* Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech to the UN

Below is the text of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech.

To see a video of this speech, click …

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44HkjBDQz_k

******

Mr. President,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

Nearly 62 years ago, the United Nations recognized the right of the Jews, an ancient people 3,500 years-old, to a state of their own in their ancestral homeland.

I stand here today as the Prime Minister of Israel, the Jewish state, and I speak to you on behalf of my country and my people.

The United Nations was founded after the carnage of World War II and the horrors of the Holocaust.  It was charged with preventing the recurrence of such horrendous events.  Nothing has undermined that central mission more than the systematic assault on the truth.

Yesterday the President of Iran stood at this very podium, spewing his latest anti-Semitic rants.  Just a few days earlier, he again claimed that the Holocaust is a lie.

Last month, I went to a villa in a suburb of Berlin called Wannsee.  There, on January 20, 1942, after a hearty meal, senior Nazi officials met and decided how to exterminate the Jewish people.  The detailed minutes of that meeting have been preserved by successive German governments.

Here is a copy of those minutes, in which the Nazis issued precise instructions on how to carry out the extermination of the Jews.   Is this a lie?

A day before I was in Wannsee, I was given in Berlin the original construction plans for the Auschwitz-Birkenauconcentration camp.  Those plans are signed by Hitler s deputy, Heinrich Himmler himself.  Here is a copy of the plans for Auschwitz-Birkenau, where one million Jews were murdered.  Is this too a lie?

This June, President Obama visited the Buchenwald concentration camp.  Did President Obama pay tribute to a lie? And what of the Auschwitz survivors whose arms still bear the tattooed numbers branded on them by the Nazis? Are those tattoos a lie?

One-third of all Jews perished in the conflagration.  Nearly every Jewish family was affected, including my own.  My wife’s grandparents, her father s two sisters and three brothers, and all the aunts, uncles and cousins were all murdered by the Nazis.  Is that also a lie?
Yesterday, the man who calls the Holocaust a lie spoke from this podium.  To those who refused to come here and to those who left this room in protest, I commend you.  You stood up for moral clarity and you brought honor to your countries.

But to those who gave this Holocaust-denier a hearing, I say on behalf of my people, the Jewish people, and decent people everywhere: Have you no shame?  Have you no decency?

A mere six decades after the Holocaust, you give legitimacy to a man who denies that the murder of six million Jews took place and pledges to wipe out the Jewish state. What a disgrace!  What a mockery of the charter of the United Nations!

Perhaps some of you think that this man and his odious regime threaten only the Jews.  You’re wrong.  History has shown us time and again that what starts with attacks on the Jews eventually ends up engulfing many others.

This Iranian regime is fueled by an extreme fundamentalism that burst onto the world scene three decades ago after lying dormant for centuries.

In the past thirty years, this fanaticism has swept the globe with a murderous violence and cold-blooded impartiality in its choice of victims.   It has callously slaughtered Moslems and Christians, Jews and Hindus, and many others.  Though it is comprised of different offshoots, the adherents of this unforgiving creed seek to return humanity to medieval times. Wherever they can, they impose a backward regimented society where women, minorities, gays or anyone not deemed to be a true believer is brutally subjugated.

The struggle against this fanaticism does not pit faith against faith nor civilization against civilization.  It pits civilization against barbarism, the 21st century against the 9th century, those who sanctify life against those who glorify death. The primitivism of the 9th century ought to be no match for the progress of the 21st century.  The allure of freedom, the power of technology, the reach of communications should surely win the day.

Ultimately, the past cannot triumph over the future.  And the future offers all nations magnificent bounties of hope.   The pace of progress is growing exponentially.  It took us centuries to get from the printing press to the telephone, decades to get from the telephone to the personal computer, and only a few years to get from the personal computer to the internet.

What seemed impossible a few years ago is already outdated, and we can scarcely fathom the changes that are yet to come.

We will crack the genetic code.  We will cure the incurable.  We will lengthen our lives.  We will find a cheap alternative to fossil fuels and clean up the planet.

