Let Mommy and Daddy Talk, Kids

Ha'aretz says today that Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak went to Washington DC to discuss with George Mitchell about whether or not Israel would agree to a temporary freeze of settlement construction. Their four-hour "discussion" (Mommy and Daddy aren't fighting, kids, we're discussing) did not seem to bring them any closer to a decision. But that might be because Obama and Michell have not explicitly demanded an end to settlement construction, instead saying, "that Jerusalem must take 'action' on the matter."

And this article talks about a deal where settlers in Migron (a tiny settlement just East of the Palestinian city of Ramallah) would be relocated in Adam, a settlement annexed to Jerusalem and much closer to the green line.

Ha'aretz says:

Barak was quick to present the plan to evacuate Migron and build at Adam as an effort meant to deter a petition by Peace Now, scheduled to be brought before the court Monday. The defense minister's aim is to gain more time. In any case, the Defense Ministry argues, the construction of the new neighborhood in Adam will take at least two years - a decent amount of quiet time. Barak based his gamble on the images of the violent evacuation of the Amona outpost and is hoping that the justices will be deterred from another clash with the settler-invaders, and will jump at the opportunity to put the whole matter to rest for a long time.

Every single time, I am dumbounded that an entire government acts as a frightened child with even the thought of action from a violent minority of their own population. Again and again, it's been made clear to us "outsiders" that the settlers have the Israeli government on a short leash.

Returning to the Occupation

I just returned from my weekend in Jordan and fully intended to write all about it, but I swear to god, as soon as I crossed the border into Israel/Palestine/the West Bank/whathaveyou, I became mentally exhausted. There were a total of at least 9 checkpoints in the roughly five mile span between the Jordan river and Jericho. I say "at least 9" because I lost count. My passport was handled by so many different people it probably has an STD by now.

I really do intend to write a play-by-play of the whole experience, but at this point, I only have the druthers to share one small portion of it.

On the bus from the Israeli side of the border to Jericho, I was seated next to a Mr. Bassam Aramin, co-founder of Combatants for Peace. He politely asked to sit next to me, and then lapsed into an exhausted silence. We arrived at the second of the day's Palestinian checkpoints, where a border guard boarded the bus and asked to take everyone's papers. When I handed him mine, he spoke to me in Arabic, and I asked the kindly man next to me what he said.

"He says foreigners should take the bus straight through to Jerusalem, and not this way. It is what the Israelis want." He paused and added, "It generates money for them, you know, the transport. And they don't want foreigners to see this." He shook his head and as he focused on something far outside the window, he said sadly, "Another face of the occupation."

We got to talking, and he revealed that his 10 year old daughter was shot and killed by the Israeli military outside of her school two years ago. News reports about the incident say she was caught in the crossfire between soldiers and Palestinian stone throwers.

Here is an excellent article about Mr. Aramin and the beginnings of Combatants for Peace.

Israelis Are Worried

Wow, it's tense over here with this Obama-Israel rift in the making. Y'all know I wrote about Obama's Cairo speech, called "A New Beginning" and the effect it had on Israelis.

Well.

Things have continued on in that vein. Public Sentiment, the great barometer of the little people, has spoken. I give you two examples:

First, this article in Time Magazine
The title- "Can Netanyahu Repair the Rift With the U.S.?" pretty much says it all. Israelis are well aware that they stand at a precipice. On one side is their sovereignty, on the other is their prosperity. Israelis receive about $10 billion of aid money from the U.S. every year (more on that below) and $7 million daily just for military use. If Netanyahu ignores Obama's demands polite requests to freeze settlement construction that aid may be jeopardized. Even though Obama did call the U.S.-Israel bond "unbreakable" in his Cairo speech, he also made it clear he won't stand for any more riff-raff. ("The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop.")

The article says:

When an Israeli cabinet minister proposes that his country impose sanctions on the United States, his government is clearly in a state of distress. Pressure from the Obama Administration to freeze Israeli settlement construction and move toward a two-state peace with the Palestinians has reportedly spurred Minister-without-Portfolio Yossi Peled (who belongs to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's own Likud party) to recommended that Israel shop outside the U.S. for aircraft and military hardware, sell sensitive technology to clients disapproved of by Washington, and invite America's rivals to play a greater role in the Middle East.

This is clearly a knee-jerk reaction and these sanctions are very unlikely to come to fruition. It's big-talk for Obama's benefit.

But Obama's loudly-proclaimed intentions have led to a more clearly defined divide among the Israeli people: those who value America's support above all else and those who are committed to settlement of the West Bank above all else.

But the issue of settlements may be a smart litmus test of Israel's intentions, because it draws a clear line between those in Israel and among its supporters abroad who support a two-state solution, and those who don't. Obama is betting the ayes have it.

