Obama is attempting, through Kerry to achieve a Framework that both parties accept but to make it more palatable to the parties there has to be a transition period, presumably for many years if ever. It would be an agreement in principle. No doubt it would define the future borders and provide for a divided Jerusalem. Bibi would like a framework agreement only if the agreed borders gives Israel more than both the PA and Obama are willing to give. What Bibi wants is an agreement that will allow Israel construction in the areas we keep. He isn’t going to get his framework and Obama isn’t going to get his.

One more issue of note. Gaza has been left out of discussions. It complicates making a deal with J & S. Ted Belman

[Full transcript]
Obama said:

“What we do have to test is the possibility that we can resolve this issue diplomatically.”

“Iran cannot… will not advance its (nuclear) program,”

Iran is engaging in other activities that are “detrimental to the United States.”
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YNET

Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon delivered a speech on the issue of Israel-PA talks, saying that “some say it is the source of instability in the Middle East. We wonder – is really this conflict the source of Mideast instability? All that is happening in Tunisia, Egypt, Syria has nothing to do with this conflict. Nor does the Iranian issue. This conflict is local, but not the biggest in the Mideast. 

“As someone who supported Oslo, I’ve learned that there is no partner on the other side for two states for two peoples. There isn’t on the other side, nor was there ever since the birth of Zionism, a leadership that was willing to recognize our right to exist as the nation State of the Jewish people,”

“We will not negotiate an inch, a millimeter of land if we don’t realize that we have a partner that discusses recognition, the end of conflict and conceding the right of return.”
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Obama is obviously feeling the heat from Bibi’s criticisms. He is rhetorically kissing up to the Jews. So long as his framework is centered on accepting the ’67 lines and dividing Jerusalem, it should be rejected. Ted Belman

DEBKAfile Special Report December 7, 2013,

US President Barack Obama addressed the Iranian nuclear and Palestinian issues in terms sympathetic to the Israeli case at the Saban annual forum in Washington Saturday, Dec. 7.

On the final accord with Iran, he spoke of constraints for making sure Iran was prevented from attaining a nuclear weapon.

He then called on the Palestinians to accept that the current round of talks with Israel would produce, at best, a framework accord, which could be achieved in months, without covering in full all the details of their dispute. It would also omit the Gaza Strip and a provide for a transition period before a final settlement.
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When Israel Finds Itself in the American Bazaar

By Shoshana Bryen, American Thinker…

Last week, in the context of the P5+1/Iran negotiations I wrote:

We’re familiar with the rules for buying a rug in the souk. If you want the rug more than he wants the deal, you will overpay; if he wants the deal more than you want the rug, you win. But either way, money and rug will change hands. Alternatively, if you want to buy a rug and he wants to sell a camel, no matter how ardently you bargain there will be no deal. Unless you change your mind and take the camel.

The P5+1 was negotiating an end to Iran’s nuclear program; Iran was negotiating the conditions under which it would continue to enrich uranium. Then the White House changed sides, agreeing with Iran on future enrichment and undermining the now P4+1. Read more…

Wilders Contrasts Papal Ecumenism, With Jew/Infidel-Hatred of Current Sunni Pope Al-Tayeb

by Andrew Bostom, December 6th, 2013

In a blog yesterday (12/5/13), I analyzed recent statements and actions by the two most recent Catholic Popes, Benedict XVI, and his successor, the current Pope, Francis. I further contrasted their ecumenical words and deeds with the overt, canonical Jew-hatred espoused by their Sunni Muslim  counterparts, Al Azhar University Grand Imam Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi (d. March, 2010), and his successor, the current Grand Imam of Al Azhar University, Ahmad al-Tayeb. Myconclusions are reproduced, below:

Former Pope Benedict XVI, and current Pope Francis have openly expressed their ecumenism toward Jews and Judaism, while acknowledging Christianity’s indebtedness to Jewish ethical values. This ecumenical message has been coupled to frank, mea culpa-based contrition for the tragic legacy of Christian antisemitism. The disparity between their attitudes and their two contemporary Sunni Muslim equivalents, Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi and Ahmad Al-Tayeb—the latter having emphatically and triumphantly re-asserted the modern relevance of canonical Islam’s conspiratorial Jew-hatred—could not be more striking.
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By Adam Kredo, Washington Free Beacon, Dec 6, 2013

Congressional opposition to the recently announced nuclear accord with Iran reached a critical tipping point this week as lawmakers from both sides of the aisle publicly lambasted the deal while pushing for tighter economic sanctions on Tehran.

