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Benjamin Netanyahu Tag

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 22, 2014 13 Comments
Part of the big news today is that multiple airlines have cancelled flights to Ben-Gurion Airport in Israel as a result of a rocket landing in a town nearby. At first it was unclear if this was a unilateral action, or under pressure from governments. It appears that the FAA and European aviation authority issued a temporary order to that effect. El Al continues to fly, as do some other airlines. But one cancellation can have a ripple effect as other airlines are questioned whether they are putting passengers at undo risk in light of other airlines' can The implications are enormous. Whether intended or not, Hamas has made the case as to why it's rocket arsenal and infrastructure must be dismantled no matter the cost. It also has justified why Israel cannot give up security control of Judea and Samaria (the "West Bank"). Hamas has to fire a long way to scare away air traffic, but from the West Bank it's practically a stone's throw. Alan Dershowitz points out, Has Hamas ended the prospects for a two state solution?(h/t Roger Simon):

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 15, 2014 31 Comments
How expansive is electronic espionage? Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly does not have a computer in his office, does not use email and does not have a private phone. I read a while ago that he even uses hand signals in some situations, although I can't find the link now. There's every reason to believe many major national intelligence agencies have similar capabilities, they just don't have Edward Snowdens willing or able to walk off with the proof. You know, imprisoned or dead families could be the consequence elsewhere. So frustrated with U.S. snooping is Germany that it is considering going to old school typewriters, via The Guardian, Germany 'may revert to typewriters' to counter hi-tech espionage:
German politicians are considering a return to using manual typewriters for sensitive documents in the wake of the US surveillance scandal. The head of the Bundestag's parliamentary inquiry into NSA activity in Germany said in an interview with the Morgenmagazin TV programme that he and his colleagues were seriously thinking of ditching email completely. Asked "Are you considering typewriters" by the interviewer on Monday night, the Christian Democrat politican Patrick Sensburg said: "As a matter of fact, we have – and not electronic models either". "Really?", the surprised interviewer checked. "Yes, no joke", Sensburg responded.
While typewriters might be harder to spy on, they hardly are foolproof, as the U.S. Embassy in Moscow discovered back in the day (1986): Soviets Bug Typewriters in U.S. Embassy * * * Soviets Bug Typewriters in U.S. Embassy sounds More on the typewriter espionage here:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 07, 2014 12 Comments
Israel is undergoing intense soul searching, as a nation, for the actions of what are believed to be 6 Israeli Jews in murdering an Israeli Arab teen, Mohammed Abu Khedair, in retaliation for the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teens, Gil-ad Shaar, Eyal Yifrach and Naftali Fraenkel. Much of that criticism is internal. Members of Israel's Knesset unanimously condemned the murder, as has every prominent Israeli leader. The Editor in Chief of The Times of Israel writes that " the killing of Muhammed Abu Khdeir must rid us of the illusion that we enjoy a distinctive moral superiority over our neighbors." An Israeli Jewish group is organizing a visit to the family of the murdered teen. Israeli President Shimon Peres termed the murder a crisis of morality:
President Shimon Peres says Israel is in a deep crisis of morality following the arrest of six people in the killing of Palestinian teen Muhammed Abu Khdeir last week. “We did not believe that such a heinous crime could take place among our people. We mustn’t be such a people,” Peres says. “Today ‘out of Zion shall go forth the shame,’” he says, paraphrasing a famous Bible quote. “There is no justification for death and no crime is more acceptable than another,” the president adds. “My heart aches with the grieving Abu Khdeir family and with the grieving Shaar, Yifrach and Fraenkel families.”

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 24, 2014 10 Comments
Excellent analysis in the left-wing Haaretz newspaper by journalist Ari Shavit, Waiting for the Palestinian Godot:
There are some moments a journalist will never forget. In early 1997, Yossi Beilin decided to trust me, and show me the document that proved that peace was within reach. The then-prominent and creative politician from the Labor movement opened up a safe, took out a stack of printed pages, and laid them down on the table like a player with a winning poker hand. Rumors were rife about the Beilin-Abu Mazen agreement, but only a few had the opportunity to see the document with their own eyes or hold it in their hands. I was one of those few. With mouth agape I read the comprehensive outline for peace that had been formulated 18 months earlier by two brilliant champions of peace -- one, Israeli, and one, Palestinian. The document left nothing to chance: Mahmoud Abbas is ready to sign a permanent agreement. The refugee from Safed had overcome the ghosts of the past and the ideas of the past, and was willing to build a joint Israeli-Palestinian future, based on coexistence. If we could only get out from under the Likud’s thumb, and get Benjamin Netanyahu out of office, he will join us, hand in hand, walking toward the two-state solution. Abbas is a serious partner for true peace, the one with whom we can make a historic breakthrough toward reconciliation. We understood. We did what was necessary. In 1999, we ousted Likud and Netanyahu. In 2000, we went to the peace summit at Camp David. Whoops, surprise: Abbas didn’t bring the Beilin-Abu Mazen plan to Camp David, or any other draft of a peace proposal. The opposite was true: He was one of the staunchest objectors, and his demand for the right of return prevented any progress.

