Mid-East Quartet raises the pressure against Israel as US policy confusion deepens over settlements
My brain hurts
Clinton repeated America’s condemnation of the recent settlement announcement in east Jerusalem and sat impassively as Ban spoke on behalf of the US and the rest of the Quartet saying: “The Quartet urges the government of Israel to freeze all settlement activity, including natural growth, dismantle outposts erected since March 2001 and to refrain from demolitions and evictions in east Jerusalem.” I’m confused.
Does this mean that the United States has gone back to the line that even natural growth — building bathrooms, adding an extension etc — in settlements is unacceptable? Close observers will remember that that is the line the Obama administration started to push last year but then backtracked when the absurdity of that position became clearer and when Israel (rightly) said it had no intention of complying.
Perhaps the US position has not in fact changed and in Moscow Clinton merely agreed to allow the zero movement option on settlements to be the position of the Quartet as a group. With this administration, who knows?
And I am starting to think that sowing confusion is now the Obama administration’s core agenda here. What I mean by that is that since Obama is desperate to please the Muslim world and since domestic considerations mean that he must also express support for Israel he has effectively decided to adopt a twin-track strategy in which the two tracks are mutually exclusive: to simultaneously back both pro- and anti-Israeli positions.
That is really the only way to make sense of the recent spat over settlements. In reality, all it amounted to was a badly timed announcement on a construction project in a Jewish part of east Jerusalem which in any case would become part of Israel under any imaginable peace agreement.
The administration knew that when it decided to launch its broadsides. But it did so nonetheless to placate anti-Israel hysteria in the Arab and Muslim world. Subsequently, Obama and company had to back off somewhat to smooth over a row back in the United States. What happens tomorrow is anybody’s guess.
I’d be interested to hear readers’ views on all this. But my suggestion is that Obama has adopted the Sir Walter Scott doctrine: “O, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive!”
What a way to run your foreign policy…
March 19th, 2010 at 12:51 pm
To agree to a building freeze in the new entity “Occupied” east? Jerusalem is in fact asking Israel to rescind the annexation Jerusalem as its capital. - An entirely new demand by President Obama. The President has asked for no concessions from mazan, who is allowed to remain head of Fatah provided he does nothing. He could be asked to agree to the existence of a Jewish state and this would effectively mean the end of the automatic right of return for Palestinians, but at least that would be an equivalent fair exchange. President Obama might also request the end of the terrible media outpourings of genocidal intent from these people . Realistically we have to accept that some allies are untrustworthy and that the European leopard has not changed its spots.
March 19th, 2010 at 1:10 pm
What is true is that the idea of “truth” has no value in Marxist doctrine. There is no need to concede anything to anyone under any circumstances if it interferes with the goals of the Revolution. “Truth” is a bourgeois concept that has no referents within certain systems - the Left and Islamism. Facts carry no weight unless there is the threat of force behind them. But the facts were irrelevant to begin with. Thus, only force and the threat of force counts for anything at all.
Does this explain President Obama’s policies? Yes it does - in every instance!
March 19th, 2010 at 1:49 pm
Obama’s every attempt to placate anti-Israel hysteria in the Arab and Muslim world only validates and stimulates it some more. Our leaders need to speak plainly to Muslims. Otherwise, they will have to appease Muslims over every drop of the hat.
March 19th, 2010 at 2:45 pm
when a gang of boys are bullying another schoolboy in the courtyard, it has always been the practice of the bien pensant liberal teachers to solve the problem by arresting the victim and by taking him out of the yard rather than having to face up to the bullies. I learnt this lesson which caused me much grief when i was a boy in England.
this is now common place in conflicts between Islamists and their prey all over Europe.
March 19th, 2010 at 2:52 pm
One possibility is that the Obama administration does not actually have a foreign policy and that its actions are purely “posturings” designed to assuage the mood of xyz constituency on a need-by-need basis.
The nastier the addressee, the more mollifying the posturing. So great effort is made to engage and reach understandings with Iran, Syria, China and Russia. Meanwhile Israel gets slammed and EU leaders are gently ignored.
One thing that’s becoming clear is that preventing Iran from obtaining nukes is not US policy. If that had been the case, then petroleum sanctions would have been in place some while back and the US military would be intensively training to hit well-protected nuclear targets. If anyone knows to the contrary, then please enlighten us.
March 19th, 2010 at 4:36 pm
If you are right and it’s pure desperate incompetence the problem is that craven knows no bounds. I mean what’s next? Muslim Autonomous Zones in the US? Will THAT placate them?
