Netanyahu's Settlement Two-Step

By: Charles Cooper
Topics: In The News

(AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner)

On Sept. 6, CBSNews.com ran a news item that gave new meaning to chutzpah. The article, "Israeli Cabinet Backs New Settlements," reported that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, brushing off entreaties from the United States, intended to approve the construction of hundreds of new apartments in West Bank settlements. (On Monday, Israel made the decision official.)

The optimist in me says, let's turn the page and hope for the best. The pessimist in me, weary of the same script year after year, wonders whether the U.S. will ever get the upper hand in an increasingly dysfunctional relationship.

Israel says this is all the prelude to a construction freeze - not including the current batch of apartments, naturally. Now, the Israelis say, it will be up to the Arabs to reciprocate with a demonstration of their own good will. Fat chance. As the Israeli newspaper Haaretz notes, "the number of new housing units will not actually decline compared to previous years. The only difference is that now, that instead of construction permits being given gradually throughout the year, the government intends to issue hundreds of permits within a few days, before the official announcement of the "freeze" is made."

(The Jerusalem Post quoted an unnamed senior political official saying that Israel will abide to a six month construction moratorium "with an extension dependent on whether the Palestinian Authority and neighboring Arab countries step up to the plate and deliver what is expected of them.")

Netanyahu's advisors make the argument that this was just a sop to the settlers and not much of one anyway as no new construction is going on deep inside the West Bank. Will that mean much to the Arabs who complain that more Jewish settlement means less land for any future Palestinian state? Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat gave voice to that frustration, telling the Washington Post that "Given the choice between making peace and making settlements, they have chosen to make settlements.

It's also obviously irritating the White House. On Friday, the president's spokesman, Robert Gibbs, said Israel's plans were "inconsistent" with commitments the Jewish state has made earlier and "we urge that it stop."

You have to wonder about the timing of the decision. Israel finally has someone it can talk with on the Palestinian side. Unlike the inflammatory Ahmad Shukairy or the double-dealing Yasser Arafat, Netanyahu's would-be interlocutors feature a couple of pragmatic politicians in the person of Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayed. These guys aren't pan-Arab revolutionaries or religious fanatics. Just the opposite, in fact. They're a couple of bourgeois technocrats who appear eager to work out a deal on a two-state solution. But they're already playing with a weak hand and each time Israel builds a new apartment (or settlement) in the West Bank, Fatah loses another vote to Hamas.

In 2003, George Bush made clear to Israel that it couldn't put the settlement question off indefinitely. "Israel must make sure there is a contiguous territory that the Palestinians can call home," he said. When George Mitchell, the U.S. Mideast envoy, arrives in the region for more talks with Israel in the coming week, he'll bring the exact same message.

Charles Cooper is an executive editor at CNET News. He has covered technology and business for more than 25 years, working at CBSNews.com, the Associated Press, Computer & Software News, Computer Shopper, PC Week, and ZDNet. E-mail Charlie.

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by DeWayneE May 26, 2010 2:43 PM EDT: This is the last evidence needed as proof the rogue Zionist-government needs be totally cut off from US aid and military supply (certainly White Phosphorous and Cluster Bombs). Included is absolute need to investigate black OP's of this Zionist-Gov and Mossad agents within and spying (plus endangering) America, it is almost a joke about AIPAC control of US Gov and Media in America. This MUST cease...; Reply to this comment


by thomasgiles April 5, 2010 12:31 PM EDT: I dont know what the solution might be but I dont believe that there will be peace in the middle east soon.

Thomas
http://www.travertinetilesuk.com; Reply to this comment

by truthBEtold18 September 9, 2009 2:42 PM EDT

I guess my post yesterday was too true so you decided to delete it. Why bother letting the facts get in the way of your propaganda cloaked in the guise of journalism. So let me say it again. You speak of Abbas as a pragmatic politician who is not a pan-Arab revolutionary or a religious fanatic but rather a bourgeois technocrat who appears eager to work out a deal on a two-state solution. I have only to refer you to the juxtaposition of Abbas?s reaction to Bibi?s policy speech which spoke of a two-state solution and invoked the word ?peace? 43 times. The Palestinian reply served well to illustrate the mentality and temperaments Israel is surrounded by: "It's obvious, in the aftermath of this speech, that we are headed toward another round of violence and bloodshed," according to a Haaretz article. Perhaps if you were not blinded by your political agenda or Jew hatred, or both, you'd realize that before there is a two-state solution the Palestinians have to recognize the one state that already exists--the Jewish State of Israel. In addition, though the West may refer to Abbas as ?a moderate? it may serve to be reminded that he is a Holocaust denier, a denial which was the basis of his Ph.D. thesis making him a moderate who has a lot in common with Ahmadinejad. And whereas Ahmadinejad wants to wipe Israel off the map, Abbas has yet to recognize that Israel is on it. How revealing that you would delete my post defending Israel, yet keep the one saying: ?Israel is NO BETTER than Nazi Germany.? Kudos to you on your journalistic integrity!

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by DeWayneE May 26, 2010 2:51 PM EDT: Propagandist's are discovering Americans are no longer fooled or confused by Zionist's attempting to call themselves Jewish or Israeli. The true (devout) Jewish that have rejected dangerous and unbiblical Zionism that claim "God Promises" are equivelant to a politician saying they are following the will of God. Jewish State my rear, this is a secular and political Zionist man-made State that true Jewish rejected when offered by Zionist's in 1800's. Only fearful Christian leaders teach otherwise today.


by garthdriver September 8, 2009 12:04 PM EDT: Maybe CBS could start a campaign for a new, democratic, AIPAC free, government?; Reply to this comment


by afmcalax September 8, 2009 9:32 AM EDT: When you put a person like Netanyahu back in power you know what you are going to get. There is nobody in political power in Israel today that wants to even try to broker a peace with the Arabs. The status quo of infinite war is too profitable. America needs to back off on the aid we give to Israel immediately. We need to keep the pressure on the Arabs to try to reach out to moderates. It is sad that Israel has lost its moral compass and it appears that their hatred for Arabs consumes them as much as the other side despises the Israelies. Until both sides get some real leaders the killing will only continue.; Reply to this comment


by garthdriver September 8, 2009 5:23 AM EDT: This global play-acting is becoming tedious.

LIKUD POLICY is for A GREATER ISRAEL extending from Eilat to just south of Bent Jbail on the Lebanese border. And everything in between.

That is the LIKUD objective. It always was, from the time of its progenitors, LEHI and the Irgun, through to now, 2009. It has never changed.

All else is commentary and play-acting. The only way to ensure a Palestinian state is either by economic pressure or by force.

Problem is AIPAC who decides US foreign policy, and the massive nuclear arsenal in the Negev.

The optimum methodology would be to stop all US aid and all bilateral trade with the US and the EU.

But who is listening? No one! It will come to pass, but probably only after the nuclear war, now shortly to come.; Reply to this comment