I am proud that my country Israel is at the forefront of these advances by leading innovations in science and technology, medicine and biology, agriculture and water, energy and the environment.  These innovations the world over offer humanity a sunlit future of unimagined promise.

But if the most primitive fanaticism can acquire the most deadly weapons, the march of history could be reversed for a time.   And like the belated victory over the Nazis, the forces of progress and freedom will prevail only after a horrific toll of blood and fortune has been exacted from mankind.

That is why the greatest threat facing the world today is the marriage between religious fanaticism and the weapons of mass destruction, and the most urgent challenge facing this body is to prevent the tyrants of Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Are the member states of the United Nations up to that challenge?  Will the international community confront a despotism that terrorizes its own people as they bravely stand up for freedom?

Will it take action against the dictators who stole an election in broad daylight and gunned down Iranian protesters who died in the streets choking in their own blood?

Will the international community thwart the world’s most pernicious sponsors and practitioners of terrorism?

Above all, will the international community stop the terrorist regime of Iran from developing atomic weapons, thereby endangering the peace of the entire world?

The people of Iran are courageously standing up to this regime.  People of goodwill around the world stand with them, as do the thousands who have been protesting outside this hall.   Will the United Nations stand by their side?

Ladies and Gentlemen,
The jury is still out on the United Nations, and recent signs are not encouraging.

Rather than condemning the terrorists and their Iranian patrons, some here have condemned their victims.  That is exactly what a recent UN report on Gaza did, falsely equating the terrorists with those they targeted.

For eight long years, Hamas fired from Gaza thousands of missiles, mortars and rockets on nearby Israeli cities.   Year after year, as these missiles were deliberately hurled at our civilians, not a single UN resolution was passed condemning those criminal attacks.

We heard nothing absolutely nothing from the UN Human Rights Council, a misnamed institution if there ever was one.

In 2005, hoping to advance peace, Israel unilaterally withdrew from every inch of Gaza.  It dismantled 21 settlements and uprooted over 8,000 Israelis.

We didn’t get peace.  Instead we got an Iranian backed terror base fifty miles from Tel Aviv.   Life in Israeli towns and cities next to Gaza became a nightmare.

You see, the Hamas rocket attacks not only continued, they increased tenfold. Again, the UN was silent.

Finally, after eight years of this unremitting assault, Israel was finally forced to respond.  But how should we have responded?

Well, there is only one example in history of thousands of rockets being fired on a country’s civilian population.  It happened when the Nazis rocketed British cities during World War II.

During that war, the allies leveled German cities, causing hundreds of thousands of casualties.   Israel chose to respond differently.  Faced with an enemy committing a double war crime of firing on civilians while hiding behind civilians Israel sought to conduct surgical strikes against the rocket launchers.

That was no easy task because the terrorists were firing missiles from homes and schools, using mosques as weapons depots and ferreting explosives in ambulances.

Israel, by contrast, tried to minimize casualties by urging Palestinian civilians to vacate the targeted areas.  We dropped countless flyers over their homes, sent thousands of text messages and called thousands of cell phones asking people to leave.

Never has a country gone to such extraordinary lengths to remove the enemy’s civilian population from harm’s way.   Yet faced with such a clear case of aggressor and victim, who did the UN Human Rights Council decide to condemn? Israel.

A democracy legitimately defending itself against terror is morally hanged, drawn and quartered, and given an unfair trial to boot.

By these twisted standards, the UN Human Rights Council would have dragged Roosevelt and Churchill to the dock as war criminals.  What a perversion of truth!  What a perversion of justice!

Delegates of the United Nations,
Will you accept this farce?    Because if you do, the United Nations would revert to its darkest days, when the worst violators of human rights sat in judgment against the law-abiding democracies, when Zionism was equated with racism and when an automatic majority could declare that the earth is flat.

If this body does not reject this report, it would send a message to terrorists everywhere: Terror pays; if you launch your attacks from densely populated areas, you will win immunity.

And in condemning Israel, this body would also deal a mortal blow to peace.  Here’s why.  When Israel left Gaza, many hoped that the missile attacks would stop.  Others believed that at the very least, Israel would have international legitimacy to exercise its right of self-defense.

What legitimacy?  What self-defense?

