Israel to probe 'Biden fiasco'

[IndianaGreen]

Israel to probe 'Biden fiasco'

Israel's prime minister has ordered an investigation into how government officials announced plans for a new Jewish housing project in East Jerusalem during a visit by Joe Biden, the US vice-president.

Binyamin Netanyahu's office said he ordered the probe late on Saturday after he met with senior cabinet ministers.

The announcement of Israel's approval of 1,600 new homes while Biden was visiting Israel earlier this week in a bid to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations embarrassed the US vice-president and overshadowed his visit.

Netanyahu has since apologised for the bad timing of the announcement, but has given no sign he will cancel the construction orders.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/03/20103145338732887.html

Aren't you guys in DU tired of this charade? Let's accept Israel's annexation of East Jerusalem and the West Bank as a fait accompli, and send Gaza back to Egypt where it belongs. Let's begin talks on compensation and/or assimilation for the Palestinians.

[ztlore]

1. This was not a fiasco or screwup. The timing was preplanned and intentional.

Similar things have happened in the past.

[yurbud]

2. Israel doesn't want to assimilate the Palestinians. they want ethnic cleansing

which they are progressively accomplishing in the West Bank.

[ProgressiveMuslim]

3. The "fiasco" is Israel's 40+ year practice of stealing and illegally settling on Palestinian land.

The entire civilized world regards this practice as illegal under international law.

Worse still, this is a practice of every government: labor, likud, kadima, unity, etc. It has been the practice of every leader including Meir, Begin, Shamir, Peres, Rabin, Sharon, Olmert... This is hardly a practice that is unique to Netanyahu or the RW Likud party.

Sadly, this has been Zionism in action.

[Jefferson23]

4. I'm not a fan of Friedman, yet, one can't help but notice that this

is the second time a mainstream supporter of Israel lashes out against the status quo. The last time he did this in an Op Ed, he said he no longer wanted to be part of subsidizing Israel.

Driving Drunk in Jerusalem

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: March 13, 2010
I am a big Joe Biden fan. The vice president is an indefatigable defender of U.S. interests abroad. So it pains me to say that on his recent trip to Israel, when Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu’s government rubbed his nose in some new housing plans for contested East Jerusalem, the vice president missed a chance to send a powerful public signal: He should have snapped his notebook shut, gotten right back on Air Force Two, flown home and left the following scribbled note behind: “Message from America to the Israeli government: Friends don’t let friends drive drunk. And right now, you’re driving drunk. You think you can embarrass your only true ally in the world, to satisfy some domestic political need, with no consequences? You have lost total contact with reality. Call us when you’re serious. We need to focus on building our country.”

snip* And second, Israel needs a wake-up call. Continuing to build settlements in the West Bank, and even housing in disputed East Jerusalem, is sheer madness. Yasir Arafat accepted that Jewish suburbs there would be under Israeli sovereignty in any peace deal that would also make Arab parts of East Jerusalem the Palestinian capital. Israel’s planned housing expansion now raises questions about whether Israel will ever be willing to concede a Palestinian capital in Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem — a big problem.

Israel has already bitten off plenty of the West Bank. If it wants to remain a Jewish democracy, its only priority now should be striking a deal with the Palestinians that would allow it to swap those settlement blocs in the West Bank occupied by Jews for an equal amount of land from Israel for the Palestinians and then reap the benefits — economic and security — of ending the conflict.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/14/opinion/14friedman.html

[IndianaGreen]

5. Israel doesn't listen to Diaspora Jews

it has been like that longer than I care to remember.

People like Friedman are just beginning to realize that Israel, under a series of governments, has had no intention of giving up East Jerusalem or the best land on the West Bank.

Accepting this self-evident truth would make it easier to formulate a different strategy, a single state strategy.

[Jefferson23]

6. Israel may have little or no concern about Friedman's opinion, but that

is of little consequence imo. What Friedman's last two articles on the conflict indicate is a very different tone in the way
Americans view Israel. He represents the perspective of a mainstream guy who has consistently been a supporter of Israel, but that has changed
significantly.