.

British news reports speculated that the diplomat being ordered to leave was the London station chief of Mossad, Israel’s overseas spy agency.
Officials in Dubai have accused Mossad of being behind the Jan 20 slaying of the Hamas operative, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, in a luxury hotel room there.
The Dubai officials say they have identified at least 26 suspects of a suspected Israeli hit squad that traveled to Dubai on fake identities and forged British, Irish, French, German and Australian passports. Interpol has issued a wanted list of 27 people in connection with the slaying.

Israel has neither confirmed nor denied involvement in Mr. Mabhouh’s killing, but Israeli officials have described the slain Palestinian as an important figure in Hamas terrorist operations against Israel, and said that he was deeply involved in smuggling arms for the Hamas government in Gaza.
On Tuesday, the Israeli foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, told reporters in Brussels that Israel had been presented with no concrete proof regarding its connection to the forged passports, but he did not go so far as to deny Israel’s role.

A former senior Mossad agent, who spoke on condition of anonymity so as not to jeopardize his ties to the agency, said he found the British expulsion “a reasonable way to react,” and a sign that “the British are as interested as we are in trying to finish this thing as quickly as possible.”
He added that this was “not the same as 20 years ago,” a reference to the last time Britain expelled an Israeli diplomat over a Mossad operation. “Then there was a stronger feeling that we were playing around with their sovereignty. There was a buildup of things. This time, something happened and they wanted to nip it in the bud.”

On that occasion, the government of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher ordered the expulsion of a Mossad agent, Arie Regev, in 1988 after he was linked to a double-agent operation run by the spy agency in Britain that involved a Jerusalem-born Palestinian conducting covert surveillance on behalf of Mossad. That case, too, involved a Mossad undercover operation that was suspected of planning the assassination of a suspected Palestinian hit man who had been active in Britain.
Mr. Miliband, himself the son of Jewish immigrants, emphasized the importance of relations between Israel and Britain on Tuesday and said the uproar over the forged passports should not be used to weaken ties between the two countries.
Officials at 10 Downing Street said that Israel’s ambassador to Britain, Ron Prosor, met Monday with Peter Ricketts, the permanent secretary at the Foreign Office and Britain’s senior diplomat, to discuss the case. Israel’s Foreign Ministry declined to provide details of the talks.

News reports quoting British officials since the Dubai killing have said that at least 15 of the names used by those involved in Mr. Mabhouh’s killing matched those of Israeli citizens who are dual nationals of Western countries — including eight Israeli-British dual nationals. All have denied involvement, saying their identities were apparently stolen. On Tuesday, three of the victims reached by telephone refused to comment.
Mr. Miliband said the owners of the 12 passports were “wholly innocent victims” and that they would be issued new ones.
Other aspects of the Dubai operation have been exposed by the Dubai authorities’ action in releasing video sequences that the Dubai officials said were taken from the hotel’s surveillance cameras. One sequence showed two men identified by Dubai as members of the assassination team dressed in sports clothes, one of them carrying a tennis rackuet, as they followed Mr. Mabhouh and a female hotel concierge holding his plastic room key emerging from an elevator.

Officials in South Africa have said that several members of the Israeli hit team left Dubai for Johannesburg on a direct flight by Emirates Airline, the Dubai flag carrier, then flew back to various destinations in Europe before catching connecting flights back to Israel.
South African news reports have quoted South African officials as saying that they were unable to comply with Dubai’s request for closed-circuit video recordings taken as the men transited through Oliver Tambo International airport in Johannesburg because the recordings had been mysteriously wiped before the Dubai request was made.

Israeli View: The future of Israel-UK relations: BBC

Wednesday, 24 March 2010
The Israeli media has responded to the announcement that the UK Government is to expel an Israeli diplomat over the cloned British passports used in January’s assassination of Hamas leader Mabhoub al-Mabhouh in Dubai.

In the English Language press Amir Oren, writing in Haaretz, says the UK has dealt a blow to what he calls “Israel’s arrogance”:
“A British agent using an Israeli passport to track down an IRA cell would not meet with much Israeli sympathy. The massive use of borrowed identities of citizens of a foreign country is no different, in principle, than a plane entering that country’s air space without permission.”
At Ynet News, the website of Israel’s centrist newspaper Yedioth Ahraronot, Gerald Steinberg writes:

“The British action at this time constitutes a response to an act that caused it some embarrassment. Hence, the Mossad representative’s expulsion marks a predictable diplomatic protest, in a bid to close the case without prompting an earthquake.”
But in the right-leaning Jerusalem Post, an editorial pours scorn on the UK reaction and says Britain has “lost its moral compass”:

“But even if it had ‘compelling evidence’ from an investigation by the Serious Organized Crime Agency into the cloning of up to 15 British passports, why has the UK government now decided to publicly humiliate Israel over the affair with so drastic a response?”
A news story in the Jerusalem Post reports how a National Union party member of the Kenesset Aryeh Eldad called Britain “dogs” for expelling the diplomat.

“Eldad’s party colleague, MK Michael Ben-Ari, responded: ‘The British may be dogs, but they are not loyal to us, but rather to an anti-Semitic system, and Israeli diplomacy partially plays into their hands. This is anti-Semitism disguised as anti-Zionism’.
In the Hebrew language daily newspaper Yedioth Ahraronot Simon Schiffer says Israel should not get too worked up about the affair:

“The affair that embarrassed the kingdom so much ended with a reasonable price: the result was that the representative of the Mossad extension in London was asked to leave … He who used forged British passports knew that it was possible he would have to pay a price. And the price the British set yesterday is a sale price.”
Elsewhere in the same paper, investigative journalist and Israeli security expert Ronen Bergman questioned why Israel would want to alienate Britain, given their support over Iran’s development of a nuclear programme:

“Between Jerusalem and London there is today a unity of interests that stems from the identical way in which the British view at least some of the central threats to the State of Israel when at the centre stands the Iranian nuke. He who listens to the way the British speak at closed forums about Iran will be very surprised by their intensity and sharpness. Was it worth it to lose all this for the liquidation of Mahmud al-Mabhouh?”
In the centrist Maariv newsapaper Maya Bengal writes that Israel was “stunned” into inaction by the decision:

“In similar situations, the country whose representative was expelled responds with the same coin, to expel a British diplomat… But this time it was decided in Jerusalem not to respond in accordance with the rules of the diplomatic game and to ‘swallow the frog’.”

