The Obama administration is allegedly giving the Israeli government a headache over its insistence that all settlement building in the West Bank must stop. No ifs, no buts and no exceptions. Strong words, to be sure, but the Israeli political elite doesn’t seem to be listening: The most surprising speaker at the conference [in Israel…
Showing all posts tagged West Bank
Repeating bad actions time and time again
This story – Israeli commandos killed a senior Hamas militant in the West Bank on Thursday – led an American colleague to make the following observations: It is a classic Israeli technique to respond to uncomfortable political situations (such as the current moment of too much talk of a “peace process” and of “two states”)…
The outposts are just the beginning
Israel’s illegal West Bank settlements are generating a great number of stories in the American and Israeli press, but little evidence that real progress is being made to remove them. Without doing so, get ready for long-term apartheid in Palestine. A smattering of recent headlines: The Washington Post – Backers of Jewish Settlements Put Squeeze…
Killing Arabs in the name of Judaism
The London Times writes about the growing radicalism of the IDF: During the Gaza war this year, Schmuel Kaufman, a military rabbi from a West Bank settlement, used to stride between the Israeli soldiers’ tents and urge them to fight what he deemed an “obligatory war” ordained by ancient scripture. “It’s a holy war to…
Will the US really challenge this?
Russia talks sense (while Israel simply continues to expand settlements in the West Bank): Russia’s foreign minister has… said talks with the Palestinian group Hamas were “needed” to achieve lasting peace in the Middle East. “We are certain that this is needed,” the Russia interfax news agency quoted Sergei Lavrov as saying on Sunday after meeting…
Beyond time to wield the massive stick
Israel’s Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya’alon said on Saturday: Settlements are not the reason that the peace process is failing, they were never an obstacle, not at any stage. Even when Israel pulled out of [Palestinian] territory, the terror continued. Even when we uprooted [Jewish] communities, we got ‘Hamastan.’ That is why I propose that…
We can build and peace will never come
Who says the illegal occupation of West Bank settlements is an impediment to peace? Not the neo-con Zionist Right.
They’ll turn the gun on their trainers one day soon
Lt. Gen. Keith Dayton, U.S. security coordinator for Israel and the Palestinian Authority, recently explained his role as training Palestinians to essentially manage the Zionist occupation. This is clearly the “vision” Barack Obama imagines for a supposedly independent Palestinian state. Now a profile in Israel’s largest newspaper worries that Dayton thinks very differently to the…
Will the true realists please stand up?
This week’s meeting between Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu has caused a flurry of thoughts, most of which simply rehashed old talking points. Witness the Jewish Forward’s editorial that continues yapping about time running out for the two-state solution and the concepts of a “Jewish state and a democracy.” Perhaps someone should remind the paper…