I truly believe the attacks of 9/11/01 were in direct retaliation for the Rumsfeld (Mosad) led trick to attack Iraq which posed more of a threat to Israel and not the United States, combined with the years of IDF butchery of the Palestinians and the AIPAC bribes that steered the US "blind" support of it all. JMHO
Capitalist Democracy is a finite political system. Runs a bell shaped curve. Throughout history, as in Rome and France, it lasts about 200 years. The rich get richer , erosion of the middle class. Monopolies, nepotism, blah blah blah. What the big "O" is trying to do is avoid the inevitable.
"People will build, and if the government is looking to get involved in extra violent clashes with law-abiding citizens, that's what they'll do," said Mr Wilder.
Meanwhile, settlers are increasingly concerned that Mr Netanyahu, who campaigned on a pro-settler platform, will yet betray them, noting with alarm his use of the term "West Bank" in a speech in Washington. Mr Netanyahu normally refers to the territory by its biblical name, Judea and Samaria.
Mr Haetzni is among those using his influence to lobby politicians in the Knesset, Israel's parliament, to take steps that would upset the peace process should a deal look imminent.
"We are very busy on the political scene. We talk to all the Knesset members, who [say they] are ready. We have a very pro-nationalistic Knesset," Mr Haetzni, a former politician, says. "That's all I can say for the moment."
For Mr Obama, much is riding on the outcome of these talks. Desperate to present a foreign policy success ahead of midterm elections, he has invested considerable political capital in bringing the two reluctant partners to the negotiating table.
Hamas, the militant Palestinian group that governs Gaza and which is deeply opposed to talks, has already tried to disrupt the negotiations with a deadly shooting near Hebron two weeks ago that killed four settlers.
That prompted a furious outpouring from settlers, many of whom refuse to distinguish between Hamas and Mr Abbas' more moderate Fatah movement, which dominates the West Bank.
Indeed, some observers say the shootings have bolstered support for Hamas, while Palestinians see Mr Abbas as having yielded on many of his key conditions for returning to direct talks.
"If agreement is signed and political institutions do not have legitimacy... instead of seeing a two-state solution, we may see the collapse of the Palestinian Authority," warns Gidi Grinstein, a former negotiator in Ehud Barak's government. "It's a very high-risk strategy that is being played right now."
On this day in America, when so many died 9 years ago, why do the original instigators continue?
Reporting from Washington — President Obama said Friday that he had urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to extend a partial freeze on Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank because peace talks with the Palestinians "are moving in a constructive way."
In remarks at a White House news conference, Obama argued that the freeze has been "significant" in reducing Israeli construction, which the Palestinians oppose and consider a threat to what they could gain from a peace deal. Obama did not describe Netanyahu's response.
The freeze, set to expire Sept. 26, is the foremost immediate threat to the new round of peace talks that began this month. Netanyahu has opposed an extension, and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has insisted that he will break off talks if construction is fully resumed.
The second round of talks is scheduled to begin next week in Egypt, with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton taking part.
Obama also urged Netanyahu and Abbas to consider their partners' political problems and find ways to reduce them.
He said that because "the politics for Prime Minister Netanyahu are very difficult," Abbas needs to make goodwill gestures as well.
"You've got to show the Israeli public that you are serious and constructive in these talks, so that the politics for Prime Minister Netanyahu, if he were to extend the settlement moratorium, would be a little easier," Obama said.
At a moment of widespread pessimism about the talks, Obama also appealed for American support of his effort, saying his chief motive was reducing threats to U.S. security from the region.
"We're not just doing this to feel good," he said.
Just how far can this diplomatic quid pro quo take the peace process? Certainly, there are still wide, seemingly unbridgeable gaps between Netanyahu and Abbas on key issues — including Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees — and the opponents of a deal are powerful and violent, as last week’s attacks showed.
Still, the political constellation supports an Israeli-Palestinian agreement like never before. Both previous attempts at reaching a final deal, in 2000 and 2008, stumbled on lame-duck leadership in Jerusalem and Washington. This is not the case with Netanyahu and Obama today.
