What a quandary.. I say the hell with both of them and wash our hands of this whole region..


US-Israel row highlights quandary over settlements

RAMALLAH, West Bank – An open diplomatic row during the visit of Vice President Joe Biden has shined a spotlight on the U.S. failure to rein in Israeli settlement ambitions and deepened Palestinian suspicions that the United States is too weak to broker a deal.

Biden's handshakes and embraces gave way to one of the strongest rebukes of Israel by a senior U.S. official in years after Israel's announcement during his visit that it plans to build 1,600 homes in disputed east Jerusalem. Israel apologized for the poor timing but is sticking to its plan to build the homes, enlarging one of the settlements that have impeded negotiations with Palestinians.

The vice president on Wednesday assured Palestinians the U.S. is squarely behind their bid for statehood and urged the sides to refrain from actions "that inflame tensions or prejudice the outcome of talks."

"It's incumbent on both parties to build an atmosphere of support for negotiations, and not to complicate them," Biden said, standing alongside Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Israel's announcement was widely seen as a slap in the face to its all-important U.S. ally. It stirred significant anger among U.S. officials and widespread skepticism about whether the Obama administration would have the courage or the backing to take Israel to task as the U.S. relaunches long-stalled peace negotiations. The future of those talks was called into question late Wednesday when the Arab League recommended withdrawing support for them.

"This is a global message of American weakness and Israeli arrogance," said Palestinian lawmaker Hanan Ashrawi.

The vice president's visit had been largely aimed at repairing U.S.-Israeli ties strained over the very same issue now overshadowing Biden's trip: Jewish settlements. Palestinians and the U.S. consider settlements built on lands claimed by the Palestinians to be obstacles to peace.

Biden condemned the Israeli announcement and pointedly arrived 90 minutes late to a dinner with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Israel's oblique response to the row — that Netanyahu was blindsided by the announcement, that no one meant to offend Biden, that in the future the prime minister would make sure sensitive announcements are routed through him — did not appear likely to put the matter to rest.

The words of Interior Minister Eli Yishai, whose office ordered the new homes — "I am very sorry for the embarrassment ... Next time we need to take timing into account" — only reinforced the feeling that there would in fact be a "next time."

It appears President Barack Obama now has the choice of absorbing the blow or engaging in a politically unpalatable battle with the Israeli leadership, which past U.S. presidents have largely avoided. Obama may be too invested in key domestic problems, the Iran nuclear issue and two wars to walk into that political minefield.

The Palestinians largely lost faith in the U.S. as a broker after Obama tried — and failed — to get the hawkish Netanyahu government to stop building on lands Palestinians claim for a future state. Netanyahu eventually agreed to a construction slowdown rather than a freeze, but that did little to mollify Palestinians.

Abbas' aides have said privately that if Obama can't get Israel to play by the rules on settlements, he won't be able to push on far more sensitive issues, such as a partition of Jerusalem.

After nearly two decades of stop-and-go negotiations with few tangible results, strong U.S. intervention is seen as key to solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Israel's latest building plans came just as the Palestinians had reluctantly agreed to resume indirect, U.S.-brokered talks in the coming days — after a 14-month deadlock.

Capping a day of meetings with Palestinian leaders, Biden declared Wednesday that Washington is committed to brokering a final peace deal.

"The United States pledges to play an active as well as a sustainable role in these talks," Biden said. He stressed the Palestinians deserve an independent state that is "viable and contiguous," a clear message to Israel that the U.S. expects a broad withdrawal from the West Bank as part of a settlement. Palestinians fear Jewish settlement enclaves would render a future state untenable by breaking it up into pieces.

Abbas, the Palestinians' leader, said Wednesday that new Israeli building, especially in Jerusalem, threatened the negotiations before they got off the ground.

"We call on Israel to cancel these decisions," Abbas said. "I call on the Israeli government not to lose a chance to make peace. I call on them to halt settlement building and to stop imposing facts on the ground" — a reference to the fear that settlement expansion will predetermine Israel's future borders.

The fate of Jewish settlements is one of the most contentious issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Nearly 300,000 settlers live in the West Bank, in addition to 180,000 Israelis living in Jewish neighborhoods built in east Jerusalem. The Palestinians want both areas — captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war — along with the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip to become their future state.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100311/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_israel_palestinians

"You may say I'm a dreamer..I'm not the only one..I hope some day you'll join us and the world will live as one."

Sing it...

Threaten to cut Israel off at the knees, i.e. no more financial or military support, if they don't move forward quickly with the peace proposal, that will get their attention. This pandering to Israel has got to stop, no matter who the current president is, democrat or republican.

"What a quandary.. I say the hell with both of them and wash our hands of this whole region.."

most israelis say this of the United states.

Good.. Then they won't mind if we stop giving them $3 billion a year..

That, and they need to pay us back with interest all the money we've given them since 1967. We've got a deficit to reduce.

Israel, in case no one has noticed, is an INDEPENDENT NATION with its own interests to protect. It is also the ONLY democracy in the MIddle East and a constant reminder to the Arab 'world' of what IS possible and of what the Arab 'world' has failed to provide for its own people. And a schmuck like Joe Biden is gonna be sent there to tell them what to do by the little manchild who sits in the Big Boy chair now ... ? THAT's the real insult ...

Everyone knows that!!! An independent nation, Israel is!

Much like a train wagon is independent, so is Israel.

And much like a train wagon, whether it likes it or not, thinks differently or not, has 'its own' interests or not, IT ONLY GOES WHERE THE LOCOMOTIVE, WITH ALL ITS 'POWER' AND 'MEANS', PULLS IT!!!

Should the locomotive disengage, the little INDEPENDENT wagon would lose ALL its connections to 'means', and would become an INDEPENDENT shooting duck!!!

