This is a very important article. It confirms what I recently wrote about no one expecting a different result. But I was surprised when the diplomat said: “Bibi only builds where he is allowed to, but he won’t admit it.” In other words, the US has Bibi on a short leash. Ted Belman
Experienced American diplomat says hostility between Israelis and Palestinians has reached new levels and gaps are deeper than ever.
It was a depressing meeting. The man we spoke to, who is one of a handful of American diplomats who have been trying for years to find the golden key to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, didn’t leave a glimmer of hope.
As our conversation extended into the late evening hours, the feeling of an impasse grew stronger. “There seems to be zero chance of reaching any agreement between Israel and the Palestinians right now,” the man summed up his impression from many years of full and partial diplomatic service.
“Whose fault is it?” we asked. “It’s your fault, it’s their fault, and it’s our – the Americans’ – fault,” he said.
He started off with America: The current administration in the White House has adopted the approach that the Israeli construction in the settlements is the mother of all sins. Factually, that’s incorrect.
Nearly the entire construction, apart from symbolic exceptions, takes place within blocs that will remain under Israel’s sovereignty as part of a land swap.
But the advisors and experts roaming the White House and State Department corridors these days are fixated on the conception of the settlements as the only obstacle to an agreement. They deny reality and avoid dealing in any way with other disputed issues, such as Jerusalem, refugees, normalization and stalemated initiatives.
“Why get in trouble,” he asked ironically, “bring up latent issues and anger friendly Arab regimes?”
The political left in Israel is waiting in vain for American pressure, he clarified. US President Barack Obama has washed his hands off the conflict, apart from occasionally reprimanding Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He has decided to hand the hot potato of the conflict to the next president. In addition, in the past six months the Islamic State has been added to the list of urgent targets as far as Washington is concerned.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. ‘Both sides are failing to internalize the ramifications of the bi-national state option’ (Photo: AFP)
And the Palestinians, we asked, what about them? “Mahmoud Abbas is good for nothing,” responded our converser, who is also a frequent and distinguished guest of the Palestinian Authority. “He is not interested in any shift which may force him to make decisions, and is hanging on to any reason, real or fictitious, to avoid negotiating with you. He often contradicts himself in speeches and appearances.”
Abbas, our interlocutor summed up the Palestinian chapter, is the big loser of Operation Protective Edge, and as long as he holds on to the title of Palestine’s president, there will be no progress. And after him? After him the deluge.
Finally, we reached Netanyahu. “Your prime minister,” the man from America said, “is troubled by two issues: Iran and the coalition or the coalition and Iran. The makeup doesn’t change. Only the order changes, in accordance with the local and international state of mind.”
Recently, he went on, the coalition has been his top priority. But if the nuclear talks with Iran end up in nothing – which is definitely a possibility in our interlocutor’s opinion – the nuclear issue will become the top priority again.
“However,” he noted, “your military threats about Iran have lost a lot of their credibility. They are less and less taken into account by the world powers.”
As an example of the priority given to coalition considerations, the American mentioned – again – the construction in the territories. In practice, he noted, Bibi only builds where he is allowed to, but he won’t admit it. He won’t jeopardize his coalition with a public admission about an actual construction freeze outside of the settlement blocs, and is therefore intentionally creating an impression of an overall construction boom.
In his list of priorities, his government’s fate overrides the fate of Israel’s relations with Washington and Ramallah. Like Abbas, Netanyahu likes the stalemate and is convinced that initiatives to change it will increase the risks – including, the man said bitterly, the risks to their personal status.
“So what do you think will happen here?” we asked as we bid farewell.
“Both the Palestinian Authority and Israel believe that time is on their side,” he replied, “and are failing to internalize the ramifications of the bi-national state option. The intensity of the hostility between the two people has reached new levels, and the gaps between you and them are deeper than during all the years I have worked for peace.
“But I don’t want to ruin your mood,” he immediately apologized.