The Guardian: Israel and Britain – The rule of law: The Guardian Editorial

24 March 2010
The forging of British passports is the work of a country which believes it can act with impunity when planning the murder of its enemies
Expulsions of Israeli diplomats from Britain are few and far between. The last one took place in 1988 and only after serial provocations – when a Mossad agent left an envelope containing eight forged passports in a German telephone box, and when, a year later, a Palestinian working as a Mossad double agent was found with six suitcases of arms and explosives in Hull. The affair was swiftly hushed up. This time, the expulsion yesterday of an Israeli diplomat over the use of cloned British passports used by a Mossad murder squad, was accompanied by an unprecedented statement by the foreign secretary, David Miliband.
He all but accused the Israeli government of participation in a criminal, terrorist conspiracy. He said that given that high-quality forgeries were made of British passports, it was “highly likely” the forgeries were made by a state intelligence service and that, taken with other inquiries from the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca), there were compelling reasons to believe that Israel was responsible for the misuse of British passports. The inference was clear. If Israel as a government was responsible for the forgery of passports, it was responsible too for the murder of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, the founder of Hamas’s military wing, in Dubai.
As Mr Miliband was speaking, the gap that had opened up between the United States and Israel over its refusal to stop building in East Jerusalem, widened still further. This is land which Israel has annexed but which the rest of the world regards as occupied Palestinian territory. Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, warned that the peace talks could be delayed for another year unless Palestinians dropped their “illogical and unreasonable” demand for a full settlement freeze. The day before he said that if the Jewish people were building Jerusalem 3,000 years ago they could build there today, and the nearly 250,000 Jews living in neighbourhoods beyond the green line today were an “integral and inextricable” part of modern Jerusalem.
Jerusalem was not a settlement, he said, it was the capital of Israel. These are not the words of a government prepared to negotiate what all Israelis know is a central demand of final status negotiations – Jerusalem becomes the capital of a Palestinian state. King Abdullah of Jordan, one of only two Arab states that has signed a peace treaty with Israel, called the sovereignty of the holy city a red line. Israel’s statements on East Jerusalem condemn the talks before they have even begun.
Both events in London and Washington are the marks of an arrogant nation that has overreached itself. The forging of British passports is the work of a country which believes it can act with impunity when planning the murder of its enemies, while simultaneously claiming to share the values of a law-based state. Mr Netanyahu’s statements in Washington, made as he was preparing to meet Barack Obama, are the mark of a leader who thinks he can openly defy the will of Israel’s closest military ally. As Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, said, continued construction in East Jerusalem undermines America’s ability to play any effective role in the peace process. She could not have been more explicit in her warning that the chances of America being able to persuade the Arab world to recognise Israel were diminishing by the month. In neither case does Mr Netanyahu see that he is eroding the very ground on which he stands.
Mr Netanyahu has to face the consequences of an ideological stand over East Jerusalem which precludes any other. Here, as in the rest of the West Bank, where the number of Jewish settlers has more than doubled since the Oslo peace accords were signed in 1993, Israel is pre-empting the shape of the final agreement by creating facts on the ground. No deal with the Palestinians can be made in these conditions.

UN rights body censures Israel: Al Jazeera TV

The council urged Israel to compensate Palestinians who suffered losses during Gaza war [File: EPA]
The United Nations Human Rights Council has passed three resolutions condemning Israel over its policies in occupied Palestinian and Syrian territories.
However, the United States voted against them all.
Another resolution, calling for a fund to compensate Palestinians who suffered losses during Israel’s offensive in Gaza 14 months ago, is expected to be passed on Thursday.
One resolution on “grave human rights violations” by Israeli forces in the Palestinian territories – which was passed by 31 votes to nine, with seven abstentions in the 47-member Council – demanded that Israel end its occupation of Palestinian land, occupied since 1967.

US opposition
It also demanded that Israel stop what it called targeting of Palestinian civilians and systematic destruction of their cultural heritage, halt all military operations across Palestinian land and lift its blockade of Gaza.
The US and the European Union, whose seven members on the Council vote separately but generally in unison, opposed the resolution, with both saying it was unbalanced.

Another resolution called on Israel to stop building all settlements in the occupied territories.
The third condemned Israel for what it called systematic violation of the rights of the people of the occupied Syrian Golan Heights. The US voted no, while 15 countries, including EU members, abstained.
The US, which itself is in a diplomatic row with Israel over settlements which the government of Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, is vowing to pursue, told the Council that the three resolutions would do nothing to help peace.
It said the UN body was too often being used as a platform to single out Israel for condemnation while rights violations by other countries were ignored.

The Council is effectively dominated by a developing country bloc in which the Organisation of the Islamic Conference has a strong influence and which is routinely supported by China, Russia and Cuba.

Lieberman to PM: Don’t sign anything: Y Net

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman spoke with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during Washington crisis, advised PM not to capitulate in face of American pressure, Ynet learns
Did the prime minister decide not to provide a written pledge to the US during his Washington visit based on political and coalitional considerations? Ynet learned Thursday that amid the deepening rift between Jerusalem and Washington, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke with Foreign Minster Avigdor Leiberman, who advised him not to agree to US demands and urged him to return to Israel for further consultations.

According to US reports, Netanyahu conveyed a sense of “panic” during the trip.
“Apparently Bibi is very nervous, frantically calling his ‘seven (top ministers),’ trying to figure out what to do,” one Washington Middle East hand said Wednesday according to the Politico website. “The word I heard most today was ‘panic.’”
Netanyahu’s visit to Washington was held against the backdrop of a serious diplomatic row between Israel and the United State, including the latest incident involving building permits in east Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood.

Future of Coalition
Many believe diplomatic crisis with US will force Netanyahu to invite Kadima to join coalition
After receiving a cool reception in the White House, Netanyahu met with US President Barack Obama and the two engaged in intense deliberations in an effort to reach mutual understandings before the Israeli PM left Washington. During the discussions, Netanyahu made some time for a conversation with his senior coalition partner Avigdor Leiberman.

According to information received by Ynet, the foreign minister advised the prime minister not to sign any document of understandings with the Americans, urging Netanyahu not to act under pressure, but rather ,to return to Israel and draft such a document along with his senior cabinet members.
Thursday night, several hours after returning from the United States, Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak will convene with the seven senior ministers’ forum.
The prime minister seemed to have taken Lieberman’s advice and left Washington without consenting to the US Administration’s demands, saying he must first consult with his senior ministers. However, Netanyahu did not speak with Shas Chairman Eli Yishai – another senior coalition partner.