Basically Obama just went ahead and put that out there, and now he's sitting back and waiting for internal strife in Israel to make Netanyahu more agreeable to a two-state solution.

Opinion polls often find a majority of Israelis willing to give up West Bank settlements in exchange for a genuine peace, and that same majority is unlikely to be willing to jeopardize Israel's relationship with the United States in order to defend the settlers' right to build on Palestinian land, a right the settlers say is based on the argument that it forms part of the Biblical Land of Israel.

Despite this trend, the status quo is a very powerful thing and it takes a lot of momentum to shift it. Obama knows this and has apparently calculated that now is the time to roll with that forward momentum.

Netanyahu pleads that his hawkish coalition will collapse if he does as Obama asks, but skeptics point out that the Prime Minister chose to ally with the far-right when he might have chosen the centrist Kadima party, which has enough seats to shore up a government committed to a two-state solution.

Ooooopsie. Wrong choice, Bibi.

And he'll also likely take down one or two outposts built without permission by Israeli zealots outside of the boundaries of their existing settlements. Such actions will provoke televised clashes between settlers and police, and make the case that Netanyahu is acting on the settlement issue (without necessarily stopping construction within the boundaries of settlements, as demanded by Washington).

So right. The government cannot, I mean literally cannot go up against any group of settlers without a violent and highly publicized reaction.

Secondly, Israel's SNL Shows us the Score:
The Israeli comedy show Eretz Nehaderet (Beautiful Country), which is similar to America's Saturday Night Live, had a skit last night commenting on the possible rift between the U.S. and Israel. Actor-comedian Tal Freedman was dressed as PM Bibi Netanyahu and hosted a parody of the show "Million Dollar Race." Only the prize amount was ten billion (the same amount as Israel receives from the U.S.) and the possible sources of the money were various other rich and powerful world countries. Contestants competed for a new sponsor for Israel.

So that basically sums up the situation over here at the moment.

UPDATE:

I forgot about this. A week ago, journalist Max Blumenthal and Ta'ayush activist Joseph Dana published a video on youtube called "Feeling the Hate in Jerusalem" in which they interviewed drunk American Jews about Obama's upcoming speech. The speech hadn't even been made yet and everybody was all in a tizzy about what he would say. All the interviewees are basically ignorant and racist ("Who's Bibi Yahoo?") but something had to have prompted them to respond so viciously to their own president, whom, statistically speaking, they probably voted for.

On Natural Growth

As I've been trying to explain lately, natural growth is not only a problem for settlement construction, it's a major problem in the construction of Arab homes. However, the former group gets much more media attention.

This Ha'aretz article does an excellent job of breaking this issue down in concrete terms- using statistics rather than public sentiment to show that Palestinians are indeed discriminated against regarding housing.

God vs. Parking Tickets

There's been some controversy in J'lem of late about the parking lot in Safra Square (basically City Hall), and whether it should stay open on Saturdays. The large Orthodox community in Jerusalem is careful to remind government officials and other residents when they overstep the bounds of Jewish law- businesses are to be closed on Shabbat, no exceptions. The Orthodox leaders also feel Jews should not be driving at all on Saturday, in any case.

However, Jerusalem's secular residents feel differently and declare Mayor Nir Barkat will feel the pain next election if he caves to the ultra-Orthodox residents of the city. Barkat had previously opened the lot for use on Saturdays but Orthodox residents rioted in response and he agreed to close it for the next two Saturdays while he explored alternative solutions to Jerusalem's parking problem.

Ynet says:

"If Barkat gives in and the parking lots are closed even once on Shabbat, this will convey a message to everyone that those who act violently win," said Nir Pereg of the "forum of organizations for a free Jerusalem".

If the President Could Mind His Business Please

Israeli President Shimon Peres suggested today that Israel should finally get around to defining its borders, thereby giving Palestine some borders as well. A few rightist parties in the government suggested that he "desist from 'interfering' in controversial political matters."

"The president of the state lacks any authority in political matters, in particular diplomatic and political subjects that are steeped in controversy," wrote MK Zevulun Orlev, chairman of Habayit Hayehudi, which is in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition, in a letter to Peres.

The Ha'aretz article also added, "Peres said that Israel and the Palestinians should agree on the declaration of a Palestinian state with provisional borders, 'subject to a clear promise that the border will in a short span of time become permanent borders.'"

Obama's Name Lacks Desired Effect

President Obama gave his speech to a packed audience at the American University of Cairo last week and you can bet everyone had something to say about it. While the speech gave fair lip service to both Israelis and Arabs, the effect was not the same on both groups. Arabs, who are used to a certain amount of verbal abuse and misunderstanding from American leaders, were basically pleased. Israelis, who are used to unconditional support from America, were basically disappointed.

