Subscribe to Common Dreams News Updates
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
Netanyahu Cites Secret Deal with Bush to Justify More Settlements
The Israeli government of Benjmain Netanyahu is seeking to deflect Washington's demand for a total settlement freeze by complaining that it ignores secret agreements between his predecessors and the Bush administration that construction in existing Jewish settlements could continue.
The Israelis claim that Ariel Sharon reached an agreement with the Bush administration that West Bank settlements, such as Beitar Illit, above, could be expanded. (Photo: The Independent) The rift between Mr Netanyahu's government and the US appeared to deepen yesterday, with a clear declaration by President Barack Obama that a freeze - including on "natural growth" of West Bank settlements - was among Israeli "obligations".
But Mr Netanyahu's government - which has made it clear it will not accept a total freeze - is pushing to restore at least part of the private "understandings" which it is emerging were struck between Israel and the previous US administration despite the Bush team's repeatedly stated opposition to settlement construction.
The Israeli government is arguing that Ariel Sharon, with reservations, agreed in 2003 to the internationally endorsed Road Map and the withdrawal of 8,000 settlers from Gaza in 2005, only on condition that Israel could proceed with expansion within the physical boundaries of existing West Bank settlements. A senior Israeli official familiar with the current talks with the US said: "When the government of Israel adopted the Road Map... it was based on understandings reached with the US. It is hard for the US to say we have to keep to our commitments but ignore the understandings."
The argument was being pressed in talks that Israel's Defence Minister Ehud Barak was holding in Washington yesterday and is likely to feature in discussions that the US Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, is expected to have with the Israeli leadership here on Monday. Israeli officials are braced for President Obama to repeat his call for a settlement freeze when he makes his major speech on US relations with the Muslim world in Cairo tomorrow
Israeli officials also complain that the new team in Washington is making "no distinction" between settlements in the larger blocs that Mr Bush told Mr Sharon in 2004 he expected would be in Israeli territory in any final status deal with the Palestinians, and those elsewhere in the occupied West Bank. Although the Bush administration later "clarified" that borders were a matter for negotiation, Israel swiftly assumed it was entitled to continue building within such blocs.
There is no sign that President Obama sees himself bound by any such covert oral understandings reached with his predecessor's administration - the status and durability of which has reportedly been challenged with vigour by US officials. Mr Obama told National Public Radio: "I've said very clearly to the Israelis both privately and publicly that a freeze on settlements, including natural growth, is part of those obligations." He added that Palestinians also had parallel obligations to improve security and end incitement.
The senior Israeli official suggested that Mr Netanyahu was ready to reach an agreement with the US precluding settlement-building that would in his view prejudice final status negotiations with the Palestinians, and that this would include not building on E1, the bitterly controversial planned corridor linking Jerusalem to the large settlement of Ma'ale Adumim. The official rejected reports of a secret coalition agreement between Mr Netanyahu and his hard-right Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, to resume E1-building.
But the Palestinians - and for now at least the US - argue that any further settlement construction would prejudice negotiations, not least in Arab East Jerusalem where Mr Netanyahu is determined to keep a free hand in building settlements. Israel annexed East Jerusalem after the Six Day War in 1967, but this has never been accepted by the international community.
Haaretz reported yesterday that Washington was "furious" over plans by the Jerusalem municipality, backed by the Interior Ministry, to build a nine-storey 200-room hotel in East Jerusalem, just 100 metres from the Old City, which includes a Palestinian market and kindergarten.
The row has exposed the extent that the Bush administration was willing to sanction settlement-building, despite its publicly stated policy. Dov Weisglass, who was the closest lieutenant of then-prime minister Sharon, said in a newspaper yesterday that the deals originated in a 1990s agreement on "natural growth" which was further refined in 2002, "though the Americans completely denied the existence of the understandings". They have been confirmed by Bush administration assistant secretary of state Elliott Abrams.
Mr Weisglass said it had been agreed between Mr Sharon, himself, Mr Abrams and another US official, Stephen Hadley, that settlement growth could continue provided it did not involve new settlements, that no further "Palestinian land" would be expropriated, that expansion would be within the "existing construction line" and that public funds would not be used to encourage settlements. The Bush administration's secretary of state, Condoleeza Rice, confirmed the agreement, he said.
21 Comments so far
Show AllAny document bearing the stink of international terrorist and serial perjurer Elliott Abrams should be repudiated immediately, lest the current administration's policies be seen as a continuation of the previous one.
Or am I too late?
This administration IS A CONTINUATION OF THE PREVIOUS ONE. Obama only wants to APPEAR to be doing something positive for the Muslim world. Truth is, we need oil...mucho oil...and we can only get it by killing, raping and stealing. It would be awkward to make friends with Mulims, and then bomb them. It's much easier to bomb and occupy people when you make them out to be evil people...thus the pressure on the puppet Afghan and Pakistani gov'ts to kill those evil Muslims. Thus Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, secret goulags, etc...all to kill evil Muslims and set the table for grabbing their natural resources.
