Selling Out Israel: The Obama-Kerry Plan

Israel is being urged to give up major portions of the West Bank of the Jordan River to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).  That outfit is now known in Western media as the Palestinian Authority (PA), but it comprises the major terrorist group Fatah. 

That's the Arabic word for conquest.  And conquestof all of the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea has been the goal of the PLO since its inception.  Its founding charter calls for the destruction of Israel.  And its logo shows a map of the region with no Israel indicated.

The goals of Fatah could not be clearer.  And yet, successive U.S. administrations have heeded the siren song of peace in our time in a futile attempt to persuade a terrorist group to mend its ways.  It's as if our own State Department thinks a tiger can be turned into a tabby cat if only we feed it enough American cream.  U.S. taxpayers have been forced to spoon out billions in aid to the PLO since 1989 -- with no discernible move toward freedom or democracy by this rejectionist group.  (A "rejectionist" is one who rejects any role in the Mideast for the Jewish state.)

Now, the Obama administration is fully engaged in applying pressure to the Israelis to give in and give way.  President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry are committed to a so-called "two-state solution" to the Arab-Israeli conflict.  (This is a conflict, by the way, that has been raging since at least the 1920s, when Arab riots against Jewish settlers in what was then called the Palestine Mandate, supervised by Great Britain, claimed hundreds of lives.)

At issue today is an emerging Obama-Kerry technical fix that would presumably use drones and electronic sensors to monitor Israel's border security. Thus, this administration will pledge to "have Israel's back."

Other countries have relied on such guarantees in the past.  In 1919, President Woodrow Wilson promised French Premier Georges Clemenceau U.S. military intervention if Germany -- defeated in World War I -- ever arose to threaten exhausted France again.  The French Guaranty Treaty, signed by Wilson and Britain's Prime Minister David Lloyd George, pledged the Western democracies to defend France if Germany ever violated the 35-mile de-militarized zone in the Rhineland.  Wilson cared little or nothing about the French Guaranty Treaty, instead concentrating all his energies on the Versailles Treaty, which established his beloved League of Nations.  When Wilson refused any compromise -- even compromises that France and Britain fully backed -- the Senate rejected that treaty.  The French Guaranty Treaty was a casualty of the Executive-Legislative clash over the Versailles Treaty.

Seventeen years later, in 1936, Adolf Hitler ordered Nazi troops into the Rhineland, and Britain and France did nothing.  Within four short years, Nazi troops were marching down the Champs-Elysées in Paris.  France lost her independence trusting the word of a discredited U.S. administration.

Sixty years later, in the 1970s, South Vietnam was pressured by the Nixon administration into signing peace accords in Paris with the Communist regime in North Vietnam.  President Nixon hailed the peace agreement, under which the U.S. would guarantee South Vietnam's independence and freedom.  Nixon never abandoned South Vietnam, but when he faced mounting demands for his resignation over the Watergate scandal, he lost any clout he had on Capitol Hill.  Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass)  and Rep. Don Fraser (DFL-Minn.) led a successful push in Congress to repudiate Nixon and cut off all aid to South Vietnam.  That unfortunate nation soon fell under the tank tracks of a North Vietnamese invasion.  Communists laughed at U.S. weakness as they overran Saigon in April 1975.  They consigned millions of South Vietnamese to enslavement and thousands to death

What in the record of President Obama's administration should give the Israelis confidence that he will truly "have their back"?  As Moshe Ya'alon, a leading Israeli defense spokesman in Israel's parliament, the Knesset, noted, "[s]ensors and drones are no substitute for the physical presence of Israel Defense Force soldiers.  The Jordan Valley is vital to the security of Israel, and we cannot assent to third parties being there in our stead."

President Obama's habit of grand pronouncements -- followed up by less than grand actions -- is catching up with him.  He announced with great fanfare the closure of the U.S. detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.  He flaunted his now-famous Executive Order-signing pen and affixed his left-handed signature.  It would be closed in just one year.  That closure would be accomplished by presidential order by January 2010.  Gitmo remains open.