He began with a nod to Islamic history and progress and acknowledged the role Muslims have played in advancing the interests of the US. He commented on our shared global destiny, his plans for Afghanistan, Iraq, and Gitmo. And then he fully and unequivocally recognized Israel and called the US-Israeli bond "unbreakable." Then he denounced extremist violence. Then he said Israelis should stop building settlements.

Here is the part of the speech concerning the Israel-Palestine issue:

The second major source of tension that we need to discuss is the situation between Israelis, Palestinians and the Arab world.

America's strong bonds with Israel are well known. This bond is unbreakable. It is based upon cultural and historical ties, and the recognition that the aspiration for a Jewish homeland is rooted in a tragic history that cannot be denied.

Around the world, the Jewish people were persecuted for centuries, and anti-Semitism in Europe culminated in an unprecedented Holocaust. Tomorrow, I will visit Buchenwald, which was part of a network of camps where Jews were enslaved, tortured, shot and gassed to death by the Third Reich. Six million Jews were killed - more than the entire Jewish population of Israel today. Denying that fact is baseless, ignorant, and hateful. Threatening Israel with destruction - or repeating vile stereotypes about Jews - is deeply wrong, and only serves to evoke in the minds of Israelis this most painful of memories while preventing the peace that the people of this region deserve.

On the other hand, it is also undeniable that the Palestinian people - Muslims and Christians - have suffered in pursuit of a homeland. For more than sixty years they have endured the pain of dislocation. Many wait in refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza, and neighboring lands for a life of peace and security that they have never been able to lead. They endure the daily humiliations - large and small - that come with occupation. So let there be no doubt: the situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable. America will not turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity, and a state of their own.

For decades, there has been a stalemate: two peoples with legitimate aspirations, each with a painful history that makes compromise elusive. It is easy to point fingers - for Palestinians to point to the displacement brought by Israel's founding, and for Israelis to point to the constant hostility and attacks throughout its history from within its borders as well as beyond. But if we see this conflict only from one side or the other, then we will be blind to the truth: the only resolution is for the aspirations of both sides to be met through two states, where Israelis and Palestinians each live in peace and security.

That is in Israel's interest, Palestine's interest, America's interest, and the world's interest. That is why I intend to personally pursue this outcome with all the patience that the task requires. The obligations that the parties have agreed to under the Road Map are clear. For peace to come, it is time for them - and all of us - to live up to our responsibilities.

Palestinians must abandon violence. Resistance through violence and killing is wrong and does not succeed. For centuries, black people in America suffered the lash of the whip as slaves and the humiliation of segregation. But it was not violence that won full and equal rights. It was a peaceful and determined insistence upon the ideals at the center of America's founding. This same story can be told by people from South Africa to South Asia; from Eastern Europe to Indonesia. It's a story with a simple truth: that violence is a dead end. It is a sign of neither courage nor power to shoot rockets at sleeping children, or to blow up old women on a bus. That is not how moral authority is claimed; that is how it is surrendered.

Now is the time for Palestinians to focus on what they can build. The Palestinian Authority must develop its capacity to govern, with institutions that serve the needs of its people. Hamas does have support among some Palestinians, but they also have responsibilities. To play a role in fulfilling Palestinian aspirations, and to unify the Palestinian people, Hamas must put an end to violence, recognize past agreements, and recognize Israel's right to exist.

At the same time, Israelis must acknowledge that just as Israel's right to exist cannot be denied, neither can Palestine's. The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop.

Israel must also live up to its obligations to ensure that Palestinians can live, and work, and develop their society. And just as it devastates Palestinian families, the continuing humanitarian crisis in Gaza does not serve Israel's security; neither does the continuing lack of opportunity in the West Bank. Progress in the daily lives of the Palestinian people must be part of a road to peace, and Israel must take concrete steps to enable such progress.

To someone who is educated on the issue but is not either Israeli or Arab, this speech seems totally fair and balanced. But that's not what everyone heard. I give you [drum roll] a random sampling of Israeli and Arab bloggers responding to "A New Beginning."

Arabs

Rantings of a Sandmonkey:

The speech was everything was expected and more. The guy achieved his goals and executed it effectively and brilliantly...My favorite parts of the speech had to be the following in order: The way he deliverd el salamu alaikom (the audience looked like it just had a collective orgasm), the Koranic shout outs, the pandering to Hijabis, the dig at Hillary (women became leaders in islamic countries, while the US is still "struggling with it"? Nice!), and the way he spoke of the Israel Palestine Issue. For me, again, it didn't say what he intends to do, but it made people happy. They were walking outside saying how , for the first time, they hear an american leader "talk with some balance on the issue".

