Зарегистрирован: 06.03.2005 Сообщения: 12000 Откуда: Обер-группен-доцент, ст. руководитель группы скоростных свингеров, он же Забашлевич Оцаат Поэлевич
Добавлено: Понедельник, 1 Июнь 2009, 18:25:42 Заголовок сообщения: Ни фига себе разговорчики пошли!
СМИ: Белый дом грозит прекратить поддерживать Израиль в ООН
Эти меры призваны символизировать изменение политики Белого дома и уход от принципов, провозглашенных президентом Бушем
Нетаниягу выступил на заседании парламентской комиссии по внешним делам и обороне и заявил, что не приемлет требование США о полном замораживании строительства в поселениях
Администрация Барака Обамы намеревается уменьшить поддержку, оказываемую Вашингтоном Израилю в ООН, если Биньямин Нетаниягу не согласится полностью заморозить строительство в Иудее и Самарии.
Об этом пишет в понедельник, 1 июня, газета The New York Times со ссылкой на официальные источники в Белом доме.
По информации издания, речь идет об отказе налагать вето на антиизраильские резолюции, регулярно выдвигаемые Советом безопасности ООН, а также использовании статуса американского президента для публичной критики поселенческой экспансии.
В то же время в статье подчеркивается, что эти изменения политики не коснутся выдачи займов, уже обещанных еврейскому государству. Кроме того, там содержатся уверения в том, что Израиль был и останется важнейшим союзником США, и никто из нынешних политиков не представляет себе иного положения дел.
The New York Times пишет также, что эти меры призваны символизировать изменение политики Белого дома и уход от принципов, провозглашенных президентом Бушем и признанных нынешней администрацией "бесполезными". Источник, на который ссылается издание, полагает, что арабский мир оценит усилия Обамы и поддержит его план ближневосточного урегулирования.
Отметим, что позже газета "Гаарец" сообщила: официальный Иерусалим опровергает информацию о возможном отказе Белого дома блокировать антиизраильские резолюции в ООН.
Напомним, что ранее в понедельник глава правительства Израиля Биньямин Нетаниягу выступил на заседании парламентской комиссии по внешним делам и обороне и заявил, что не приемлет требование США о полном замораживании строительства в поселениях.
Биньямин Нетаниягу заверил присутствующих, что не собирается строить новые поселения и намерен демонтировать форпосты, возведенные незаконно, но вместе с тем подчеркнул: "заморозить жизнь в Иудее и Самарии невозможно". Он добавил к вышесказанному, что судьба поселений будет решаться в рамках окончательного урегулирования и что строительство в поселениях, которое необходимо с учетом естественного прироста населения, продолжится.
WASHINGTON — As President Obama prepares to head to the Middle East this week, administration officials are debating how to toughen their stance against any expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
The measures under discussion — all largely symbolic — include stepping back from America’s near-uniform support for Israel in the United Nations if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel does not agree to a settlement freeze, administration officials said.
Other measures include refraining from the instant Security Council veto of United Nations resolutions that Israel opposes and making use of Mr. Obama’s bully pulpit to criticize the settlements, officials said. Placing conditions on loan guarantees to Israel, as the first President Bush did nearly 20 years ago, is not under discussion, officials said.
Still, talk of even symbolic actions that would publicly show the United States’ ire with Israel, its longtime ally, would be a sharp departure from the previous administration, which limited its distaste with Israel’s settlement expansions to carefully worded diplomatic statements that called them “unhelpful.”
Mr. Obama is to give a much-anticipated speech to the Muslim world from Egypt on Thursday. “There are things that could get the attention of the Israeli public,” a senior administration official said, touching on the widespread belief within the administration that any Israeli prime minister risks political peril if the Israeli electorate views him as endangering the country’s relationship with the United States.
But, the official added, “Israel is a critical United States ally, and no one in this administration expects that not to continue.” He spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the issue publicly.
White House officials said Mr. Obama would not make the Cairo speech entirely about the Arab-Israeli conflict, but would instead seek to engage Muslims on the panoply of issues facing Islam and the West, including Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran.
But the core issue, administration officials said, is the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. “I want to use the occasion to deliver a broader message about how the United States can change for the better its relationship with the Muslim world,” Mr. Obama told reporters last week. “But certainly, the issue of Middle East peace is something that is going to need to be addressed. It is a critical factor in the minds of many Arabs in countries throughout the region and beyond the region.”