As the details of an interim nuclear deal reached last month in Geneva become clear, Congressional opposition has grown, leaving the White House to sell a deal that even its allies have dubbed as worrisome.

The White House held a classified briefing with members of Congress on Wednesday to push them against passing new sanctions in 2014, giving Iran at least another year of economic reprieve, according to Rep. Brad Sherman (D., Calif.).
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By Ilan Ben Zion, TOI

There’s zero trust between Israel and the Palestinians, Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman said Friday night, voicing scant hope for a peace agreement by the end of the nine month period allotted for the American-brokered peace talks.

Speaking in Washington at the Brookings Institute’s Saban Forum on ”US-Israel Relations in a Dynamic Middle East,” Liberman said negotiations with the Palestinians must start “not from security and not from refugees, but from some simple thing I call trust, confidence, credibility.”

“Without trust and credibility — mission impossible,” he said. The foreign minister said past treaties were made between Israeli and Palestinian rulers, not the respective peoples.

“I think we must reach a real comprehensive solution with the Palestinians and not with the rulers,” he said.
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“I do not want to be spared of the troubles which Israeli musicians encounter…”

By Tom Gross, Mideast Dispatch, December 05, 2013

While some other leading artists are calling for a boycott of Israel, I can now reveal that Evgeny Kissin, generally regarded as one of the world’s greatest living pianists, will on Saturday take Israeli citizenship.

By David Solway, PJM

Back in July of 2008, presidential candidate Barack Obama visited Sderot, the southern Israeli city battered by rocket fire from Gaza, and delivered a speech emphasizing Israel’s right to defend itself and stressing that “peace should not undermine its security.” He vowed that he would not, as president, force Israel to make dangerous concessions and warned that “the world must prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.” The Israeli leadership — not least the irresponsible and spineless Ehud Olmert — and many of the country’s citizens, including the leftist, anti-Zionist newspaper Haaretz, could scarcely restrain their enthusiasm for the fine words and noble sentiments expressed by the president-in-waiting.
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FORD…………Well worth 7 minutes to watch. History

This was BEFORE Pearl Harbor !!!

Ford’s B-24 Bomber Plant at Willow Run, MI.

Henry Ford was determined that he could mass produce bombers just as he had
done with cars.

He built the Willow Run assembly plant and proved it. It was the world’s
largest building under one roof.

This film will absolutely blow you away – one B-24 every 55 minutes.

ISRAEL HAYOM

Has Israel lost the Negev?
Among the Bedouin community, Israeli laws barring polygamy amount to no more than rumors, and no one has ever even heard of the building code • The Bedouin have all but taken over the Negev and turned it into a neighboring country.

David M. Weinberg | In support of the Prawer-Begin plan

Many of the protesters have anything but Bedouin interests in mind.

By CAROLINE GLICK, JPOST

US Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Israel on Wednesday to put additional pressure on Israel to make more concessions in land and political rights to the PLO in Judea and Samaria. To advance his current effort, Kerry brought along retired US Marine Gen. John Allen.

According to media reports, Allen presented a proposal to address Israel’s security concerns and so enabled the talks about Israeli land giveaways to proceed apace. The proposal involved, among other things, American security guarantees, a pledge to deploy US forces along the Jordan River and additional US military assistance to the IDF.

These Obama administration proposals are supposed to allay Israeli concerns that withdrawing Israeli forces from the Jordan Valley and the international border crossings with Jordan will invite foreign invasion and aggression, and increased Palestinian terrorism.
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By Aaron Y. Zelin, The Washington Institute

The latest umbrella organization for key rebel factions in Syria may not include U.S.-designated terrorist groups, but it does oppose many U.S. objectives.