The same UN that cheered Israel as it left Gaza and promised to back our right of self-defense now accuses us my people, my country – of war crimes?  And for what?  For acting responsibly in self-defense.  What a travesty!

Israel justly defended itself against terror.  This biased and unjust report is a clear-cut test for all governments.   Will you stand with Israel or will you stand with the terrorists?

We must know the answer to that question now.   Now and not later.  Because if Israel is again asked to take more risks for peace, we must know today that you will stand with us tomorrow.

Only if we have the confidence that we can defend ourselves can we take further risks for peace.

Ladies and Gentlemen,
All of Israel wants peace.   Any time an Arab leader genuinely wanted peace with us, we made peace.   We made peace with Egypt led by Anwar Sadat.  We made peace with Jordan led by King Hussein.

And if the Palestinians truly want peace, I and my government, and the people of Israel, will make peace.  But we want a genuine peace, a defensible peace, a permanent peace.

In 1947, this body voted to establish two states for two peoples a Jewish state and an Arab state.  The Jews accepted that resolution.  The Arabs rejected it.   We ask the Palestinians to finally do what they have refused to do for 62 years:  Say yes to a Jewish state.

Just as we are asked to recognize a nation-state for the Palestinian people, the Palestinians must be asked to recognize the nation state of the Jewish people.   The Jewish people are not foreign conquerors in the Land of Israel.   This is the land of our forefathers.

Inscribed on the walls outside this building is the great Biblical vision of peace: “Nation shall not lift up sword against nation.  They shall learn war no more.”   These words were spoken by the Jewish prophet Isaiah 2,800 years ago as he walked in my country, in my city – in the hills of Judea and in the streets of Jerusalem.   We are not strangers to this land.  It is our homeland.

As deeply connected as we are to this land, we recognize that the Palestinians also live there and want a home of their own.   We want to live side by side with them, two free peoples living in peace, prosperity and dignity.

But we must have security.  The Palestinians should have all the powers to govern themselves except those handful of powers that could endanger Israel.

That is why a Palestinian state must be effectively demilitarized.   We don’t want another Gaza, another Iranian backed terror base abutting Jerusalem and perched on the hills a few kilometers from Tel Aviv.

We want peace.

I believe such a peace can be achieved.  But only if we roll back the forces of terror, led by Iran, that seek to destroy peace, eliminate Israel and overthrow the world order.

The question facing the international community is whether it is prepared to confront those forces or accommodate them.

Over seventy years ago, Winston Churchill lamented what he called the “confirmed unteachability of mankind,” the unfortunate habit of civilized societies to sleep until danger nearly overtakes them.

Churchill bemoaned what he called the “want of foresight, the unwillingness to act when action will be simple and effective, the lack of clear thinking, the confusion of counsel until emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong.

I speak here today in the hope that Churchill’s assessment of the “unteachability of mankind” is for once proven wrong.
I speak here today in the hope that we can learn from history — that we can prevent danger in time.

In the spirit of the timeless words spoken to Joshua over 3,000 years ago, let us be strong and of good courage.  Let us confront this peril, secure our future and, God willing, forge an enduring peace for generations to come.

* Bolton says Brits involved in Lockerbie release; was the U.S.?

Worldwide News Agency AFP writes (8/25/09) …

• John Bolton, the former US ambassador to the United Nations who has criticised his release, accused Brown’s government of being heavily involved in reaching the decision.
• “The notion that somehow the government in London didn’t participate in the decision that Secretary MacAskill made is just fanciful,” Bolton told the BBC’s Newsnight late Monday.
• “This was a decision that the government in London wanted and it’s the decision they got.”

read the entire article at … http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090825/wl_uk_afp/britainlibyausattackslockerbie_20090825083109

LMW COMMENT …

It is looking more and more that this was far from a loose-cannon decision by a Scottish official. And if the Brits were involved, can U.S. hands be far behind? And, if so, where will President Obama’s outrage be directed?

* was the Lockerbie murderer released because he was, in his planned and imminent appeal, about to release some inconvenient information?

