NOVANEWS
Dear Friends,
First of all, the good news that was announced about an hour ago:
“Egypt ‘to open Rafah crossing to Palestinians
Restrictions at the Rafah crossing have eased gradually since Egypt’s new government took power in February
Egypt is to open the Rafah border crossing into Gaza permanently to most Palestinians from Saturday, Egyptian state news agency Mena has said.”
How will Israel react to this?
[for more on this see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-13552685?print=true ]
As for the rest, I have spent the day reading domestic and international newspapers for commentary about Obama’s and Netanyahu’s speeches, particularly Netanyahu’s last speech to the US Congress. Below are the texts of 4 reactions that I find particularly interesting, one of which (item 4) was not in the newspapers, but which has been circulated privately. Following them are links to other readings that you might find interesting.
Item 1, however, is a link to a video (about 5 minutes) of a flash dance to ‘move over AIPAC.’ Worth watching.
Item 2, though published in the British Guardian is by an American Jew who blames Netanyhu for making American Jews have to choose between their president and the prime minister of Israel. The writer, Jane Eisner, believes that she represents many American Jews. I hope that she is right and that American Jews will feel more loyalty to the United States than to an Israel that is committing unbelievable crimes.
Item 3 is an interview in Der Speigel, of Luxenbourg foreign minister, Jean Asselborn, who states that “The European Union is backing US President Obama’s call for a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders,” and, further, that “if the Israelis remain stubborn, the EU must consider taking political action.”
Item 4 is by Professor Micah Leshem and is, I believe, one of the better analysis that I have read today. It presents one Israeli’s view.
Item 5 by Louis Andoni presents the Palestinian or Arab view of Obama’s stand or policy, and claims that in effect Obama tells Israel “take whatever you want.”
Several of the links take you to comments from the Palestinians on Netanyahu’s speech. Where we go from here, does not look good. Security, justice, and peace for either Palestinians or Israelis will not flow from Israel’s intransigence, supported to a large degree by the current president of the United States.
Enjoy the items below.
Dorothy
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1. Forwarded by Anwar
Watch the instant Dance group in Washington Central singing:
Move over AIPAC, you don’t speak for me….
Please circulate widely
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=V7pU5aZmYbM
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2. The Guardian,
25 May 2011
Don’t be fooled by the applause, Binyamin Netanyahu
Israel’s PM received a rapturous reception from Congress, but US Jewish opinion at large is frustrated with his intransigence
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/may/25/israel-binyamin-netanyahu
Jane Eisner guardian.co.uk, larger | smaller Article history
Israel’s PM Binyamin Netanyahu told US Congress: ‘It’s time for President Abbas to stand before his people and say: I will accept a Jewish state – with those words, I will be prepared to make a far-reaching compromise.’ Photograph: Jason Reed/Reuters
When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed a joint session of Congress on Tuesday, his first audience was the assembly of federal lawmakers and other government dignitaries seated before him. His second audience was President Obama, who was off hobnobbing with the Queen of England, but who, only days earlier, had set out his vision for achieving a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And his third audience was the American Jewish community. People like me.
Judging from the extraordinarily warm welcome he received in the Capitol building – by my count, there were 30 standing ovations, including the applause that greeted his entrance and the conclusion of his speech – Netanyahu easily won over the Congress with his passionate defence of Israel as America’s most trusted ally in the convulsive Middle East.
But whether the prime minister’s spirited defence of the status quo and his reluctance to offer a way back to the negotiating table will be received well by the White House is an open question. And that puts American Jews in a difficult, uncomfortable situation.
Jews in the United States do not like finding themselves in the position of choosing between their president and the prime minister of Israel. No matter who is in the White House, no matter who is in charge of the government in Jerusalem, we like to see consensus, a smooth connection, the enunciation not just of shared values, but a shared approach to geopolitical challenges.
In the two years since Netanyahu cobbled together a rightwing coalition in Israel, and came up against an American president scrambling to improve his nation’s image in the Muslim world, that smooth connection got awfully bumpy at times. I fear the impasse is only growing.
It need not be this way. Obama’s speech last Thursday at the state department outlining his administration’s response to the so-called Arab Spring contained a ringing defence of Israel’s continued security and a stinging rebuke to Hamas, the terrorist organisation that rules Gaza and recently signalled an alliance with the Palestinian Authority. Obama plainly defended Israel’s right to exist and its place in the community of nations, pledging to resist attempts to “delegitimise” the homeland of the Jews. And he promised to work against a unilateral declaration of statehood that Palestinian leaders intend to put before the United Nations in September.
