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Today's Top News
Israelis Reject US Loan 'Threat'
Israeli officials have shrugged off a suggestion that the US could withhold loan guarantees to pressure Israel over the Middle East peace process.
An Israeli bulldozer is seen stopped at a new housing project in the West bank on December 2. The European Union has criticised Israel for listing some Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank as special zones, saying the move is against the spirit of a freeze on settlement building.(AFP/File/Jack Guez) The finance minister said Israel did not need the guarantees, while the prime minister accused the Palestinians of holding up peace negotiations.
US envoy George Mitchell said this week the US could withhold loan guarantees to extract concessions from Israel.
The guarantees allow Israel to raise money cheaply overseas.
'Doing fine'
Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz reacted by saying the Israeli economy was doing well.
" Under American law, the United States can withhold support on loan guarantees to Israel "
George Mitchell US Middle East envoy
"We don't need to use these guarantees," he was quoted by Israeli media as saying.
"We are doing just fine. But several months ago we agreed with the American treasury on guarantees for 2010 and 2011, and there were no conditions."
In response to Mr Mitchell's comments, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said: "Everyone knows that the Palestinian Authority is refusing to renew the peace talks, while Israel has taken important and significant steps to kickstart the process."
Palestinian officials say Israel must completely halt settlement building in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which it occupied during the 1967 Israeli-Arab war, before negotiations can resume.
Since he came to office in 2008, President Barack Obama has focused closely on trying to get Israeli-Palestinian peace talks moving, but with little success.
Mr Mitchell, who is due to return to the Middle East this month in his latest attempt to restart negotiations, was asked on Wednesday in an interview with America's PBS how the US could bring pressure to bear on Israel.
"Under American law, the United States can withhold support on loan guarantees to Israel," he said.
Precedents
He noted that support for the guarantees had been reduced in 2003, but added that no sanctions were being considered and that he preferred persuasion.
Former US President George W Bush's administration whittled down backing for the guarantees after Israel built part of its security barrier inside the West Bank.
In 1991, $10bn of loan guarantees were withheld under former President George H W Bush to pressure Israel over the peace process.
The Israeli comments on the loan guarantees came after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton signalled a shift in the US approach by saying that agreeing the borders of a future Palestinian state would deal with Palestinian concerns about settlement building.
Both sides should resume peace talks as soon as possible and without preconditions, she said.
But chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat played down the chances of peace talks, citing settlements.
The Israeli government has refused Palestinian demands for a complete halt to settlement building.
It has limited building work for 10 months in the West Bank, but not in East Jerusalem.
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61 Comments so far
Show AllThe Palestinians are suffering a holocaust under Israel--in the truest sense of the term. A holocaust isn't just a question of numbers; it's an act of genocide. And it's not the right of any one group to use the term. The Palestinian holocaust has been going on for over 60 years and has slaughtered thousands of Palestinians, mostly children. Thousands more are starving, stateless, and living in poverty. They have no human rights under Israeli apartheid, and their land is daily being stolen and given to Jewish religious fanatics. Through all those years, the US and Europe have shamefully sided with the Israeli war criminals, and US tax dollars have propped up this barbaric nation. Time is running out for the Israelis, since despicable regimes like theirs inevitably crash and burn under their own excesses.
There is NO side here that has the exclusive patent on "right" Its absurd for either one to claim they are the only ones that are blameless. It looks foolish to claim it.
Most importantly, I wish you guys would decide which is which! One group is claiming that Isreal runs the United States and does her bidding. The other group claims that Israel is run by the United States and America calls the shots on what Israel does or doesn't do.
You both can't be right.
Yes, civis, both groups are right, after a fashion. There are shades of grey. For example, in a marriage, sometimes the husband calls the shots but sometimes the wife, sometimes both together. It is never 100% one or the other. Same here. Israel does not care about a lot of US domestic policy and so does not 'run' the US. But it does care about American policy in the Middle East, and military and economic aid from America for itself. On this, they are absolutists and 'run' the US, and inform their lackeys in Congress to do "the right thing". A good way to ascertain what Israel wants is to follow what Lieberman (Likud-CT)says and does. Lieberman chucked over the Democratic Party probably because he felt he really, really needed to be the Senator from Israel, as his first allegiance appears to be to Israel.