In addition to this political blog, I also produce an blog on the anthrax case and my novel CASE CLOSED (http://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/), and a travel blog (http://patandlewtravel.wordpress.com/).

A recent post on the CASE CLOSED blog raised some frightening questions about why the Lockerbie murderer was released. Here’s an extract from that post …

“The Libyans could learn some good tips from the FBI. If you are going to accuse someone of an act of terrorism, ensure they are dead first. That way their lawyers can’t ask awkward questions afterwards. The Libyan was about to have his case appealed which was apparently going to raise some embarrassing details that neither the US or UK governments were keen to have known.”

It is known that an appeal was pending. It will be interesting to see if there is any further discussion related to the possible disclosure of inconvenient information.

In addition, our British friends tell us that many in Scotland believe that Abdel Baset al-Megrahi was falsely convicted on very sketchy evidence, and that he is in fact innocent. If so, that would surely be grounds for an appeal and possible reversal of his conviction. It is not grounds for his release, which suggests that some other logic may have been at play.

Stay tuned.

* is Great Britain also culpable in the despicable release of the Lockerbie murderer?

John Burns writes in the NYT (8-25-09) …

• The uproar in Britain over the release of the only person convicted in the Lockerbie bombing gathered momentum on Monday, with critics saying at an emergency session of the Scottish Parliament that the Scottish justice secretary, Kenny MacAskill, had brought shame on Scotland and jeopardized its relations with the United States.
• The fury in Edinburgh, the Scottish capital, echoed indignation in the United States from President Obama, the FBI director; prominent senators; and relatives of those who died on Pan Am Flight 103 when it exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, on Dec. 21, 1988, killing 270 people, including 189 Americans.
• The release has developed into the most abrasive issue between Britain and the United States in years, and, opposition critics said in Edinburgh, one that could damage Scotland’s tourism and investment from the United States.
• Mr. MacAskill said Mr. Megrahi’s release was approved solely because of his illness and not because of “economic considerations” relating to Libyan oil deals, as opposition politicians and newspaper editorials in Britain have suggested.
• The government of Prime Minister Gordon Brown ducked for cover, declining to say whether it supported the decision to return Mr. Megrahi home.
• Mr. MacAskill said he had received a perfunctory answer this summer when he wrote to Jack Straw, justice minister in the Brown government, asking the government to “make representations or provide information” regarding the proposed release.
• “They declined to do so,” he said. “They simply informed me that they saw no legal barrier to transfer and that they gave no assurances to the U.S. government at the time. They declined to offer a full explanation. I found that highly regrettable.”

read the entire article at … http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/25/world/europe/25lockerbie.html?_r=1&ref=world

LMW COMMENT …

It now appears that the Scottish Justice Minister did ask the government of Great Britain for input and received no indication that the Brown administration opposed the release. In my mind, until further word is heard from the Brits, that makes the Brown administration culpable in this despicable act.

* urge President Obama to boycott tourism and golfing in Scotland

I have sent the following email to the White House …

I want to urge President Obama to issue a statement that all U.S. citizens, including those who golf, should not go to Scotland until there is a full apology and termination of the Justice Minister who made the despicable decision to release the convicted Lockerbie murderer.

I encourage you to do something similar.

* the crisis in Iran: after 8 years of unproductive Bush/Cheney bluster and wars of choice, Republicans still don’t get it; President Obama does

CASE CLOSED: the FBI’s failed investigation of the 2001 anthrax case

* see CASE CLOSED VIDEO on YouTube

* purchase CASE CLOSED (paperback)

read more at http://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/

***

the crisis in Iran: after 8 years of unproductive

Bush/Cheney bluster and wars of choice,

Republicans still don’t get it;

President Obama does

***

Anne Gearan writes for AP (6-21-09) …

• Republicans intensified their criticism of President Barack Obama’s handling of his first major test of
  

  Iran protester

  international leadership, saying Sunday that he has been too cautious in response to Iran’s postelection upheaval.

