CYNICAL WORDS COMING OUT OF WASHINGTON; OBAMA AND THE POPE HAVE A WILLING PARTNER IN BIBI NETANYAHU
U.S. Appreciates Israel's Roadblock Removal
Tammuz 4, 5769, 26 June 09 12:24
(Israelnationalnews.com) The United States State Department expressed appreciation to Israel Thursday over steps taken to make things easier for Palestinian Authority residents in Judea and Samaria. Those steps included the removal or easing of processing at roadblocks and inspection points, and reduced Israeli security activity in four PA cities.
State Department spokesman Ian Kelly stressed the U.S.'s recognition of Israel's security concerns, coupled with what he called the Arabs' critical need for transportation of people and goods. He also repeated the American goal of comprehensive peace based on the two-state solution.
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Netanyahu folds under US pressure for pulling out of West Bank towns before peace talks
DEBKAfile Special Analysis
June 25, 2009, 9:41 PM (GMT+02:00)
Binyamin Netanyahu welcomed by Nicolas Sarkozy
Despite his pledge to keep security considerations uppermost in his dealings with the Palestinians, Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu is buckling under pressure from the US administration aimed at softening Israel up ahead of Middle East peace talks.
This pressure turned Netanyahu's first official visits to Rome and Paris sour.
He had hoped to outmaneuver the Obama administration's insistence on a total settlement freeze by winning the support of friendly Silvio Berlusconi and Nicolas Sarkozy for a compromise formula, which would be presented as a European-Israel deal.
To achieve this, he promised the Italian and French leaders that Israeli forces would soon be pulled out of West Bank Palestinian towns. But he failed to anticipate that the Obama administration would outflank him and get there first. So his arrival in Rome and Paris was preceded by Italian and French officials parroting the Washington line on a settlement freeze, including East Jerusalem
When he met Berlusconi Monday, June 22, the Israeli prime minister saw that he had already talked to Obama on the phone and promised that the Italian boot would toe the American line.
In Paris, he found the same trap had been laid at the Elysee.
In these circumstances, Netanyahu should never have gone through with his visits to Italy and France. And defense minister Ehud Barak should call off his trip to Washington Monday for the interview with US Middle East envoy George Mitchell which the prime minister postponed. He has little hope of persuading the administration to change its tune or head off the impending clash between his administration and the Obama White House.
Netanyahu's promise to the Italian and French leaders to pull the IDF out of the West Bank cities of Ramallah, Bethlehem, Jericho and Qalqilya, has meanwhile gone on record, for no gain in Rome in Paris. But he can no longer capitalize on this major concession for a quid pro quo from the Palestinians. The IDF has also been ordered to reduce to the number of checkpoints on the West Bank to 10 active facilities to allow the Palestinians to travel from town to town free of holdups for searches – another concession to US demands.
These concessions are tantamount to the handover of the main West Bank towns to Palestinian security control.
It is the most sweeping redeployment of Israeli security forces since their unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and northern Samaria four years ago as part of Ariel Sharon's disengagement policy.
To make the gesture palatable to the Israeli public - who have not forgottenthat years of Palestinian suicide bombing attacks from the West Bank were finally stemmed by the IDF presence in terrorist city strongholds - Netanyahu told the army spokesman to announce Thursday, June 25, that the measures were being given a one-week trial run before being finalized.
However, once in place, these measures will be practically impossible to withdraw.
The Obama administration has thus cornered the Netanyahu government into giving away valuable assets to the Palestinians before negotiations have even begun. This diplomatic dexterity has not been displayed in Washington's dealings with Iran.
See also here:
Once Again: IDF to Leave Four PA Cities
(Israelnationalnews.com) Israel has agreed to reduce its military presence in four PA-controlled cities, including Ramallah and Bethlehem, raising concern that terrorists will fill the security vacuum.
In yet another gesture towards the Palestinian Authority, senior IDF officials have informed their PA counterparts that they would "reduce to a minimum" the army's presence in four cities: Kalkilya, Ramallah, Jericho and Bethlehem. PA forces are expected to assume greater responsibility for security issues in these cities – though Israel reserves the right to enter the cities when necessary.