The trip, stemming from a visit scheduled to commemorate trans-Atlantic ties — Mr. Obama plans to walk the beaches of Normandy with President Nicolas Sarkozy of France and visit the site of the concentration camp that his great-uncle helped liberate at Buchenwald in Germany — will also now offer Mr. Obama an opportunity to define how he plans to navigate America’s relationship with the Muslim world.
He will begin the Middle East leg of the trip in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where he will take King Abdullah a wish list from not just himself, but from Israeli and Palestinian officials as well. Officials said Mr. Obama was hoping that King Abdullah would agree to make an overture to Israel that could, in turn, get Israel to move more quickly on a peace process.
Israeli officials would love to see Saudi Arabia open an interests section in Tel Aviv (Saudi Arabia would never put one in Jerusalem because Palestinians see the city as the site of their future capital), or issue a few symbolic tourist visas for Israelis, or agree to hold open meetings with Israeli counterparts. These would be a tall order for the Arab kingdom, which has, thus far, eschewed taking much of a role that could be seen as acknowledging Israel.
Meanwhile, Palestinian officials want Mr. Obama to prod King Abdullah to provide more aid for the Palestinian Authority, which the Saudis have largely set aside in recent months as the Palestinian political system has become increasingly fractured.
White House officials said they wanted greater Arab acceptance of Mr. Obama’s peace plans. But past American presidents — particularly George W. Bush — had sought the same without much luck.
“Now that Obama has raised the pressure on the Israelis when it comes to settlement freeze, it’s time to start raising pressure on the Arab states for something in return,” said Ghaith al-Omari, a former negotiator for Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president. “Saudi is the key to unlocking the rest of the Arab world.”
Saudi Arabia may also be part of the key to addressing the morass in Pakistan. Obama administration officials are hoping to get Saudi Arabia to use its influence with the Pakistani opposition leader, Nawaz Sharif, to figure out a way to bring some stability to Pakistan’s tumultuous politics as President Asif Ali Zardari becomes increasingly unpopular.
In addition, Mr. Obama will probably touch on his outreach to Iran, and his withdrawal plans for Iraq. He will talk about his decision to shut down the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and refer in his speech to the contributions of Muslims to American society and the world as a whole, aides said.
But Mr. Obama’s remarks in Egypt, though aimed at the Muslim world, will also be carefully parsed in Israel, foreign policy experts said. The president will be walking a fine line between reassuring Israel that America will remain a guarantor of Israeli security and between sounding a warning that he is getting impatient with the slow movement toward Palestinian statehood.
When asked on Thursday what he would do if Mr. Netanyahu continued to balk at a settlement freeze, Mr. Obama said he was not yet ready to offer an “or else.” “In my conversations with Prime Minister Netanyahu, I was very clear about the need to stop the settlements; to make sure that we are stopping the building of outposts; to work with the Palestinian Authority in order to alleviate some of the pressures that the Palestinian people are under in terms of travel and commerce,” Mr. Obama said.
“That conversation only took place last week.” _________________ A la guerre comme a la guerre или вторая редакция Забугорнова
Зарегистрирован: 06.03.2005 Сообщения: 12000 Откуда: Обер-группен-доцент, ст. руководитель группы скоростных свингеров, он же Забашлевич Оцаат Поэлевич
The United States will be more blunt in raising objections to Israel's settlement policies in the Palestinian territories than previous administrations, President Barack Obama told a U.S. radio network in an interview on Monday.
"Part of being a good friend is being honest," Obama told National Public Radio. "And I think there have been times where we are not as honest as we should be about the fact that the current direction, the current trajectory, in the region is profoundly negative, not only for Israeli interests but also U.S. interests.
"We do have to retain a constant belief in the possibilities of negotiations that will lead to peace," he added. "I've said that a freeze on settlements is part of that."
When asked about Israel's refusal to commit to a complete settlement freeze, the president told NPR it was still too early to determine what measures the administration could take to pressure Jerusalem.
"It's still early in the process," Obama said. "They've [Israel] formed a government, what, a month ago?"
"We're going to have a series of conversations," the president told NPR. "I believe that strategically, the status quo is unsustainable when it comes to Israel's security," Obama said. "Over time, in the absence of peace with Palestinians, Israel will continue to be threatened militarily and will have enormous problems on its borders."