March 19th, 2010 at 5:04 pm
This entire episode doesn’t make sense. Two and a half attempts at explanatons to try and understand these events:
1a. This is an attempt by the US administration to improve its relationship with the Arab/Muslim world and with the populations in the conflicts it is involved in. Progressively selling out Israel’s interests/security, etc. in order to gain a higher standing with others. Also compare to Petraeus’ recently publicised comments.
1b. This is simply a matter of ideology (simply stated: Israel does not need to/should not exist) of this administration breaking out/shining through occassionally.
Both of these motivations would soon be frustrated, as there is much more for which the USA are disliked than merely its good relationship with Israel. One can easily imagine the next excuse in line to justify malcontent towards and violence against US soldiers: the fact that they want to allow girls to receive an education (and this list goes on for a while - as the USA can be seen as representative for the values of a liberal democracy).
2. This has nothing to do with I/P and wider Israeli-Arab conflict, but serves to prevent Israel from engaging Iran by putting the Israeli government in crisis mode over its relationship with Washington, having to come up with responses and remedies to the crisis. This only makes sense, if Obama has decided that the USA is willing to live with a nuclear Iran. And how he would be able to sell this to the Arab countries that share Israel’s concern over this issue is beyond me. Admittedly, this option seems somewhat ridiculous.
March 19th, 2010 at 7:53 pm
Robin,
Obama is completely ignorant about the factual history of the situation (the war against the country of the Jewish people) and he is completely ignorant about the facts of the current reality of the situation. He has been told a false narrative about the situation, which is a false narrative that he now believes, by people from several different ideological groups of people who he has associated with throughout his life, and by the people who currently are, and who to some of those groups belong, his political advisors. Those groups of people include anti-Jewish (”Anti-Zionist”) ethnicaly non-Jewish Marxists, and severe-Stockholm-Syndrome-affected, derangedly and maliciously anti-Jewish (”Anti-Zionist”), ethnically Jewish Marxists, and anti-Jewish Christian Black-Nationalists, and anti-Jewish Muslim Black-Nationalists, and anti-Jewish (”Pro-Palestinian”/”Anti-Zionist”) Arab-Nationalists, and anti-Jewish (”Pro-Palestinian”/”Anti-Zionist”) covert Islamic-Supremacists, and, most importantly, ignorant, egocentric, ambitious, Stockholm-Syndrome-affected, delusionally, sanctimoniously, and maliciously, anti-Israeli, ethnically Jewish Neo-Liberal politicians.
Obama wrongly believes that the still living members of, and the several millions descendants of, the approximately 600,000 to 700,000 Arab refugees from the intendedly genocidal 1948 Arab attack on Israel (which was a war that caused approximately 800,000 to 1,000,000 Jewish refugees from Arab and Muslim countries in the Middle East) were, and currently are, the victims of the government of Israel, and he wrongly believes that the few of the actions that he knows about of, and that the nature, that he wrongly perceives, of, the leadership of the “Palestinian”-Arabs are, in the case of Hamas, harmful but justified, and are, in the case of Fatah-PLO-PalestinianAuthority, noble and good. Obama is aware of, and feels some appreciation for, some of the beneficial actions (particularly, the advocacy for, the championing of, the defense of, and the support for, African-American people during the Civil-Rights movement in the United States) of, but holds bigoted views about, and feels resentment toward, but feels duty-bound to avoid blatantly expressing animosity toward, Jewish-American people. Obama, like many people in the United States, holds normative bigoted wrong views about, and feels antipathy toward, but feels morally-bound to avoid, and socially-bound to avoid, blatantly expressing antipathy toward, Jewish people as an ethnic group. Obama is an intelligent, very egocentric, relatively decent, person, but he is completely ignorant about, and he has been, and he continues to be, completely misinformed, by others, about, the situation involving the country of the Jewish people, and he holds, as do very many people in the world, bigoted wrong views about, and he feels antipathy toward, the country of the Jewish people.
March 19th, 2010 at 7:56 pm
Robin. More evidence of Obama’s highly confused and naive foreign policy. His administration is almost feigning shock and anger in a barely veiled effort to appease the “muslim world” (whatever that is). This article in Ha aretz is, I think, spot on.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArtVty.jhtml?sw=mess&itemNo=1156819
especially the line:
“While it extends a hand to Iran, which continues in its effort to acquire a nuclear bomb; and reaches out to Syria as it arms Hezbollah with advanced weapons, it seems the Obama administration has made a conscious decision to aggravate a diplomatic crisis with the Netanyahu government.”