Posted by David Gerstman on April 23, 2014 7 Comments
Fatah and Hamas have reached an agreement to put their differences behind them and form a unity government. The New York Times reports:
The two groups — the Palestine Liberation Organization, which runs the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, and Hamas, the militant Islamist group that dominates the Gaza Strip — have reached similar accords before that were never carried out. But the latest deal comes as the fragile American-brokered peace efforts between the Palestinians and Israel are approaching an April 29 deadline without a resolution in sight. People familiar with the discussions have said the Israeli and Palestinian sides were far apart even on how to extend the talks past the deadline.
The Times article ends in typical understatement.
Analysts remained skeptical about whether the Palestinian reconciliation efforts would lead to a tangible change on the ground, because neither of the factions has shown interest in genuine power-sharing in the past, and they have deep differences over how to deal with Israel, which Hamas does not recognize. Even so, some experts said that the latest effort at reconciliation appeared more serious than past attempts, because both factions are under growing pressure. Gaza under Hamas has been severely weakened by an Egyptian crackdown on the smuggling tunnels along the Gaza-Egypt border and an Israeli blockade. And Mr. Abbas, for his part, has faced growing criticism from West Bank residents about the negotiations with Israel and his own legitimacy, with Palestinian elections long overdue. He has threatened to dissolve the Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule in the West Bank, if the talks with Israel end in failure.
No Hamas does not recognize Israel. It is also a genocidal terrorist organization devoted to destroying Israel. Note terror is not mentioned.

Posted by David Gerstman on April 07, 2014 7 Comments
Last month, Jeffrey Goldberg published an interview with President Barack Obama, ahead of Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu's trip to the United States to attend the AIPAC conference. The President wasn't at all friendly in the interview, warning (in Goldberg's words) that "time is running out." Roughly four weeks later, Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority refused to continue negotiations with Israel. Is there a connection between the two? Put a different way, in the words of Neo-Neocon Did Obama Sabotage Kerry on Peace Talks? The answer is "yes," and here's how. There are two points that Obama made in his interview worth recalling. Answering a question from Goldberg about Abbas, President Obama said:
We don’t know exactly what would happen. What we know is that it gets harder by the day. What we also know is that Israel has become more isolated internationally. We had to stand up in the Security Council in ways that 20 years ago would have involved far more European support, far more support from other parts of the world when it comes to Israel’s position. And that’s a reflection of a genuine sense on the part of a lot of countries out there that this issue continues to fester, is not getting resolved, and that nobody is willing to take the leap to bring it to closure.

Posted by New Neo on March 08, 2014 25 Comments

Or is this story even true? Is it actually one of those "good-cop/bad-cop" tales instead? It's difficult to say, but I vote ever-so-slightly for "true." My opinion of John Kerry is very low, but I think more of him than I do of Obama. The following seems...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 04, 2014 2 Comments
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is addressing the AIPAC conference this morning.

Posted by Mandy Nagy on March 03, 2014 31 Comments
President Obama has been meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today. From the Washington Post:
Seeking to salvage an elusive Middle East peace plan, President Barack Obama pressed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Monday to make the “tough decisions” needed to move forward on talks with the Palestinians.But facing a U.S.-imposed April deadline, the Israeli leader declared pessimistically that, “Israel has been doing its part and, I regret to say, the Palestinians have not.” Obama and Netanyahu spoke before an Oval Office meeting on a snowy Monday in Washington. The meeting marked a more direct foray by Obama into the peace negotiations, which he has so far largely ceded to Secretary of State John Kerry.
Barak Ravid, a correspondent with Haaretz Newspaper, posted tweets from the event - a handful are included below.  (Video added -- Transcript here)