Tensions between the Obama administration and Benjamin Netanyahu's government are nearing crisis levels after senior American officials harshly criticized the prime minister and his settlements policies on Monday.
"The Israelis apparently wanted to check if we are serious on settlements, and they found out that we are," a senior official told Haaretz. "This has nothing to do with the speech in Cairo, and it's going to be our position after the speech in Cairo, because we believe it's in Israel's long-term security interests."
Last night Defense Minister Ehud Barak met in New York with the U.S. special envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell. The American told Barak that the U.S. was no longer willing to return to the understandings between the Sharon and Olmert governments and the Bush administration, which allowed continued settlement construction.
Mitchell said the administration was particularly unhappy about the Netanyahu government's unwillingness to recognize the principle of two states for two peoples.
Mitchell also emphasized that the U.S. does not accept the concept of "natural growth" for the settlements.
"We did not hear from the Bush administration about any of these so-called understandings with Israel on the settlements - all of which were supposedly oral understandings between different people every time," said one senior American official.
"But we've never heard a thing about them - they certainly weren't formal agreements between our governments. "The Israelis want us to commit to oral understandings we have never heard about, but at the same time they are not willing to commit to written agreements their government has signed, like the road map and commitment to the two-state solution."
The disagreement over the understandings concerning the settlements produced an embarrassing encounter in London last week during a meeting between Mitchell, Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor and a number of Netanyahu's advisers.
At the meeting, the Israelis claimed there was a letter between former president George W. Bush and former prime minister Ariel Sharon stating that the settlement blocs would remain in Israeli hands, so construction is permitted there. Mitchell showed the Israelis that one of the letter's sections discusses the principle of two states for two peoples. "That is also written in the letter - do you agree to that?" he asked.
Despite the growing American pressure, which also came out in the leak to the New York Times that the U.S. intended to end its support for Israel in UN debates, Netanyahu continues to say he will not agree to a total freeze of construction in the settlements.
In a meeting of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Monday, Netanyahu said that "we will agree not to take any new territory, but we will not agree to freeze life in the settlements. _________________ A la guerre comme a la guerre или вторая редакция Забугорнова
Зарегистрирован: 06.03.2005 Сообщения: 12000 Откуда: Обер-группен-доцент, ст. руководитель группы скоростных свингеров, он же Забашлевич Оцаат Поэлевич
The myth of "natural population growth" doesn't impress Col. (res.) Shaul Arieli, nor do the stories about little children from good Jewish homes who are left without a kindergarten. Arieli, who in the late 1990s served as deputy military secretary to former prime minister and incumbent Defense Minister Ehud Barak, did the calculations and found that one third of Israelis living in the territories (not including East Jerusalem) settled there during the Oslo years and another third after the peace process was suspended.
Expressed in numbers: From 1992-2001, the number of Jewish settlers increased by approximately 93,000 and four settlements were added; in the period from 2001-2009, another 95,000 settlers were added to the population and 100 additional outposts established.
As for East Jerusalem, 45 percent of Israelis living in East Jerusalem moved there after the Oslo agreement.
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And now for the total: While 32 settlements (not including East Jerusalem) were established in the territories between 1967 and 1977, housing some 6,000 settlers, today 127 Jewish settlements can be found in the territories, alongside another 100 outposts, housing a total of 295,000 settlers.
It doesn't take a demographer to deduce from Arieli's figures that "natural population growth" - even at a record 3.4 percent per annum (which is twice the national average among Jews) - cannot explain a 100 percent growth to the settlers' population in 2001-2009.
Sansana says it all
When the heads of the Barack Obama administration ask Defense Minister Ehud Barak about the latest news about the Jewish settlements in the territories, Barak had better not swear that on his watch, no new settlements were constructed. U.S. satellites are photographing every new house in the territories and the American consulate in Jerusalem is reporting on every new building plan that is submitted to the planning commissions. It is therefore highly likely that they also conveyed the story about the settlement of Sansana.
More than two months ago it was reported here that with Barak's special authorization, the Civil Administration deposited a detailed master plan for building this small settlement in the southern Hebron Hills. The first stage involves the retrospective koshering of the illegal construction of more than 50 housing units, which the settlement's inhabitants put up near the Green Line (the pre-Six-Day War border). The plan's second stage foresees the approval of some 400 additional units.