Much speculation regarding the stability of the current coalition with its existing make-up had been circulating within Israel’s political establishment. Despite the growing speculation, Lieberman did not express any concerns over the future of the coalition, saying in closed-door talks that he does not foresee any changes in its composition.
Unlike the foreign minister, a Labor party minister noted that “the government with its current composition is in danger. The question is not who will leave, but who will join.”
Another senior Likud minister said that “the picture is still not clear enough, and it is too early to engage in any speculations.”

Ramallah and Gaza are waiting: Haaretz

Amira Hass

Satisfaction – that’s what Israeli faces radiate, at least as observed by people who just came out of Ramallah or Gaza and watch Jerusalem’s busy Ben-Yehuda Street, the Ramat Aviv Mall or Ben-Gurion International Airport.
To the Israelis, nothing exists beyond the moment. It’s just like the smugness exhibited by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on his private playing field, the AIPAC conference. Have our diplomats been expelled? Is the American administration angry? We’ll bow our heads for a moment, the storm will pass, and we’ll be accepted into the honorable club of the OECD. The main thing is that Israel’s obstinate policy of separation has succeeded and that two adversarial Palestinian entities has been created.

One is building its Islamic principality in an isolated enclave, bouncing around promises that the second step toward the liberation of Jerusalem and Haifa has already been taken. The other proudly hosts representatives of donor nations in its small and crowded enclaves, and tries to persuade everybody that this is the way to build a state that includes Area C, no-man’s land, Latrun, Gaza, Al-Aqsa and the approximately 70 square kilometers that Israel has annexed and calls Jerusalem.
But we Israelis know that everything is equally imaginary. We are the wizards of the status quo. We establish it as we like, moving an acre here and a military base there, until the world says it agrees. When God wants, Ramallah will also be called a holy city and Gaza will be crowned an Egyptian district capital.
That is not the way the future looks in the two separate entities. Their mutually contradictory rhetoric is based on a similar assumption: Both Gaza and Ramallah believe that change will eventually come from the outside, and that is the popular expectation as well.

The Ramallah government expects that the United States, Europe and the pro-Western Arab states will come to their senses and force Israel to do that which it has avoided since 1968: withdraw (“with slight border adjustments”) and bring the settlers back home. The Ramallah government expects that external factors will cause Israel to understand that which it does not understand on its own. There is nothing boastful about this stance; rather, it is one of compassion for the Israeli people, which has encased itself in a bubble of smugness that ignores historical processes.

More than a decade ago, during one of the futile rounds of talks between Israel and the Palestinians, Saeb Erekat allowed himself to wonder: “Aren’t the Israelis thinking about their grandchildren?” A similar question is heard from inhabitants of Gaza whose homes were destroyed and whose children were killed, as well as from Palestinian farmers in the West Bank who have had their fill of harassment from settlers. Everyone wants to know: Don’t the Israelis understand that they cannot depend forever on their economic and military superiority? That it is impossible to maintain forever an aggressive regime based on extreme inequality and privilege for Jews?

In other words, it is a request to the West: “If Israel is so important to you, save it from itself.”
That approach sees the Jewish Israeli community as an accepted part of the region, whether in one state, in two or in a federation of states. It does not matter. It proposes foreseeable time frames for implementation: two years, five years, 10. This is an approach that still preserves faith in Western common sense.

The Gaza government, meanwhile, is expecting a Muslim intifada to break out in countries near and far, which will turn the regional and the global balance of power upside down: Peoples will rise up, pro-Western governments will fall, and the new governments will not show tolerance for Western aid to Israel or the foreign element that the West has planted in the East. That scenario, too, sees Israel as the one responsible for everything that happens and might happen, but has no compassion for an entity that views 1 billion of its neighbors as unimportant. Its time frame is much longer than the compassionate scenario. Those who patiently anticipate a widespread Muslim intifada are convinced that their scenario, and not the one that expects the West to take action, is the one that will happen; after all, they are convinced, the West will not change its spots.

Ali Abunimah: Mideast peace effort is a charade: IOA

By Ali Abunimah, CNN – 23 March 2010
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s Monday speech to America’s leading pro-Israel lobby took on added significance in light of the spat between the U.S. and Israel over the expansion of Jewish settlements in occupied East Jerusalem.
It indicated the Obama administration blinked in the face of continued Israeli defiance, but that Israel likely faces more trouble down the road.
The row began when Israel announced 1,600 new Jewish-only homes on occupied Palestinian land on March 9, the very day Vice President Joe Biden was in the country to launch indirect talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
In an angry phone call to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Clinton reportedly demanded that Israel rescind the decision, among other “confidence-building measures,” to get the U.S.-brokered talks back on track.
At AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Clinton stood by the administration’s criticism but could not point to any substantive Israeli concessions.
Netanyahu, she said, had responded to her demand for concrete steps with specific actions Israel is prepared to take. But halting settlement expansion was not one of them. Indeed, before leaving Israel for Washington where he was scheduled to meet President Obama on Tuesday, Netanyahu stressed that construction anywhere in Jerusalem was the same as construction in Tel Aviv and would continue as normal.
This is a replay of the administration’s earlier cave-in. Almost a year ago, Obama sought to correct America’s long-standing, pro-Israel tilt by demanding Israel stop building West Bank settlements, which have consumed much of the land on which a Palestinian state was supposed to be established.
But bowing to pressure from Israel’s powerful U.S. lobby, the administration dropped the demand. Israel announced a fictional 10-month settlement freeze, excluding Jerusalem. Then Obama pressured Palestinians to return to the same merry-go-round of endless talks — and still, Israel pursues settlements unrestrained.
In unusually stark language, Clinton warned that Israel needed a peace deal because “the status quo is unsustainable for all sides.”
She pointed to the “inexorable mathematics of demography,” a reference to projections that Palestinians will soon be the majority population in the area controlled by Israel. Only a two-state solution, Clinton asserted, could preserve Israel as a “Jewish and democratic state.”
The problem is that the administration’s plan to get to its objective of “two states for two peoples living side by side in peace” looks less credible today than ever.
On the Palestinian side, the U.S. refuses to engage with Hamas, without which no credible deal can be struck, and the anemic U.S. vision of a Palestinian mini-state cannot hope to meet the aspirations or restore the rights of millions of Palestinian refugees.
And, after two embarrassing defeats at the Israel lobby’s hands, chances that Obama will use America’s massive financial aid to Israel as leverage are close to nil, especially as midterm elections approach.
The administration’s dependence on the goodwill of the lobby was highlighted by the fact that AIPAC’s new president, Lee Rosenberg, was a key member of the national finance committee for Obama’s presidential campaign, and another AIPAC national board member, J.B. Pritzker — who got a shout-out in Clinton’s speech — was national finance chair of Citizens for Hillary.
In the closely watched race for Obama’s former Illinois Senate seat, the National Republican Senatorial Committee accused Republican Mark Kirk’s Democratic opponent Alexi Giannoulias — and by extension Obama, who is a close Giannoulias friend — of being “anti-Israel.” This may foreshadow a national GOP strategy to make unconditional support for Israeli policies more than ever a litmus test in American elections.
In this poisonous atmosphere, real progress is unlikely — the best the Obama administration can hope for is to avoid a serious blowup until it can pass the problem to the next administration.
But the situation on the ground will not wait for the United States to come to its senses; in Jerusalem and the West Bank, popular resistance is growing, in the form of nonviolent protests, to Israel’s land confiscations.
Israel’s violent response, including the arrests of civil society leaders, may cause some Palestinians to react in kind.
Globally, Israel faces a growing campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions just like apartheid South Africa did in the 1980s. A leading Israeli think tank, the Reut Institute, warned the government recently that this campaign “possesses strategic significance, and may develop into a comprehensive existential threat within a few years.”
It also stated that a “harbinger of such a threat would be the collapse of the two-state solution as an agreed framework for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the coalescence behind a ‘one-state solution’ as a new alternative framework.” With its aggressive settlement expansion plans, Israel has in effect chosen a one-state instead of a two-state solution — but it is indeed an apartheid state.
While the United States looks on impassively, or continues to tout a charade of a peace process, Palestinians, pro-democracy Israelis and their allies will intensify what is rapidly turning into a struggle for equal rights and citizenship for everyone who inhabits the narrow land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