What good an amazing military if it is shackled. The political leaders are playing games; and then expecting the IDF to win against all odds that THEY put there; squandering lives and squandering victories. What other nation on this planet does these things, allowing thousands of rockets, forcing their own people to vacate their holy sites when the enemy starts attacking. And by the way, what is N doing going to America and talking with the Israel-hating Obama and Kerry. More begging? Clarion Call to the Jewish people world-wide and those who TRULY love Israel, ensure the Israel is MILITARILY INDEPENDENT!!! Enough of being FORCED.
D. Bene, you just made me laugh out loud. You are a goy, just like me. You are not Jewish. Jews don’t need goys to teach them about their G-D or their sovereign land. Goys need Jews to teach us about their G-D and the land of Israel. And Jews are forbidden the worship of idols, so any mention of your Jesus (not mine) is very disturbing here, even repulsive. Go back to your trailer park.
@ D. Bene:
Who da f**k are you, now?
You DO know what you could do with this little belief of yours, right?
Guys!
We need more lumber!
–NO one of any influence is talking about the only real solution. All are presently blinded.
–Here it is.
–Do this first! Individually, groups, great numbers… Just DO it!
“IF My people who are called by My name will humble themselves,
…and IF they will pray,
…and IF they will seek My face,
…and IF they will turn from their wicked ways,…
Then, only then would I hear from Heaven, forgive their sins, and heal their everything.”
IIChronicles 7:14 TPB (The Practical Bible)
I think that any person who does not teach/preach this personal humility before God-Jesus as the absolutely necessary first step to Israel’s and The USA’s healing in important matters for each …is either devil-deceived or a fraud. There seems to be no 2 ways about it.
“Pilot to pilot, airframe to airframe, the Israeli air force is the best in the world,” Chris Harmer, a senior naval analyst at the Institute for the Study of War
Have been the best in the world for a long time. That’s a fact. “HE teaches my hands to war and my fingers to fight.”-Book of Psalms
yamit82 Said:
Cited above is the comment you posted here on 2014/10/28 at 3:21 pm. Or is someone else commenting using your name? The comment seemed so untypical not only of your writing style but contradicts most if not all of what I recall reading with your name on it. So, unless I am misinterpreting all that I read in that comment, what did you have in your mind when this comment was posted? It is important to me, because I think you are most steadfast commenter on Ted Belman’s blogsite.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
ArnoldHarris Said:
Where do you see that Arnold….??? I am the most optimistic Jew and Israeli on the planet. 🙂
@ yamit82:
Yamit, what in hell did you eat this morning that put you into such a black mood of despondency and defeatism? All this over the machinations of an incompetent, cowardly and foolish government led by just another hofjude frightened of displeasing his distant foreign master?
There’s nothing new about all this in the history of the modern Jewish State of Israel. Moshe Sharett, Yitzchak Rabin, Shimon Peres, Ehud Barak, Ariel Sharon, Ehud Olmert, and Binyamin Netanyahu all proved nothing but faulty building blocks in comparison with David Ben-Gurion, Levi Eshkol, Golda Meir, Menachem Begin and Yitzchak Shamir.
Even so, Israel survived all the important tests:
— Independence was declared and successfully fought for on Israel’s first victorious battlefield in more than 2000 years.
— The ingathering of the Jewish nation raised a Jewish population exceeding 6 million to replace the 600,000 who fought and won that first war. Of that population, thought impossible of achievement in 1948, more than 300,000 Jews have taken up residence in the annexed eastern portion of the united capital city of Jerusalem, and almost 400,000 other Jews now reside in the 62 percent of the Yehuda and Shomron which comprise Area C.
— The best army, air force and navy in the Middle East was born, armed to maturity, and beat the enemy in every campaign large and small in more than 60 years. Unless Mordecai Vanunu and the USA’s nuclear proliferation experts have misstated the capabilities of the Jewish State, Israel probably has more than 400 nuclear and thermonuclear devices and warheads, many perhaps only a turn of the screw driver away from deployment readiness.