But the president also stated out loud what every president (and many Israeli officials) of the last two decades have acknowledged: the borders of Israel before the 1967 war, before the 43-year occupation, are the starting point for negotiations with Palestinians. The starting point, not the conclusion, as Obama also called for “land swaps” that, again, have long been an accepted mechanism for dividing the contested land. And he unequivocally stated that maintaining the status quo was not a wise option in a region that has been shaken to its core by revolutionary stirrings for democracy.
Netanyahu must have known that the stern conditions for peace talks that he enunciated Tuesday were framed in such a way to leave little diplomatic space for the Palestinians. His narrative placed all the blame on them for the current impasse. He pledged that Jerusalem will remain entirely under Israeli sovereignty. He flat out denied that Palestinians have any claim on the land that is now Israel. He vowed to keep a military presence along the Jordan River. And while he promised he’d make “far reaching compromises” in the interests of peace, it’s unclear what that could mean when so much is off the table.
And so, for those American Jews who were hoping that this week’s string of public pronouncements would lead to a breakthrough, Netanyahu’s defiant stance puts us in a heart-wrenching conundrum. We can choose to support his view of the world, in which an aggrieved Israel bears no responsibility for the occupation and for the impasse in negotiations – and many American Jews will. They will side with him and the Republicans in Congress who offered him this unusual platform without, of course, any reciprocal chance to hear another point of view.
But I don’t believe that all or even most American Jews share that position. Most of us want don’t want further procrastination but an end to the conflict, which has stained Israel’s moral standing in the way that occupation and continued violence does to anyone. Most of us dread what will happen in September, if the UN vote is successful and Israel will become even more isolated and demonised.
Most of us, I bet, hoped that Netanyahu would have issued a bold, creative speech that would have moved the process forward, safeguarding Israel’s security as he must, but also recognising the cogent, entirely reasonable requests from the president of the United States.
You are making us choose, Prime Minister Netanyahu. Please don’t.
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3. Spiegel Online,
May 24, 2011
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (left) and US President Barack Obama at the White House. “We Europeans need to send a message,” argues Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,764642,00.html
The European Union is backing US President Obama’s call for a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders, Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn says in an interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE. He also argues that, if the Israelis remain stubborn, the EU must consider taking political action.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected plans by US President Barack Obama for a Palestinian state based on the borders as they existed before the Six Day War in 1967. Is the Mideast peace process now dead?
Asselborn: Netanyahu’s rejection of peace based on the 1967 borders is self-important and arrogant — especially given that Obama explicitly stated that a variation from the 1967 borders would be possible under a mutual land swap. Netanyahu is suppressing the political reality and betting on a stalemate instead. For the peace process, that is deadly.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: The European Union constantly reiterates that Israel has a guaranteed right to exist. So shouldn’t Europeans take more seriously Netanyahu’s concern that Israel wouldn’t be able to defend itself inside the 1967 borders?
Asselborn: As one of my counterparts correctly stated, the sole security guaranty for Israel is a peace treaty with the Palestinians and the Arab world. No government in the EU questions Israel’s right to exist. Nor does Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas or his prime minister, Salam Fayyad. The only people who refuse to recognize Israel are the extremists of Hamas.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: It is precisely with this Hamas that Abbas and Fayyad recently signed a reconciliation treaty. Can you not understand why this has made the Israelis even more concerned?
Asselborn: Abbas’ Fatah party and Prime Minister Fayyad want to hold elections in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. At the moment, though, this is being blocked by Hamas, which came to power in Gaza by force. In order to overcome this division, Fatah and Hamas have signed a treaty. It frees the way for a transition government that includes all Palestinian groups.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Netanyahu has said that Abbas must choose between a peace with Hamas and a peace with Israel.
Asselborn: This is not about an either-or choice. The plan is that the transitional government should sit down with the Israelis as soon as possible to negotiate a two-state solution. In this way, Fayyad wants to prevent a vote at the United Nations General Assembly in September on the unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state. If Abbas negotiates with Israel and Hamas is part of this transitional government, then Israel will implicitly recognize it.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Should the European Union hold talks with Hamas?