Haaretz: Despite row, US and Israel sign massive arms deal: IOA

As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in Washington this week absorbing the full wrath of the Obama administration, the Pentagon and Israel’s defense establishment were in the process of sealing a large arms deal. According to the deal, Israel will purchase three new Hercules C-130J airplanes… designed by Lockheed Martin… [and] worth roughly a quarter billion dollars.
As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in Washington this week absorbing the full wrath of the Obama administration, the Pentagon and Israel’s defense establishment were in the process of sealing a large arms deal.
According to the deal, Israel will purchase three new Hercules C-130J airplanes. The deal for the three aircrafts, designed by Lockheed Martin, are worth roughly a quarter billion dollars. Each aircraft costs $70 million.
The aircrafts were manufactured specifically for Israeli needs, and include a large number of systems produced by Israel’s defense industry.
The deal will be covered by American foreign assistance funds. The Pentagon will issue a formal announcement on the matter on Thursday evening.
America and Israel have still not reached an agreement regarding the purchase of another Lockheed war plane, the F-35. It is still not clear when that deal, which is estimated to be worth more than $3 billion, will finally be sealed and carried out.
If that deal is signed in the near future, Israel will likely receive its first F-35 in 2014.

Israel’s inclusion in economic organization a threat to democracy: The Electronic Intifada

Shir Hever, 25 March 2010

Membership in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which includes 30 of the world’s most developed countries, does not provide money or any special economic benefits. Yet it is easy to see why the Israeli government attributes great importance to Israel becoming one of its members. For Israel, membership in the OECD would mean a victory of legitimacy, and a major setback for the worldwide movement calling on Israel to be held accountable for its crimes against the Palestinian people. Only democratic countries are allowed to join the OECD. With 35 percent of the population under Israel’s control and sovereignty disenfranchised, denied their basic human and civil rights and repeatedly attacked by the Israeli army, Israel is finding it increasingly difficult to portray itself as a democracy.
What appears less obvious is why the member countries would want to include Israel in the OECD. Israel’s membership would be a confirmation of Israeli policies, thus eroding the organization’s prestige while undermining the efforts of these very same countries to achieve peace in the Middle East. The OECD would be inviting the world to see how it prefers to ignore the crimes committed by Israel, and reward it instead. This would do no less than feed into the argument of extremists who claim that only violence can safeguard the rights of occupied Palestinians.

Ironically, however, the OECD seems to be working harder than Israel to facilitate the latter’s acceptance, which is expected to occur in May. Israel has refused to comply with the OECD demand to provide statistical data which applies only to the internationally-recognized parts of Israel, excluding the illegal settlements in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). Yet despite Israel’s refusal, the OECD’s Committee on Statistics is acting to find ways to accept Israel anyway.

According to a leaked report, “Ascension of Israel to the Organization: Draft Formal Opinions of the Committee on Statistics” (download the PDF), the committee proposes to accept Israel based on the statistics currently available, which includes Israeli citizens in the OPT. However, it requests that Israel provide more detailed statistical data which will allow the OECD to conduct its own calculation in order to separate the OPT data from that of Israel. However, Israel will only commit to provide this data after it becomes a member of the organization. Yet as soon as Israel becomes a member, it will have the right to veto this decision, rendering the commitment an empty statement.

It should be noted that in this way the OECD is adopting the Israeli approach — an approach that eliminates the Palestinians and Israel’s effective sovereignty over the OPT, and focuses solely on Israeli citizens. This approach is tantamount to recognizing Israel’s illegal occupation, which stands in direct contradiction to international law and the foreign policies of virtually all OECD countries.
It should also be noted that the OECD takes decisions by consensus. It only takes one OECD country to oppose the integration of Israel into the organization in order to block the process. So far, not a single OECD country has voiced its intention to vote against including Israel in the organization.
The reason for that is twofold. First, there is the usual fear that any country (especially a European country), that voices its objection to Israel’s joining the OECD will be accused of anti-Semitism. Israel enjoys the unflinching support of the United States, and few European politicians have the courage to take a moral stand against either Washington or Israel.

Second, right-wing parties around the world see Israel as the Mecca of anti-immigration policies, Islamophobia and the “war on terror.” With every new line that Israel crosses in abusing the human and national rights of Palestinians, right-wing parties are emboldened to deepen their own politics of hatred toward immigrants. If Israel conducts extra-judicial assassinations, why won’t other countries be allowed to do the same? If Israel installs surveillance mechanisms that invade the privacy of its citizens, what would stop other countries from doing so also? Legitimizing Israel by inviting and facilitating its ascension to the OECD is thus a tool to legitimize the extreme measures promoted by far-right parties in Europe, which are eager to do away with democratic mechanisms and human rights of minorities in the name of nationalism and “security.”

