As talks with Israel faded, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas – who leads the West Bank – has sought to isolate Israel on the worldwide stage by seeking war crime charges against Israel and Israeli officials at the global Criminal Court, calling for United Nations recognition of Palestinian “statehood” and promoting a campaign of boycotts, divestments and sanctions against Israel.
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Netanyahu arrives in Washington on Sunday and is expected back in Israel Thursday.
The Israeli government now is prohibiting import of cement, steel, and wood into Gaza, materials needed to build new houses and apartments for displaced Gaza Palestinians, according to Donna Baranski-Walker, executive director of the Rebuilding Alliance, a non-profit group that organised a U.S. speaking tour for Israeli and Palestinian care providers in Gaza. One Palestinian attacker was killed and another hurt. What’s more, 20 percent of blacks had “a lot” of sympathy for Palestinians, but only 10 percent of white respondents reported they felt that way. But so should its inclination to make common cause with the Republican caucus and not the Obama-led US government.
This is a fairly normal agenda for a meeting between allies: negotiating the terms of their relationship and working out a joint approach to mutual challenges and enemies. The new wave of violence that began in October with stabbings, shootings, vehicle assaults and clashes between security forces, settlers and protesters has cost the lives of 77 Palestinians and nine Israelis with hundreds wounded.
Ultimately the deal survived an attempted vote of disapproval in Congress in spite of heavy lobbying by Netanyahu and powerful organizations like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
But an equally persuasive analysis points to Obama’s consistent refusal to stand for any principle in a principled way.
That doesn’t mean the USA is totally giving up.
“I think he’s going to talk about the importance for the Jewish community and diaspora to be unified, not to have unanimity”, said Jerry Silverman, chief executive of the Jewish Federations of North America. But whatever the reasons, the upshot is bad for the world, and in this case, bad for Israel (which really needs peace rather than the US being an enabler for further conflict with Israel’s neighbors), the Palestinians, and for the American people.
If Obama had any backbone or self-respect, here’s what he’d do: 1.
I’ve argued that Netanyahu has always been a plausible candidate for the third seat in the Zionist pantheon: Theodor Herzl, who envisioned the physical return of the Jews to Zion, holds the first seat; David Ben-Gurion, who made that return a concrete political reality, holds the second. And the selection of Baratz came just days before Netanyahu’s trip to Washington, where he is to meet with Obama on Monday.
The new direction would be likely to include a reframing of her own rocky episodes with Netanyahu while secretary of state as she emphasizes their longstanding ties and her history of support for Israel.
A Palestinian woman stabbed a security guard close to a West Bank settlement south of Jerusalem before being shot by the victim.
Of course, Obama doesn’t have the backbone to do any of this.
“I believe that this meeting is important in order to clarify the continuation of American aid to Israel in the coming decade”.
Peace in the Middle East remains a dream, for now at least.
The Israeli Haaretz newspaper quoted Robert Malley, Mr. Obama’s senior adviser on the Middle East, as saying: “The main thing the President would want to hear from Netanyahu is that, without peace talks, how does he want to move forward to prevent a one-state solution, stabilize the situation on the ground and to signal he is committed to the two-state solution”.
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The only ways to reverse Democratic views of Israel, Sachs suggests, would be either “a dramatic change on the Palestinian issue” – or “a change in [Israeli] leadership”.
