posted
This is ridiculous. The only solution to this problem is if he Israel was wiped out of the damn map. I hope that Iran can at least acquire nukes, establish a long-range missile network, and pressure the West.
This American military base is expanding and if a revolution were ever to hit the region (is a must), Israel will be an important center for a US/ Western offensive. This expansion is part of that plan.
* Ewen MacAskill in Washington * The Guardian, Wednesday 18 November 2009 * Article history
Barack Obama Benjamin Netanyahu Mahmoud Abbas
Barack Obama, centre, with Binyamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas. Robert Gibbs expressed concern the Gilo development will undermine Middle East peace negotiations. Photograph: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images
The White House yesterday expressed exasperation with Israel over a plan to build 900 new houses on the West Bank at a time when Barack Obama is trying to broker a Middle East peace agreement.
Although Obama is mainly focused on a tour of south-east Asia, the White House took time out to express disappointment over approval of the new houses at Gilo, a controversial settlement on the outskirts of east Jerusalem.
It is politically risky for Israel to snub Obama so publicly. The White House has been pressing Israel for at least a week not to take this course of action. The White House spokesman, Robert Gibbs, said it was "dismayed" by the decision. "At a time when we are working to relaunch negotiations, these actions make it more difficult for our efforts to succeed," he said.
Obama brought together the Israeli leader, Binyamin Netanyahu, and his Palestinian counterpart, Mahmoud Abbas, in New York in September but failed to secure the restart of negotiations. Abbas said he would not enter negotiations while Israel continued to build settlements on the West Bank. The Jerusalem municipal planning committee approved the Gilo expansion yesterday.
The Palestinians denounced the move as a provocation. Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said: "We condemn this in the strongest possible terms. It shows that it is meaningless to resume negotiations when this goes on."
Since the failure to secure a resumption of talks in September, Obama, US secretary of state Hillary Clinton and Middle East special envoy George Mitchell have been working to close the gap between the two sides.
The Palestinians want a complete freeze on settlement construction first while Netanyahu has offered a temporary freeze, excluding 2,500 houses he insists are already in the pipeline. The Gilo expansion is in addition to those.
Jerusalem and settlements are key sticking points in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. Israel captured east Jerusalem in 1967. It insists that east Jerusalem is part of Israel and rejects efforts to restrict building there. Palestinians consider the Jewish neighbourhoods there to be settlements.
In a statement, Netanyahu's office defended the plan. "This concerns a routine procedure of the district planning commission," it said. "The neighbourhood of Gilo is an integral part of Jerusalem."
Although the Obama administration has been more critical of Israel than the Bush administration and has expressed disapproval of settlement expansion in the West Bank, a reprimand such as yesterday's is still relatively rare.
The US state department expressed its disapproval yesterday and the White House could have chosen to leave it at that but opted instead to join the criticism.
Gibbs, reflecting White House unhappiness, said: "Neither party should engage in efforts or take actions that could unilaterally pre-empt, or appear to pre-empt, negotiations.
"The US also objects to other Israeli practices in Jerusalem related to housing, including the continuing pattern of evictions and demolitions of Palestinian homes. Our position is clear: the status of Jerusalem is a permanent status issue that must be resolved through negotiations between the parties."
Although Gilo is on the Palestinian side of the 1967 Green Line, the border before that year's war, Israel claims it is not on the West Bank so is not a settlement.
The Palestinians want east Jerusalem as their capital.
On Friday, Gibbs had expressed regret over reports of the new construction, saying Obama did not accept the legitimacy of continued settlement expansion.
Britain also criticised the plan yesterday. The Foreign Office said: "The foreign secretary has been very clear that a credible deal involves Jerusalem as a shared capital. Expanding settlements on occupied land in east Jerusalem makes that deal much harder. So this decision on Gilo is wrong and we oppose it."
posted
The US government is NOT dismayed at all, Why would they be? If Netanyahu was to crucify every single Palestinian along the highway from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, America would still defend them in the UN.[and pay for the nails] Probably if you asked the average American to describe a terrorist, they would draw a Palestinian. If the UN chooses not to reform their veto system, this will continue.
Posts: 1399 | From: alexandria | Registered: Jan 2002
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posted
The United Staes has always given lip service to a Palestinian state, we have never supported one in private. The program has always been to push the Palestinians into a smaller and smaller area, as has been done in Gaza, until at some point in the future they leave.
Posts: 2036 | From: Texas | Registered: Sep 2009
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posted
Hey Hammer, would you like to speculate on WHY the US is so supportive of Israel? Can't just be shame that they wouldn't allow them into America after WW2.
Posts: 1399 | From: alexandria | Registered: Jan 2002
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posted
Israel is a solid american ally in the region along with Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Israel is Europeanized and thus shares our values in many respects. Obviously the holocaust has something to do with it as well. Next to the UK Israel is our closest allaince, certanily in terms of durability. If the UK or Israel were attacked we would go to war in a major way instantly.
Posts: 2036 | From: Texas | Registered: Sep 2009
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posted
Friends like that baby, you don't need enemies do you? Fact is, Israel is the cause of destabilisation in the ME. Continuously, deliberately, and if the US has the temerity to protest, they are humiliated. These 'allies' have damaged the reputation of America far more than Guantanamo etc. Costly in financial ways also. They do NOT share your values. They are NOT like the friendly Jewish guy at your local deli.They despise you. Everybody knows this. Begin, Sharon, Netanyahu have all said as much. They despise you mainly for your generosity to them, weird but true. Read the Jerusalem Post, Haaretz, check this out. Ask yourself again, WHY???