European law clearly forbids European countries from recognizing the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories, as has been affirmed by the Russell Tribunal. Yet by granting Israel membership in the OECD, they will be doing exactly that. OECD members will knowingly accept Israel to the organization based on deceptive statistics provided by the latter, statistics which conceal the occupation while simultaneously treating it as a permanent fact.
Israel’s acceptance into the OECD would be a grave mistake. It will reward violations of international law, feed the extreme right wing which is growing in developed countries and render all OECD countries as accomplices in Israel’s illegal occupation.

Gaza Students Can’t Study in Gaza, Can’t Leave: The Only Democracy?

Between March 1 and March 5, 2010, the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt was open, and 4427 people passed through the crossing, including 461 students. Of these students, 100 were returned to Gaza by the Egyptians either because Egypt believed that they would seek to remain in Egypt, or because they were missing the requisite exit documents.
According to the latest information, 502 students are presently seeking to leave the Gaza Strip in order to realize their dreams and study in universities abroad. Yet why do students in Gaza aspire to study outside the Strip? Among the reasons is the fact that in Gaza it is not possible to study certain fields, such as dentistry, occupational therapy, veterinary studies, environment preservation and democracy and human rights. In contrast, degrees in all these areas are available in the West Bank.
Nevertheless, to the best of our knowledge, the number of students that have received permission from Israel to study in the West Bank since 2000 stands at zero. This is due to the imposition by Israel of a sweeping prohibition on students from Gaza traveling to the West Bank in order to study there. Therefore, students from Gaza (who are able) focus on studying at universities abroad.

Since June 2007, Israel has imposed tight restrictions on the exit of students through the Erez border crossing, establishing strict criteria for the passage of students through Israel on their way to the Allenby border crossing (in Jordan) and from there to their studies overseas. As a result, students are forced to try and exit Gaza through the Rafah crossing.
Since June 2006 and the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit, the Rafah crossing has been officially closed and has been opened on an ad hoc and irregular basis. This is contrary to the Agreement on Movement and Access concluded in November 2005, according to which the Rafah crossing must be open to the movement of people between Gaza and Egypt.
In total approximately 1600 people, including 502 students who are eager to start their studies abroad, were not able to exit Gaza via the Rafah crossing when it opened at the start of March. They are forced instead to wait until the next time the crossing is opened.
Yet they have no way of knowing when the next time will arrive.

Jordan: Israel playing with fire with settlements: Washington Post

AMMAN, Jordan — Jordan’s king warned Israel in a rare public rebuke that it is “playing with fire” with its settlement policy, and said in comments published Thursday the Jewish state must decide whether it wants peace or war.
The comments from King Abdullah II, whose country signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994, underscore the Jordanian leader’s frustration with recent Israeli announcements of new housing for Jews in disputed east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians claim as the capital of a future state.

The Israeli plans came just as long-stalled indirect peace talks were to begin under U.S. mediation. The housing announcement enraged Arabs, and triggered sharp condemnation from Washington and the international community.
“We have warned repeatedly that Israel is playing with fire,” Abdullah said in an interview published with local newspapers.
He said Israel “must decide if it wants conflict or peace,” adding that if it is indeed peace, then Israel must take “tangible actions” toward ending settlements and returning to negotiations with Palestinians.

“People are fed up with an open-ended process that does not lead to results,” he said.

Abdullah said that a two-state solution was the “only solution” to the crisis, and warned that if no progress is made toward peace soon, then a new cycle violence will erupt for which “the whole world will pay the price.”
Despite intense pressure from the U.S. and the international community, Israel has refused to budge on the plans for 1,600 new Jewish homes in east Jerusalem, insisting the holy city is Israel’s capital and not a settlement.

During Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s trip this week to Washington for talks with senior U.S. officials, Israel announced plans to further expand Jewish housing in the disputed part of Jerusalem.
Abdullah firmly rejected the plans, saying Jordan “condemns all Israeli measures to change the identity of Jerusalem and empty it of its Arab Christian and Muslim residents.”
Abdullah spoke ahead of this weekend’s Arab summit conference in Libya, where Arab leaders are expected to decide whet

Differences remain between Israel and US – White House: BBC

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the talks had been straightforward
Differences remain between Israel and the US, following Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to Washington, the White House has said.
President Obama urged the Israeli PM to take steps to build confidence in the peace process, during “honest” talks on Tuesday, said spokesman Robert Gibbs.
Mr Gibbs also said the US was seeking “clarification” of the latest plans to build homes in occupied East Jerusalem.
Mr Netanyahu’s trip came amid the worst crisis in US-Israeli ties for decades.
The Israeli prime minister delayed his departure from Washington on Wednesday to meet the US Middle East peace envoy, George Mitchell.
The spat flared two weeks ago when, during a visit by US Vice-President Joe Biden, Israel unveiled plans to build 1,600 homes in part of East Jerusalem, which Washington branded an insult.

TIMELINE: ISRAEL-US ROW
9 Mar: Israel announces the building of 1,600 new homes in East Jerusalem during visit by US Vice-President Joe Biden.
Mr Biden condemns the move
11 Mar: Mr Biden says there must be no delay in resuming Mid-East peace talks, despite the row
12 Mar: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says the Israeli move is “deeply negative” for relations
15 Mar: The US says it is waiting for a “formal response” from Israel to its proposals to show it is committed to Mid-East peace
16 Mar: The US envoy to the Mid-East postpones a visit to Israel
17 Mar: President Obama denies there is a crisis with Israel
22 Mar: Hillary Clinton tells pro-Israel lobby group Aipac Israel has to make “difficult but necessary choices” if it wants peace with Palestinians.
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu tells Aipac Israel has a “right to build” in Jerusalem
23 Mar: Mr Obama and Mr Netanyahu meet behind closed doors with no media access
23 Mar: Jerusalem municipal government approves building of 20 new homes in East Jerusalem
24 Mar: The White House says differences remain

Then, minutes before Mr Netanyahu’s fence-mending visit to the White House on Tuesday, it emerged the Jerusalem municipal government had approved the building of 20 new apartments.
Mr Gibbs told reporters on Wednesday there were still areas of “disagreement” between the sides, following the two meetings in Washington, one of which was unscheduled.
He described the three-and-a-half hours of talks as an “honest and straightforward discussion that continues”.
“The president has asked the prime minister for certain things to build confidence up to proximity talks that we think can make progress,” Mr Gibbs said, referring to the peace process.
He reiterated the US position that there is an “unbreakable bond” between America and the Israeli people.
The Israelis said there had been a “good atmosphere” during Tuesday’s talks.
But the BBC’s Kim Ghattas in Washington notes Mr Netanyahu did not get the reception usually reserved for America’s allies.
There was no press conference, no lavish welcome, and the White House did not even release a picture of the meeting.
It all signals that the US is playing tough, making clear it is upset with the Israeli government, says our correspondent.
Palestinians want East Jerusalem for their future capital, but Israel insists the city cannot be divided.
Nearly half a million 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.