The plan depicts Sansana as an expansion of the Eshkolot settlement - even though a distance of three kilometers separates the two sites, there is no road connecting them and the separation fence runs between them.
At the time, the Defense Minister's Bureau asserted that Sansana had been established in accordance with Cabinet Decision 3951, dating back to 1998, to establish six new settlements along the seam line, and that the planning had been approved in 2003.
But a more recent investigation has shown that there is no connection between Master Plan 3951 and the new plan for Sansana. According to the coordinates mentioned in 3951, Sansana was supposed to be built within the jurisdiction of the Bnei Shimon regional council, located within the Green Line, and not in the jurisdiction of the Hebron Hills regional council, located in the West Bank. This fact also emerges from the aerial photograph appended to the government's decision. Meanwhile, the detailed master Plan for Sansana (505/1) was deposited and prepared in accordance with the Jordanian planning law, as required in the procedure to approve settlements.
Ergo, Sansana was built in the occupied territories, contrary to the government's decision.
Nir Shalev, from the Bimkom - Planners for Planning Rights non-profit organization, which has submitted an objection to the plan, says Sansana fits some of the criteria of an illegal outpost: There is no government decision for its establishment in the territories and it does not have an approved master plan.
The Defense Minister's Bureau has not denied the facts. It was explained that the settlement was allotted state lands, which are "adjacent" to the Green Line, in order to avoid uprooting planted woods. Moreover, the bureau claims that Sansana is located west of the security barrier. It is worth recalling that in the context of the road map, Israel undertook not to construct any new settlements anymore. The world has never recognized the "route of the barrier" as the route of the settlements.
A police state - then and now
Under a plea bargain reached with the prosecution, Gregory Lerner is expected to spend many more years in prison. Within the next few days the oligarch will be found guilty, by virtue of his confession, of stealing NIS 62 million from 2,500 investors, most of them immigrants from the Confederation of Independent States. In the previous round, Lerner was sentenced to six years in prison and a steep fine, after confessing to embezzling about $48 million from three Russian banks and attempting to bribe politicians.
At the height of the first investigation into Lerner's activities, at the end of July 1997, Avigdor Lieberman (the incumbent foreign minister) - who served at the time as director general of the Prime Minister's Bureau under Benjamin Netanyahu (who was prime minister then, as now) - called an urgent press conference. "Investigations against Russians," Lieberman declared, "are part of a witch hunt the likes of which were seen only during the McCarthy era in the United States. What is wrong with a person donating money to institutions or to individuals? Why aren't they examining the donations made by Mr. [Nahum] Manbar, who is accused of spying for an enemy country? In the social climate we have created, anyone who has succeeded has to be screwed, and any nuisance and informer becomes a police stool-pigeon."
On that same occasion, this very loyal citizen suggested a flattering definition of the State of Israel: "We are much more of a police state than a law state." It would be interesting to find out whether Lieberman still holds the same beliefs today, now that his party has gained control over the police. _________________ A la guerre comme a la guerre или вторая редакция Забугорнова
Зарегистрирован: 06.03.2005 Сообщения: 12000 Откуда: Обер-группен-доцент, ст. руководитель группы скоростных свингеров, он же Забашлевич Оцаат Поэлевич
The intent of the anonymous Internet video was unambiguous: "This person should be killed — and soon," read a message underneath a photo of Israel's deputy state prosecutor, Shai Nitzan.
His alleged offense? "Betraying" his Jewish roots by opening a criminal inquiry into racist threats and hate speech expressed on two Israel-based Facebook pages with statements in Hebrew such as "Death to Arabs."
It was the latest, and most overtly violent, sign of what many here are calling a wave of intolerance toward people of different races, religions, orientations and viewpoints.
From rabbinical prohibitions against renting homes to "non-Jews" to government crackdowns on left-wing activists, Israelis are grappling with their nation's identity and character.
Across the political spectrum, some see the struggle as a threat to Israel's democratic ideals. Opposition leader Tzipi Livni, of the centrist Kadima party, warned that "an evil spirit has been sweeping over the country." Defense Minister Ehud Barak said a "wave of racism is threatening to pull Israeli society into dark and dangerous places."
Faced with a Cabinet move to force non-Jewish prospective citizens to declare loyalty to a "Jewish state," government minister Dan Meridor parted with fellow members of the conservative Likud Party in opposing the motion. After the motion won Cabinet approval, he said, "This is not the Israel we know."