  • Both the House and Senate voted overwhelmingly last week to condemn an official crackdown on the mostly peaceful demonstrations, a stronger action than the White House has yet taken.
  • Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-SC … “The president of the United States is supposed to lead the free world, not follow it,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham. “He’s been timid and passive more than I would like.”
  • Sen. John McCain, R-AR, and others noted that Western leaders, including French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, have demanded a recount or more forcefully condemned the government crackdown. “I’d like to see the president be stronger than he has been, although I appreciate the comments that he made yesterday,” McCain said. “I think we ought to have America lead.”
  • Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-IO, said a slow or muted U.S. response risks undermining the aspirations of Iranian voters to change or question their government. “If America stands for democracy and all of these demonstrations are going on in Tehran and other cities over there, and people don’t think that we really care, then obviously they’re going to question, ‘do we really believe in our principles?’” Grassley said.
• But in an interview released Sunday, President Obama argued: “The last thing that I want to do is to have the United States be a foil for those forces inside Iran who would love nothing better than to make this an argument about the United States. We shouldn’t be playing into that.”
  • Obama has tried to hold a middle ground as the crisis unfolds, and found the ground shifting by the day. His advisers say any thunderous denunciation of Iran’s rulers would invite them to cry interference and might worsen the violence instead of end it.
  • Obama on Saturday challenged Iran’s government to halt a “violent and unjust” crackdown on dissenters, and he quoted Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
  • “Right now, we are bearing witness to the Iranian people’s belief in that truth, and we will continue to bear
    

    Sen. Lugar

    witness,” Obama said.

• Sen. Richard Lugar R-IN, a moderate Republican who holds the party’s top position on the Senate ForeignRelations Committee, seemed to echo Obama’s caution. “The challenge continues, which is going to come to a conclusion one way or another,” Lugar said. “Either the protesters bring about change or they’re suppressed, and it’s a potentially very brutal outcome at the end of the day.”

read the entire article at … http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090622/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_us_iran_11

LMW COMMENT …

True leadership is far more than the bullying bluster of the Bush/Cheney years which set America’s position in the world to its lowest depths in memory.

President Obama, in his intelligent thoughtful approach and his willingness to listen, epitomized in his Cairo speech, has set a far different tone which has the possibility of a far different and better result. Does anyone think what’s going on in Iran is unrelated to the call for democracy and freedom in Cairo, and the implicit understanding that efforts in that direction would be welcome.

But to follow that caring outreach with blustering threats would, as President Obama has said, change the debate and permit the dictators in Iraq to demonize America instead of forcing them to respond to the calls for freedom from their own people.

How fortunate we are to have the president we do. And kudos to Dick Lugar for understanding and having the courage to say so.

* Israel should separate itself from the West bank settlements

Lew’s new novel CASE CLOSED

explores the FBI’s failed investigation of the 2001 anthrax case …

* see CASE CLOSED VIDEO on YouTube

* purchase CASE CLOSED (paperback)

read about CASE CLOSED at http://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/

* Israel should separate itself …

Several days ago, I posted a long letter from Robert K. Lifton on the subject of Israel’s policy toward the West Ban settlements. Here are brief extracts from Mr. Lifton’s previously posted letter …

Israel showing Gaza & the West Bank

• the present policy of the Netanyahu government that would result in further growth of the settler population holds out the possibility for serious dispute between the US and Israeli administrations.
• it also has the potential to threaten the very essence of Israel as a Jewish state.
• if Israel were to incorporate the Territories as part of a Greater Israel, ultimately a majority of its population would be Palestinian. In that case, it would
  • either have to end its position as a Jewish State
  • or disenfranchise the Palestinian population and no longer continue as a democratic state.
• (the far better policy is) that Israel should separate itself from the Territories.

LMW COMMENT … Bob Lifton has been for many years one of the clearest thinkers on the issues that plague the state of Israel. Here, he puts forward a policy that right wing Israelis find hard to accept. Those Jews and others in America who uncritically support every Israeli policy will find Mr. Lifton’s prescription unacceptable. More reasonable people throughout the world who believe a two-state solution to the Palestine-Israel problem is the only solution, will take comfort in Mr. Lifton’s analysis.

read Bob Lifton’s entire letter at … * Robert K. Lifton: expanding Israel’s West Bank settlements is not in Israel’s best interest

* Robert K. Lifton: expanding Israel’s West Bank settlements is not in Israel’s best interest

NOTE: read a short summary of Mr. Lifton’s main points at …

* Israel should separate itself from the West bank settlements

LMW … I have known Mr. Lifton since the early 1990s. I have repeatedly found his analyses of the Middle Eastern situation to be uniquely well reasoned.