Obama and Netanyahu play hardball over Israeli settlement plan: The Guardian

News blackout imposed as two leaders engage in tough talks over plans for another East Jerusalem settlement
The White House was today seeking clarification from the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, after it emerged that approval has been issued for another Jewish settlement project in East Jerusalem, which the US tried to halt last year.
The latest project, which involves the demolition of the historic Shepherd Hotel in Sheikh Jarrah, came as President Barack Obama and Netanyahu were engaged in hardball diplomacy over the whole issue of settlements. The White House confirmed today there was disagreement between the two.
Netanyahu has publicly refused to give a commitment to freeze settlement construction in East Jerusalem and the Palestinians have said they will not resume even indirect negotiations with the Israelis until the issue is resolved.

The White House, unusually for the visit of a foreign leader, has imposed a news blackout on the meeting between Netanyahu and Obama last night. There was no picture of the two men together and no press statement by the White House.
The White House press spokesman, Robert Gibbs, asked by reporters today about the meeting, described it as “honest and straightforward”, diplomatic speak for tough discussions. “There are areas of agreement and areas of disagreement,” Gibbs said.
Netanyahu initially met Obama for 90 minutes. Unusually, the Israeli prime minister then held discussions with his own staff in the Roosevelt Room of the White House for a further 80 minutes before asking to see Obama again.

The two leaders then held a further 30 minutes of discussion.

Gibbs said that Netanyahu was continuing talks with Obama administration staff today.
There are conflicting accounts of precisely what Netanyahu has offered Obama. Officials in Washington reported Netanyahu had offered concessions to the Palestinians such as removal of some roadblocks and Israeli troops from the West Bank and an unofficial freeze on settlement building.
The row, which has seen relations between the US and Israel sink to their lowest point for decades, began earlier this month when, even as the US vice-president, Joe Biden, was visiting Jerusalem, the Israeli authorities approved 1,600 new homes that would almost double the size of Ramat Shlomo, an ultra-Orthodox settlement in East Jerusalem.

A final building permit for the Shepherd Hotel project was signed last Thursday, before Netanyahu flew to Washington for talks with Obama. The decision means work can start at any time to demolish it and to build 20 new apartments for Jewish settlers in its place.
“What it means politically is that it is one very important project that can torpedo the peace talks,” said Hagit Ofran, a settlement expert at the Israeli group Peace Now. “It is in the hands of the settlers to decide when to bring the bulldozers … It is a very dangerous step.”
Another project to build 200 settler homes in a nearby area of Sheikh Jarrah, which was shelved last year, was revived a few weeks ago and has passed the preliminary stages of the approval process, Ofran said. If successful it would be built on the site of homes from which several Palestinian families have been evicted in recent months.

“These new settlement units are part of Israel’s attempt to forcibly end any Palestinian presence in East Jerusalem, and to foreclose any hope of reaching agreement on the core issue of Jerusalem in line with international law,” said Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator.
The Shepherd Hotel, close to the British consulate, was once a headquarters for Haj Amin al-Husseini, the former Palestinian grand mufti of Jerusalem. After 1967, Israel deemed it absentee property. It was then bought, reportedly for $1m, in 1985 by Irving Moskowitz, a Jewish American millionaire who funds settlements.

Elisha Peleg, a Jerusalem city councillor, said the Shepherd Hotel building permit was a “technical step” and that more construction would follow there and in other Palestinian areas of the city. “We will continue to build all over Jerusalem, in Sheikh Jarrah and Ras al-Amud as well,” he said.
Daniel Seidemann, an Israeli human rights lawyer and founder of the group Ir Amim, said the new building was part of the encirclement of Jerusalem’s Old City by Jewish settlements. “It is going to be interpreted by the Palestinians, with I think a degree of legitimacy, as an attempt to eradicate the expression of their culture and presence,” he said. “It is the first new construction in Sheikh Jarrah: the encroachment of ideologically motivated settlers in a Palestinian neighbourhood.”

Two meetings, but no agreement between Obama and Netanyahu: Haaretz

Israeli and American leaders could not even agree on a joint statement after their White House talks.
WASHINGTON – The meeting between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Barack Obama at the White House on Tuesday did not resolve the differences of opinion on the future of the peace process with the Palestinians or Israeli construction in East Jerusalem. Netanyahu canceled a series of interviews and briefings with the American media, scheduled for Wednesday morning, in order to focus on the serious disagreements with the Obama administration.

Netanyahu arrived at the White House at 5:30 P.M. local time Tuesday, and held one on one talks with Obama for an hour and a half. The meeting ended in serious disagreement; after the talks – in an unprecedented move – Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and their advisers retired to a side room in the White House for consultations, while Obama left for his residential quarters. Some 90 minutes later, Netanyahu requested a second meeting with the president, who returned to the Oval Office for a further half-hour conversation with the prime minister.
But the second meeting between the two also ended in disagreement, and they could not even reach a consensus on a joint statement. Netanyahu and Ehud Barak then left the White House for the Israeli embassy in Washington, leaving the prime minister’s aides, Yitzhak Molcho, Ron Dermer and Nir Chefetz, as well as Ambassador Michael Oren, to hold talks with Obama’s people. Only at 2 A.M. did these consultations end, and Netanyahu and his entourage return to their hotel.

In the wake of such serious disagreements, and the need to continue the lower-level consultations Wednesday morning, Netanyahu canceled his media appearances.
Sources in Netanyahu’s entourage said that the day had been devoted solely to talks with senior American officials, led by Molcho and Dermer. Netanyahu was set to meet special envoy George Mitchell on Wednesday, and he and Barak were to spend the day at the Israeli embassy.
“The objective is to reach understandings with the American administration before we take off for Israel,” said a source in the Netanyahu camp.
Nevertheless, it is unclear when Netanyahu would board a plane for home. Apparently this will happen Wednesday evening, Washington time, at the earliest.