The pre-Watergate Nixon, with his hawkish stance and his keen grasp of political realties, pulled off a visit to China that a politician with less serious anti-communist credentials would not have attempted. For similar reasons, Netanyahu may be better positioned to cut a deal on a Palestinian state than any predecessor or likely successor.
After all, the Israeli public loves it when a right-winger performs the left-wing script — just as the American public did when Nixon visited Mao, rewarding him with a landslide re-election.
Ten months ago, Netanyahu told me in a phone interview for Haaretz, the liberal Israeli daily where I am a columnist and editor: “I want to promote a peace agreement with the Palestinians. I can bring a deal.” I wrote afterward that I believed him, only to receive mocking comments from many readers who called me naive. But I have not changed my mind — and neither has Netanyahu. Last week’s summit in Washington was largely his brainchild: It was he who insisted on direct talks, outmaneuvering Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who had agreed to indirect “proximity talks.”
In both his words and his deeds since he took office a year and a half ago, Netanyahu appears to have been reborn as a moderate, level-headed leader. His responses to cross-border attacks from Gaza and Lebanon have been calibrated to avoid escalation. In November, he imposed a 10-month moratorium on Jewish settlement expansion in the West Bank. And despite his deep disagreements with Abbas over big-picture issues, Israeli security and economic cooperation with Abbas’ Palestinian Authority are stronger than ever. When Palestinian terrorists struck during the Washington summit, killing four Israeli settlers in the West Bank and wounding two, Netanyahu sounded nothing like the Bibi of old. “I will not let the terrorists block our path to peace,” he said.
What caused Netanyahu to rethink his long-held ideology? To be sure, he did not go through a midlife left-wing epiphany any more than Nixon did. Rather, he succumbed to American pressure, and this, too, speaks in his favor. Statecraft requires reading power relationships correctly and acting accordingly.
Past right-wing Israeli leaders went through similar about-faces. Menachem Begin gave the entire Sinai back to Egypt only weeks after he pledged to spend his retirement in an Israeli settlement there. Ariel Sharon demolished the settlements in Gaza shortly after declaring them as important as Tel Aviv. Yitzhak Shamir, the toughest of the breed, put aside his beliefs to attend the 1991 Madrid Peace Conference. All these leaders were said to have “reckoned with reality” — which, in Israeli political parlance, is a euphemism for “dependence on America.” With no serious domestic challengers, Netanyahu knows that he is the strongest Israeli leader in a generation. Looking outside, however, he sees mostly trouble: His country is ever more isolated from an international community that increasingly rejects Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories, its settlements and its excessive use of force. At the same time, he is deeply alarmed by Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons, coupled with what he describes as its effort to “delegitimize” the Jewish state. He sees Israel’s sheer existence, not its controversial policies, as the matter at stake.
He therefore wants President Barack Obama to help neutralize the Iranian threat — and he understands that Obama’s price for that help will be Israeli concessions in the West Bank. And so, as Obama toughens his stance toward Iran and expands security cooperation with Israel, Netanyahu softens his tone vis-‡-vis the Palestinians.
Nixon put aside his distaste for Chinese communists because he feared the Soviet Union even more. Netanyahu is, in effect, prioritizing the Iranian weapons facility at Natanz above the settlements.
TEL AVIV, Israel — He is usually depicted as a hard-liner, a hopeless ideologue burdened by a legacy of hawkish sound bites and shackled to a notoriously conservative coalition. But, contrary to popular wisdom, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is proving to be the most dovish leader that Israel has had in many years, one who is using military force cautiously and seeking, at long last, a diplomatic resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “I came here today to find an historic compromise that will enable both our peoples to live in peace and security and in dignity,” he said at last week’s Middle East peace summit at the White House. These are words that most Israelis never expected to hear “Bibi” utter.
In one of the more intriguing political evolutions in recent memory, Netanyahu is starting to look a lot like another hard-liner who eventually engaged his longtime adversaries: Richard Nixon, on the occasion of his visit to China.