"Over 1,000 Israelis have already paid with their lives for the lack of understanding that only free IDF activity can guarantee security for Israeli citizens," Dayan said.
This was the result of a meeting on Wednesday between Brig.-Gen. Noam Tivon, commander of the Judea and Samaria Division, Civil Adminsitration head Brig.-Gen. Yoav Mordechai and top PA officers.
The Almagor Terror Victims Association responded by asking the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee to hold an urgent session on the topic. "This new decision,' Almagor wrote to the Committee, "together with the removal of most of the checkpoints, exposes the citizens and soldiers of Israel to increased terror activity, under the auspices of the security vacuum that will now be formed in the cities – as we have seen in the past.
"No Palestinian force can do the work for us the way that IDF soldiers know how, want and can do it.
"In addition, the decision to pass security information to the PA makes the sin even worse in that it exposes our Arab informants to danger, and enables the terrorist-sympathizers who fill the PA to warn the terrorists to hide – as it used to happen in the past."
The PA forces were active until now only from midnight til 5 AM but will now work 24 hours around the clock.
Danny Dayan, who heads the Yesha Council of Jewish Communities in Judea and Samaria, warns of the dangers of the new decision: "We have been through this story before. The IDF goes out, the terrorist labs begin working and thriving once again and the terrorist attacks resume."
"Over 1,000 Israelis have already paid with their lives for the lack of understanding that only free IDF activity can guarantee security for Israeli citizens," Dayan said.Meanwhile, in the PA, this is what appears to be cooking:
PA Citizens Fear Hamas Coup in Judea and Samaria
Arabs in Kalkilya, adjacent to the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, fear that Hamas will stage a coup similar to the one on Gaza two years ago, residents and political leaders told the American National Public Radio (NPR) network.
"The Hamas leadership wants to take over [Judea and Samaria] and the proof is that they have discovered large weapons cache right here in Kalkilya in Hamas areas," Kalkilya's Fatah representative Ahmed Shreen told NPR.
He dismissed unity talks between the rival Fatah and Hamas factions as being remote. "What I am worried about is that while we are talking in Cairo, Hamas will be planning the coup." The terrorist organization, which won the Palestinian Authority legislative elections in 2006 while the rival Fatah party won the position of chairman, has constantly charged Fatah with
Most citizens were too afraid to express their opinions in public but said privately they fear an all-out war.
Interviews with local officials and residents were conducted on the background of two recent gun battles, one of which killed four gunmen from each side in Kalkilya. One of the victims was the nephew of the mayor of the city, where Hamas handily defeated Fatah in local elections.
The mother of one of the slain Hamas terrorists said that Fatah trained her son and they turned against him. "Fatah is the foundation of the resistance in Palestinian society," she said. Now they have sold out and they have betrayed the young men who followed them. This is what happened to my son. I thought he would die in battle with Israelis, not by Palestinian Authority forces."
Hamas spokesman Ihab Al-Ghussain told NPR, "They are continuously arresting our men. They committed an awful crime against a group that was fighting Israel for more than six years. The Israelis could not capture them so the PA security forces did the Israelis' dirty work and assassinated them."
Many of those interviewed viewed the PA as trying to please U.S. President Barack Obama by showing that its American-trained forces are fighting terrorism. The PA and the United States have used the drop in terrorist attacks against Israel as a tool to force the Defense Ministry to remove blockades and eliminate most checkpoints.
Officials in Judea and Samaria fear that the U.S. has bought an illusion that will literally explode in Israel's collective faces in the future, similar to the years of violence that began in 2000 after the PA rejected an offer to accept a new PA state.
Comments:
From bill:
THEY HAVE A GUN TO HIS HEAD. AT THIS POINT, HE'S A ROBOT, DOING THE WILL OF HIS CONTROLLERS.
From Joel:
...Nethanyahu is doing the very best he can for Israeli sovereignty, but all to no avail. Watch out for Barak! I think this Mossad assassin is a snake put in place to be sure that Nethanyahu does not waver from the plan.
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