Barak Bearing Gifts
A well-informed friend writes from Tel Aviv "of the shame of Ehud Barak as a servant of Bibi. Mitchell refused to meet Bibi because he refused to accept a freeze on building in the settlements. Today Barak leaves for Washington as a middleman," to meet with Mitchell. "He comes with an offer: A freeze of 3 months. Everybody knows that 3 months - when one builds hundreds of houses, streets, infrastructure - is nothing. Sometimes it is what one has to wait just for the plumbing company to finish another project. But the cheating that enabled the building of the project of settlement goes on: If one reads the small print in Barak's 'new offer' it says" (according to Yedioth Ahronoth):
Barak would propose that a three-month moratorium would not cover some 2,000 buildings under construction in West Bank enclaves. Work on homes for Jews in Arab East Jerusalem also would continue.
Reuters, which moved a story about the small print, also says:
U.S. officials said Washington was considering making allowances for some structures nearing completion.
The AP has this:
"The stalemate with Israel will continue if settlement growth does not stop," said Nabil Abu Rdeneh, an aide to Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
Isn't the U. S. in its fifth decade of "making allowances" for West Bank settlements? Isn't it past time to cut off the allowances?
P. S. Gershom Gorenberg has a wise and pungent WP op-ed yesterday on the tedious history of Israeli rationalizations for self-thawing "freezes." His punch-line: "the real question is whether the Obama administration will blink first or stand firm on a freeze as an essential step toward making peace."
My Daddy used to tell me, "never think that everyone else are fools."
Whenever I see or hear Barak and/or Netanyahu trying to be too clever and making more half promises hedged with impossible pre-conditions regarding Palestinian autonomy - I think of my Daddy.
Likud is in power to obtain a Greater Israel and to wreck any proposal that might work against their realization of that eventual objective.
I believe, however, that if the world has been somewhat less than astute in the recent past - it is now not satisfied to be fobbed off any longer with lame excuses.
Perhaps a Livni headed government might be more responsive to world opinion and to moral values than that of this notorious double act.
June 28, 2009 6:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is Barak, not Likud.
Amitai Etzioni described what Border Police is doing to peaceful activists, and in general, Barak was pushing the envelope on settlements when he was in coalition with Olmert, he really believes in that stuff.
As far as Livni is concerned, I am not sure if she would be any better. The true problem is that right now, in Israel smart politics means stupid policy, so politicians seek ways to prove that they are stupid (something that we know from USA). Why did Livni condemned a rumored agreement with Hamas? To show that she is tougher than Bibi?
June 28, 2009 10:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're right, but I just have this unsubstantiated notion that maybe a woman, any woman, could not be as arrogantly short-sighted as the politically corrupt, macho strutters with whom the world has had to deal, over the past decade.
Livni is the product of freedom-fighters who we used to call terrorists, in 1948. And LEHI, the group of militants to which they belonged, was a proscribed, underground organization - not an elected political party.
Nevertheless, I doubt that she could be as devious as the present incumbents. Women, as a rule, tend to be more pragmatic and more inclined to avoid bloodshed, where possible. After all, they are the progenitors.
June 28, 2009 10:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Todd - The papers today are talking about the 50 new homes in "Adam East" to house settlers from the outpost of Migron. Adam East is the planned community of 1500 new homes, which may or may not be built in the future.
To associate this development as a new neigborhood of Adam (Geva Binyamin) is deception at best. First off, it's a kilometer or more away from Adam and connecting the two areas will ruin the Palestinian wheat fields between them (if my memory of the area is clear). Furthermore, the existing settlers in Adam, while not really secular, do not have much in common with the ideological settlers of Migron.
In effect, Israel is establishing a new settlement for the people of Migron and calling it a new neigborhood to try and fool the international community.
June 29, 2009 10:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
What's really frightening is that even this utter sham of a gesture (dig some holes and pour cement in them for foundation posts and you have a house nearing completion) is considered volatile enough that the people offering it wanted (and got) anonymity from the New York Times.
One of Mitchell's aides should politely tell Barak to come back when he has something real on the table.
June 29, 2009 10:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
RE: "Everybody knows that 3 months - when one builds hundreds of houses, streets, infrastructure - is nothing."
*** TELL OBAMA "FREEZE MEANS FREEZE" ***
FROM J STREET: Following Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's rejection of a full settlement freeze, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said...that President Obama "wants to see a stop to settlements - not some settlements, not outposts, not natural-growth exceptions."
This is exactly the sort of leadership we need from the President and Secretary of State if we are going to achieve a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - the only way to truly secure Israel's future as a Jewish, democratic homeland.
Please send the President a message telling him you support his "Freeze means Freeze" approach to Israeli settlements.
* TO SEND MESSAGE - http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/o/2747/t/3251/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=593
June 29, 2009 3:39 PM | Reply | Permalink