March 19th, 2010 at 7:58 pm
Correction:
“…and the several millions descendants of,…”
…and the several million descendants of,…
March 19th, 2010 at 8:38 pm
Something about Har Homa, site for those 1500 new apartments:
“Israeli officials acknowledge that some Palestinian land was expropriated for the Har Homa neighborhood, but nearly 80 percent of the land taken for the project belonged to Jews.[8] According to another source, 75% of the land was expropriated from Israelis.[9] No homeowners, Jewish or Arab, were displaced by the project.[10] Israel says Har Homa is within the city limits of Jerusalem and most of the land was owned by Jews prior to its conquest by Jordan in 1948.[11] Furthermore, the land was unoccupied and undeveloped prior to the current construction; both Jewish and Arab landholders were compensated for the land; and residents of Beit Sahour would not be able to develop the land in any event as the Oslo agreements specifically barred Palestinian jurisdiction over Jerusalem for the time being.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Har_Homa
March 19th, 2010 at 9:23 pm
I think that Obama is a decent and intelligent person. However, he is curently completely misinformed about the war against Israel, and about, involved with that, the multi-faceted Islamic-Supremacist modern political movement that began in the 1920’s with founding, in 1928, in Egypt, by Hassan Al Bana, of the Nazi-inspired Islamic-Supremacist political organization the Muslim Brotherhood, and about, involved with that, what, in the 1960’s, members of the Soviet KGB, and what Arab leaders began to call the “Palestinian” movement which was founded, in the 1920’s by, and led, until the 1960’s, by the Muslim Brotherhood member, and adjoined official of the Nazi regime of Germany, and broadcaster, by shortwave radio, from 1941 to 1945, from Germany, of “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”-Jewish-conspiracy-theory-based, genocidally anti-Jewish, Nazi-influenced Islamic-Supremacist radio programs in Arabic, Turkish, and Persian to all of the countries in the Middle East, and founder, in 1958, of Fatah, and mentor of Egyptian-born Yasser Arafat and of Mahmoud Abbas, Amin Al Husseini.
I think that if President Barack Obama were informed of the factual history of the situation and informed of the facts of the current reality of the situation, he would understand and he would act beneficially.
What is most important for Barack Obama to understand is that the Islamic-Supremacist current regime of Iran is presenting a severe, genocidal, danger to the country of the Jewish people, and is presenting a severe danger to the well-being of the whole world.
March 19th, 2010 at 9:28 pm
Correction:
“…that began in the 1920’s with founding,…”
…That began in the 1920’s with the founding,…
March 19th, 2010 at 11:27 pm
Obama and his Marxist ideologue cronies are straining at the leash to attack Israel - because they hate the Jewish State. He is tempered by a storm of criticism in the US (which isn’t reported in the UK). But his instinct is to attack Israel. Thus the confusion; he wants to attack Israel, but is wary of alienating too many Americans, who overwhelmingly support Israel.
This is the worst US President of the last several decades.
A nice touch Robin, pointing out the hypocrisy - if Israel did a tenth of what Russia has done in Chechnya you would never hear the end of it. What does the UN say about Russia’s behaviour? Where is their Goldstone report? Is Israel meant to take lessons from Russia and the UN? What a sick farce.
March 19th, 2010 at 11:30 pm
Funny how Obama didn’t want to criticize the Iranian regime when it turned the ruthless basiji on the demonstrators, because it would be “meddling”. He has no problem meddling with democratic Israel.
That’s Obama for you - treat your friends like garbage, bow and scrape before your enemies. If he carries on like this, the US will have no friends at all in the Middle East.
What a genius.
March 19th, 2010 at 11:35 pm
Let us take it for granted that Mr Obama is a highly intelligent man who knows perfectly well what he is doing and that his staff are carrying out his orders. He firmly believes that Israel is the stumbling block and his commander in Afghanistan has made that quite clear.He may have worked out a solution
March 20th, 2010 at 12:40 am
The suggestion that the members of this administration are merely misinformed about the facts of this conflict is difficult to swallow. Foreign policy is supposed to further a country’s interests and achieve some goal. I can’t believe that Hillary has forgotten all she used to know about the history and situation in this region. There is certainly something behind this behaviour/change in policy. The only question is, what can this administration hope to achieve on behalf of the US? Long-term, what can be the benefit?
Maybe the US is becoming more like Europe under this administration with a deep desire to divorce itself and remove itself entirely from any hairy conflicts that demand commitment, conviction and investment over many years. However, the alternative to representing and defending the values generations of our ancestors have fought to achieve (loosely summarised as liberal democracy), doesn’t feel like a desirable outcome for any of the players. One should assume that Obama & co are not ignorant and dumb, but what they are aiming at is a mystery to me?