Last summer, President Obama announced to the world that any use of chemical weapons by Syria's embattled ruler, Bashar al-Assad, constituted a "red line" that would demand U.S. action.  But when reports stated that Assad had used such weapons -- and when the Obama administration loudly endorsed those reports -- no action was forthcoming.  Today, the administration blames Assad's forces for "foot-dragging" on its agreements to dismantle chemical weapons.  Barely 1% of these have been destroyed.

Is the Obama administration, like those of Woodrow Wilson and Richard Nixon, a discredited administration that cannot keep its pledges even if it wants to?  That is not clear.  President Obama was rather handily re-elected in 2012, even after taking a "shellacking" in the 2010 mid-term elections.  Whether the voters will be paying strict attention to the Obama-Kerry attempts to arm-twist Israelis is also not clear.

Israelis have long memories.  Back in 1967, they trusted to U.N. observers to "have their back" -- literally their back door -- with a peacekeeping force in the Sinai desert.  Egypt's dictator Gamal Abdel Nasser ordered those peacekeepers out of the Sinai and proceeded to blockade Israel's only port on the critical Gulf of Aqaba.  That act of war precipitated the Six-Day War of June 1967.

Israel has learned that when the fate of the Jewish people is at stake -- as it is now, with Iran racing toward nuclear weapons -- the Israelis cannot "outsource" their vital security.  The U.S. should not be trying to force Israel to make dangerous concessions to the PLO -- or any others among their homicidal neighbors.

Ken Blackwell and Bob Morrison are senior fellows at the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C.

http://www.americanthinker.com/

Palestinian Arabs Rally Against Talks with Israel

Mr. Kerry so much for the fake palestinians wanting peace.  I think you know what they want....  ALL Jews out of Israel....  don't you.

Leftist PA-based groups organize rallies against peace talks and against Kerry's proposal for a framework.

Palestinian Arabs on Saturday held demonstrations in opposition to peace negotiations with Israel and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's framework proposal that will serve as the basis for future negotiations.

The Bethlehem-based Ma’annews agency reported that the demonstrations were organized by leftist groups in the Palestinian Authority (PA) and were held in Hevron and Shechem.

The demonstrations claimed Kerry’s proposals were intended to "liquidate the question of Palestine and prolong the Israeli occupation."

Kerry is expected to announce a framework proposal to guide ongoing negotiations between Israel and the PA within the coming days.

The rally in Hevron kicked off in front of al-Hussein Ibn Ali football stadium, reported Ma’an. Demonstrators carried PLO flags and flags of leftist factions, alongside signs denouncing the "pressure" the United States and Israel are putting on the PA to accept negotiations.

A member of the central committee of the Palestinian People's Party, Fahmi Shahin, delivered a speech during the rally, calling upon the Palestinian Authority to "immediately stop peace negotiations and to reject the U.S. sponsorship to these talks."

The American proposals “to accept the Israeli occupation as a fact must be rejected," he added.

Shahin urged the PA to reject any move to recognize Israel as a Jewish state and called upon its leadership to demand the implementation of the so-called “right of return” of Palestinian refugees. Doing so would flood Israel with millions of Arabs.

In Shechem, reported Ma’an, hundreds attended a rally in which they condemned Kerry's proposed framework agreement and what they claimed was the “U.S. bias in favor of Israel”.

A member of the political bureau of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Ramzi Rabah, said that Kerry's repeated visits to the region have served as a way to give Israel more time to continue settlement activities, in the process imposing a new status quo that is “destroying the possibility of an independent Palestinian state with its capital in Jerusalem.”

Rabah added that the framework agreement represents a great danger that has been rejected by the Palestinian people as being inconsistent with their national rights.

He further claimed that the agreement is a cover to allow Israel “to speed up the processes of settlement and the Judaization of Jerusalem.”

The rallies took place in the wake of continued talks between Israel and the PA, which have so far not accomplished much despite Kerry’s never-ending optimism.

Several days ago, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas said that despite Kerry’s efforts, the PA has so far gotten nothing out of the ongoing peace negotiations with Israel.

Abbas blamed “the Israeli side” for the lack of progress in the peace talks, slamming Israeli residents of Judea and Samaria as "invaders" with "no right to Palestinian land”.