Mr. Lifton holds an B.B.A. degree from the School of Business Administration, City University of New York. He graduated Magna Cum Laude and was elected to the honorary society Beta Gamma Sigma. In 1951 he received an L.L.B. degree from Yale Law School, where he was a member of the Order of the Coif and Note Editor of the Yale Law Journal. He was admitted to the New York Bar in 1952. In 1988 he became President of the American Jewish Congress, an association of Jewish Americans organized to defend Jewish interests at home and abroad through public policy advocacy. He is a Founder and served as Chairman of the Israel Policy Forum, a group which combines the policy development and publications of a think tank, with the educational programming and advocacy initiatives of a lobby. Mr. Lifton has been a longtime member of the Council on Foreign Relations, an independent, nonpartisan membership organization which seeks to better understand the world and the foreign policy choices facing the United States and other countries. Mr. Lifton has been engaged in a broad range of  entrepreneurial activities.

Here is Occasional Letter #70 in a series written by Robert K. Lifton …

Dear Friend,

This is the first new Letter I have written to you since my Letter # 69 written in April 2007. Last week I e-mailed a copy of that Letter to you to make a few points.

• First, how very little progress had been made in dealing with problems in the Middle East  – particularly the Israeli-Palestinian issues – in over two years.
• Second, the Letter suggested a direct linkage between dealing with Iran and the Israel-Palestinian issues which President Obama recognized in his recent meeting with Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu despite Netanyahu’s efforts to keep the two matters separate.
• Third, the Letter suggested a new diplomatic approach that would connect Iran’s cessation of nuclear development with Israel’s resolution of its relationship the Palestinians.

In the last three weeks we have seen a flurry of activity around the problems gripping the Middle East: first, the meetings of President Obama with Prime Minister Netanyahu and then with Palestinian President Abbas and most recently President Obama’s visit to the Middle East and his inspired speech in Cairo.

In this Letter I would like to focus on one theme that was a central element in the discussions at all of those forums, namely the Israeli settlements.

Israel showing Gaza & the West Bank

Simply put, in my view the present broad based, highly populated status of the settlements combined with the policy of the Netanyahu government that would result in further growth of the settler population does not only hold out the possibility for serious dispute between the US and Israeli administrations.

• More important, I believe that it has the potential to threaten the very essence of Israel as a Jewish state. Thus, it has fundamental implications that not only affect the people of Israel but Jews throughout the world who have looked at Israel as the ultimate safety net for the Jewish people.

To explain my perspective, let me share with you some personal history. In 1988 I became President of the American Jewish Congress. Shortly before that the leadership of the American Jewish Congress undertook a mission to the Middle East to educate ourselves and form a basis for our policies regarding Israel and the Palestinians. At that time, Yitzhak Shamir, head of the Likud Party, was Prime Minister of Israel and one of the rising stars of the party was Benyamin (Bibi) Netanyahu who served as Israel’s Ambassador the United Nations.  Both Shamir, Netanyahu and their party were identified with the belief in a biblically inspired “Greater Israel” which would ultimately encompass all of the Occupied Territories,  (a term some on the far right did not like  preferring to call them “disputed territories.”) namely, the West bank and Gaza.

Israel should separate itself from the occupied territories

After days of meetings with people holding a broad range of views, the American Jewish Congress leadership came to a conclusion that set it apart from the rest of the major Jewish organizations: that Israel should separate itself from the Territories.

• The underpinning for that view was the demographic studies reflecting the anticipated much faster growth of the Palestinian population both in Israel and in the Territories compared with the anticipated growth of the Jewish population in Israel.
• Thus, if Israel were to incorporate the Territories as part of a Greater Israel, ultimately a majority of its population would be Palestinian. In that case, it would
  • either have to end its position as a Jewish State
  • or disenfranchise the Palestinian population and no longer continue as a democratic state.