The recent merger of several Syrian rebel groups into the Islamic Front (IF) is one of the war’s most important developments. Although the political and military opposition has long been fragmented, the new umbrella organization brings seven groups and their combined force of 45,000-60,000 fighters under one command. It also links the fight in the north and the south. Most notably, though, it affirms the troubles Washington will have setting policy in Syria going forward.
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By Ari Yashar, Arutz Sheva Staff

Day of Rage over Prawer plan

Knesset parties Yisrael-Beytenu and Jewish Home recently agreed to act together to torpedo the “Prawer-Begin Plan,” which seeks to organize Bedouin settlement in the Negev. The parties charge that relevant information has been hidden from MKs in the debates.

Ted Belman

Kerry is here to say Israel security key in peace talks and and to bring new ideas on security.

Obviously Netanyahu hyas boxed himself into a corner by stressing our security needs and not mentioning our legal rights to J&S and our desire or intent to keep a large portion of area C.

Fortunately, Palestinians reject US security ideas for Israel peace accord
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BY BARRY RUBIN

Articles in the Israeli media based on analysis of security in 2014 present a surprisingly optimistic assessment, though not from a U.S. perspective and still with some warnings.

Most of the work is by Ron Ben Yishai, and it poses a very different, and, I think, more accurate view than in the rest of the world.

Direct conventional threats to Israel decreased dramatically due to internal conflicts and conflict among hostile states.

Second, while there are a greater number of terror groups, they are more diffuse and divided (especially along Sunni-Shi’a lines). As Ben Yishai points out, “Sinai and Syria have at the moment–and will likely have next year too–good, existential reasons to try not to get entangled in a wide-scale conflict with Israel.”
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By Ted Belman

Kerry is in town. I don’t believe a word he’s saying.

Maariv reported on Wednesday said that 2,000 hectares (about 5,000 acres) of West Bank land that is privately owned by Palestinians — but is in areas where Israel exercises military and civilian control — will be given to Palestinians in the next 90 days for agriculture and commerce.

Apparently, Israel had bowed to a U.S. request to hand over the land to show that it is prepared to allow Palestinian projects to be advanced in these areas. There was no official Israeli comment on the report.
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By Geoffrey Goldberg, Bloomberg

In an interview with Charles Gati in Politico Magazine, Zbigniew Brzezinski, who served as national security adviser to Jimmy Carter, proves once again that he is a man of profound religious faith. He worships at the Church of Linkage, which holds that Israel’s settlement policy on the West Bank is the primary cause of Middle East instability and a principal cause — if not the main cause — of the U.S.’s troubles in the Muslim world.

Before I go on, the usual caveats: The settlement project — especially those settlements far from Jerusalem that have been planted in the middle of thickly populated Palestinian areas — is a strategic and moral disaster for Israel. The settlements should be dismantled. They threaten Israel’s standing in the world; they threaten to undermine the very nature and purpose of Israel. And so on. I’ve written before about the threat that settlements pose, at great length.
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Europe’s intellectual establishment obsessively preaches and works for Israel’s disappearance.

Giulio Meotti, INN

Most of our European intellectuals believe that Israeli land must be given over to Islamic rule, by force if necessary.

Italy’s most renowned philosopher, Gianni Vattimo, who is also a member of the European Parliament, slammed Israel as a “racist state”, a state which, he said, “should not exist”.

In 2007, Vattimo signed a manifesto calling Israel “Nazi” and saying that in Gaza there are “concentration camps”. Among the signers, the famous poet Edoardo Sanguineti and other Italian cultural personalities.
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INSS Insight No. 492, December 4, 2013
Gilead Sher

Israel and the EU recently reached a last minute compromise enabling Israel to join the EU’s research and development program, Horizon 2020. Nonetheless, the EU guidelines adopted earlier this year relating to the settlements in the West Bank will likely continue to jeopardize Israel’s international economic interests. In another development regarding Israel’s international legitimacy, nearly three years after the Israeli takeover of the ship Mavi Marmara, the Comoros Islands, where the ship was registered, filed a complaint against Israel with the International Criminal Court. There is temporary relief in the last minute understanding reached between the EU and Israel regarding Horizon 2020, and in negligible prospects for the Comoros ICC claim against Israel. However, Israel operates in an increasingly complicated and delicate environment, which demands constant sensitivity and accommodation to the numerous facets of the international arena
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