— Israel is selling anti-tank devices to the great state of India for use by their armored forces, and is helping China design its own version of the fine Lavi fighter-bomber that Israel should have insisted on building for Chayil haAvir rather than quavering before the shaking first of the US defense contracting establishment.
I think Israel and the Jewish nation not only will survive, but will be victorious in such a manner as only haShem could provide for. And meantime, the overweaning imperialist systems ranged against the Jewish nation shall crack and one days slide into history’s numerous trash bins.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Israel’s air force the best in the world, study finds
Israel’s military is the most powerful in the Middle East while its air force ranks second to none globally, according to a new study conducted by military experts for the publication Business Insider.
The publication ranked the 15 strongest armies in the region while noting the size of the countries’ respective defense budgets as well as the latest geopolitical tumult and its impact on military strength.
“A close defense relationship with the US and an energetic domestic defense industry give Israel a qualitative edge over all of the region’s other militaries,” the report stated.
“Israel has space assets, advanced fighter jets, high-tech armed drones, and nuclear weapons. Its air force has incredibly high entry and training standards.”
“Pilot to pilot, airframe to airframe, the Israeli air force is the best in the world,” Chris Harmer, a senior naval analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, told Business Insider.
Harmer’s research was partially used to rank the militaries of the region.
“Israel also has one of the region’s most battle-ready armies, a force that has fought in four major engagements since 2006 and has experience securing a few of the most problematic borders on earth,” the report read.
“Israel’s military has also never attempted a coup or ruled the country directly, unlike several others on this list. Thanks to Israel’s small size, the military can rapidly mobilize its reserves on relatively short notice.”
Turkey was ranked the second most powerful military in the region, followed by Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Iran, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Oman, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen.
Small is beautiful????? 🙂
Israeli friends and enemies = one and the same. The West is Israel’s friend to the last Israeli. The only world leader that stands openly and fully with words and deeds for Israel is Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his trusted ministers. How long he will be allowed on the world stage is only a matter of time.
@ Topaz:
Israel’s allies and enemies – which is which?
<a href="On killing terrorists: the hypocrisy and Obama’s viciously anti-Israel regime “>
The position of the Jews has become untenable, too late for any counter measures to the subservience of its rulers to foreign powers and faiths, subservience masked as a quest for peace. And yes, the past is all but gone; traditions, attitudes, rules in economics are radically changed. “We live in a different world now” and spiritual matters, much less their integration with the substance of daily life, rhythms and events, the true work of Judaism and Israel is being driven from the stage,dumped to make way for the predators appetites.
The 1948 seizure of all of Judaism’s holiest sites and destruction of many others, so key to the Vatican remains the basis from which the further reduction of Israel will proceed.
The glory of the land will not be permitted by a world brutally non-accepting of Jews, One can appease an alienated brother but not a foreign tyrant intoxicated with its own pretensions of divine power.
And so “the past is erased, the erasure is forgotten and the lie becomes truth.” (Orwell 1984) -The world is different, self-denial is not in fashion and in most places it’s a parody of the life it was meant to ennoble: the one nation where this is not so undergoes the process of erasure that began millennia ago. More and more people forget that it ever was or could be different.
I can’t believe we are still hearing this nonsense. There is no hope for Israeli-Palestinian peace BECAUSE the Arabs and the world want ALL OF ISRAEL TAKEN AND EVERY INHABITANT therein SLAUGHTERED. if the Arabs were to accept any peace offering as FINAL, then they could not go on with their Hitler agenda.
The point is the situation in the Middle East is not propitious to making any new political initiatives.
Israel wants to preserve the status quo but Netanyahu does not want to be forced to declare sovereignty over Judea and Samaria.
Its like a Greek tragedy and none of the players are looking to come together in the foreseeable future.