US cancels Netanyahu meet over settlements: report

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Agence France-Presse

US cancels Netanyahu meet over settlements: report
17 mins ago

JERUSALEM (AFP) – Washington called off a meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the US Middle East envoy because of Israel's refusal to halt settlement growth, an Israeli newspaper said.

The mass-selling Yediot Aharonot, quoting an unnamed Israeli official, said that Washington issued a "stern" message to Netanyahu to halt all settlement activity on occupied Palestinian land, including so-called "natural growth" within existing settlements.

"Once you've finished the homework we gave you on stopping construction in the settlements, let us know. Until then, there's no point in having (US Middle East envoy George) Mitchell fly to Paris to meet you," the official said.

The meeting with Mitchell was to take place in Paris during Netanyahu's first visit to Europe since taking office earlier this year at the head of a hawkish right-wing government.


Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090624/wl_afp/mideastdiplomacyussettler

[azurnoir]

1. Israel has already done it's "homework" and responded

Defense Minister Ehud Barak has authorized the building of 300 new homes in the West Bank, defying U.S. calls for a halt to settlement growth.

The new construction is located around 13 kilometers east of the Green Line, on the "Palestinian" side of the separation barrier. According to the Sasson Report, this outpost was built without government approval and without a master plan and damaged private Palestinian property.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1095031.html

[peacebird]

4. and Professor Obama flunked their first "effort" and said try again

[azurnoir]

5. Hopefully they'll do better; but judging by the excuses

I have seen on another forum here they're working the hardest on excuses as to why they should not have to "retake" the test

ETA example here

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=124x278770

[saigon68]

2. They are going to need him

To deal with Iran's nuke sites.

[azurnoir]

3. Need who? n/t

[madokie]

7. President Obama is my guess

Sorry but I see Isreal as the problem there with no answers whatsoever

[lark]

15. Not as long as we keep subsidizing them

to the tune of billions (trillions?) of dollars each year. Our government has and it appears pretty much always will dance to the AIPAC tune, no matter how venal it is.

[saigon68]

11. The big Net Nannie and his Air Force

[Scurrilous]

6. Migrants boost Jewish settler numbers in West Bank

<snip>

"Israelis moving to the West Bank accounted for more than a third of settler population growth in recent years, undercutting Israel's argument that it is continuing settlement construction only to accommodate growing families already living there.

The so-called "natural growth" rationale for building on land the Palestinians claim for a future state has vaulted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu into an unusually vocal and public clash with the Obama administration, which has come out strong against continued settlement expansion.

Settlement construction is expected to be the focus of a meeting in Washington next week between Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak and America's top Mideast envoy, George Mitchell, a longtime settlement critic.

Opponents say the government invokes "natural growth" as a cover to build thousands of houses across the West Bank, including hundreds that Palestinian laborers are building in Maaleh Adumim, a major settlement outside Jerusalem.

"The Israelis are playing a game of deception by what they call natural growth," said Yasser Abed Rabbo, a senior aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Data from Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics supports that argument, showing that in 2007, 36 percent of all new settlers had moved from Israel or abroad."

more

[Zhade]

12. More like LAND THIEVES boost numbers. This is not their land.

In the Wild West, poachers like this would have been hung.

[sofa king]

17. But in New York, they open silverware factories.

And form associations to make sure they keep the land they stole. Actually, they do similar things out west, too. Most of you reading this are living on land purchased from the Indians. Rarely were the Indians fully paid for it, even though the highest law of the land--the treaties our government drafted with the tribes--often guarantees that they should be.

In fact, having spent a lot of time working for and with American Indian tribes, I cannot help but notice that the realities of the Palestinian situation are very similar to that of the tribes in the 1860s. Both are subjugated nations given limited citizenship and movement by the nation subjugating them. Both are squeezed onto tiny reservations. Both had their territory guaranteed time and again, only to have it nipped and stolen through various ruses. Both periodically rebelled against their tormentors, and those actions were portrayed as "savage," with little attention given to the circumstances from which the violence arose.

And there's another thing, one which is certain to buy me some flak. Both the American Indians and the Palestinians suffered the very most from their own refusal to rise above the tribal politics in which they are embroiled. Tribes and loose coalitions of tribes can always be defeated by a nation-state, and usually cannot improve their status without politically evolving into a nation-state themselves. If the Palestinians cannot politically align themselves around issues other than the "death to Israel" thing, they may be destined to share the same fate.

[harmonicon]

8. now if they'd just cancel the checks, maybe some progress could be made

[western mass]

9. No lunch for you, Bibi!

That'll teach ya we mean business!

[Number23]

10. Fantastic

Kicked and Rec'd

[subcomhd]

13. Cancel the money too!

That'll get their attention.

[lark]

16. Please don't hold your breath

it won't happen. Obama may whine and moan, but actually cut the funds that Israel is using to build these illegal, immoral settlements - I'll believe it when I see it. If he actually takes concrete action against this travesty, he'll be the bravest politician in American history. Wouldn't that be awesome to see?

:fistbump:

[subcomhd]

18. Not Holding Breath

The last time anyone even said "boo" to them about the money was (strangely) during Bush I. I guess that was pre-neocon days in the GOP.

Baker Firm on Guarantees as Mideast Talks Resume
By John M. Goshko
The Washington Post

Secretary of State James A. Baker III gave Israel a blunt public warning Monday that unless it stops building Jewish settlements in occupied territories, it will not get $10 billion in U.S. loan guarantees to help resettle hundreds of thousands of immigrants from the former Soviet Union...........

I think the United States has the right to know, if we go forward with this, that we're not going to be financing, directly or indirectly, something we oppose and have opposed since 1967," Baker said. Israel captured the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem during the 1967 Middle East War, and its subseequent settlements activity in these areas has been characterized by successive U.S. administrations as "unhelpful" or "an obstacle to peace."

http://tech.mit.edu/V112/N8/baker.08w.html

[subcomhd]

19. Brave Obama Action

He and Clinton would only have to be as brave as (of all people) BushI/James Baker. There you have an American Sec. Of State calling the settlements what they are - illegal. Obama basically picked up where Baker left off - a point that should be made to any GOPers on this issue.

But Baker/Bush were willing to deny the Israeli government loan gaurantees - Obama has yet to go that far - at least publicaly.

[lunatica]

21. And why would GOPers make this point?

That's like saying they were wrong once within their own party but got away with it subsequently. GOPers never admit such things. They always brag about their lockstep lemminglike activities. They're still doing it, right over the cliff.

[subcomhd]

22. TO GOPers not BY them

It should be pointed out TO them when the criticize Obama for not following Likud Part line

[incapsulated]

14. Well, well...

This is more hardline than I expected.

[Douglas Carpenter]

20. God Bless President Obama!