Like Nixon, Netanyahu has pulled off a political comeback, having returned to power a decade after losing a re-election bid. Much as Nixon was a poster boy for anti-communism, Netanyahu has ridden the wave of counterterrorism. Like Nixon, he has fought liberals and peaceniks throughout his career, and has relished the antagonism of a news media that he regards as hostile and left-leaning.
As a diplomat and a talking head on TV, Netanyahu made his fame defending Israel in the court of global public opinion. For years, he fought any two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict predicated on trading land for peace, arguing that territorial concessions by Israel would bring only violence and misery. Time and again, as Israeli withdrawals from occupied territory were followed by suicide bombings and rocket fire from Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon, he was proved right. Last year, the Israeli public rewarded him by returning him to power.
And that is where the storyline shifts. After re-entering the prime minister’s office last spring, Bibi changed his tune. The man who had spent his life chanting “No, no, PLO,” and explaining why a Palestinian state would mean the end of the Jewish one, has begun singing the old mantra of the Israeli left wing: “Two states for two peoples.” The standard-bearer for Israeli conservatism has jumped on the peace bandwagon. As unlikely sights go, it is up there with Nixon shaking Mao Zedong’s hand in 1972. (2 of 3)
SilverBirch: If Tel Aviv has been the Israeli capital for 62 years why is it prerequisite that it be shifted to Jeruselem now? Why can't it be a shared Holy City? With executive offices at both ends?JMHO
And YOURS!! Don't you EVER stop to think there might, just might be another point of view on this? We're talking about WORSHIP!! here for Christ Sake!!!!!! We've ALL WITNESSED THE BEAUTIFICATION!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IT's not unique to one religion!!!
If Tel Aviv has been the Israeli capital for 62 years why is it prerequisite that it be shifted to Jeruselem now? Why can't it be a shared Holy City? With executive offices at both ends? What is the hype?
As Israelis and Palestinians resume direct peace negotiations for the first time in 20 months, the United States must continue to actively engage in the process and make a determined effort to broker a final peace settlement.
A hands-off approach to the conflict, as President George W. Bush learned late in his second term, only makes our broader foreign policy aims in the region more difficult to achieve. Finding a solution to the conflict remains central to our long-term success in the Muslim world, including our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as our fight against al-Qaida.
During his Cairo speech in June 2009, President Barack Obama articulated a clear and balanced vision for ending the conflict. Implementing that vision would make a pivotal difference in restoring America’s power and prestige, whereas a failure to translate it into concrete policy changes will deepen our divide with the Muslim world and give further ammunition to its violent extremist elements.
To improve America’s relations with the region, President Obama must seek a legitimate settlement that addresses the security concerns of both the Israelis and the Palestinians.
The truth is, in the absence of presidential pressure, Israel will not make the painful concessions — including withdrawal from the occupied Arab territories and dismantling settlements — that are prerequisites for moving beyond the current stalemate.
To achieve a breakthrough, Obama must be willing to put considerable pressure on Israel. This will be politically challenging on the domestic front, especially during an election year, and also because Israel is now led by a formidable and hawkish Likud-run government.
But for the sake of America’s vital interests, Israel’s long-term security, and the long-sought ambition of the Palestinians to have a viable state of their own, Obama must push forward with a two-state solution before the window of opportunity closes forever.
He must not let the extreme elements on either side of the conflict veto American policy and national interest. Furthermore, any breakthrough requires that the president actively engage pro-peace groups in both countries to exert pressure on the extreme elements that are currently trying to sabotage any peace settlement.
The Arabs are ready for peace. In the last few years there has been a dramatic shift in attitude across the Arab world regarding peacemaking with the Jewish state.
A clear consensus exists today among Arab elites and the general public that land-for-peace remains the only viable option, with Israel withdrawing from the 1967 occupied Arab territories, including East Jerusalem, in exchange for full diplomatic recognition by all Arab countries. This was well-articulated in the 2002 and 2007 Arab Peace Initiative and accepted by all Arab governments.
Obviously there are political risks for the president; however, the rewards he would garner if he succeeds are worth the possible risks.