Israel is an independent Nation. Everyone knows that!

Israel really is independent and has a long history of acting
independently. Their first priority is to their citizens just
as the United States first priority are U.S. citizens.

If, as you say, their first priority were the citizens of Israel (safety, welfare and prosperity), they would engage in good faith, in 'shared nation' peace talks with Palestinian authorities, rather than expanding into the territories.

As I wrote earlier, regardless of the different agenda of the authorities, that's where the 'US Locomotive' is going!!! It would be in the best interest of the citizens, that their governing heads pay attention to the 'Locomotive'.

Israel has a long history of good faith negotiations and peacemaking
with their neighbors. If the Palestinians stop terrorist activities
there is no reason why there would not be peace now and in the
future. If the Palestinians had accepted the deal offered by Israel
at Camp David in 2000 then there could have been a lasting peace
on that basis starting a decade ago.

http://www.jcpa.org/jl/vp474.htm

The situation is far more complex and nuanced than this 'Israel the good' and 'Palestine the bad'.

It may win you a public relations contest in the US, but that is not where a 'good faith' long lasting peace deal will ever take place.

The Camp David 2000 saga is not an instance which showed Israel's 'good faith'.

If you wish to 'balance accounts', I propose you read this most unbiased article which avoids the simplistic blaming games, and demonizing tricks.

Camp David: The Tragedy of Errors
By Hussein Agha, Robert Malley
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/14380

Let us know what you think of that account.

These sources are discussed in my refernce above.
Actually the 2000 Camp David was a missed opportunity.

I recommend you read article.

It does not conclude that C.D. 2000 was a missed opportunity. It doesn't lay blame either. Instead, it presents C.D 2000 as an essential stepping stone, on the way to a true 'shared state' mature agreement between two nations.

lol Israel started the war by illegally occupying land that wasn't theirs. shills

I know. I read the article. I still believe that the Israelis
made an incredible and generous offer at Camp David in 2000.
The Palestinians missed a real genuine opportunity for peace
and a very reasonable beginning to their own homeland a decade
ago and once again initiated violence instead. This of course
only frustrated the process of peacemaking, deepened Israeli
doubts about the prospects of future negotiations, led to the
building of the separation barrier and bolstered Israeli resolve
not to accept any future deal which would leave them vulnerable
to additional attacks.



here is a quote from http://www.nybooks.com/articles/14380:

"On June 15, during his final meeting with Clinton before Camp David, Arafat set forth his case: Barak had not implemented prior agreements, there had been no progress in the negotiations, and the prime minister was holding all the cards. The only conceivable outcome of going to a summit, he told Secretary Albright, was to have everything explode in the President's face. If there is no summit, at least there will still be hope. The summit is our last card, Arafat said—do you really want to burn it? In the end, Arafat went to Camp David, for not to do so would have been to incur America's anger; but he went intent more on surviving than on benefiting from it."

In other words, Arafat was unable to see the forest for the trees
and make the leap to the end game....or he just didn't like the end
game. Either way ultimately he was unable to benefit from CD 2000
opportunities and this is why other participants like Dennis Ross
(The Missing Peace) and Clinton among many other have said that
Arafat just wasn't up to it.

Once again - Here is what Arafat turned down:

"Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered to withdraw from 97 percent of the West Bank and 100 percent of the Gaza Strip. In addition, he agreed to dismantle 63 isolated settlements. In exchange for the 5 percent annexation of the West Bank, Israel would increase the size of the Gaza territory by roughly a third.

Barak also made previously unthinkable concessions on Jerusalem, agreeing that Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem would become the capital of the new state. The Palestinians would maintain control over their holy places and have "religious sovereignty" over the Temple Mount.

According to U.S. peace negotiator Dennis Ross, Israel offered to create a Palestinian state that was contiguous, and not a series of cantons. Even in the case of the Gaza Strip, which must be physically separate from the West Bank unless Israel were to be cut into non-contiguous pieces, a solution was devised whereby an overland highway would connect the two parts of the Palestinian state without any Israeli checkpoints or interference.

The proposal also addressed the refugee issue, guaranteeing them the right of return to the Palestinian state and reparations from a $30 billion international fund that would be collected to compensate them.

Israel also agreed to give the Palestinians access to water desalinated in its territory.

Arafat was asked to agree to Israeli sovereignty over the parts of the Western Wall religiously significant to Jews (i.e., not the entire Temple Mount), and three early warning stations in the Jordan valley, which Israel would withdraw from after six years. Most important, however, Arafat was expected to agree that the conflict was over at the end of the negotiations. This was the true deal breaker. Arafat was not willing to end the conflict. "For him to end the conflict is to end himself," said Ross.

The prevailing view of the Camp David/White House negotiations - that Israel offered generous concessions, and that Yasser Arafat rejected them to pursue the intifada that began in September 2000 - prevailed for more than a year. To counter the perception that Arafat was the obstacle to peace, the Palestinians and their supporters then began to suggest a variety of excuses for why Arafat failed to say "yes" to a proposal that would have established a Palestinian state. The truth is that if the Palestinians were dissatisfied with any part of the Israeli proposal, all they had to do was offer a counterproposal. They never did."

(from http://www.jewishfederations.org/page.aspx?id=101041)

lies..but what do you expect from the Jewish Federation. like they're going to tell the truth

I always wonder, how the average american is TRULY to know who 'started' the whole mess....



whose land was it and why, who was occupying it,, etc,,,

I think ,if i had a home invasion and was offered the 'deal' that they would only take over my kitchen, I still would refuse

i empathize with any people who are forcefully removed from their homes,,,,its just knowing which people it was who first started such a practice that confuses me (different stories on both sides)