Clearly President Obama's strategy of fueling a dispute with Israel over settlements and the non-existent peace process, while at the same time placing no demands on the Palestinians for their complete aversion to peace is having the result he desires. His decision has been to downgrade the relationship with Israel so that he can forge an alliance with the Muslim world of his birth has degraded American support for Israel.
The evidence show that the operative part of the disagreement (expansion of existing settlements) between Obama and the Israeli government is a LIE. Obama through his Secretary of State Ms Clinton says that there was never an agreement between Israel and the US about natural expansion of existing settlements. Elliot Abrams who negotiated the agreement for the United States says that is simply not true:
We asked Mr. Sharon about freezing the West Bank settlements. I recall him asking, by way of reply, what did that mean for the settlers? They live there, he said, they serve in elite army units, and they marry. Should he tell them to have no more children, or move?
We discussed some approaches: Could he agree there would be no additional settlements? New construction only inside settlements, without expanding them physically? Could he agree there would be no additional land taken for settlements?
As we talked several principles emerged. The father of the settlements now agreed that limits must be placed on the settlements; more fundamentally, the old foe of the Palestinians could -- under certain conditions -- now agree to Palestinian statehood.
In June 2003, Mr. Sharon stood alongside Mr. Bush, King Abdullah II of Jordan, and Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas at Aqaba, Jordan, and endorsed Palestinian statehood publicly: "It is in Israel's interest not to govern the Palestinians but for the Palestinians to govern themselves in their own state. A democratic Palestinian state fully at peace with Israel will promote the long-term security and well-being of Israel as a Jewish state." At the end of that year he announced his intention to pull out of the Gaza Strip.
The U.S. government supported all this, but asked Mr. Sharon for two more things. First, that he remove some West Bank settlements; we wanted Israel to show that removing them was not impossible. Second, we wanted him to pull out of Gaza totally -- including every single settlement and the "Philadelphi Strip" separating Gaza from Egypt, even though holding on to this strip would have prevented the smuggling of weapons to Hamas that was feared and has now come to pass. Mr. Sharon agreed on both counts.
These decisions were political dynamite, as Mr. Sharon had long predicted to us. In May 2004, his Likud Party rejected his plan in a referendum, handing him a resounding political defeat. In June, the Cabinet approved the withdrawal from Gaza, but only after Mr. Sharon fired two ministers and allowed two others to resign. His majority in the Knesset was now shaky.
......Throughout, the Bush administration gave Mr. Sharon full support for his actions against terror and on final status issues. On April 14, 2004, Mr. Bush handed Mr. Sharon a letter saying that there would be no "right of return" for Palestinian refugees. Instead, the president said, "a solution to the Palestinian refugee issue as part of any final status agreement will need to be found through the establishment of a Palestinian state, and the settling of Palestinian refugees there, rather than in Israel."Abrams goes on to show that President Obama is Lying it was even reported in the NY Times:
On the major settlement blocs, Mr. Bush said, "In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli populations centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949." Several previous administrations had declared all Israeli settlements beyond the "1967 borders" to be illegal. Here Mr. Bush dropped such language, referring to the 1967 borders -- correctly -- as merely the lines where the fighting stopped in 1949, and saying that in any realistic peace agreement Israel would be able to negotiate keeping those major settlements.
On settlements we also agreed on principles that would permit some continuing growth. Mr. Sharon stated these clearly in a major policy speech in December 2003: "Israel will meet all its obligations with regard to construction in the settlements. There will be no construction beyond the existing construction line, no expropriation of land for construction, no special economic incentives and no construction of new settlements."
Ariel Sharon did not invent those four principles. They emerged from discussions with American officials and were discussed by Messrs. Sharon and Bush at their Aqaba meeting in June 2003.
They were not secret, either. Four days after the president's letter, Mr. Sharon's Chief of Staff Dov Weissglas wrote to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that "I wish to reconfirm the following understanding, which had been reached between us: 1. Restrictions on settlement growth: within the agreed principles of settlement activities, an effort will be made in the next few days to have a better definition of the construction line of settlements in Judea & Samaria."
Stories in the press also made it clear that there were indeed "agreed principles." On Aug. 21, 2004 the New York Times reported that "the Bush administration . . . now supports construction of new apartments in areas already built up in some settlements, as long as the expansion does not extend outward."
Over the past few weeks the President of the United States has attacked Israel's "natural" expansion of settlements more than he has attacked the tyrants in Iran who are killing their own people. The basic contention of the attack, that there was no US/Israel deal, like so much of what Obama has said is an outright lie.
For the full Abrams Story go here Hillary Is Wrong About the Settlements
1 comment:
FROM CAROL HERMAN
This story reminds me of an old political observation. A bunch of blind men are told they must describe "what's in the bag." While the bag contains a giant elephant.
Each man sticks his hand in. And, being blind, their fingers are observant. SO they describe what they touch. While NO ONE gets the BIG PICTURE. They are touching only parts.
Whatever Obama thought would happen; here's a key. Obama thought "hmm, FDR had his radio conversations." Obama will use, instead, his teleprompter.
And, it hasn't worked. Five months into Obama's campaign to make nice to the Islamists ... has produced backfire. Whether you smell it. Or not.
Heck, you can even check Livni's poll numbers, here! IF Obama had been successful? This woman could put her tuchis into the prime minister's seat. But it shows ya. Getting 28 seats in the Knesset; one more than Bibi's Likud; what did it bring out except that Livni is a stupid politician. She turned down a golden offer! Why? She wasn't given a turn to "rotate" with Bibi. So now? She "rotates" alone; twisting slowly in the breeze. (You mean you didn't know this?)
Obama may be sealing the coffin shut on the democrapic tent, for all you know. What do you think when AMericans actually hear about Rham and his "Rham-ming" through legislation that unpalatable? (Please. Don't tell me you're scared.)
God watches over Israel in strange ways. Yet, for the record. Every American president that played dirty, in some way or other, became mediore to poor, when rated by history. My list? LBJ. Nixon. Carter. And, both Bush's.
You think Hillary walks around caped in her husband's high ratings? I think she's a poor performer, just like Livni. Does the ballot box have to hit you in the head for you to see this?
If you knew history, you'd know the real Abraham Lincoln had about 3 good weeks in office. (When he put General Grant in charge; General Grant also met with six months worth of battle failures. But unlike his predecessors, he did not suffer from FATIGUE.)
Finally, following Gettysburg, Grant began meeting enormous success! Appomattox, where Lee surrended. And, that was the ballgame. All good news about 3 weeks before the elections in November 1864. Oh, yeah. General McLellan was the democrapic condendah, then. He came in at the bottom. Lincoln got more votes than his competitors.)
Winning means you have the strength to go the distance.
Heck, in WW2, Hitler was on a role. And, do you know what happened? The germans were shocked to learn he lost the ballgame, and took them all down the toilet. Don't confuse "costumes" with reality.
The reality is that the GOP put up a brain dead opponent, to Obama. Did you know the GOP "accepted the media's dictate?" The media said McLame could win. NOT.
Sometimes, what you read is just the tip of the iceberg.
You're now "post Cairo." Which got wiped out by June 12th's fraudulent election results in Iran.
You need to hear, yet, another apology? WHY?
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