But on certain extremist overseas adventures by Israel (attacking Iran), the US government indicates that it cannot and will not back it up when it goes a Public step way too far. And any adventurism of the US into the Middle East that is in agreement with Israeli goals is totally backed and supported by Israel (and heavily pushed and promoted by US Zionists)- like the Bush Wars still raging. This is when Israeli foreign policy LOOKS like it is 'Run' by the US- because Israel sees it in its own self-interest to let the US Think that way. However, for the most part, when it concerns Israeli interests, the US in fact IS run by Israel, like a puppet on a string. And it tells the US to shove it whenever the US asks Israel to do something it does not want to do. A good sign of just who is doing the running.
Just look at the recent severely stupid and lopsided Congressional vote on the UN Goldstone report. A simple UN report without any direct consequences was voted to be condemned by the Congress, when NOBODY ASKED THEM about it. This was a pure Zionist move, to trick and corner the US into aligning with Israel no matter what, and further erode American objectivity in that part of the world, thereby making a US role as an honest broker for peace there IMPOSSIBLE. Read THE ISRAEL LOBBY for elaboration on this, including massive Israeli interference in American political elections, spying on America, and so on. Especially since its role as a Middle East buffer-state against 'commie-nism' is long gone, Israel has no real strategic role now in US interests. See THE ISRAEL LOBBY for more elaboration.
Of course, no side is 'totally blameless' for the last ten years of war with the abysmally-impoverished Palestinians, but with any kind of objectivity, Israel is responsible for about say 90% of the blame. Let's say someone, call him Gaza, throws a drink on someone else, call him Israel, in a bar. It is not then OK for Israel to kill Gaza because of the irritation. I would say the fault lies with Israel. For example, how much irritation has the US had with illegal immigration. Even so, it would not be OK for the US to destroy Mexico because of this. So Israel, the biggest Bully on that block, ought to be assessed almost all the blame for its criminal over-reactions, and its continuous blocking of a real peace process instead of the phony 'peace process' the Zinoists are playing at for public propaganda purposes instead. Yes, you could say the idiot shouldn't have thrown the drink, but still, to kill him and then to kill his family and demolish their neighborhood so it doesn't happen again is an extremist, gangsterish, immoral, illegal action (but so very Bush/Cheney-like).
Israel is a small, paranoid, totally-militarized state. It is a true menace to the area now. And it feels it MUST control any US policy which concerns Israel, or it feels it will perish, as no other nation is now its close friend, certainly no powerful one. And it does Control and Run the US government in that particular arena, along with AIPAC direct-threats of political destruction and harrassment for any US politician who does not tow the Israeli line. But Israel ought to realize that it needs to truly compromise, and make friends within its region and the rest of the world. Or face a very sad future for its people.
The loans can be . . . uh . . . procedurally . . . delayed . . . perhaps . . . for . . . years . . .
The US should refrain from giving Israel genocidal 'absolution' in the United Nations Security Council. Why should they worry about the US withholding loan guarantees when Ol' Bama just gave them a thirty billion dollar gift to buy US weapons to incinerate Palestinean women and children?
What's to worry? We've got Geithner, Bernake, Lieberman and AIPAC over there. They always look out for the mother country.
Mozletoff!
Sorry I do not have the law number but its a real eye opener.
The USA President has to report to the USA Congress periodically verfying that israel has a technological military superiority to the rest of the world.
Why does the USA not withold some real cash dollar military murder welfare aid ?
Letto justifies a right of return from 135 AD but a doubt if he agrees to a full right of return for all Palestinians from 1900 to now, with equal citizenship.
Letto continually ignores that the British realized their mistake in sponsoring an zionist state ( it was inherently too violent).
Letto ignores that israel was founded through the terrorism of Irgun and Stern gang who developed suicide vests and letter bombs.
And the zionists blowing up of 99 British,Arabs and Jews in the King David Hotel when the British were attemptng to roll back their policy of creating a zionist state.
The General Assembly was greatly against a zionist state only USA support created israel. Letto claims there is no stated policy of apartheid, perhaps not but one can not deny a de facto aparthied
from Letto:
- UN's platforms are cynically manipulated by small politics -
Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002
The Congress of the United States supports the efforts by the
President to--
(1) strictly enforce ... all relevant Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq
Well done, Letto! Not many got your implied criticism of America's hypocrisy.
But I did.
'Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said: "Everyone knows that the Palestinian Authority is refusing to renew the peace talks, while Israel has taken important and significant steps to kickstart the process."'
Continuing the construction of 3,500 new buildings on Palestinian land while conducting a "construction freeze" is a great way to kickstart the process. It is also terrifically Orwellian.