Bennett slams Netanyahu for suggesting settlers stay in Palestinian state

[bemildred]

Bayit Yehudi leader Naftali Bennett called upon Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Sunday to rule out Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria being given over to Palestinian control.

An official in Netanyahu's office was quoted as saying that the prime minister believes that residents of Judea and Samaria should be allowed to remain in any future Palestinian state.

"The idea of Jewish settlements under Palestinian sovereignty, as was suggested by someone in the Prime Minister’s office, is very dangerous and reflects a loss of marbles and values," Bennett said. "We did not return to the land of Israel after two thousand years of longing to live under the government of [Palestinian Authority President] Mahmoud Abbas. Whoever advocates for the idea of Jewish life in Israel under Palestinian rule is undermining our ability to sit in Tel Aviv." Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon vowed not to abandon the Jews who live over the Green Line to Israel's enemies.

"I would not wish my worst enemy to live under Palestinian sovereignty," Danon said. "Whoever thinks Jews can live under Palestinian control should visit the Gaza Strip. There cannot be security for Jews in areas that are not under IDF control." Deputy foreign minister Ze'ev Elkin said that "only someone deluded enough to believe the lion is ready to lie with the lamb could abandon hundreds of thousands of people to the mercy of those who enabled the lynching in Ramallah." He said that whoever was giving Netanyahu such advice was trying to cause problems for him in Likud.

http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Bennett-slams-Netanyahu-for-suggesting-settlers-stay-in-Palestinian-state-339440

[bemildred]

1. Netanyahu would let Israeli settlers live in future Palestine: report

(Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will insist that Jewish settlers in the West Bank have a right to remain under Palestinian rule in any future peace deal, a government official was quoted as saying on Sunday.

The apparent trial balloon, reported on the English-language Times of Israel website, drew a no-comment from a spokesman for Netanyahu and angry words from Naftali Bennett, a key pro-settlement partner in his governing coalition.

"The idea of Jewish settlements under Palestinian sovereignty is very dangerous and reflects an irrationality of values," Bennett wrote on his Facebook page.

The Israeli report quoted an official in Netanyahu's office as saying he did not intend to uproot Jewish settlements anywhere in the West Bank, land that Palestinians seek for a state under U.S.-brokered peace talks showing few signs of progress since they resumed in July after a three-year break.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/01/26/us-palestinians-israel-idUSBREA0P0S120140126

[King_David]

3. Why not ?

No need to uproot those who don't want to move.

Who could possibly object.

[bemildred]

4. I suggest you take it up with someone who cares.

I'm mostly interested in watching Bibi step in it once again.

[King_David]

5. If you don't care ,

No need to post ... Or reply.

I will try find someone who "cares" to take it "up" with.

Thank you for the advice.

[bemildred]

7. Quote: "I'm mostly interested in watching Bibi step in it once again."

So, if you want to talk about Bibi and his latest misstep, feel free. If you think you can drag me into a fatuous dispute over whether settlers ought to be allowed to live in the future state of Palestine, that is: Bibi's argument, not so much.

But I will say that it's the sort of question that the future citizens of the future state of Palestine ought to decide, not Bibi.

And it's sort of like asking Abbas whether a few Arabs ought to be allowed to continue to live in Israel, i.e. a stupid question.

[bemildred]

2. Israeli PM Netanyahu backtracks on West Bank settlement comments

The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has furiously backpedalled from comments suggesting Israeli settlers on the West Bank might remain in their homes in a future Palestinian state.

Cabinet ministers, settler leaders and prominent members of his own Likud party condemned the notion, echoing the rightwing revolt over peace moves that doomed Netanyahu's first term as prime minister in 1999, while a Palestinian negotiator also expressed disapproval.

"The idea that Jewish communities will live under Palestinian sovereignty, as expressed by the prime minister's office, is a very grave matter, and it reflects a panicked loss of values," said the economy minister, Naftali Bennett, head of the Jewish Home party, which broadly represents the 350,000 Israeli settlers.

Officials in Netanyahu's office earlier said he "will insist that settlers be given the free choice of remaining in place and living under Palestinian rule, or relocating to areas under Israeli sovereign rule", according to the Times of Israel and other Israeli media.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/27/israeli-binyamin-netanyahu-west-bank-settlements-palestinian

[Jefferson23]

11. Netanyahu close to accepting Kerry plan – and losing his coalition

* Dramatic concessions coming from Bibi? I have seen no evidence of that, yet. I do find it
curious about the alleged evacuations...how many settlers would stick around if the IDF
were no longer there to protect them from the dreaded Palestinians? The settlement blocs
seem to be a given..but who knows. I am hoping against hope that a viable
state can be established for them.

