The pretense of an American “victory” in last week’s settlement row was short-lived, indeed, but everyone seemed pretty keen to sweep the whole messy incident under the rug, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visiting the US this week. It seems however that the right-far-right coalition in Israel isn’t finished thumbing its nose as President Obama’s attempts to kick-start negotiations.
Earlier today, just hours before Netanyahu was scheduled to meet with Obama, the Jerusalem municipal government made a very public announcement about a comparatively minuscule settlement expansion. Only 20 apartments were approved, but after shaming Vice President Biden with an ill-timed announcement, Israel had supposedly agreed to a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that would keep such embarrassing announcements out of the public spotlight. The announcement came anyhow, and the timing seemed to be designed, again, to court controversy with the Obama Administration.
Shortly later, Netanyahu was on the offensive again. Following up yesterday’s claims that Israel was ready at any time to restart peace talks with the Palestinians, the prime minister threatened to block all peace efforts for the next year unless the Palestinians abandoned their “illogical” demands to stop expanding settlements in occupied East Jerusalem.
It seems at this point any pretense of working with the Obama Administration has been abandoned, and the Netanyahu government is now openly shoring up its support among US Congressmen for the inevitable showdown. With a large number of Congressmen eager to condemn President Obama for anything resembling criticism of the Netanyahu government, it seems the prime minister is looking to ensure that those Congressmen remain at the ready, and the Obama Administration has plenty of things to criticize.
98% of Congress ought to be declared enemy combatants and shipped off to Guantanamo Bay. For once I could support the existence of that gulag. Those traitors will back Israel all the way against the United States. Netanyahu knows this and he has the mentality of a prison rapist calling Obama the new fish. That is why he keeps giving Obama and Biden the finger. He wants them to know who is boss.
Resolving the conflict over Jerusalem:
See:http://after-the-false-peace.blogspot.com/2010/03…
Not really! This great peacenik since he was waddling around in diapers would delay peace talks?
And how original of him, he must really be angry to bang his rattle on the playpen like that.
He might even spit out his pacifier but he wants the arms and the money – and Congress will give them to him.
what peace talks? the whole process is a lie.
The Israelis won’t stop until they have taken sufficient “lebensraum” from the underclass.
I suspect the politicians are merely posturing to censure Israel because Israel is "so on the nose" with the general public……it's not what the politicians say it's what they do…are they stopping any aid money or penalising Israel?
I think the pattern of protesting Israeli building on occupied lands and doing nothing to actually stop it is a dead letter and a continuing embarrassment to the American people and our government. I suggest a new approach – instead of protesting the building of new housing, insist that it be opened to all residents of Jerusalem and the West Bank, Jewish and Arab, alike, with clear guidelines to assure both parties will be well represented in the new housing. This will allow the building of needed housing to continue without prejudice to final status talks. More importantly, it will give the Obama administration the ground it needs to trump the Likud's powerful American champions in the minds of the American people and the Congress.
Hitler is alive and well in the person of Netanyahu. And the U.S. Congress is filled with TRAITORS beholding to Israel. AIPAC – ALL are TRAITORS to the U.S. Remember the USS Liberty!