March 20th, 2010 at 12:43 am
My immediate - and not thoroughly though over - view in a sentence: Obama simply became emboldened and intoxicated when he saw the Pew( and other) surveys on his lifting personal pop-rating in the Muslim/Arab world. That’s it. While there are of course a combination of forces and considerations, for a hyper-narcisstic President like Obama (never before was there such a vain, ego-driven man in the WH, and many who follow the domestic events in the US know this - Obama’s dressing down of reporters who are not corteous enough, double-crossing some memebers of the media making them persona non grata etc. etc. etc.) this is a substantial enough guiding light for sure.
March 20th, 2010 at 11:18 am
Daniel Bielak writes:
“I think that Obama is a decent and intelligent person.”
A decent person wouldn’t have spent over twenty years listening to the anti-Semitic ravings of Jeremiah Wright at the Trinity United Church of Christ on Chicago’s south side. A decent person wouldn’t have chosen Wright as his guide and mentor. And I don’t see what “intelligent” has to do with anything very much. After all, many of the most evil people who have ever lived have been exceedingly intelligent. Given a straight choice, I’d take good and dumb over evil and smart any day of the week.
March 20th, 2010 at 11:40 am
An excellent piece by my favourite journalist
Obama’s war on Israel by Caroline Glick
“Obama has made clear that he is not Israel’s ally. And for the remainder of his term, he will do everything he can to downgrade US relations with Israel while maintaining his constant genuflection to the likes of Iran, Syria, the Palestinians and Turkey.”
http://tinyurl.com/ygqqhxl
March 20th, 2010 at 1:05 pm
Love your photo of Hillary. Could the US Treasury please provide some funding for a newer younger plastic surgeon for her, on retainer at the US taxpayers’ expense.
March 20th, 2010 at 3:49 pm
“But my suggestion is that Obama has adopted the Sir Walter Scott doctrine: “O, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive!” ”
In terms of Obama and his betrayal of the United States and staunch allies of that nation like brave Poland and plucky little Israel, I certainly think these words of Scott’s are most appropriately applied to this terrible man, the worst and most egotistical president in America’s history:
Breathes there the man with soul so dead
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne’er within him burn’d
As home his footsteps he hath turn’d
From wandering on a foreign strand?
If such there breathe, go, mark him well!
For him no minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim,—
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonour’d, and unsung.
– Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto vi. Stanza 1.
March 20th, 2010 at 11:21 pm
Yesterday there was a discussion of various international issues on Diane Rehm’s show on National Public Radio. Hillary Clinton is in Russia trying to drum up support for sanctions against Iran, but naturally, the only thing the “Quartet” members who were there could agree upon was demands for Israel to stop its building activity, etc.
Russia’s refusal to join in the sanctions (which seems to be somewhat moderated now) was explained and excused by the fact that they have extensive economic ties to Iran (I rather thought the point of sanctions was to sever those ties to bring Iran to heel, but no matter) and this was seen as a snub to the US and Hillary.
I repeat – this was seen as a snub to the US and Hillary.
So one of those commenting on the program came up with the following wonderful insight about Russia, since everything that happens in the world is connected to the Jews:
“Well, of course, we expect Russia to snub us. But for Israel to snub the US is absolutely outrageous!!”
March 21st, 2010 at 3:00 am
To those who responded to my last previous comment,
I feel the way that you do.
I was trying to write something that would be beneficial.
What I am saying now is that the truth about the situation must, for the first time, be clearly and forcefully and effectively told.
March 21st, 2010 at 3:11 am
“…I feel the way that you do…”
I feel the same way that you do. I am very distressed.
Those who are more capable than I am must now speak the truth, and must do so in the way that will have the most beneficial results.
March 21st, 2010 at 4:31 am
I apologize if my writing has been harmful.
I hope that my previous writing has not been harmful, and I hope that my writing this comment is not harmful.
March 21st, 2010 at 2:49 pm
“I apologize if my writing has been harmful.”
I was going to write this: You seem like a very nice chap, and your heart is in the right place, but you are far too sensitive.
However, I then googled you and found out that you are a Buddhist*. My answer therefore is as follows: I am sorry that I have hurt your feelings.
*”My ethnic background is Jewish (Jewish-Ukrainian-Polish).
The existential view that I hold, and the existential practice that I strive to follow, is Theravada Buddhism.”
http://tinyurl.com/yaloy5d