Palestine is the "potential carrot" in all of this BUT REMEMBER: The moment we deliver on Palestine, we no longer have it as a card. The trick is to APPEAR to be making progress, but to NEVER resolve anything.
"Truth is, we need oil...mucho oil...and we can only get it by killing, raping and stealing."
Funny, why does no one think of actually PAYING for the oil? I mean directly, not through the blood of our children and their people. I'm sure Iraq would have made a deal that would have cost us less than three trillion dollars. I remember reading somewhere that Hugo Chavez was willing to give us a long-term arrangement at $50/barrel if we would just get the CIA and NED terrorists off his back. No deal. This country is full of control freaks.
"The trick is to APPEAR to be making progress, but to NEVER resolve anything."
Exactly. That has been Israel's strategy all along. Just keep negotiating and promising to negotiate, all the while creating "facts on the ground," i.e., massive settlements and infrastructure in Palestinian territory. This will make it nearly impossible to force them out -- remember the media coverage of screaming, weeping settlers when Israel unilaterally turned Gaza into an open air prison?
Tanya Reinhart made a strong case about the endless negotiation tactic in her book, originally published in 1998, Israel/Palestine: How to End the War of 1948.
What is truly amazing is how the government and media have made Americans believe that we get some substantial amount of oil from the Middle East. With the exception of crude from Saudi Arabia, we don't get much from over there. Here are the numbers from the Energy Information Administration for 2007, the 2008 numbers are pretty much the same:
Top 10 exporters of finished gasoline to the United States:
1. United Kingdom 25.147 million barrels (total for the year)
2. U.S. Virgin Islands 23.590
3. France 11.209
4. Canada 10.605
5. Netherlands 10.518
6. Norway 8.406
7. Germany 8.351
8. Russia 7.387
9. Italy 7.239
10. OPEC Countries 5.516
For 2007, our Top 10 exporters of crude oil to the U.S. in million barrels were:
1. Canada 680.533 million barrels (total for the year)
2. Saudi Arabia 530.245
3. Mexico 514.48
4. Venezuela 419.841
5. Nigeria 394.856
6. Angola 181.215
7. Iraq 177.009
8. Algeria 161.755
9. Ecuador 72.138
10. Kuwait 64.306
'Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.' - Pete Townsend
OUR GOVERNMENT LEADERS, INCLUDING OBAMA, SAY TO THE WORLD THAT THE ISRAELI'S SHOULD STOP BUILDING IN THE SETTLEMENTS, BUT TO THE ISRAELI'S THEY SAY: " GO AHEAD BUILD ALL YOU WANT AND WHILE YOUR AT IT KILL AND TORTURE AND STARVE THOSE HEATHEN MUSLIMS, AFTER ALL, IT'S WHAT WE'VE BEEN DOING FOR ALMOST A DECADE NOW"!!
"to deflect Washington's demand for a total settlement freeze by complaining that it ignores secret agreements between his predecessors and the Bush administration that construction in existing Jewish settlements could continue."
Who the hell is Bush to give the Israelis authority to build anything in Palestine through ethnic cleansing?
Plus, the dialogue is being manipulated, here...THIS IS NOT ABOUT SETTLEMENT FREEZE. THIS IS ABOUT PUSHING MY EXTENDED EUROPEAN FAMILY BACK TO THE 1967 BORDERS...
...for a start.
There are almost 2 Billion Muslims in the world. I don't want them coming after my family because my government commits war crimes against them right out in th open. I say we stop the crusade to save our families from otherwise certain future retribution, when technilogy makes weapons a lot smaller, more accessible and a lot more lethal.
"Who the hell is Bush to give the Israelis authority to build anything in Palestine through ethnic cleansing?"
You got that right.
Israel is nothing more than an immoral and illegal invasion, and I have every sympathy with those who are engaging in the resistance of their genocidal oppressors.
Iraq allegedly violated int'l law and the USA invaded the country.
Israel has violated int'l law since 1967 and the USA continues to give Israel $7 million/day.
There will be no peace until the USA stops its hypocritical behavior and Israel obeys the law.
Israel must return to its pre-1967 borders. That is the law. The Israel regime, by its behavior, is a criminal regime.
I think it's really more than $15 million of our tax dollars per day to Israel. *5,525,800,000 divided by 365 days = $15,139,178. If someone has better figures, please let us know. My figures, and the following text, are from
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/stats/cost_of_israel.html
Recently Americans have begun to read and hear that “Israel receives $3 billion in annual U.S. foreign aid.” That's true. But it's still a lie. The problem is that in fiscal 1997 alone, Israel received from a variety of other U.S. federal budgets at least $525.8 million above and beyond its $3 billion from the foreign aid budget, and yet another $2 billion in federal loan guarantees. So the complete total of U.S. grants and loan guarantees to Israel for fiscal 1997 was $5,525,800,000.
