Construction is Israel’s best negotiating tactic.

By Ted Belman

German chancellor tells Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in phone call that decision to approve new housing units in east Jerusalem has ‘raised doubts that Israeli government is interested in starting serious negotiations’

Inherent in this statement is the belief that Israel must give the Palestinians, backed by the EU, what they want. But such belief denies the right to negotiate. Israel has the right to say ‘no”. There is no obligation to make a deal. There is no obligation in the Oslo Accords to cease building anywhere.

And as I keep repeating, Israel must build aggressively. This is the only way to force the PA to negotiate as time will work against them. The PA must pay the price of inflexibility.

October 1, 2011 | 9 Comments »

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9 Comments / 9 Comments

  1. “German chancellor tells Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in phone call that decision to approve new housing units in east Jerusalem has ‘raised doubts that Israeli government is interested in starting serious negotiations’.”

    PM should’ve answered, “So?”

    “When the Arab neighbors have something to talk about, they have the phone number.

    “Meanwhile, what’s it to YOU?

    “Have a nice day.”

  2. When Bibi returned to Israel from the United States and announced there would be more building in East Jerusalem, I thought great! because I took it to mean he was signaling that Jerusalem would not be divided. How many hints does Germany need to catch that? I was afraid Bibi would come back willing to back down on this issue, but thankfully he did not. I have heard Bibi in speeches say Jerusalem will not be divided and there will be no right of return, so why isn’t this message being taken seriously?

  3. It is a true “hutzpa” nerve, from a German Chancellor to tell Jews what to do and it is simply stupid of Jews to listen to them about their survival.

    Jews must not listen what their enemies tell them what to do. ARABS don’t want peace, they want Israel, a four year old knows that.

    So Israelis build, build build. Do Germans want to be told where to build, or the French, Italians or other members of the EU?
    WE have a country now and we no longer have to beg for our survival.

    Eva Deutsch Costabel, holocaust survivor, author and artist

  4. I agree, build, build, build and build.

    Let the Palestinians and other governments talk while Israel builds.

    There really isn’t anything to talk about or negotiate.

    The Palestinians won’t recognize Israel as a Jewish Nation and there is no room for a Palestinian state in Israel, in the Arab world maybe but certainly not in Israel.

    Amazing how the nations of the world who can’t solve their own problems want to dictate terms to Israel regarding the Palestinians.

  5. I have no argument against building or establishing facts on the ground, period. That is an end unto itself, but not under any circumstances as a means for prodding them into negotiations which is the title and premise of your post. It is bad tactics and strategy to rely on the enemy to do what will save us from ourselves. One day they may surprise us either on their own or by outside pressure and we will be up the creek w/out a paddle.

    No recognition, no negotiations, no peace with the Palis! 3 no’s of Khartoum

    Minimally even to discuss the prospect of negotiations Israel should demand Shalit and Pollard freed. We give them 500 million shekles per month and that should cease until Shalit is freed. let the EU supply them instead of us.

  6. You know and I know they won’t negotiate. In the meantime we would be putting facts on the ground. My argument is not a substitute for ending the peace process or at least annexing the settlements. Rather it is a suggestion as to what we should do in the interim. Regardless we should never stop building.

  7. And as I keep repeating, Israel must build aggressively. This is the only way to force the PA to negotiate as time will work against them. The PA must pay the price of inflexibility.

    Why would you want to see them forced to negotiate? That seems to be a contradiction in your positions. Or maybe it’s not.

    Negotiations means that Israel not only recognizes the legitimacy of the PA, it recognizes the legitimacy of the Palis as a people with inherient rights. Negotiations presuppose the willingness to compromise by Israel not to mention the PA. What are you Ted Belman willing to compromise on?

    I see it as a very slippery road that has reduced Israel to “pitiable thing”.

    All people, Jews or gentiles, who dare not defend themselves when they know they are in the right, who submit to punishment not because of what they have done but because of who they are, are already dead by their own decision; and whether or not they survive physically depends on chance. If circumstances are not favorable, they end up in gas chambers.

    Bruno Bettelheim, “Freud’s Vienna and Other Essays”

    “Bettelheim, like the Greek poet Homer, understands that the force that does not kill, that does not kill just yet, can turn a human being into stone, into a thing, even while it is still alive. Merely hanging ominously over the head of the vulnerable creature it can choose to kill at any moment, poised lasciviously to destroy breath in what it has somehow “graciously” allowed, if only for a few more moments, to breathe; this force indelicately mocks the fragile life it intends to consume.

    As for the pitiable human being who stands helplessly before this force, he or she has effectively already become a corpse.

    Israel, in some respects, is this “pitiable human being” in macrocosm, now at the threshold of becoming a thing. Still called upon by U.S. President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to negotiate with unrepentant terrorists, Prime Minister Netanyahu has agreed to accept certain forms of Palestinian statehood, at least in principle. Strongly hoping not to be identified as an “obstruction to peace,” Mr. Netanyahu has somehow managed to discover reassurance in his openly-stated expectations for Palestinian demilitarization.” Read More