US seeks “clarification” on Israel’s latest East Jerusalem build: Ma’an/Agencies

Bethlehem – The White House said Wednesday it is seeking Israel’s clarification on a recent decision to build 20 new housing units in occupied East Jerusalem, in the flashpoint Palestinian neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, on the site of the Shepherd Hotel.
White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said the US administration believes Israel’s continued building in Jerusalem is destructive to the peace process, the Associated Press reported.

Vietor said the US is urging both Israelis and Palestinians to refrain from acts that could undermine trust, amid efforts to kick start the peace process.
The latest announcement to continue building in East Jerusalem, despite international calls for a halt, follow a recent string of declarations by the Israeli government since US Vice President Joe Biden’s recent visit to the region as the American administration launches a fresh bid to renew stalled talks that broke of in December 2008 following Israel’s assault on Gaza.
During the visit, Israel’s Interior Ministry announced the construction of 1,600 Israeli-only homes in East Jerusalem, on the eve of the PLO’s decision to enter into US-brokered proximity talks with Israel. The move sparked international condemnation, with the Quartet calling on Israel to revoke its decision. Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told conveners at the AIPAC conference that Jerusalem construction would continue unhindered.

Chief PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat said Wednesday that Israel’s most recent decision to build in Sheikh Jarrah, on the site the Shephard Hotel, is damaging Israel’s credibility as a serious partner for peace and are further attempts to erase Palestinian presence in the city.
“If Israel is serious about negotiations, then why not stop illegal settlement construction as the international community is calling for and the Road Map demands, especially when every effort is being made to start proximity talks? Why continue doing what Israel is doing when everyone is urging Israel to do what is right and what is needed if peace is to have any chance,” Erekat said in a statement.

“Israel is digging itself into a hole that it will have to climb out of if it is serious about peace. There is overwhelming international consensus on the illegality of Israel’s settlements, including in East Jerusalem, and the damage they are doing to the two-state solution.”
Plans submitted to construct a new Israeli settlement in Sheikh Jarrah consist of 90 housing units, as well as a synagogue, a kindergarten and a children’s park. The whole complex will be approximately 10,000 square meters in size and slated to house up to 500 new settlers. On Tuesday the Israeli Jerusalem Municipality gave the go-ahead for the construction of 20 new Jewish-only units.

Barak: I can’t promise there will be no future settlement mishaps: Haaretz

Defense Minister Ehud Barak, in an interview with Charlie Rose to be aired on Wednesday, has said that he cannot guarantee that there won’t be any future mishaps regarding settlement building.

Barak was speaking about the trigger of the recent crisis in U.S.-Israel relations, which was the Israeli government’s announcement two weeks ago of plans to build 1,600 new units in the Ramat Shlomo neighborhood of East Jerusalem.
“I cannot tell you that we fully control any step or any announcement about all these dozens [of] programs which are in the pipeline, including many that are related to Arab building in Jerusalem and so on,” Barak told Rose.
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“I cannot promise that no mishap will happen. But I can promise you that we will do our best to make sure that we’ll keep with the American administration a kind of open dialogue about what happens,? Barak said.

The Defense Minister did emphasize his disappointment with the circumstances of the East Jerusalem building announcement.
“It was embarrassing, damaging, very wrong timing, but I can assure that neither Netanyahu nor the Cabinet knew about it in advance,” Barak told Rose.
“It’s a complicated, uncontrollable process, but now the government nominated a committee of senior level officials to make sure that this cannot happen once again.”

Israel Confirms New Building in East Jerusalem: The New York Times

A Palestinian woman and child walked past the former Hotel Shepherd in east Jerusalem on Wednesday, as local officials gave final approval to build 20 apartments for Jewish settlers where the Palestinian hotel once stood.
Jerusalem city hall gave the project the final go-ahead on March 18, days after city officials said the landowners had paid the required fees. Once the fees were paid, City Hall said in a statement on Wednesday, “approval was granted automatically.”
A spokesman for the White House said on Wednesday that it was seeking “clarification” on the building project. In New York, the United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, told the Security Council that “all settlement activity is illegal, but inserting settlers into Palestinian neighborhoods in Jerusalem is particularly troubling.”

He added: “This leads to tensions and undermines prospects for addressing the final status of Jerusalem.”

The plan in question is for construction of 20 residential units in the Shepherd Hotel compound in Sheik Jarrah, a neighborhood populated mostly by Palestinians, and more recently by some Israeli nationalist Jews, just north of the Old City.
The green light for the project was first published by Ynet, an Israeli news Web site, on Tuesday night, shortly before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with President Obama in Washington.
Given the tense atmosphere surrounding building plans in the Israeli-annexed eastern part of Jerusalem, Israeli officials Wednesday played down the significance of the latest development, saying approval was a technicality that required no further decision by any committee or body.

“This plan began to be formulated in the 1980s,” Naomi Tsur, the deputy mayor of Jerusalem responsible for planning and environment, said in a telephone interview. “It was given final approval nine or ten months ago.” The latest approval , she said, “was a technical step put out by a computer somewhere. But somebody with peculiarly accurate timing released this non-information within minutes of the Obama-Netanyahu meeting.”
Officials described the Ynet report, which said that final approval had been granted only on March 18, as “distorted” and intended “to stir up a provocation” during Mr. Netanyahu’s visit to Washington. The plan received final approval in July 2009, officials said.

Israel captured East Jerusalem from Jordan in the 1967 war, but its annexation was never internationally recognized. The Palestinians claim East Jerusalem as the capital of a future state and demand a halt to Israeli expansion in the occupied territories, including East Jerusalem, before Israeli-Palestinian negotiations can start.
The Obama administration was close to starting indirect, so-called “proximity talks” between the Israelis and Palestinians, with an American envoy shuttling between the two sides. Those were put off when Israel announced plans this month for 1,600 new housing units in an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of East Jerusalem during a visit here by Vice President Joseph R. Biden, infuriating the Obama administration.

Mr. Netanyahu apologized for the bad timing but continues to insist on Israel’s right to build anywhere in what Israel considers its united capital of Jerusalem.
Still, in a sign of the sensitivity of the issue, a spokeswoman for the Israeli Interior Ministry confirmed on Wednesday that a meeting of the district planning committee had been put off earlier this week pending the conclusions of a committee set up by Mr. Netanyahu to improve government coordination regarding building plans in Jerusalem.