Probably the only members of Congress who even suspect the full total of U.S. funds received by Israel each year are the privileged few committee members who actually mark it up. And almost all members of the concerned committees are Jewish, have taken huge campaign donations orchestrated by Israel's Washington, DC lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), or both.
Israel's 1995 per capita gross domestic product was $15,800. That put it below Britain at $19,500 and Italy at $18,700 and just above Ireland at $15,400 and Spain at $14,300.
All four of those European countries have contributed a very large share of immigrants to the U.S., yet none has organized an ethnic group to lobby for U.S. foreign aid. Instead, all four send funds and volunteers to do economic development and emergency relief work in other less fortunate parts of the world.
The article states: "The senior Israeli official suggested that Mr Netanyahu was ready to reach an agreement with the US precluding settlement-building that would in his view prejudice final status negotiations with the Palestinians ..."
The key phrase here, of course, is "in his [Netanyahu's] view," a typical Israeli negotiating stance that precludes good-faith negotiation.
And what conceivable West Bank settlement-building might there be that would NOT prejudice final status negotiations with the Palestinians? Successive Israeli governments have promoted settlements for decades, creating the ubiquitous "facts on the ground" that are clearly meant to do precisely that.
The only question is whether or not Obama will put an end to this charade and cut off aid to Israel over the settlement issue, as Bush the Elder did.
Bet not.
Can we please respect the secret agreements? We must vote elite candidates (O'Bamba/McKane) in respect for secret agreement that we cannot see. We must hand over all our wealth to elites in respect for secret agreements that we cannot see. Please support secrecy, intellectual property, proprietary information. Unto Israel go the spoils for privileged carnal knowledge. The secret pact with Caligula of Rome.
Oh, this could get interesting.
Americans have a secret agreement with Mr. Netanyahu.
Were the agreement with George Bush, of course, Mr. Netanyahu could not be so dense as to expect Obama to honor it: Obama does not look or sound like Bush, though he has done a better imitation in terms of policy than his supporters apparently imagined possible.
But Mr. Netanyahu has a problem: apparently no one has told the Americans that they have an agreement.
Ah, such insular people!
Keep one foot on the ground, Mr. Netanyahu, and keep your people from shame.
Marriage requires witnesses for a reason. When these boys get excited, they promise and promise. Did you get to meet his mother? Do you know where his father works? Did he walk with you in public in front of his own people without shame?
Maybe women should be running all these countries. I have to doubt Golda Meir would have made such a mistake.
Why do we accept the word 'settlements'? The people who live in them aren't 'settlers', they're squatters. The so-called settlements are in violation of the Geneva Accords. Of course, neither we nor the Israelis give a damn about the Geneva Accords, but they're still the foundation of international law.
Perhaps somebody can come up with a replacement for 'settlements' that doesn't sound so acceptable and admirable.
Good point.
Let's call the COLONIES!
Ragdoll
Obviously even Israel recognizes that their claims to the Palestinian territories are utterly illegitimate! Otherwise why indeed these secret conversations!
Best point of the year.
I just watched Obama'a speech at Cairo Universitity. It's funny. I start to loose my "hope" sometimes because he seems to compromise so much or give in so much at times. But when I hear him speak, he makes so much sense as far as the unity, cooperation, come together thing that I am amazed.
I think it was a good speech. I'll have to watch it again to say more. He didn't seem to shy away from hard stuff.
But the next thing is I want to see things action... It's easy to know what to say... now let's follow through...
I would recommend reading rather than listening to political speeches.
I would also recommend watching politicians speak with the audio muted.
This may sound strange, I know, but go ahead and try it. It really helps you see what's there instead of what they want you to see...
take care
ps btw reading rather than listening was the standard advice back when a certain skilled orator was active in my neck of the woods - please don't ask who that was... ;-)
Secret agreements between governments . . . hmm, heard about that in history once . . . oh yeah, the Great (aka the First World) War.
Secret agreements are illegal agreements.
"The Israeli government of Benjmain Netanyahu is seeking to deflect Washington's demand for a total settlement freeze by complaining that it ignores secret agreements between his predecessors and the Bush administration that construction in existing Jewish settlements could continue."
When did Israel start asking the U.S. for permission to do anything they felt was in their best interest?
Bebe knows darn well that stuff changes when Regimes change. He'll get over it. Maybe he can give some thought to what would happen if we quit giving them arms and money. What goes around comes around Bebe. Smarten up.