Posts: 1399 | From: alexandria | Registered: Jan 2002
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posted
Mo, You are speaking from your own political perspective. The United States has nearly a quarter million tropps in the middle east and massive naval firepower. On top of that we have a powerfull ally in Israel and Nato at times as well. You should watch what people do, not what they say. The middle east will always march to the beat of our drum, at least for the next half century. Who knows after that.
Posts: 2036 | From: Texas | Registered: Sep 2009
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posted
Maybe client states like Egypt etc will always do America's bidding, but Israel would not p*ss in your mouth if your teeth were on fire, not if it was not in their best interests, and just about every American from the Pres on down knows that. That is what makes US subservience to Israel's wishes so weird. Whoever planned and plotted 9/11, at the heart was Israel. One sided relationship ain't it?
Posts: 1399 | From: alexandria | Registered: Jan 2002
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posted
hummm, well Mo I think Isreal is a reliable American ally. If you are saying that their interests and ours are not always the same I would agree, that is to be expected. That said, the two nations share views more foreign policy issues than they differ on. Be careful not to confuse opposition to Israel on the part of arabs on the street to what their governments think is in their own best interests. Example, the United States has nothing to gain by supporting a Palestinian state.
Posts: 2036 | From: Texas | Registered: Sep 2009
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posted
Example, the United States has nothing to gain by supporting a Palestinian state.
???????
Those words may come back to haunt you some day.
We know you don't have access to the full picture, but Palestine is ALWAYS crucial and until the issue is resolved fairly the US will continue to be paranoid, lose its sons in places they couldn't find on a map, and your arms industries will grow fatter.And the numbers of homeless, jobless and the national debt will grow bigger... This parasitical relationship is going to bleed you out one day. They will try to trick you into war with Iran, and you may find yourselves on the wrong side of China, Russia??? Good plan? And they would not cross the street to save your goyem asses. "reliable ally"??? You jest, surely?
Posts: 1399 | From: alexandria | Registered: Jan 2002
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posted
It's funny that Hammer dickrides on Arabs when it comes to history, but is ready to support a criminal state. Israel is better off dismantled and becoming part of a Palestinian state.
quote:Example, the United States has nothing to gain by supporting a Palestinian state.
That's a myth, US gained a lot. I think we're forgetting how much destroying secular Arab nationalism was to the nation.
Israel was the main tool used against that development. Other associated benefits can be seen as well. I don't know why Blacks in US are so willing to cry for a white state.
Palestinians, like Blacks, are subordinate in the eyes of US interests. As long as their interests proceed, for the white population, either populations will be walked over. These designs maximizes the institution of white privilege which Jews, by the way, greatly benefit off of as well.
Posts: 1080 | Registered: Aug 2008
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posted
I do not agree with much of that Mo. We have troops in the middle east because of Iran and our need to control the world's oil supply. The vast majority of governments support us either in public or private. As for China the two nations are joined at the hip economically and will be for the forseeable future.
Foreign policy is decided by money, not about what is right or wrong to a particular group of people.
Posts: 2036 | From: Texas | Registered: Sep 2009
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quote:Originally posted by Hammer: I do not agree with much of that Mo. We have troops in the middle east because of Iran and our need to control the world's oil supply. The vast majority of governments support us either in public or private. As for China the two nations are joined at the hip economically and will be for the forseeable future.
Foreign policy is decided by money, not about what is right or wrong to a particular group of people.
I don't disagree. US wants to control the oil supply within the region. That seems rather self-explanatory.
By the way, government support isn't equivalent to the support by the masses. Most of these states are totalitarian, and one reason why is due to US's designs. Most do not support American presence in the region.
Posts: 1080 | Registered: Aug 2008
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posted
Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia along most of the small oil states strongly support the American military in the region.
Posts: 2036 | From: Texas | Registered: Sep 2009
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posted
^I too would do the same, if I were the head of a totalitarian regime, who would have long been disposed off, had it not been for U.S. interventions in local affairs. It makes sense.
Posts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008
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posted
^That is a pointless post, as no one was/is disagreeing with the U.S. state's knack for interfering in "sovereign" foreign state affairs, in only its own best interest.
On the flip side though, the baby-crying of some mentally-backward loons--who also proclaim to be "patriots" in the U.S.--about immigration, is something to brag about.
Posts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008
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posted
No; a person who thinks its okay to interfere in the local affairs of other "sovereign" states, but at the same time not expect others from those same other "sovereign" states and elsewhere to come to said person's country, is a cry baby. That person is essentially saying its okay for "his people" to intrude in the lives of the "other people", but not vice versa, under the banner of "acting in one's own best interest", which is supposed to be some sort of "justification" for intruding in the affairs of other people who are supposed to be sovereign. At least many immigrants seek "authorized" entry into the country to which they are going, while U.S. imperialists don't bother. I know, you'll say its because "they can"...that sort of thing; been there, done that.
Posts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008
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posted
You are talking apples and oranges. When dealing with illegal immigration we are dealing with a law enforcement question. Anyone can stop illegal immigration if they arew willing to do whatever it takes to do it. Sounds to me that you are talking some sort of fairness stick but life is not fair. In terms of foreign policy might makes right. We get involved with the affairs of other nations simply because we can. If Jordan was the world's super power they would do the exact same thing.
Posts: 2036 | From: Texas | Registered: Sep 2009
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We get involved with the affairs of other nations simply because we can.
I rest my case.
And oh, teachers and fake internet "teachers" alike , should at least be expected to have minimum reading skills to only address the specifics of what they are replying to, and not what's not there. By this, I'm alluding to your off-tangent reaction to my post.
Posts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008
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, should at least be expected to have minimum reading skills to only address the specifics of what they are replying to, and not what's not there. By this, I'm alluding to your off-tangent reaction to my post.
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