Follow on TwitterU.S. Press Corps Not Buying White House Spin On Israeli Intransigence
The Huffington Post is reporting that, in clear violation of both U.S. demands and international law:
The Jerusalem city government moved toward the construction of 900 additional housing units in a Jewish neighborhood in East Jerusalem, which Palestinians claim for the capital of their future state.
This comes right after the Obama Administration recently softened its demands that Israel cease all settlement expansion in the occupied territories after Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu essentially told Obama to ‘fuck off’. Palestinians interpreted this sudden shift in U.S. policy as proof that peace negotiations were dead.
When asked about Israel’s additional 900 housing units, Obama Spokesman Robert Gibbs responded:
“We are dismayed,” and he criticized the Israelis as making “it more difficult for our efforts (toward peacemaking) to succeed.”
Dismayed? More difficult for your efforts? Robert, you guys are beginning to look like Netanyahu’s lap dogs. Show some spine, already! Americans don’t like to see their leaders getting their noses rubbed in fecal matter, to then try and spin the residue, “it’s just chocolate. Yum!” It’s not gonna fly… you look weak and are embarrassing our country!
Members of the press corps aren’t backing down this time. They are pressing the State Department on their embarrassing failure to get Israel to cooperate on ending the settlement expansions, and on the Administration’s weak response to this latest news of Israeli intransigence. As transcribed from Mondoweiss:
QUESTION: How long is the U.S. going to continue to tolerate Israel’s violation of international law? I mean, soon it’s not even going to be possible – there’s not going to be any land left for the Palestinians to establish an independent state.
MR. KELLY: Well, again, this is a – we understand the Israeli point of view about Jerusalem. But we think that all sides right now, at this time when we’re expending such intense efforts to try and get the two sides to sit down, that we should refrain from these actions, like this decision to move forward on an approval process for more housing units in East Jerusalem.
QUESTION: But should U.S. inaction, or in response to Israel’s actions, then be interpreted as some sort of about-face in policy – the President turning his back on the promises he’s made to the Palestinians?
MR. KELLY: You’re – okay, you’re using language that I wouldn’t use. I mean, again, our focus is to get these negotiations started. We’re calling on both parties to refrain from actions, from – and from rhetoric that would impede this process. It’s a challenging time, and we just need to focus on what’s important here, and that’s –
The back and forth between Kelly and the reporters at the State Department continues here, at Mondoweiss. You gotta check it out. He’s got the video clip over there as well. This will absolutely get buried by the main stream media.
Ha’aretz Journalist, Gideon Levy: “Israel Is Addicted To The Occupation”
Israel’s most prominent journalist, Gideon Levy, follows up on his recent column — one where he blasted the U.S. for continuing to ‘suck up to Israel’ — with an interview on The Real News Network. Here he describes Israel as a country “addicted to the occupation.”
He pleads with the U.S. to be a friend of Israel’s and save it from itself. He considers the relationship between U.S. and Israel as “twisted and unprecedented” in the world. “There is no country in the world that acts like Israel vis a vis the United States — vis a vis dependence on the United States.”
Israel is addicted to the occupation, because it benefits a lot from the occupation — economically, and politically, and above all, because it doesn’t pay any price for the occupation. Israelis are living wonderfully, especially in the last years. They are having a wonderful life, even quite secure life most of the times. There’s no reason to change the status quo from the point of view of Israel. It is very convenient. There’s a total separation between Israel and its occupation. Most of the Israelis have no idea what’s going on there, don’t also care about what’s going on there, have never been there — most of the Israelis. And so why should they bother? The occupation will continue…
Levy believes the U.S. Presidents “who were called friendly to Israel were the worst for Israel.” He singles out George W. Bush as the very worst, “because in his spirit, Israel really had the full liberty to do whatever it wants — settlements, two wars, assassinations …”
Levy comments on the emergence of J Street — the new, left-leaning pro-Israel lobbying group (hoped by many to offer an alternative to the hard-right, extremely powerful AIPAC):
I know there is a change in the Jewish community in the United States, but it is too little, and too late. Still the conservative Jewish establishment is so powerful, and I don’t see signs that it is losing its power. J Street is a wonderful initiative, very promising, but still the power of AIPAC, of the Anti-Defamation League, and other organizations is still very very strong. And I don’t think it’s a question of months or years that this will change dramatically.