PM is still trying to play with words and engineer the document so that it won’t break up his government, but the chances of that are slim.
By Barak Ravid | Jan. 27, 2014

Last Friday, in a Davos hotel, the Jewish participants at the World Economic Forum gathered for a Shabbat dinner. The highlight wasn’t the food, it was the speech by President Shimon Peres.

After the greetings and the usual words about the peace process, Peres looked at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the next table and told the following parable.

Once upon a time a man tried to swim across the Kinneret. He swam and swam and reached the middle of the lake. Suddenly he stopped, looked back and got scared. A swimmer who passed alongside him saw that he couldn’t decide how to continue.

If you go back you might drown, the second swimmer said. You’ve gotten this far, so you’re better off staying the course till the end. Netanyahu and many others in the hall didn’t need Peres to explain the moral. The message was clear.

Netanyahu knows he’s in the middle of the Kinneret. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Justice Minister Tzipi Livni are trying to convince him to swim to the other side of the lake. But Economy Minister Naftali Bennett and Deputy Foreign Minister Zeev Elkin are urging him to swim back to Tiberias, and they’re threatening to drown him if he does otherwise.

In the meantime, Netanyahu prefers to float – to let the current pull him to the right one day and the left the next. But soon he’ll be forced to decide where he’s headed.

Two things show that Netanyahu’s time for indecision is running out. One is Kerry’s plan to present a framework agreement within a few weeks, which would include principles for solving the most sensitive core issues. The other is Sunday’s intifada against Netanyahu from the right wing in Likud and the cabinet regarding his trial balloon on leaving settlements under Palestinian sovereignty.

Despite the impression Netanyahu is trying to make, even his reservations on the American document won’t ruin the framework. Netanyahu is about to say yes to the American outline, which requires dramatic Israeli concessions. He’s still trying to play with words and engineer the document so that it won’t break up his government, but the chances of that are slim.

http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/diplomania/.premium-1.570836

[geek tragedy]

6. Netanyahu: I won't evacuate settlements

http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Netanyahu-I-wont-evacuate-settlements-339353

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has promised not to evacuate West Bank settlements. He made the comments Friday in Davos, Switzerland, amid three separate meetings he held there with US Secretary of State John Kerry on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

“I have no intention of evacuating any settlement or uprooting any Israelis,” Netanyahu said in Hebrew during a briefing for Israeli journalists on the nine-month negotiating cycle, which ends in April.

The closest he's come to explicitly supporting a permanent apartheid regime.

[bemildred]

8. I think he's just saying "I'm not Sharon, the withdrawer".

He is apparenlty contemplating what to do about the settlers though, and apparently he's decided to leave them as present for the new Palestinian government to deal with. But this does seem to be in the context of parting with territory.

[geek tragedy]

9. Well, that trial balloon got popped by the

rightwing refuseniks. I doubt Bennett would be in favor of evacuations.

No Jews Left Behind + No Evacuations means no territorial concessions and no contiguous Palestinian territory. Which is just fine to the Israelis.

[bemildred]

10. Well, I figure that is what upset Bennett, the notion of letting something go. nt

[Jefferson23]

12. More in, fighting:

Netanyahu: Bennett undermining Israeli efforts to expose 'real face' of Palestinian Authority.Prime Minister's Office condemns economy minister's attack on Netanyahu as reckless national endangerment.

By Barak Ravid | Jan. 27, 2014

The Prime Minister's Office sharply condemned Economy Minister Naftali Bennett on Monday for making "irresponsible" comments that harm the prime minister's efforts to expose Palestinian intransigence in the peace process.

The PMO blamed Bennett for "reckless national endangerment that harms efforts to expose the real face of the Palestinian Authority just to grab headlines," for his unprecedented attack against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's suggestion that Israelis could live under Palestinian rule.

Bennett was responding on Sunday to remarks made by Netanyahu at the World Economic Forum in Davos, where he said he has no intention of uprooting a single settlement and suggested settlers could remain outside Israel's borders under a peace agreement with the Palestinians. Bennett said Netanyahu's comments reflect "ethical befuddlement" and that "whoever even considers having Jews live in the Land of Israel under Palestinian sovereignty undermines our presence in Tel Aviv.”