Asselborn: Four years ago, when the first attempts at reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas took place, I harbored reservations myself. Today, I ask myself if it was a mistake not to have provided stronger support for reconciliation at the time. I can understand that it requires a lot of strength to sit down at the table with people who only promote violence. But time hasn’t stood still. We need to make an attempt to draw Hamas into a democratic process and bring it on to the path of freedom — just as we succeeded in doing with Fatah during the 1990s. That would also include informal talks with Hamas.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Israel is not alone in demanding that Hamas forswear the use of violence. The Middle East Quartet, of which the EU is a member, is also calling for that.
Asselborn: And that’s a position we Europeans are going to maintain. Still, you can’t just put conditions on the Palestinian side, as they’re not the only source of the violence. Israel has turned the Gaza Strip into a prison. There, 1.7 million people live in an area one-seventh the size of Luxembourg. To shut its borders and to only allow certain goods into the country and hardly any out — this is also a form of violence. In the West Bank, Israelis continue to build settlements on expropriated land. It is a constant provocation.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: How can the EU apply additional pressure on Israel?
Asselborn: The first thing the EU needs to do is be more courageous and united in its support of Obama. Large parts of the Republican Party — and particularly the Tea Party movement within it — are opposed to a two-state solution. That (sentiment) can’t be allowed to cross over to Europe. The only way for us to have a chance at bringing the Israelis back to the negotiating table is if we present a united front.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Still, this unity simply doesn’t exist. In September, the UN General Assembly is scheduled to vote on whether to recognize a Palestinian state. But Chancellor Angela Merkel has already hinted that Germany might vote against it.
Asselborn: Now is the time for us to focus on getting the talks back into gear. If Germany’s chancellor publicly rules out voting for a Palestinian state in the UN General Assembly, it takes all kinds of pressure off the Israeli government. And if the French president speaks out in favor of recognition, then the EU’s two largest states will be standing on opposite sides of an important foreign-policy issue. As a result, we won’t be taken seriously.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Can the Europeans really exercise any pressure anyway? It seems like Israel can only really be influenced by its most important ally, the United States.
Asselborn: Obama is saying and doing the right thing. But there will be elections next year in the United States, and experience tells us that, in such situations, American presidential candidates grow less bold about taking a stance against the Israeli government. The pro-Israel lobby in the United States is very strong. We Europeans aren’t exposed to the same amount of pressure.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: So far, it’s only been the Israelis’ desire to upgrade relations with the EU that have been put on ice. Should the EU also consider downgrading relations?
Asselborn: In 2008, we wanted to honor Israel’s wishes to have an upgrade. But we made such an upgrade contingent upon progress being made in the peace process. That unfortunately didn’t happen. Now we find ourselves in a situation in which the Israeli government is doing all it can to stand in the way of new talks. For that reason, we in the EU should think about whether we can allow our relations with Israel to carry on as they have been. If the Israelis continue to dig their heels in and we just let them do what they want, it could lead to a new war. We Europeans need to send a signal — not only with words but, if necessary, with actions as well. We need to consider political action if need be.
Interview conducted by Christoph Schult
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4. From Professor Micah Leshem
Netanyahu’s speech is a turning point.
Micah Leshem
Netanyahu’s speech is a turning point.
Micah Leshem 25.5.11
Netanyahu’s recent expressions of policy in the US are a clear turning point in Israel’s public stance. Netanyahu has picked the ripe fruit nurtured by 40 years of Israeli settlement policy. Israel’s settlement policy is the cornerstone of all Israeli political aspirations – and designed to incorporate the West Bank into a Greater Israel. To that end, the strategic rationale of Israel’s settlement policy has always been to establish “facts on the ground”, meaning that the settled territory will not, and cannot, be returned to the Palestinians – as N stated to Obama’s face: “it will not happen”. Years ago the policy was stated (in Hebrew, for home consumption only) as creating “Hishukim”. This is the term coined, its literal translation is ‘bands or hoops’ but in context it was a new invention, meaning ‘manacle’ or ‘shackle’ but differing in substance from those in that it is self-binding. In other words, if we build enough settlements in a large enough area and populate them with enough Jews, a time will come when we will be ‘bound’ to maintain, defend and expand them (the doublespeak term coined for the latter is “Natural Growth”). And so the time has come to tell the world that there can be no going back, Israel has chained itself to its settlements and Netanyahu has revealed to the world that we threw away the key.
