So Abrams is against a settlement freeze. Surprise, surprise, eh?

This nonsense:

But those settlements exist, and there is no point in debating whether it was right to build them. President Bush largely resolved the issue of the major settlement blocs in a 2004 letter to Sharon. He stated a truth that Palestinians have come to recognize: "In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli populations centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949, and all previous efforts to negotiate a two-state solution have reached the same conclusion. It is realistic to expect that any final status agreement will only be achieved on the basis of mutually agreed changes that reflect these realities."

...leads me to suspect that it was Abrams who convinced the naive GWB to write that letter, which upended years of U.S. policy toward the settlements, and arguably created the latest Israeli West Bank building boom. It's unlikely that Bush would have realize the significance of what he wrote in that letter. It was never up to GWB to dictate the terms of the final agreement anyway - just ask the Israelis or Abrams himself about this in regard to any other issue - so this is no more than another attempt at a neocon snow job.

Thanks, again, for naming the names. Abrams' authority to speak on ANY issue is compromised by his heavy involvement with reckless chickenhawk Project for a Cakewalk to Baghdad (by way of Abu Ghraib).

Some of the Congressional statements in the Haaretz article are fairly tame. This one is not:

Eliot Engel (D-NY): "“The United States, in my opinion, needs to stand with Israel, because the world doesn't."

Never mind for now the inaccuracy of the final phrase in this sentence. The problem here is the linking of the preceeding phrase to it. This is not the logic of someone who puts the interests of the United States ahead of the interests of non-Americans elsewhere. It is not a statement that Americans should tolerate from anyone in THEIR government. Tell your friends in suburban New York City, Riverdale, Woodlawn, Norwood and Wakefield in the Bronx, Mount Vernon, etc., to vote this disgraced chickenhawk out of Congress in 2010.

Israeli Prime Ministers have tried to bully American Presidents before: Menachem Begin, Yitzchak Shamir, even Bibi himself at Wye River when he demanded Jonathan Pollard's release and threatened to "set Congress ablaze." He found himself out of a job soon thereafter. If there's one thing the Israeli people, whatever their politics, don't appreciate it's a Prime Minister who bites the hand that feeds them. Bibi may think Obama's a pushover because Dick Cheney told him so. Like a lot of other puffed up egomaniacs, he's about to learn just how tough Barack Obama can be: about ten times tougher than Lyndon Johnson on his meanest day. And if he thinks Rahm Emmanuel will run interference for him against his boss, he'd better think again. In his own calm, understated way, Obama will smile, and pat Bibi on the back, then give him a second bris--this time right up to his neck.

MJR: "...Obama will likely prevail too but who knows? On Israel issues, Democrats are at least as lockstep behind the occupation as Republicans. Some of the most out- there House liberals (from New York, California, Maryland and Florida) are Likud on Israel at the same time that they were strong opponents of the Iraq war. Some of them are as rightwing as Netanyahu. Or, to be more precise, pretend to be.

Noticing there aren't that many posters this time around!

Maybe it's because many are still in shock that you've finally come out with the truth i.e. that 'yes' -- many of our Democrats [including Liberals] in Congress ARE supporters of ethnic cleansing.

We haven't even touched our dear Liberals view on attacking on Iran.

RE: "give him a second bris--this time right up to his neck"

MY COMMENT: OUCH!

PS. HAPPY PASSOVER

The scenario outlined is certainly possible, but neither necessary nor sufficient for "progress" (by which I presume you mean reversing GW Bush's lapdog idiocy.)

BHO is clearly good at talking one-on-one, but is even more skilled at speeches before large crowds. And talk is but a prelude; action after talking will be the key.

A likelier approach would be to revive the old land-for-peace structure (that has glimmered on the horizon several times over the past 30 years only to be blacked out by terrorists (Israeli and Palestinian both) carrying out cruel bloody attacks for the clear purpose of sabotaging incipient peace agreements). As was done, for example in Geneva a few years ago, e.g. a "blueprint" supported by a broad coalition of independent Israelis and Palestinians, and firmly backed by NATO, Russia, the US and the EU. With various carrots dangled in front of the key Israeli and Palestinian governmental heads and their respective constituencies. And capped by a Wilsonian save-the-world speech to the UN and the US news media, and ironclad commitments to stay the course from the various Israeli-Palestinian-international supporters NO MATTER WHAT acts of terrorism are committed to throw up roadblocks. THEN comes the tricky part: action.

Action means the sticks: what happens to Israel and Palestine if they don't get on board, what happens to the "moderate Arab" governments if they don't pressure the Palestinians and what happens to the West Bank settler lobbyists in America if they don't get out of the way of progress. This kind of tricky wooing with promises of aid and growth and new eras of friendship and regional normality, etc. etc. WHILE holding feet to fires, even as the smell of burning flesh rises, is probably the likeliest way -absent some miracle- of finally putting an end to "going nowhere playing games."

I am not holding my breath, but it is not impossible either.

When I read this headline here in Jerusalem yesterday, I thought this is more than amazing. When it comes to Israel, U.S. diplomacy has been guided by unexplained cowardice, and it's extremely refreshing to see an administration that is signaling its will to call the Israeli leadership on its silly tricks and manipulativeness. One cannot exaggerate the importance of the Clinton's administration in helping the Israeli peace camp to rebuild itself and replace Netanyahu in 1999, and one can only hope that this scenario will repeat itself.

I'll look but it's illegal to go to youtube on Passover.

The "sops" like the saps are all on the other side.

The only reason to get Israel out of the territories is because it is right. All the special interests and campaign money is on your side, Hoosier.