Israel is so much not willing to make peace that someone has to push Israel, and the only actor who can push Israel is the United States. This can only happen with American pressure. It will never come from inside Israel — no way. Most Israelis are passive, couldn’t care less, …
The interview is over seven minutes long — definitely worth viewing:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQNX07NyoDc[/youtube]
UPDATE:
The second part of the interview with Gideon Levy was just released by The Real News Network.
Levy says:
There is no peace process. It’s a joke. There is no peace process, there is some games going on — masquerades — but not a real peace process, because no one has the intention of talking to implement major steps. Israel wants negotiations, because when negotiations are on the pressure on Israel is much smaller, and something is going on, and they are meeting once in two weeks, and then there is a big peace conference, without paying any price. Why not? You only gain. For Israel the negotiations are a win-win situation, because no one intends to implement anything, and we saw it now for 16 years — ever since Oslo. […]
This is the time to put an end to all negotiations, because there is no room for negotiations, because the solution is very clear to everybody. This is the terrible mistake that the Obama Administration did — or they fell into this trap. […]
The alternative to the two-state solution is the one-state solution — which is not a good solution for the Palestinians — mainly for the Palestinians — because there is a big gap between the two societies. And there will not be equality, and not be justice, and therefore at least in the first stage the Palestinians deserve their own state. But I agree to what the PA officials say, that maybe we missed the train, maybe it is too late with almost half a million settlers in E. Jerusalem and the West Bank. […]
Here’s the full second part of the interview:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IocmcFCjH7I[/youtube]
Watch: What Ethnic Cleansing Looks Like (In Occupied East Jersulem)
Here’s a video of Jewish Settlers literally taking over a Palestinian family’s home in East Jerusalem — dumping the family’s possessions out onto the street, the furniture into their garden — while the Israeli police stand guard in case the Palestinians try to stop the settlers from taking the home for themselves. Once emptied, the Jews move right inside, and change the locks on the doors. Unbelievable!
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EISikrLcSw8[/youtube]
UPDATE:
Anti-War.com wrote today of the ongoing demolitions of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem:
“Make sure your father gets this,” the municipal inspector tells a 10-year-old boy at the gate of the concrete house in an alleyway in the al-Bustan quarter of Silwan, a Palestinian neighborhood right under the shadow of the walled Old City.
“This” is a court-approved demolition notice, “No. 59.” It’s for a house under imminent threat of being torn down by the Israeli authorities because it does not have the requisite building permit.
The demolition notice is headed: “To Unknown Addressee.”
“Now they refer to me as ‘Unknown.’ But they know my name very well – they address payment orders for all municipal and other taxes to me by name,” says Moussa Oudeh.
Moussa, father of five, is one of 78 householders in al-Bustan whose homes are slated for demolition. Since the election of a new Israeli mayor exactly a year ago, 10 other houses in al-Bustan have been bulldozed.
[…]
The vans park near a new seven-story block of flats. A blue-and-white Israeli banner, with a large Star of David, has been unfurled from the roof down to the alley beneath. It’s one of several buildings in Silwan where nationalist religious Israelis have settled in recent years in a bid to boost the Jewish presence in the Arab neighborhood.
For some time, it’s been an open secret that the settlers also don’t have the requisite permit for their building. According to Israeli press reports, after the recent demolition nearby of a small Palestinian home, human rights groups took the matter to the Israeli courts.
A city inspector called to the dock was asked by the magistrate, “How come you didn’t serve a demolition notification on the seven-story building as well?”
“I simply didn’t notice it,” replied the inspector.
The court has yet to take action on the petition against the settlers for their infraction.