No country can be expected to move 10-15% of its population out of their homes, villages and towns. This is the proportion of Israel’s Jewish population settled in the West Bank. Many of them are unwitting settlers, because Israeli school books, road maps, and all geographic and graphic representations of our country, even tourist advertising, have been expunged of all reference to the 1967 borders which can serve to reveal the extent of the settlement effort. This censorship was designed to, and has completely succeeded, in erasing any distinction between pre- 1967 Israel and what the world recognizes as occupied territory. Any Israeli below 50 years of age, who has no private memory of pre-’67 Israel, has no inkling of whether her Jerusalem home is in occupied territory or not, nor does she care, the issue has been removed from Israeli mainstream discourse.
Greater Israel can no longer be contested, not even by the President of The United States. N has now made it evident to foreigners too that Israel cannot return the territories it has occupied, and that the settlement momentum will continue. Implicit in N’s statements is the fact that even if a Government in Israel wanted to return the territories, eg in a peace deal, it could not. Rabin’s assassination clearly demonstrated that already 16 years ago no Israeli leader could be allowed to negotiate the West Bank. A significant proportion of Israelis enthused over the consequent cessation of the peace process, and today it would be a majority.
Over 40 years, we have successfully, willingly, deviously and surreptitiously, bound ourselves to a policy of colonial expansion. Israel will extend from the Mediterranean in the west, to the Jordan River Rift Valley in the east. For N, there never was any intention to negotiate peace, his vision is clearer than of all his predecessors. He has produced a plethora of preconditions designed put off, shackle, and humiliate any negotiating partner. They ranged from the unconscionable during negotiations (accelerated settlement expansion, Palestinian home demolitions, expulsions, and discriminatory and restrictive laws and regulations) to the ludicrous (not merely to recognize Israel (which they have), but to do so as a State for Jews). In addition, N has stated to an enthusiastic US congress that Jerusalem is not negotiable, neither the majority of settlements, neither the Jordan Valley, and the Palestinian State will not armed. Thus the starting point for negotiations is for a Palestinian state of 4 reservations communicating by corridors and surrounded by Israel controlling all access. These preconditions torpedo negotiations, and others are freely added, the latest being that negotiation is not possible with the Palestinians because they include the Hamas because it does not recognize Israel. If Hamas were as formidable as Hezbollah, Israel would negotiate, as it did with Hezbollah, and with the Palestinian Fatah before that.
A new precondition N seems to be nurturing is the release of Hamas’ Israeli soldier prisoner, Shalit. Again the double-speak – N actually opposes the deal on offer. Patently, Hamas leadership cannot compromise on the conditions they set. They know that the moment he is freed they will all be killed by Israeli drones, like their leader Sheikh Yassin, blown up in his wheelchair with a score of other casualties by a guided missile, some years after a deal for his release from Israeli prison. As long as they have Shalit, Israel is “hooped” not to kill them. That stalemate has lasted for 5 years, suits both sides, and will persist until we discover his whereabouts and mount a rescue operation.
In sum, Israel’s policy, defined by N’s stated wish for peace belied by his impossible preconditions, is now almost explicit. It is to complete the annexation of the entire West Bank. Greater Israel has been part of the Likud Party manifesto for the past 60 years or so, and N is its current leader. The Palestinians do not really figure. There has been one compromise to that manifesto – Israel no longer covets the territory of the State of Jordan. Instead, that has been repeatedly and officially ceded by Israel’s leadership to the Palestinians. That is where many will be required to go in Israel’s final settlement.
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5. Al Jazeera,
23 May 2011
Obama to Israel: Take whatever you want
In his latest speech, Obama’s thinly veiled rhetoric proves he will do anything to satisfy his pro-Israel voter base.
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/05/2011523115553473983.html
Lamis Andoni
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For years, American presidents taken a weak stance on illegal Israeli settlement construction, but none have come so close as Obama to actually legitimising them [GALLO/GETTY]
In 2008, Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential candidate, pandered to pro-Israeli voters and Israel by promising in a speech addressed to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), that Jerusalem would forever remain “the undivided capital of Israel”.
Three years later, Obama is on another pre-campaign trail in order to improve his chances for re-election in 2012. As part of this campaign, he has made a new round of half-hearted attempts to revive the stalled “peace process” completely under Israel’s terms.
In his latest speech addressed to AIPAC, Obama promised Israel everything short of allegiance by reaffirming America’s commitment to Israel’s political and security goals. His speech denied the right of Palestinians to declare a nation and he even vowed to block any peaceful Palestinian efforts to claim their legal rights at international organisations.
Obama’s lip service to Palestinian “self-determination” is nothing more than vacuous rhetoric – as he clearly implied that Israeli interests, especially its security, remain the top priority for American foreign policy in the region.
