israeli palestinian conflict - 2 state solution

sonny~~

obama seems serious in pushing israel and palestinians to become pals via 2 state peace solution.  perhaps he's gonna take steps to twist israel's arm towards this end - sanctions, reduce financial handouts to israel etc.  israel has a lot to lose if it dont wanna comply.  arab world gotta play its role in the peace process, likewise fatah and hamas.  nonetheless i agree with egypt in taking cautious steps towards peace in mideast between arabs and israelis.  

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1089461.html

from haaretz -

1.6.2009 - Egypt has rejected an American proposal for gradual normalization between the Arab world and Israel that would have allowed Israeli planes to fly freely through Arab air space.

The idea arose during discussions in Washington last week between Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit, Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman and senior White House and State Department officials, including National Security Advisor James Jones and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

In an interview with the Saudi newspaper Asharq Al Awsat, Aboul Gheit said that U.S. officials had asked him what the Arab response would be if Washington pressured Israel to reach a peace agreement. He responded that after the Oslo Accords were signed, some Arab states allowed Israeli offices to open in their territory, but today, the Arab world insists on seeing concrete Israeli action before making any further gestures.
  
If Israel accedes to international demands, he continued, "the Arab states could accede to gradual normalization, each according to its own considerations."

[ Last edited by  sonny~~ at 15-6-2009 13:07 ]

sonny~~

wonder what netanyahu wanna say  

sonny~~

so netanyahu has spoken and as expected he fell short of endorsing a VIABLE 2 state solution.  now it's up to obama to twist his arms or meekly comply as past american presidents had done.  obama has commended netanhayu's speech.  let's see what he's gonna do next.  

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1093048.html

from haaretz -

Last update - 07:50 15/06/2009     
Netanyahu, Mideast peace and a return to the Axis of Evil  
By Akiva Eldar, Haaretz Correspondent     

The prime minister's speech last night returned the Middle East to the days of George W. Bush's "axis of evil." Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a patriarchal, colonialist address in the best neoconservative tradition: The Arabs are the bad guys, or at best ungrateful terrorists; the Jews, of course, are the good guys, rational people who need to raise and care for their children. In the West Bank settlement of Itamar, they're even building a nursery school.

No empathy for the refugees from Jaffa who lost their entire world, not a word for the Muslim connection to Jerusalem - neither a fragment of a quote from the Koran, nor a line of Arabic poetry.

Netanyahu's provincial remarks were not intended to penetrate the hearts of the hundreds of millions of Al Jazeera viewers in the Muslim world. Instead, he sought to appease Tzipi Hotovely, the settler Likud lawmaker, and make it possible to live peaceably with the settler foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman. Netanyahu's demand that Palestinians recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people didn't even leave him an opening for forging reconciliation with the Arab citizens in the country.

The prime minister's declaration that Jerusalem will remain he "undivided capital" of Israel - only Israel - slammed the door before the entire Muslim world. And his Hebron is solely the city of the Jewish patriarchs; the Arabs have no such rights at all. The Palestinians can have a state, but only if those foreign invaders show us they know how to eat with a fork and knife. Actually, without a knife.

The demilitarization of the Palestinian state was mentioned in the Clinton guidelines, the Taba understandings and the Geneva accord, as was the right of return to Palestine, not Israel. The difference between these documents and the Bar-Ilan address is not only that the former recognized the Palestinians' full rights to the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The real difference lies in the tone - in the degrading and disrespectful nature of Netanyahu's remarks. That's not how one brings down a wall of enmity between two nations, that's not how trust is built.

It's hard to believe that a single Palestinian leader will be found who will buy the defective merchandise Netanyahu presented last night.

sonny~~

i agree with this fella's viewpoint (talkback) to haaretz's article.  