How in the world can President Barack Obama — the nation’s first African American President — continue to turn a blind eye to these bigoted policies, and continue to pledge both his allegiance — which he often describes as ‘sacrosanct’ — and billions of dollars in our tax money to this morally bankrupt country?
UPDATE II:
I found this story via Mondoweiss (as reported in Haaretz) regarding these extremist settlers:
Just weeks after the arrest of alleged Jewish terrorist, Yaakov Teitel, a West Bank rabbi on Monday released a book giving Jews permission to kill Gentiles who threaten Israel.
Rabbi Yitzhak Shapiro, who heads the Od Yosef Chai Yeshiva in the Yitzhar settlement, wrote in his book “The King’s Torah” that even babies and children can be killed if they pose a threat to the nation.
“It is permissable to kill the Righteous among Nations even if they are not responsible for the threatening situation,” he wrote, adding: “If we kill a Gentile who has sinned or has violated one of the seven commandments – because we care about the commandments – there is nothing wrong with the murder.”
Several prominent rabbis, including Rabbi Yithak Ginzburg and Rabbi Yaakov Yosef, have recommended the book to their students and followers.
Unbelievable! Why isn’t any of this stuff ever reported in our main stream media? Don’t Americans deserve to know that billions of their tax dollars are subsidizing this scary shit?
Sec. of State Hillary Clinton’s Diplomatic Skills Rival Those Of John Bolton’s
Nice work Hillary! The fallout from her most recent world tour continues to materialize. First our nation’s chief diplomat completely offended the country of Pakistan. Here’s how the Pakistan Daily appraised her visit with their officials and press: U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton went on the offensive during her three-day visit to Pakistan that […]
Hillary Clinton’s Pandering To Israel Destroys U.S. Credibility On Middle East Peace
U.S. Middle East policy has effectively come full-circle again, as it has done repeatedly for the past forty-plus years. Every blue moon we get a U.S. President who dares to challenge Israel on its ethnic cleansing — as demonstrated by continued Palestinian home demolitions and Jewish-ONLY settlement expansion within the occupied territories (all interconnected by […]
Goldstone To U.S. Congress: Your Resolution Condemning Gaza Investigation Is Rife With Factual Errors
Steven Rosen, former director of foreign-policy issues at AIPAC — the right-winged Israel Lobby powerhouse — once told Jeffrey Goldberg: “You see this napkin?” he said. “In twenty-four hours, we could have the signatures of seventy senators on this napkin.” Well apparently, a ‘dirty napkin’ — of sorts — was passed around this week in […]
Harper’s Magazine Interviews Desmond Travers On Goldstone Report
Here’s an interesting read: Ken Silverstein interviews Den Travers, one of the four members of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict. “Travers is a retired Colonel of the Army of the Irish Defence Forces. His last appointment was as Commandant of its Military College. He also served in command of troops […]
Bill Moyers Interviews Justice Richard Goldstone About Gaza Investigations
Here’s a must see for those interested in learning more about the UN Human Rights Council’s investigation into Israel’s military incursion into Gaza, and its controversial findings: namely that both Israel and Hamas committed war crimes. Bill Moyers speaks at length with Justice Richard Goldstone — whom I wrote about last week. Here’s a few […]
U.S. Efforts To Undermine Goldstone Report Diminishes Its Own Standing In World
Richard Goldstone, a Jewish South African and a champion for human rights, gave a speech in 2000 at Jerusalem’s Yakar in Israel where he revealed that his motivations for bringing war criminals to justice stemmed from the lessons he’d learned of the Holocaust: Goldstone said the Holocaust has shaped legal protocol on war, adding that […]
Israeli Foreign Ministry Document Outlines Strategy to Avoid Permanent Peace Deal
Naor Gilon, former counselor of political affairs for Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, presented him with a document outlining the country’s future foreign policy strategy. It reveals: The government should not attempt to reach a permanent settlement with the Palestinians but rather focus on a temporary accord that would prevent US and European frustration. […] “.. […]
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