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 02, 2014 21 Comments
Jeffrey Goldberg has carved out what for a journalist covering the Middle East is an enviable niche -- vigorously pro-Israel yet not anti-Obama. When Bibi Netanyahu lectured Obama on the Middle East in a White House press conference in 2011, Goldberg leapt to Obama's defense with the following declaration:
Dear Mr. Netanyahu, Please Don’t Speak to My President That Way
That niche is why Goldberg landed an interview with Obama on the eve of Netanyahu's visit to the White House, detailed in Goldberg's column today, Obama to Israel -- Time Is Running Out. The interview is best described as preparing the public for what is to come: The Obama administration twisting Bibi's arm off as to John Kerry's "framework" under the threat of the U.S. stepping aside from defending Israel against the worldwide, decades-long lawfare and boycott movement. It's the same threat John Kerry made several weeks ago, but now it's coming from Obama's own lips, as Goldberg noted (emphasis added):
On the subject of Middle East peace, Obama told me that the U.S.'s friendship with Israel is undying, but he also issued what I took to be a veiled threat: The U.S., though willing to defend an isolated Israel at the United Nations and in other international bodies, might soon be unable to do so effectively. “If you see no peace deal and continued aggressive settlement construction -- and we have seen more aggressive settlement construction over the last couple years than we’ve seen in a very long time,” Obama said. “If Palestinians come to believe that the possibility of a contiguous sovereign Palestinian state is no longer within reach, then our ability to manage the international fallout is going to be limited.”
For Goldberg to characterize Obama's statement as a "veiled threat" is pretty significant. To me, it wasn't a veiled threat, it was just a threat.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 02, 2014 5 Comments
Anyone who has read this blog the past months knows that I take the international boycott threat against Israel very seriously. It is a venomous movement conceived by propagandists that has had some success in Europe, but few victories in the U.S. Israel has lived all of its existence under boycott. The current boycott movement is a shadow of the Arab League boycott that started even before Israel was a nation and grew with great force as Arab oil wealth grew in the 1970s. Yet somehow Israel's economy survived and prospered nonetheless, helped in great part by U.S. anti-boycott legislation that mostly kept the boycott disease from our shores. The Israeli economy is more diverse, high tech, and privatized than it was in the 1970s. Israel also is less dependent on Europe, and a sought-after participant in the global economy, most of which wants no part of the boycott movement.  The leverage of Europeans who capitulate to anti-Israel groups is much less than in the past. The U.S. Congress also could significantly deflate the boycott movement once again by extending current legislation to cover the new form of boycott movement.  Congress should do so now, and in so doing will aid the peace process by letting the Palestinians know that they cannot achieve more through international boycotts than through negotiations. While it seems invincible because largely unchallenged, the boycott movement is susceptible not only to legislation, but the type of pushback academic boycotters in the U.S. are receiving. The boycott movement, while it should be taken seriously and combatted, should not be allowed to dictate Israel's strategic security needs as part of peace negotiations. Doing business with a few extra European banks will be a hollow achievement if the West Bank is turned into another Gaza-style Iranian missile base. Don't let the boycott tail wag the security dog. Yet John Kerry is playing the boycott card to pressure Israel, running around like chicken little screaming that the sky is falling.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 25, 2013 38 Comments
I don't think it's overstatement to say that Obama successfully has isolated Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by bringing the major world powers plus Germany into an Iran nuclear agreement publicly opposed by Netanyahu (and quietly by many Arab countries). The perennial thorn in Obama's Mideast side stands almost alone in publicly opposing the deal.  The agreement helps keep the Mullahs in power through removal of sanctions while normalizing Iranian uranium enrichment.  More than that, the statements accompanying the deal announcement treat Iran as the regional power to resolve a host of issues, including Syria. In exchange, Iran agrees to slight compromises that push back the "breakout" period to produce a nuclear weapon by a few weeks or months at most. Jeffrey Goldberg assesses Israel's isolation, In Iran, Obama Achieves 50 Percent of His Goals:
U.S. President Barack Obama has had two overarching goals in the Iran crisis. The first was to stop the Iranian regime from gaining possession of a nuclear weapon. The second was to prevent Israel from attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities. This weekend, the president achieved one of these goals. He boxed-in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu so comprehensively that it's unimaginable Israel will strike Iran in the foreseeable future. Netanyahu had his best chance to attack in 2010 and 2011, and he missed it. He came close but was swayed by Obama’s demand that he keep his planes parked. It would be a foolhardy act -- one that could turn Israel into a true pariah state, and bring about the collapse of sanctions and possible war in the Middle East -- if Israel were to attack Iran now, in the middle of negotiations.
I think it's much broader than forestalling an Israeli attack.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 24, 2013 17 Comments
The nuclear agreement with Iran is being touted by the Obama administration as a significant step in keeping Iran from moving towards nuclear weapons. In reality, the agreement is confirmation of Iran's uranium enrichment program at a relatively high level, although some of the highest level enrichment is supposed to be suspended. The fact is that in return for a weakening of sanctions that were putting great pressure on Iran, the centrifuges keep spinning, the facilities are maintained, and at best the length of time for an Iranian nuclear "breakout" has been lengthened for a short period. Eli Lake at The Daily Beast notes the significance:
Under the interim agreement Iran will be allowed to enrich uranium at low levels. Iran's foreign minister, Javad Zarif said the deal recognized his country's nuclear program. This is a major victory for Iran whose leaders have insisted for nearly a decade that it has the right to enrich uranium under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Officially, the Obama administration has not recognized that any country has this right under the treaty. It has argued that Iran has to adhere to the terms of prior U.N. Security Council resolutions that prohibit Iran from enrichment.
It is smoke and mirrors, allowing the Obama administration to declare diplomatic victory, change the subject, and create the straw man argument that anyone opposed to the agreement wants war. https://twitter.com/JohnCornyn/status/404624480837722112 https://twitter.com/dansenor/status/404626184865996800

Posted by David Gerstman on October 13, 2013 8 Comments

When you read the first few news dispatches below from the past year and a half, keep this photo in mind. Aid Groups and U.N. Agencies Urge Israel to Lift Gaza Blockade - The Associated Press - June 14, 2012 Fifty international aid groups and United Nations agencies urged Israel...

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