The 20-unit complex in question is to be built on property bought by a Miami-based businessman, Irving Moskowitz, in 1985. Mr. Moskowitz has long supported the development of Israeli and Jewish housing in Arab areas of East Jerusalem. The Shepherd Hotel was originally built as a villa for Haj Amin al-Husseini, the grand mufti of Jerusalem who notoriously aligned himself with Hitler. The historic building on the site will be preserved, Ms. Tsur said. The property is not far from Israeli government buildings and foreign consulates.
Daniel Seidemann, an Israeli lawyer who opposes Israeli expansion in East Jerusalem and is active in promoting a political solution for the city, said he has been warning the Israeli and American governments for months that the Shepherd Hotel building project was likely to get under way as soon as there was a prospect of peace talks.

“Projects like this are a spoiler’s paradise,” he said.

Leftist Israeli groups like Peace Now, which oppose Israeli settlement in the territories occupied in 1967, have been monitoring and highlighting new construction plans.
According to Israeli planning and construction regulations, construction usually has to start within a year after approval has been granted, or the building permit will be nullified.

Ms. Tsur, the deputy mayor, said that once fees are paid by developers and the green light is given, the “clock begins to tick.”
“They can start building tomorrow,” she said.
Ms. Tsur also said that the final approval was given last year in “full coordination” with the British and United States consulates. But both the United States and Britain raised concerns about the project when it was approved last July. The British Consulate is very close to where the new construction will begin.

Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, said in a statement on Wednesday that “Israel is digging itself into a hole that it will have to climb out of if it is serious about peace.
He added: “There is overwhelming international consensus on the illegality of Israel’s settlements, including in East Jerusalem, and the damage they are doing to the two-state solution,” he said.

Dispute with Israel underscores limits of U.S. power, a shifting alliance: Washington Post

The two-week-old dispute between Israel and the United States over housing construction in East Jerusalem has exposed the limits of American power to pressure Israeli leaders to make decisions they consider politically untenable. But the blowup also shows that the relationship between the two allies is changing, in ways that are unsettling for Israel’s supporters.

President Obama and his aides have cast the settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, not just the relationship with Israel, as a core U.S. national security interest. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the head of the military’s Central Command, put it starkly in recent testimony on Capitol Hill: “The conflict foments anti-American sentiment due to a perception of U.S. favoritism toward Israel.” His comments raised eyebrows in official Washington — and overseas — because they suggested that U.S. military officials were embracing the idea that failure to resolve the conflict had begun to imperil American lives.

Visiting Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu received warm applause at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference on Monday night when he bluntly dismissed U.S. demands to end housing construction in the disputed part of Jerusalem. He was greeted as a hero when he visited Capitol Hill on Tuesday.
But the administration has been strikingly muted in its reception. No reporters, or even photographers, were invited when Netanyahu met with Secretary of State Clinton Hillary Rodham Clinton and Vice President Biden on Monday or when he met with Obama on Tuesday night. There was no grand Rose Garden ceremony. Official spokesmen issued only the blandest of statements.

The cooling in the U.S.-Israel relationship coincides with an apparent deepening of Israel’s diplomatic isolation. Anger has grown in Europe in the wake of Israel’s suspected misuse of European passports to kill a Palestinian militant in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates. On Tuesday, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband announced the expulsion of a senior diplomat over the incident, an unusually drastic step for an ally. Relations with Turkey, a rare Muslim friend of Israel for decades, have hit a new low.
Obama and his aides have strongly pledged support for Israel’s security — including a reiteration by Clinton when she addressed AIPAC on Monday — but they have continued to criticize its settlement policies in tough terms. Clinton notably did not pull her punches on the issue when she addressed the pro-Israel group, warning that whether Israelis like it or not, “the status quo” is not sustainable. The drawing of such lines by the administration has been noticed in the Middle East.

“Israeli policies have transcended personal affront or embarrassment to American officials and are causing the United States real pain beyond the Arab-Israeli arena. This is something new, and therefore the U.S. is reacting with unusually strong, public and repeated criticisms of Israel’s settlement policies and its general peace-negotiating posture,” Rami Khouri, editor at large of Beirut’s Daily Star, wrote this week. “At the same time Washington repeats it ironclad commitment to Israel’s basic security in its 1967 borders, suggesting that the U.S. is finally clarifying that its support for Israel does not include unconditional support for Israel’s colonization policies.”

Problems from the start
The Obama administration has struggled from the start to find its footing with Israel and the Palestinians. Obama took office soon after Israel’s three-week offensive in the Gaza Strip, which had ruptured peace talks nurtured by the George W. Bush administration. Obama appointed a special envoy, former senator George J. Mitchell, on his second day in office. But then the administration tried to pressure Israel to freeze all settlement expansion — and failed. The United States further lost credibility when Clinton embraced Netanyahu’s compromise proposal, which fell short of Palestinian expectations, as “unprecedented.”
U.S. pressure at the time also backfired because it appeared to let the Palestinians off the hook. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas refused to enter into direct talks before a settlement freeze, even though he had done so before. The administration had to settle for indirect talks, with Mitchell shuttling back and forth. The recent disagreement has set back that effort.

Administration officials have been careful to turn down the heat in their latest exchanges with Netanyahu over Jerusalem, even as they continue to express their displeasure. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley spoke in clipped sentences Tuesday when asked to describe the hours of private conversations with Netanyahu this week: “We have outlined some concerns to the Israeli government. They have responded to our concerns. That conversation continues. This is a dynamic process. There’s a lot of give-and-take involved in these conversations.”
Crowley argued that “the only way to ultimately resolve competing claims, on the future of Jerusalem, is to get to direct negotiations.” He said the administration faces a series of “pass-fail” tests: Can it get the two parties to join direct talks? Can it persuade them to address the vexing issues surrounding the final status of Jerusalem? And ultimately, “do we get to an agreement that is in the Israeli interest, in the Palestinian interest, in the interest of the rest of the region and clearly in the interest of the United States?”

Arab leaders have long said that a peace deal would be possible if the United States pressured Israel. But many experts say such hope is often misplaced. In the case of East Jerusalem, Netanyahu believes that a halt to construction represents political suicide for his coalition, so no amount of U.S. pressure will lead him to impose a freeze — at least until he is in the final throes of peace talks.
“U.S. pressure can work, but it needs to be at the right time, on the right issue and in the right political context,” said Robert Malley, a peace negotiator in the Clinton White House. “The latest episode was an apt illustration. The administration is ready for a fight, but it realized the issue, timing and context were wrong. The crisis has been deferred, not resolved.”