He mechanically repeated his commitment to the vision of a two-state solution – establishing a Palestinian state alongside Israel. However, as expected, he left the borders and terms of the creation of such state subject to Israel’s “security interests”.
His reference to resuming peace negotiations on the basis of the 1967 borders (also known as the Green Line) means neither a complete Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories nor the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state on all of the land within the Green Line, including East Jerusalem.
There is a significant difference in negotiations “lingo” and even legal language between saying that the establishment of a Palestinian state “will be based on” 1967 borders as opposed to saying it “will be established on” the 1967 borders.
The first leaves ample room for Israel to continue occupying and even annexing vast settlement blocs (and perhaps even all of the illegal, Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem) for “security reasons”.
Take whatever you can
Just in case his pro-Israel support base misunderstood the thinly veiled statements from his Middle East speech last Friday, Obama made sure to clarify to his definitively pro-Israeli view that there is no going back to the true 1967 borders:
“[The statement] means that the parties themselves – Israelis and Palestinians – will negotiate a border that is different than the one that existed on June 4, 196… It allows the parties themselves to account for the changes that have taken place over the last forty-four years, including the new demographic reality.”
In clearer words, the president is effectively, although not explicitly, equating the presence of Palestinians on their own land with the illegal presence of Israeli settlers living on land confiscated forty-four years ago from the Palestinians.
Basically, despite the fact that settlers live on that land illegally under international law, because they are physically there, the land becomes theirs.
This confirms the belief of many in the region that the construction of Israeli settlements and of the Separation Wall inside the 1967 borders is Israel’s way of slowly completing a de facto annexation of Palestinian land.
This latest of Obama’s statements may be the closest the president has come to legitimising illegal Israeli settlements.
Obama’s message to Israel appeared to confirm that he is ready to keep former president George Bush’s 2005 promise that Israel would be able to keep their largest settlements blocs as a result of any negotiated solution for the conflict.
In other words, Obama’s idea of Palestinian self-determination is for Palestinians to accept whatever Israel decides.
In his AIPAC speech, and the previous speech addressed to the Middle East, Obama seemed to have either been out of touch with, or to have simply ignored, the changes brought about by the Arab Spring. For while he argued that Israel should understand that the Arab Spring has altered the political balance in the region, and that Israel should understand it now has to make peace not with corruptible Arab leaders, but with the Arab people themselves.
So much for hope and change
In fact, when it comes to the Palestinian cause, Obama is speaking and acting as if the Arab Spring has not taken place. He has to remember that even America’s most loyal Arab allies in the region could not openly support the American-Israeli formula for peace with the Palestinians. So, why then would it be acceptable to millions of pro-Palestinian Arabs?
The Arab Spring may have affected the semantics of American discourse on Palestinian rights but it has not created anything close to a real shift in American policies.
Once again, Obama has succumbed to political blackmail by Netanyahu – whose main goal of raising objections to the peace process is to make sure that Israel continues undisturbed with its expansionist polices, and not because of any real fear from the president’s weak demands.
Yes, there is no doubt that Netanyahu wants to see any reference to 1967 borders dropped from the discourse, because Israel is currently busy drawing its own militarily imposed future borders, he could not have misunderstood Obama’s clearly pro-Israeli statements.
As the American president pointed out in his speech, he has made good on his declaration of “full commitment” to Israeli interests and security needs: “That’s why we’ve increased cooperation between our militaries to unprecedented levels. It’s why we’re making our most advanced technologies available to our Israeli allies.”
“And it’s why, despite tough fiscal times, we’ve increased foreign military financing to record levels.”
Obama has not only been consistent in maintaining full US support for Israel but has also articulated a new, more decisive stance which explicitly confirms the long-standing American policy of blocking any peaceful Palestinian efforts through international law and the United Nations.
“…The United States will stand up against efforts to single Israel out at the UN or in any international forum. Because Israel’s legitimacy is not a matter for debate”, he promised the gathering of the staunchest and most influential supporters of Israel.
By siding with Israel against the Palestinian Authority’s plan to seek United Nations recognition of a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders, the US has in effect declared war on all Palestinians, the Palestinian Authority and activists alike.
He will unabashedly thwart any efforts to pursue legal and peaceful means of challenging the continued Israeli colonisation of their land.
But by labeling such campaigns aimed at recognition of a Palestinian state as an attempt “to delegitimise” Israel, the president is inadvertently recognising that those Israeli policies themselves lack legitimacy.
A rights based discourse?
