U.S. seeks 4-month E. J'lem building freeze in exchange for direct talks

[Jefferson23]

One of the U.S. administration's requests to Israel regarding the peace process with the Palestinians is a four-month construction freeze in all parts of East Jerusalem. In exchange, the United States would pressure Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to hold direct talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu instead of the indirect talks the Palestinians have agreed to.

An official in Jerusalem said the U.S. administration is demanding that Israel freeze construction in East Jerusalem, including Jewish neighborhoods such as Neveh Yaakov, French Hill and of course Ramat Shlomo, which sparked the recent tensions between Israel and the United States.

The freeze would last four months, the time frame the Arab League has authorized for indirect talks between the Palestinian Authority and Israel.



In a briefing yesterday, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said the issue of Jerusalem is one that will be resolved in the final-status talks between Israel and the PA.

in full: http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1160105.html

[Jefferson23]

1. Obama: Netanyahu understands he must take some bold steps

U.S. President Barack Obama has said that he thinks Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu understands that he will have to "take some bold steps" when it comes to advancing the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, in an interview with MSNBC on Tuesday.

"I think Prime Minister Netanyahu intellectually understands that he has got to take some bold steps. I think politically he feels it. But it's not just on the Israeli side. I've been very clear that the Palestinians have to take steps," Obama said.

The U.S. president also said that the recent tension between his administration and the Israeli government is merely a "disagreement among friends" and emphasized the strength of the bond between the United States and Israel.



"I think the underlying relationship is solid as a rock. So my commitment, my personal commitment, to Israel's security is unwavering, and I think that there is broad bipartisan consensus on that. This is a disagreement among friends about how to move forward," the U.S. president said.

Meanwhile on Tuesday, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said that the issue of Jerusalem will be discussed in final-status talks.

http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1159968.html

[Jefferson23]

2. Amir Oren / What is Barak doing in Netanyahu's 'Repub-Likud' government

snip*Barak now regrets his eagerness a year ago to join Netanyahu's jug band as third fiddle, given that his instrument of choice is the piano. He already knew that such a collaboration would have poor results. It's ridiculous to hear Barak utter comments about the forum of seven's seriousness of purpose. It's not impressive, certainly not like Golda Meir's government, boasting the likes of Moshe Dayan and Abba Eban, Yigal Allon and Pinchas Sapir - that is, until Yom Kippur 1973.

What does Barak's Labor Party have to do with the foolish and transparent tactics of Netanyahu - who is meddling in internal American politics as if a single party, the Repub-Likud, ruled on both sides of the ocean? John Boehner, the House of Representatives' minority leader, has asked his Republican supporters for donations this week to wage a two-pronged fight against Barack Obama - on Israel and health care. This backing of Netanyahu confirmed Democrats' suspicions that the Israeli prime minister is their political rival. But the 300 members of Congress from both parties who sent a pro-Israel missive to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton barely addressed the significance of building in East Jerusalem, focusing their questions merely on the manners and protocol of U.S.-Israel relations.

Even if George W. Bush - the first president to speak of a Palestinian state and the one who forced Ariel Sharon to give his blessing - or John McCain were now sitting in the White House, the U.S. government would still not have any other policy. Ronald Reagan, of the 1982 "Reagan Plan" for the Middle East, was a Republican, as were Henry Kissinger, Reagan's successor, George H.W. Bush, and James Baker. For those interested in peace, a peace dependent mainly but not exclusively on Arab acceptance of Israel, the basis always was and remains the Green Line. The only question was whether to wait for peace to come without exerting any effort, or to let the settlements remain "facts on the ground" to lower the odds of it ever actually happening.

Obama will not give up. He has no time. He aims to be an exceptional president, not just one among many. He is shaking up the world order, setting goals and sparing no effort to meet them. Regarding the Middle East, his stance is in line with his stated goal of maintaining Israel's security. But Obama's position is different from that held by Moshe Feiglin and the settlers, without whom Netanyahu would have no party, and from that of Sara Netanyahu.

It's not Obama, it's Netanyahu. Barak appointed himself as their transformer - the device that converts Netanyahu's 220 volts to Obama's 110. A year has passed and it's now apparent that Barak has no chance of achieving that. One side is bound to short-circuit, taking with it the converter itself. When the situation is so volatile, when the differences between fantasy and reality run so deep, Barak's effectiveness in his post vanishes - he simply watches from his office and fights the force of gravity pinning him to his chair, underneath a portrait of Ben-Gurion. This week we'll finally see him begin to rise - and we can only hope to return to the same place in a different government, one more circumspect in showing real concern for Israel's security.

http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1160112.html

[Scurrilous]

3. Israel Recognising Obama Means Business

<snip>

"Against all expectations, it's becoming the forerunner of a peace plan. Indeed, it might in the end even surprise the world as Israelis and Palestinians are forced into a peace. Even if, for now, it's shaping up as anything but peaceful.

It's a battle royal.

"It" is the ongoing and unprecedented crisis in relations between the United States and Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to insist that the divide between his government and the administration of President Barack Obama is still bridgeable.

But nearly a week since his humiliation at the White House, beneath the Israeli leader's bluster, the message is beginning to sink in for Israelis: the United States means business.

Writes Ari Shavit, in Monday's lead story of the Tel Aviv daily Haaretz: "The demands that Obama made at the White House are the tip of the iceberg between which lies a dramatic change in U.S. policy towards Israel."

Shavit says that the Netanyahu government believes that the demands made of Israel by the president "point to an intention to impose a permanent settlement on Israel and the Palestinians within two years at the utmost."

In what, according to Israeli political sources, amounts to a "White House dictum", Obama made ten demands of Netanyahu.

Four relate specifically to Israeli actions and policy in occupied East Jerusalem; the rest relate to the negotiating process and the other core issues of the conflict which the U.S. intends to have on the table when both sides are pressed into the planned "proximity" talks that are to be run by Obama's special envoy, Senator George Mitchell."

more

[Jefferson23]

4. "the Middle East is fast approaching its most important crossroads since June 1967. "

There has never before been more of an incentive coming from the W.H., that's for sure.

[ProgressiveMuslim]

5. WOW! FOUR WHOLE MONTHS? IT's A DREAM COME TRUE.

[shira]

6. to coincide with the current freeze elsewhere - both freezes end after the initial 10 months

[breakaleg]

7. I know it doesn't seem like much, but this is the first time the US has taken a hard line

with Israel. I'm hoping it indicates a change in the tide.

[oberliner]

8. Not true - Bush Sr. took a similarly hard line with Israel

Foreign Affairs; Bush's Ultimatum to Shamir

George Bush has a mega-jolt in store for Yitzhak Shamir. The President seems ready to let the Prime Minister know that Israel will have to make a choice: between more Israeli settlements in the occupied territories and U.S.-backed multibillion-dollar loan guarantees, between pleasing thousands of right-wing settlers and helping resettle hundreds of thousands of Soviet immigrants, between bad and good relations with the White House.

http://www.nytimes.com/1992/01/17/opinion/foreign-affairs-bush-s-ultimatum-to-shamir.html?pagewanted=all

[Violet_Crumble]

9. It wasn't a similarly hard line. Bush Sr.'s line was far harder...

If the Obama administration are working in incremental steps when it comes to pressure, there's still a fair few steps to be taken before they get to taking a similarly hard line...