An American-brokered Arab-Israeli solution and the establishment of a viable, fully independent state for the Palestinians with its capital in East Jerusalem would dramatically improve America’s credibility among Muslims, facilitate its political engagement with Iran and its decision to find a regional formula to stabilize Afghanistan, and deal with the rising political extremism in Pakistan.
Great presidents have always taken risks, and Obama could even go down in history as the only president who was able to bring peace to the Holy Land. More important, a peace settlement would bring lasting security to Israel and end the chronic suffering of the Palestinians.
Farid Senzai is the director of research at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding.
Abbas told the East Jerusalem-based Al-Quds al-Araby newspaper earlier Monday that if forced to give in on the issues of refugees or borders, he would "pack my bags and leave".
The Palestinian president also vowed to cut off direct negotiations with Israel if construction were to resume in West Bank settlements and said he would refuse to bring to the table with Netanyahu recognition of Israel as a Jewish state. "Israel can call itself what it likes," Abbas told the East Jerusalem-based newspaper.
It is obvious that while Hamas is at the helm in Gaza the prospect for Peace is non-existant. Their charter of Death to Israel is unacceptable. Until there can be a change in leadership, hopefully with the next elections, should the United Nations introduce a peace keeping force to aid in stopping the rockets and thus reduce the threat to Israeli citizens?
That would also improve chances of marginalizing Hamas further, since its agenda is on shaky footing at home. A Palestinian Center for Public Opinion poll found more Palestinians would prefer a Fatah-led government than a Hamas-led government.
"There is a chance for peace," said Michael O'Hanlon, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, adding that a final agreement would need to allow both sides to claim part of Jerusalem as their own. "The main issue really is political will."
An August study from the Arab World for Research and Development found 95 percent of Palestinians would consider a peace accord as "the end of the conflict."
Until then, rhetoric on the far ends of both sides not surprisingly escalated in the run-up to the talks, which ended Thursday with a pledge to meet again in two weeks.
Religious conservatives in Israel have questioned the talks and settlers in the West Bank started building again Wednesday in violation of a government freeze on construction.
On Tuesday, four Israelis were killed in a fatal shooting in the West Bank near Hebron. Hamas took responsibility for that before then claiming responsibility for the shooting of two more Israelis in a roadside attack Wednesday in the West Bank. One of the Israelis was seriously wounded in the attack, according to Haaretz.
The Jerusalem Post reported that the top Hamas official in Gaza, Mahmoud Zahar, also delivered a speech Wednesday in which he assailed the peace talks.
"Today marks the start of direct negotiations between someone who has no right to represent the Palestinian people and the brutal occupier," he said.
Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have both tried to tamp down the incitement. Referencing the Hamas attacks, Netanyahu said security is essential for any lasting peace agreement and condemned those trying to disrupt the process.
"They seek to kill our people, kill our state, kill our peace," he said.
Thick skull? My original post and subsequent dialouge has said that Hamas is the root of the problem. What in the hell do you want?Hamas Looms as Spoiler in Middle East Peace Talks
Published September 02, 2010 | FoxNews.com Print Email Share Comments Recommend
Palestinian supporters of Hamas raise their right index fingers in the air as a sign of loyalty to the group during a Gaza Strip rally to celebrate a militant attack in the southern West Bank Aug. 31. (AP Photo) Middle East peace talks got under way Thursday for the first time in nearly two years with a violent reminder sent by the Palestinian terror group Hamas that it will try to torpedo any agreement struck in Washington between Israelis and the Palestinian Authority.
Hamas refuses to recognize Israel's right to exist despite that acknowledgment by the Palestinian Authority more than a decade ago.
As a result, the PA, led by President Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah Party, run the West Bank while Hamas has its thumb on Gaza. Joining the two territories into one state is one of the Palestinians' objectives of peace talks.
Ignoring Hamas, however, is tricky business. The group flexed its muscle with back-to-back attacks this week on Israelis in the West Bank. Those kinds of attacks position it to spoil any meeting of the minds.
Analysts say that however vile Hamas, the U.S.-led talks can't bear fruit until the organization is either placated or ostracized by its own people.