A recent Israel Democracy Institute poll found nearly half of Jewish Israelis don't want to live next door to Arabs. But the list of unwanted neighbors didn't stop there. More than one-third didn't want to live next to foreigners or the mentally ill, and nearly one in four said they wouldn't want to share a street with gays or the ultra-Orthodox.
"A Time to Hate," was the headline in the newspaper Haaretz this month. Some have compared the hostile climate to 1995, shortly before a right-wing fanatic assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
"The immune systems of Israeli society are clearly crumbling," Labor Party lawmaker Daniel Ben-Simon said.
To some, the timing of the rising intolerance is surprising because it comes during a period of relative security and prosperity. The number of terrorist attacks in Israel dropped last year to its lowest level in more than a decade, and Israel's economy is growing faster than those of most other countries.
Ben-Simon said the lack of pressing outside threats might be contributing to the domestic friction.
"The stronger the external tension, the more repressed the internal tension," he said. "Any lull in outside pressure causes the internal ones to rise…. This led people to feel that if they're squared off with the outside and feel secure enough, 'Let's fight a bit.'"
The rise of Israel's nationalist and religious parties might also be playing a role. Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu party and the religious Shas party now account for about one-third of the ruling coalition's seats in the parliament, or Knesset, and have emerged as key players in advocating a conservative agenda in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition government.
Party leaders say their agenda is not about intolerance but is designed to instill Jewish values in the government, and preserve the Jewish character of Israel. They point to their growing popularity among voters as evidence of public support for their programs.
But critics say Arab Israelis and foreigners have borne the brunt of their agenda.
Last month, dozens of municipal rabbis issued an edict against renting or selling real estate to non-Jews, particularly Arab citizens. A group of rabbis' wives followed with a public letter urging Jewish women to avoid contact with Arab men.
Meanwhile, the Knesset is considering a bill that would allow Israeli communities to form local committees that could ban prospective residents based on race, sexual orientation or marital status.
Israel's rising population of migrant workers is also drawing fire. Ultra-Orthodox city leaders in the Tel Aviv suburb of Bnei Brak have tried to ban the rental of apartments to foreigners and pressured landlords who resisted.
In Ashdod, some African immigrants narrowly escaped death when their front door was set afire with a burning tire. In Petah Tikva, Girl Scouts born in Israel to African parents were beaten on their way home by attackers who called them names.
Tolerance of differing political viewpoints also appears to be shrinking.
The Knesset this month gave its provisional approval to an investigatory committee to examine the foreign funding of leftist and pro-Palestinian groups that criticize Israel's military. Leaders of the targeted groups likened the move to a "McCarthyist witch hunt" designed to silence government criticism.
But it's not only liberals and minority groups who are facing attack. Some of the same religious and political groups who are backing the crackdowns on Arabs and leftists are also feeling the rise of intolerance.
After lawmaker Faina Kirschenbaum — part of the Yisrael Beiteinu party, which includes many Russian immigrants — introduced the motion to investigate left-leaning organizations, her office received a letter reading, "A good Russian is a dead Russian," and characterizing Russian immigrants as "whores, thieves and hooligans."
Last fall, a radio talk-show host launched into an on-air tirade about welfare payments to non-working ultra-Orthodox men, calling the men "parasites."
And Arab Israelis, according to the Israel Democracy Institute poll, appear just as intolerant. About two-thirds said they wouldn't want to live next to Jewish settlers, the ultra-Orthodox or gay couples. About half preferred not to live near foreigners.
Some question whether the tide of intolerance is rising at all, saying the public debate in Israel has been hijacked by extremists in part because of the weakness of the centrist and liberal political parties.
Bambi Sheleg, founder of the magazine A Different Place, a respected social affairs journal, said she doesn't think Israelis are becoming more xenophobic, but that extremist viewpoints are receiving more attention.
"Israeli society consists of a gigantic center," she said. "But there is no one to lead it and its voice isn't heard."
She expressed hope that the recent trend would trigger a backlash among Israeli centrists that would lead to more tolerance.
"We are on the threshold of the understanding that we all have to live here together and compromise," she said. "These are growing pains." _________________ A la guerre comme a la guerre или вторая редакция Забугорнова
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