Officials in Bennett's office responded on Friday, saying that Netanyahu has not said in any forum in recent days that he is planning on carrying out a move that would expose the real face of the Palestinian Authority. "Netanyahu and Bennett sat yesterday for six hours together in meetings and the prime minister did not say anything on the matter," Bennett's aides said. "Next time the prime minister comes up with a brilliant tactical move, he may want to coordinate it with his ministers."

Three Likud deputy ministers – Deputy Foreign Minister Ze’ev Elkin, Deputy Transportation Minister Tzipi Hotovely and Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon also issued angry protests at Netanyahu following the press briefing.

“Only someone who suffers from the illusion that ‘the wolf will lie down with the lamb,’ and that one can place the lives of hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens at the mercy of those who conducted the [October 2000] lynch in Ramallah, can truly believe that we can assure the security of the Dan region and the central region if a Palestinian state is established,” wrote Elkin.

Hotovely said that any diplomatic plan that abandons Jewish communities to Palestinian sovereignty “will not get any political backing from the Likud.”

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.570754

[bemildred]

13. This is getting interesting.

[Jefferson23]

14. They're still at it, although you may have read this one already:

For Bennett it’s back to business as usual, but Netanyahu doesn’t forget so easily
Netanyahu waits for 'the right moment' to get back at Bennett, while proclaiming: 'My positions are the consensus.'

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke Tuesday at the annual conference of the Institute of National Security Studies in Tel Aviv less than two hours after Economy Minister Naftali Bennett reiterated criticism of the prime minister, from the same podium. Bennett called Netanyahu’s suggestions that settlers could remain in the West Bank under Palestinian rule a “trial balloon.”

Netanyahu did not comment directly on the deep crisis that has developed between him and Bennett, nor did he respond to the economy minister’s charges.

He did, however, send one barb Bennett’s way, saying: “I don’t want a binational state. Most of the Israeli public does not want a binational state.”

What Netanyahu wants to say is: "I am in the center. My positions are the consensus and the public is with me and not with Bennett - he wants to annex most of the West Bank." Most of the people in audience at the ostentatious conference were members of the old elite – men, security experts, Ashkenazis, conservatives and Mapainiks, who greeted Netanyahu’s remarks with relative warmth, especially compared to the cool reception Bennett received.

Bennett heard from media reports during his 24-hour visit to Auschwitz that Netanyahu intends to reprimand him over his previous criticism. Arriving at the conference a few hours late after spending six hours in a malfunctioning plane on the tarmac at Krakow, the economy minister seemed unworried by the prospect of being chastised by Netanyahu.

Bennett’s criticism at Tuesday’s conference was less direct than his previous statements. “Neither our forefathers, nor our descendants will forgive the Israeli leader who gives away our land and divides our capital,” he said, pausing for applause, which came only sparingly.

Bennett then returned to the issue of leaving the settlements under Palestinian sovereignty. “A new idea has risen,” he said. “Jews will live in their lands, but under Palestinian sovereignty. This will not happen, nor can it. Do you know why? Why Jews cannot live under Palestinian sovereignty? Why Palestinians cannot rule over Israelis? Because they’ll kill them. "

"How do I know? Because it has already happened," he added. "In Hebron, there were Jews living in peace with their Arab neighbors, but then one day in 1929, they got up and killed the Jews. Just like that, those same Arab neighbors killed them.” Bennett went on to offer gory descriptions of the 1929 events.

Bennett then resumed discussing today: “If an Arab civilian goes to Herzliya, he will come out whole and healthy, and that’s a good thing. If a Jew would go into Jenin by accident, he’ll be murdered. It’s not very complex, it’s simple, and everyone sitting here knows it.”

Bennett said Netanyahu’s idea of settlers living under the Palestinian rule is “a U-turn, as far as Zionism is concerned. We already tried that in Europe, and it didn’t quite work out. What are the ramifications of even brining such an idea up? What does that tell us?”

“I demand that this idea be taken off the agenda,” he said.

Despite Bennett’s cool reception at the conference and the major tension with Netanyahu, the economy minister seemed pleased. He feels he managed to burst the “trial balloon” even before Netanyahu had fully inflated it. He told his associates that this was his lesson from the 2005 disengagement from Gaza, and added, in closed meetings Tuesday “if yet another bizarre idea comes up I’ll shoot it down.”

And what about the reprimand? Bennett is not waiting for a phone call from Netanyahu’s office, but neither does he want to continue the face-off. From his point of view it’s business as usual. But it is not at all certain that Netanyahu feels the same way. Members of the prime minister’s inner circle said Tuesday that even if Bennett is not summoned to a meeting with Netanyahu, a response will eventually come.