Asharq Alawsat:

Obama's speech addressed those that we have always described as the silent majority, in other words the ordinary citizen who abhors extremism, backwardness and attrition [e.g. war of attrition fought between Egypt and Israel] where the situation is neither that of war nor peace. [Obama speech addressed] the citizen who desires an education, and wishes [only] to live with dignity.

And Saad Edin Ibrahim of Voices for a Democratic Egypt said on Riz Khan:

He was very reconciling, he was very firm, he was very fair. And I think the fact that he talked about Muslim communities, not about the Muslim world, was also well pointed.

Israelis:

Tikkun Olam:

He is playing right into the so-called Palestinians' hands by placing the onus on Israel, and basically not requiring anything of the Arabs-an extremely one-sided, unjust deal. I had my problems with Bush's "Road Map," but this is even worse: Obama is preaching to the entire world words which indicate that Israel, and Israel alone-is the culprit by creating obstacles to peace in the Middle East.

West Bank Mama:

What Obama said [about settlements] is not new at all. It really describes most of the world’s perception of the conflict pretty well – although it makes me angry that my living in my home is equated with terrorists killing innocent men, women, and children. Am I really as dangerous as a suicide bomber? I am a suburban mom raising three kids, and have never threatened anyone – I just live in a place that some think is “disputed”. Why are my actions compared to a terrorist who shoots rockets at civilians?

Israpundit:

By and large, President Obama’s address yesterday in Cairo has been well received in both the so-called “Muslim world” and by other audiences. Nobody may be happier with it, though, than the Muslim Brotherhood - the global organization that seeks to impose authoritative Islam’s theo-political-legal program known as “Shariah” through stealthy means where violence ones are not practicable. Egyptian Muslim Brothers were prominent among the guests in the audience at Cairo University and Brotherhood-associated organizations in America, like the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), have rapturously endorsed the speech. The Brotherhood has ample reason for its delight. Accordingly, Americans who love freedom - whether or not they recognize the threat Shariah represents to it - have abundant cause for concern about “The Speech,” and what it portends for U.S. policy and interests.

What is most interesting about this last writer's opinion is that the "Muslim World" (which is what exactly, and what's with the quotes?) differs quite a bit. The article in Asharq Alawsat I already quoted also said of the Muslim Brotherhood:

As for the Muslim Brotherhood, they believe that Obama's speech contains an unjust view on the Palestinian issue. We do not know how [they can believe this] when Obama insisted upon the right to existence for a Palestinian state, as well as insisting that America will not turn its back on the suffering of the Palestinians.

It is not only the Muslim Brotherhood who is confused [with regards to Obama's speech], Hamas is as usual playing the game of presenting two faces [to the word], a moderate face, and a hawkish face. And so whilst one face compares Obama to Martin Luther King, another says that Obama's speech is unjust and contains nothing new. This is normal, and not surprising from Hamas, who is essentially unconcerned with Palestinian unity, or establishing a Palestinian state. This can be seen in the Hamas movement's order to its gunmen to treat the security agents of the Palestinian Authority as they would the soldiers of the Israeli occupation.

We can possibly extrapolate from this that Muslim and Arab leaders who are supportive of Obama are also critical of the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. Meanwhile, extremist Israeli leaders are pretty unhappy with just everything right now, especially Obama's speech in Cairo.

Ynet quotes the Yesha settlement council as saying,"Only time will tell if the US president is Barack or Hussein." The Shomron settlers' committee also said, "The State of Israel is paying the price for its leaders' defeatism. Hussein Obama opted to adopt the Arab's bogus versions over the Jewish truth."

These references to Obama's middle name is a symbol of the divide between the president and Israeli settlers- his first name, Barack, means "shining thing" or "lightning" in Hebrew. His middle name, Hussein, is Arabic for "handsome one."

I'm serious.

If there ever were a president that could get respect from both of these groups, it's him. The potential is built-in.

The Ynet article continues, "Baruch Marzel, chairman of the rightist National Jewish Front movement, said in response to the speech 'we will continue to settle the Land of Israel whether Obama likes it or not. Obama and American administration officials can make declarations, but the actions of the youths are what will determine the results on the ground.'"

Marzel has a strong following among the Orthodox and settler communities in Israel and the West Bank, but he by no means represents the majority of Israelis. Evidence of this is the fact that his own government has declared one of his groups, Kach, a terrorist organization. Marzel and his party were banned from participating in the 1992 Israeli elections under a new law that bars parties who attempt to incite racism.

The official Israeli government response to Obama's speech was positive, with Netanyahu vowing to comply with Obama's terms.