The Settlement Issue

With that perspective, let’s look at the issues relating to the settlements.

• Over the period of years since Israel’s victory in the 1967 War, settlement activity was supported by both the conservative Likud and liberal Labor parties based on two rationales. Some supported settlements as part of a program for expanding Israel to encompass the Territories inspired by the Greater Israel theme.
• Thus, religious settlers today base their claim to West Bank land on the biblical heritage of the Jewish people.
• Others supported settlements as part of the security system required to protect Israel from Arab attack.
• This was the argument offered by General, later Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon who over the years showed many of us detailed maps of the areas where Israel needed settlements in place to protect against vulnerabilities to attack.  Others argued that, in any event, the term settlements was not properly applicable to developments in areas around Jerusalem which belonged to Israel and would never be turned over to the Palestinians.
• Whatever the rationale, settlements kept on expanding to the point where according to the New York Times, over the last 40 years, about 58,800 housing units have been built with Government approval in the West Bank and an additional 46,500 homes have obtained Defense Ministry approval within the existing master plans.
• At present, the Israeli population in the West Bank, not including East Jerusalem, approaches 300,000 living in about 120 settlements spread through parts of the West Bank. The settlement population is comprised of people motivated by strong religious beliefs as well as many who moved there taking advantage of government subsidy programs that enabled them to have comfortable housing in suburban areas at lower prices than comparable housing in Israel.

Settlements and the US-Israel Relationship

The subject of settlement expansion has been the focus of a number of US Administrations.

• One of the more explosive moments arose when Israel was seeking loan guarantees from the United States and President George H.W. Bush together with his Secretary of State James Baker attempted to use the leverage of the guarantees to force cessation of settlement activity. This resulted in pressure from the organized Jewish community against that effort and even unfair mischaracterization of President Bush as anti-Semitic.
• In the ensuing years, Presidents have stayed away from creating arguments with Israel on the subject, mostly referring to settlement activity as “unhelpful.”
• However, after the meeting between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu, the President made clear that the US position is to call for a freeze on all new settlement expansion.
• “Part of being a good friend is being honest,” he (President Obama) said, “there have been times where we are not as honest as we should be about the fact that the current direction, the current trajectory, in the region is profoundly negative….”
• For his part, Mr. Netanyahu has said that while Israel would not allow new settlements, and would take down some illegal settlements, building within the confines of existing settlements must be allowed to continue. “Israel “cannot freeze life in the settlements.” Halting construction, he argued, is “unreasonable.”
• Moreover, senior Israeli officials complain that Mr. Obama is not following what they call a clear understanding with the Bush administration when they signed onto the so-called road map for a two state solution in 2003.
• Although the road map provided that Israel agrees to “freeze all settlement activity (including natural growth of settlements”) they contend that understanding nevertheless allowed Israel to build settlement housing within the boundaries of certain settlement blocks as long as no new land was expropriated, no special economic incentives were offered to move to settlements and no new settlements were built. Some American officials from that time challenge that contention.

And so the disagreement is in the open and Mr. Netanyahu has to face tough choices between alienating his right wing constituency or the President of the United States.

Israel - a tiny speck in the Middle East

The Difficult Course for Israel – Dismantling Settlements

There is a frightening reality facing Israel, given the broad settlement activity that has already taken place that would be further compounded by any additional settlement expansion.

• That reality is the enormous difficulty of dismantling settlements in the event the parties reached a resolution of their conflict that called for turning areas back to the Palestinians free of settlements.
• We have seen how tenaciously some of the settlers are holding on to their homes, particularly religious settlers, that even trying to move a very small number required calling in the army to exert physical force.
• Any effort at large scale dismantling would generate major internal conflicts that could tear the nation apart, particularly, as religious and secular elements took opposing sides.
• Perhaps this is in part what Mr. Netanyahu recognizes as he dodges openly accepting a two state solution but rather talks about helping the Palestinians “economically” and “not wanting to control” the Palestinians.

The Threat to Israel – No Two State Solution

The premise of all the negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians as seen by the United States and the rest of the world is that in the end as President Obama stated in his Cairo address  “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.”