Akiva Eldar, Haaretz Correspondent: Netanyahu, Mideast peace and a return to the Axis of Evil  

Talkback

Title: The UN should fix the mess it created in 1948

Name: Chris  

City: Ottawa State: Canada  


The UN should stops negotiating with Israel because Israel does not even recognize international laws. The UN should fix the mess it created in 1948 by restarting from scratch. Impose and enforce fair unfragmented boarders to both sides. Impose the two states on both sides. Create a UN buffer zone at the boarders and shoot down any military machine that tries to cross the border. After 10 years I think peace will start to sink in.

sonny~~

too much ding dong between israel and the us specifically on illegal jewish settlements in west bank.  no way 2 state solution gonna materialize if the us wanna give way to israel's demand on natural growth for its illegal settlements.  sigh.  

sonny~~

i hope obama will stay firm with the illegal settlement issue in west bank.  jewish lobbyists are awfully strong in the us and obama gotta watch his steps lest he's gonna be blackmailed into submission.  :@

from haaretz -

Last update - 22:48 13/07/2009     
Obama invites U.S. Jewish leaders to White House meeting  
By Haaretz Service  

The meeting comes amid tense Israel-U.S. ties over Obama administration pressure to halt settlement construction.  

President Barack Obama was on Monday to play host to Jewish leaders, in his first such meeting at the White House. The meeting comes as the Obama administration seeks to halt Israel's settlement construction in the West Bank, creating the greatest tension in Israel-U.S. ties for decades.

The head of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, Alan Solow, told politicsdaily.com that "There will be a variety of viewpoints in the room."

Solow told the website that although the Jewish groups who will be represented at the meeting have varying policy positions, they "are all unified in a common bond, whether from the left or the right" in keeping Israel secure.

Iran's nuclear threat and the American president's demand for a freeze on Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank were expected to dominate the meeting.

Officials had originally tried to keep the meeting secret after it was arranged late last week, but hastily added it to the official schedule after the news leaked out, the U.K.'s Telegraph reported Monday.

The Telegraph quoted one of the organizers of the meeting as saying that "American Jews more or less agree with the president on settlements, but it's the focus on criticising Israel that's disconcerting."

sonny~~

well, looks like obama has emerged cool against powerful jewish lobbyists or jewish leaders as haaretz puts it.  the next step is to pull olmert, netanyahu, abas and hamas in and talk about the borders for a viable palestinian state  

from haaretz -

Last update - 01:04 14/07/2009     
Obama to U.S. Jewish leaders: Israel must engage in self-reflection  
By Barak Ravid  

U.S. President Barack Obama met yesterday for the first time with 15 American Jewish leaders at the White House, for talks aimed at clearing the air following allegations that his administration was taking a tough line with Israel over settlement activity.

At the meeting, Obama told the leaders that he wants to help Israel overcome its demographic problem by reaching an agreement on a two-state solution, but that in order to do so, Israel would need "to engage in serious self-reflection."

On the Iranian nuclear issue, Obama told the leaders that "the door to dialogue is open. If the Iranians do not walk through it, however, we will have to see how we proceed. But it would be a mistake to talk now about what we're going to do and how we're going to do it."

One of the participants at the meeting asked the president to take a lower profile regarding the public differences between his administration and the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the United States' demand that Israel freeze all settlement construction activity in the West Bank. "This situation is not helpful," he told the president, who rejected the request, saying that during the eight years of the Bush administration, such disagreements were never made public but that such an approach was not helpful in advancing the peace process.

Obama added that there is a narrow window of opportunity for advancing the peace process and that he plans to speak openly and honestly with Israel - "a true friend of the U.S." - just as he did with the Arab nations in his speech at Cairo University in June.

Among the groups attending the meeting were the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the Anti-Defamation League, Hadassah, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the National Jewish Democratic Council, the Orthodox Union, the United Jewish Communities, the Union for Reform Judaism, the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, the American Jewish Committee and the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, which is led by long-time Obama acquaintance Alan Solow, who requested the meeting.

Jeremy Ben-Ami, executive director of J Street, who also attended the meeting, said afterwards that he believed that President Obama was asserting positions aimed at achieving two states for two peoples, a stance he claimed is supported by the majority of the Jewish community in the United States that voted for Obama.

Meanwhile, Netanyahu met with the Quartet's Middle East envoy Tony Blair yesterday to discuss ways to improve the Palestinian economy. Netanyahu told Blair that the West Bank's Palestinian residents could achieve more if they were to increase their cooperation with Israel.