“We will act when we see fit,” a senior Netanyahu associate said. “We are studying all kinds of ideas for punishments and reprisals. At the right place and the right time, Bennett will get his and pay the price.”

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.571138

[bemildred]

15. They really do remind me of the Republicans.

"reckless national endangerment", “We will act when we see fit,”, “I demand that this idea be taken off the agenda,” Oy.

[Jefferson23]

16. An ultimatum has been pulled out..Frick and Frack continue:

Netanyahu issues ultimatum to Bennett; economy minister fudges apology

The prime minister and the Habayit Hayehudi leader have been at one other's throats since PMO said settlers should be allowed to stay in future Palestinian state. Now the rift has reached new heights, with PMO branding Bennett 'insolent', demanding apology.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's rift with his senior coalition partner, the Habayit Hayehudi chairman Naftali Bennett, over the future of the settlements hit a new high Wednesday. The two have been publicly rowing over policy, a dispute triggered by reports that Netanyahu believes there is no reason for a future Palestinian state to be free of Israeli settlers.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke with senior Likud members Wednesday, telling those gathered that he expected Economy Minister Naftali Bennett to apologize for the remarks he made at a security conference earlier in the week.

Netanyahu stressed that he will fire the minister if he does not apologize. The prime minister noted that the apology would have to be published before the beginning of the next cabinet meeting – Sunday at 10 am.

Bennett issued a statement: "If the prime minister was hurt, I am definitely saddened by that."

According to Bennett, "There are sources that are trying to turn a fundamental debate about the future of our country and our safety to a personal attack that wasn't intended."

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4482409,00.html

[bemildred]

17. Thank you, that was good.

"At no point did we want a real breakdown," a Habayit Hayehudi source said.

[bemildred]

18. Kerry to present framework for peace talks on return to Middle East

---

Political apology

Meanwhile, Naftali Bennett, the head of the right-wing Jewish Home party, threatened with dismissal by Mr Netanyahu, apologised last night over comments he made against the prime minister, saying no personal attack was intended.

Mr Bennett had reacted angrily to Mr Netanyahu’s suggestion that some Jewish settlers should be allowed to remain in their homes and live under Palestinian sovereignty under the terms of a peace deal.

Mr Bennett, who opposes any territorial concessions, had accused Mr Netanyahu of losing his moral compass, and warned that Jews living under Palestinian control would be killed.

“If the prime minister was offended, this was not my intention. I respect Prime Minister Binyamin and his leadership under not simple conditions,” he said.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/middle-east/kerry-to-present-framework-for-peace-talks-on-return-to-middle-east-1.1672520

Higher up a few interesting bits about the withdrawal discussions.

[Jefferson23]

19. I can't decide which one is Frick and who is Frack...gosh, they are sickening. The blocs,

Israel gets to keep them..no mention of the 4th one Bibi wants..no RoR, Jewish state recognition.
They get "some" territory...shit and Abbas is so damn quiet except for the time line of withdrawal and
EJ...fucking incredible.

Thanks for the post.

[bemildred]

21. I think great pressure is being applied.

Not sure by whom, not sure for what, but you can smell the flop sweat, so to speak.

[bemildred]

20. Tension Builds in Israeli Coalition at a Critical Juncture in Peace Talks

TEL AVIV — Simmering tension between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and one of his right-wing political partners boiled into open hostility on Wednesday, threatening to reshape Israel’s governing coalition at a critical juncture of the American-brokered peace talks with the Palestinians.

The prime minister’s office issued a warning on Wednesday morning to Naftali Bennett, the leader of the religious-nationalist Jewish Home party, that if Mr. Bennett did not apologize for his harsh criticism of Mr. Netanyahu’s positions in recent days, he could lose his seat in the cabinet.

“There is an expectation that he will apologize,” said an official in Mr. Netanyahu’s office, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to reporters. “The prime minister has coalition alternatives.”

Mr. Bennett, 41, had delivered repeated, blistering denunciations over the past few days of a suggestion by the prime minister’s office that some Jews in far-flung settlements might live under Palestinian sovereignty in a future peace deal. Hours after Mr. Netanyahu’s office issued its ultimatum, Mr. Bennett said, “If the prime minister was offended, that was not my intention.” But he stood by the substance of his statements and did not explicitly apologize.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/30/world/middleeast/israel.html