[Newsbot]

Title: Netanyahu Agrees to Push for Freeze in Settlements
Category: Political
Posted By: Curtman
Date: 2010-11-13 21:16:26

[Curtman]

$1:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has agreed to push his cabinet to freeze most construction on settlements in the West Bank for 90 days to break an impasse in peace negotiations with the Palestinians
...
In return, the Obama administration has offered Israel a package of security incentives and fighter jets worth $3 billion that would be contingent on the signing of a peace agreement, the official said. The United States would also block any moves in the United Nations Security Council that would try to shape a final peace agreement.
...
The partial freeze would not include East Jerusalem, which the Palestinians view as the future capital of a Palestinian state and where recent Israeli building set off a firestorm of criticism.

This is good news. Not great, but good.

[martin14]

When I read your quote Curt, I immediately thought to just substitute North Korea
for Israel, settlements for nukes, and food for jets, and it's the same article.

It really is a mess over there.

[desertdude]

Thats a good deal ( more like a bribe really ) by any standards. 3 billion worth of goodies for a 90 days partial freeze. They could not have to spend a single dime on new military expenditure for the whole year if more of these deals ( bribes )keep comming along.

Sadly its a step Israel should have taken on its own, but they are used to getting everything for nothing. I just feel sorry for the American tax payer who has to foot the bill just so Israel can do something it should have done on its own in the first place. Although it still fails to address the main bone of contention, East Jurusalem.

But all in all nothing too ground breaking at all as the article itself says

$1:

The security incentives offered by the administration, though generous, do not appear to go far beyond the support the United States typically offers Israel.

And then all the while the underhand dealings and usual blind support goes on i.e : Still refusing to call a spade a spade.

$1:

White House Middle East adviser Dan Shapiro told a group of American Jewish leaders on Friday that U.S. was committed to fighting delegitimization of Israel, and listed recent efforts to advocate on behalf of Israel.

Such efforts included: curbing actions by the United Nations on the Goldstone Report; blocking anti-Israel UN resolutions concerning the Gaza flotilla raid; defeating international resolutions aimed at exposing Israel's nuclear program at the International Atomic Energy Agency; and strengthening pressure on Iran and Syria in regards to their nuclear and proliferation activities.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-d ... e-1.324496

Basically nothing more than diplomactic gymnastics to disguise the favourtism to make it bit palatable to the Palestenians and the world.

The 3 billion worth of "incentives" would have been given regardless of any settlment freeze, just that now yahoo has played along a bit and the Americans have timed it well so they can come out looking out on top.

It is also amazing to see how little clout the Americans ( Their one and only true friend as they have been described many times in the Israeli press ) have with the Israelis. Something really wrong with that picture.

[martin14]

Obama is no friend of Israel, have to wait for the next Administration.

[Curtman]

There is no "deal" yet until it's approved though right?

$1:

It was unclear whether the prime minister could win approval for the United States deal from his cabinet, which has been reluctant to freeze settlement construction. It was also unclear if the leaks of the details of the agreement, which were widely reported in Israeli newspapers on Saturday, were designed to put pressure on Mr. Netanyahu.

There seems to be a huge lobby from inside Israel working toward ending settlement expansion too. I think that is very encouraging. In the last election the party that won the most votes was promising to forcibly remove settlers from the west bank if need be, or am I not remembering that correctly?

[andyt]

Curtman Curtman:

There seems to be a huge lobby from inside Israel working toward ending settlement expansion too. I think that is very encouraging. In the last election the party that won the most votes was promising to forcibly remove settlers from the west bank if need be, or am I not remembering that correctly?

It's just the usual bullshit. Suspend settlements for 90 days, wahoo. Until Israel stops all settlement building permanently they will never have peace. The pressures on both sides to never settle seem to be too strong to resist. Too many Palestinians insist on right of return and/or want to push Israelis into the sea. Too many wackjob Zionnists want the all the land west of the Jordan, and in once they got that would push for land east of the Jordan as well. Don't get your hopes up - we've seen this before and it all collapsed. A 90 day freeze is meaningless.

[desertdude]

As much as I would like to see this resolved. I agree with Andy on this

[Curtman]

andyt andyt:

Don't get your hopes up - we've seen this before and it all collapsed. A 90 day freeze is meaningless.

I don't know about meaningless. The Palestinians made a simple demand for a settlement freeze in exchange for resumption of peace talks. They didn't fire hundreds of rockets into Israel. They did some sabre rattling about asking the U.N. for recognition, but usually when these peace talks break down it gets really bad for a while.