David Makovsky, a fellow with The Washington Institute for Near East Policy who recently traveled to Ramallah in the West Bank to meet with Abbas, sided with the latter strategy.
"The best way to deal with Hamas is to demonstrate success in the West Bank and let the people decide," Makovsky said. "People won't believe a Middle East peace speech, but they will believe a deal."
The two other countries at the table in the re-launched peace talks are Egypt, represented by President Hosni Mubarak, and Jordan, represented by King Abdullah II.
Mubarak, in a New York Times column published before the talks commenced, said that a two-state solution hinges on concessions regarding the Gaza Strip, including a prisoner exchange between Israel and Hamas, an end to the blockade and "reconciliation between Hamas and its rival Fatah."
"The Palestinians cannot make peace with a house divided. If Gaza is excluded from the framework of peace, it will remain a source of conflict, undermining any final settlement," Mubarak wrote.
A Brookings Institution analysis said that while Hamas is "well-placed to play the spoiler role," the Palestinian Authority is trying to give them less "incentive" by seeking Gaza-centric concessions like the release of prisoners, improved access and economic aid.
Thick skull? My original post and subsequent dialouge has said that Hamas is the root of the problem. What in the hell do you want?Hamas Looms as Spoiler in Middle East Peace Talks
Published September 02, 2010 | FoxNews.com Print Email Share Comments Recommend
Palestinian supporters of Hamas raise their right index fingers in the air as a sign of loyalty to the group during a Gaza Strip rally to celebrate a militant attack in the southern West Bank Aug. 31. (AP Photo) Middle East peace talks got under way Thursday for the first time in nearly two years with a violent reminder sent by the Palestinian terror group Hamas that it will try to torpedo any agreement struck in Washington between Israelis and the Palestinian Authority.
Hamas refuses to recognize Israel's right to exist despite that acknowledgment by the Palestinian Authority more than a decade ago.
As a result, the PA, led by President Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah Party, run the West Bank while Hamas has its thumb on Gaza. Joining the two territories into one state is one of the Palestinians' objectives of peace talks.
Ignoring Hamas, however, is tricky business. The group flexed its muscle with back-to-back attacks this week on Israelis in the West Bank. Those kinds of attacks position it to spoil any meeting of the minds.
Analysts say that however vile Hamas, the U.S.-led talks can't bear fruit until the organization is either placated or ostracized by its own people.
David Makovsky, a fellow with The Washington Institute for Near East Policy who recently traveled to Ramallah in the West Bank to meet with Abbas, sided with the latter strategy.
"The best way to deal with Hamas is to demonstrate success in the West Bank and let the people decide," Makovsky said. "People won't believe a Middle East peace speech, but they will believe a deal."
The two other countries at the table in the re-launched peace talks are Egypt, represented by President Hosni Mubarak, and Jordan, represented by King Abdullah II.
Mubarak, in a New York Times column published before the talks commenced, said that a two-state solution hinges on concessions regarding the Gaza Strip, including a prisoner exchange between Israel and Hamas, an end to the blockade and "reconciliation between Hamas and its rival Fatah."
"The Palestinians cannot make peace with a house divided. If Gaza is excluded from the framework of peace, it will remain a source of conflict, undermining any final settlement," Mubarak wrote.
A Brookings Institution analysis said that while Hamas is "well-placed to play the spoiler role," the Palestinian Authority is trying to give them less "incentive" by seeking Gaza-centric concessions like the release of prisoners, improved access and economic aid.
If there is no compromise it will not work. The mindset of Hamas must change. How? No one knows, but it must change. All in all the situation has no simple solution. There will be more death on both sides.
SilverBirch Forum Posts (3,158)
United Nations Peace Keepers in Gaza
I truly believe the attacks of 9/11/01 were in direct retaliation for the Rumsfeld (Mosad) led trick to attack Iraqwhich posed more of a threat to Israel and not the United States,
combined with the years of IDF butchery of the Palestinians and the AIPAC bribes that steered the US "blind" support of it all.
JMHO