Furthermore, while Obama’s assertion that UN recognition alone cannot create a Palestinian state is technically true, it will restore the topic within a legal rights discourse – which would not be defined by Israel’s security concerns as it has in the past.
Such UN recognition, of course, would work towards the establishment a Palestinian state defined by the 1967 borders – meaning that all Israeli settlements within that border would have to be evacuated. Without this, it would only legitimise and perpetuate the American-Israeli negotiations formula.
But Obama has not taken any risks in order to promote peace.
He fears foiling decades of American policies that have aimed to veto any UN resolution pertaining to Israeli crimes and, starting a new discourse about the conflict that would be rights-based.
It was no surprise either when Obama declared the reconciliation agreement between Fateh and Hamas, signed earlier this month, to be an “obstacle” to peace in the region. After all, in his purely pro-Israeli mindset, any attempt at Palestinian unity – regardless of how feeble – does not serve Israeli interest and its tried and true “divide and conquer” method has prevented any real progress for years.
Obama’s repeated refrain about Hamas being an unacceptable peace partner, sounds not only like a broken record, but also like a lame excuse for Israeli extremism and intransigence.
If he wants to know who the true unacceptable partners for peace are, all he has to do is get an English transcript of discussions from the Israeli Knesset (parliament) and read how members from the political right call Arabs “animals” and make all manner of racist slurs against Palestinians.
But if Obama is willing to encourage Israeli policies such as ‘land transfers’, which aim to displace whole Palestinian communities and refers to them as mere “demographic changes”, then why would he care about racist rhetoric and threats by right-wing Israelis?
In his latest speeches, Obama did not refer once to the events that took place on the May 15 ‘Nakba Day’ protests. During these peaceful demonstrations, the Israeli military responded in a predictable way, in the only way they know – by firing indiscriminately on unarmed protesters. By the end of the shooting spree, more than 20 people were killed at the Syrian and Lebanese borders.
Perhaps the most disturbing part of Obama’s speech is his exaggerated attempt to adopt the Israeli narrative and by default, his complete denial of Palestinian national rights.
In the end of his speech, Obama’s claim that Israel’s history could be characterised by a struggle for freedom (a repeat from his 2008 AIPAC speech) says it all:
The American president refuses to see Israeli oppression and repression. He refuses to recognise the legitimacy of the Palestinian struggle for freedom – because if he did, he just might hurt his chances at winning a second term as US president.
Lamis Andoni is an analyst and commentator on Middle Eastern and Palestinian affairs.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.
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6. US president, British PM Cameron stress urgent need for solution to Israeli-Palestinian conflict in joint press conference. Obama says UN can’t declare establishment of Palestinian state, urges resumption of peace talks
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4073937,00.html
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Netanyahu’s win is Israel’s loss
Once the dust of the media storm settles down, the citizens of Israel will be faced with the stark truth: The specter of Israel’s ever-growing isolation and of increasing international pressure looms large.
http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/strenger-than-fiction/netanyahu-s-win-is-israel-s-loss-1.364022
By Carlo Strenger
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By Begin’s logic, the Palestinians should have a state
Those rejecting a future independent Palestinian state as an Iranian proxy must have missed the history lesson of the establishment of a strikingly similar small country not far away.
http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/by-begin-s-logic-the-palestinians-should-have-a-state-1.363990
By Ron Ben-Tovim
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Obama, the theoretician of the Arab revolution of the masses
Obama’s historic approach sanctifies the struggle of the individuals who dared stand up to tyranny.
By Aluf Benn
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Democrats join Republicans in questioning Obama’s policy on Israel
By Peter Wallsten
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In speech to Congress, Israel’s Netanyahu offers few concessions
The Israeli leader says he’s ready to make ‘painful compromises,’ but he sets requirements for peace talks that vary little from previous views.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-congress-israel-20110525,0,7007895.story
By Paul Richter, Los Angeles Times
Reporting from Washington and Jerusalem
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Abbas dismisses Netanyahu speech
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2011/0525/breaking26.html
Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas said Israel was offering “nothing we can build on” for peace and that without progress he will seek UN recognition of Palestinian statehood in September.
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Palestinians dismiss Netanyahu’s Middle East speech
By News Wires the 25/05/2011 – 07:44
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Netanyahu’s defiance on deal is ‘declaration of war’
By Catrina Stewart in Jerusalem
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Palestinians say Netanyahu speech will not bring peace
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-13534775
Palestinian officials have dismissed Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to the US Congress, saying it will not lead to peace.