• We tend to forget that a two state solution is a relatively new concept created in large part by Yasser Arafat who inspired his people to believe that they should and could have a state of their own and then in the Oslo peace process and thereafter acknowledged that such a state would exist with an Israeli state.
• Before him the Palestinian aspiration was to return to the land they left, believing that somehow Israel would simply disappear. Frankly, I always felt that Arafat did a great service to Israel in influencing the Palestinians and the rest of the world to adopt a two-state solution.

Absent that concept there would be two other scenarios.

• One scenario, which is totally unrealistic but that some Israelis – maybe even including Mr. Netanyahu – still believe, is that Israel would continue to control the territories for an indefinite time as they “help” the Palestinians grow to the point where they are ready for statehood.
• The other scenario is that the territories and their inhabitants join together with Israel and its inhabitants in a single state.

In recent times, some Palestinians have begun to reject the idea of two states and call instead for the two people to live together in one state.  As reflected in my opening discussion, that would be a disastrous scenario for Israel.

• It could not maintain itself as a Jewish state without disenfranchising the faster growing Palestinian population.
• But such action would open the door to accusations of apartheid with the probable consequences of world wide opprobrium of a kind that South Africa faced until it allowed its larger native population political control.

There are those who will cavil about one or another portion of President Obama’s speech, depending on their political positions.

For Israelis, and those Jews throughout the world who are dedicated to seeing Israel continue as a Jewish, democratic state, however, President Obama’s advocacy of a two state solution and a cessation to settlement activity must be seen as a boon that serves Israel’s very best interests.

Sincerely,

Bob

* The Economist: unbalanced article omits President Obama’s condemnation of holocaust denial and Palestinian violence

From The Economist (6-4-09)

• Mr Obama rightly scolded recalcitrant Israelis for their refusal even to accept the idea of two independent states and for letting Jewish settlers continue to build or expand towns and villages on the West Bank.
• The president rightly urged Arab leaders to continue to press all Palestinians to embrace Israel, provided it offers a decent two-state deal.

read the entire article at … http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13799231

LMW COMMENT …

The Economist neglects to mention, in this unbalanced account, President Obama’s very clear condemnation of three pillars of Palestinian/Arab rhetoric and action …

• Six million Jews were killed – more than the entire Jewish population of Israel today. Denying (the holocaust) is baseless, ignorant, and hateful.
• Threatening Israel with destruction – or repeating vile stereotypes about Jews – is deeply wrong.
• Palestinians must abandon violence. Resistance through violence and killing is wrong and does not succeed.

I wrote a letter of comment to The Economist stating these glaring omissions.

* the Israeli settlements in the West Bank: natural growth or a policy of expansion?

Ethan Bronner writes in today’s NYT (6-6-09) …

Israel showing Gaza & the West Bank

• Why is President Obama focusing such attention on the building of homes by Israeli Jews in the West Bank?
• While every administration has objected to Israeli settlement building in occupied lands, the Obama administration has selected it as the opening issue that could begin to untie the Gordian knot of the conflict.
• “Obama may have found the soft underbelly of Israel, because ending settlements is a consensus issue in the world, among American Jewry and even among a majority of Israelis,” said Yossi Beilin, a former leftist minister and member of Parliament.

natural growth?

• The issue of natural growth has surfaced so prominently because while the Israeli government presents it as a simple humane need to make room for expanding families, the data show that settler growth has been enormous in recent years and nearly all of it has been labeled natural growth.

In 2003, Israel and the Palestinians signed the so-called road map for a two-state solution, calling on

• Israel to freeze all settlements,
• and on the Palestinians to dismantle terror networks.
• Neither has done so.

The Israelis say they had unwritten agreements with the Bush administration to continue building, as long as no new settlements were built.

• Bush officials say that is only partially true.
• The Obama administration says such winks and nods are over.

It is signaling the Arab world that it is shifting policy. Whether it does so, and how the Netanyahu government responds, will make for high drama in the coming months.

read the entire article at … http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/06/world/middleeast/06mideast.html?hp