Abbas also stressed that Palestinian Arabs living inside what is now Israel "were on the land 1,500 years before Israel was established."

The PA’s chief negotiator Saeb Erekat declared on Tuesday that the PAwill not agree to extending peace talks even a day beyond the nine-month framework. Talks began last July and are set to expire in April.

Abbas has consistently declared that unless all his demands are met, there will never be peace with Israel. He has also made clear several times that the future Palestinian state will have no Israeli presence whatsoever. The last time he stated this was during his meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper last week.

see also
'My Family Were Burned in Auschwitz – Now It’s Time for Kaddish'

source

Kerry’s ‘obsession’ with Palestinian peace talks worries Israeli right

Enough is enough John Kerry, in simple term Butt Out.

BY JOEL GREENBERG 

JERUSALEM — Faced with a dogged effort by Secretary of State John Kerry to promote an Israeli-Palestinian peace accord, Israeli officials are showing increasing impatience with his determination to push forward an enterprise that they believe is doomed to failure.

Even as Israeli negotiators flew to Washington for discussions with Kerry on Monday about a framework agreement with the Palestinians that could enable talks to go on, Energy Minister Silvan Shalom warned in a radio interview that any attempt to impose such a document on Israel would scuttle the negotiations.

At a meeting with foreign correspondents last week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lashed out at what he called the “hypocrisy” of European Union countries who’d summoned Israeli ambassadors to protest new Israeli settlement-building plans in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, a move seen internationally as a blow to the negotiations. Netanyahu said the complaints were misdirected and should have been aimed at what he called Palestinian incitement against Israel.

The cumulative impact of Kerry’s repeated journeys here – he’s made 10 trips to the region since March – bubbled to the surface last week, when Israel’s defense minister, Moshe Yaalon, was quoted as saying the secretary was driven by “incomprehensible obsession and a messianic sense” and that “the only thing that can save us is that he will win the Nobel Prize and leave us alone.”

Yaalon dismissed an American security plan for an Israeli-Palestinian accord as “not worth the paper it was written on.”

The remarks, reported to have been said in closed meetings, were published on the front page of the mass circulation daily newspaper Yediot Ahronot. They drew an unusually sharp response from the Obama administration, which called them “offensive and inappropriate.” Yaalon later apologized.

But his comments reflected the unease Kerry’s efforts have caused among hawks in the Israeli government, who fear that Netanyahu might make concessions under the sustained American pressure. The prime minister, however, has shown no indication that he’s likely to do so.

Some analysts said Israeli officials were puzzled by the energy expended on the effort after many years in which the United States had adopted a hands-off approach to what appeared to be unbridgeable gaps between the sides.

“They don’t understand why Secretary Kerry is putting this kind of focus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict when both sides could have told him that there was little chance for a breakthrough, and when the region around us is on fire,” said Jonathan Spyer, a senior research fellow at the Interdisciplinary Center, a private college in Herzliya, north of Tel Aviv. “For Yaalon, this approach simply seems bizarre in the extreme, and he represents a sense you will hear in private rooms from all sorts of people.”

Yaalon’s remarks about Kerry were “not just his opinion,” said Yossi Alpher, a strategic analyst and former director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University. “It is certainly shared by some of the people close to Netanyahu, and possibly by Netanyahu himself,” though “Netanyahu is very careful about what he says about Kerry.”

Alpher added about Kerry that “There’s a general sense that he’s over-dedicated and over-optimistic.”

Spyer said Israeli officials were asking themselves why Kerry was “investing all this time, exerting pressure, and why Israel is forced to release murderers of Israelis in pursuit of a process which seems quite obviously doomed to failure.”

Israel has been releasing in phases 104 long-serving Palestinian prisoners it agreed to free as part of understandings that enabled the resumption of peace talks.

“John Kerry is going through a learning process the rest of us learned 10 years ago, and Israel is required to pay a heavy price,” Spyer added.

While details of the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations remain under wraps, public disagreements have erupted over Israel’s insistence on a long-term presence of Israeli troops along the West Bank’s border with Jordan and Netanyahu’s demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

The Palestinians have rejected any Israeli military presence in a future Palestinian state and have dismissed the demand for recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, saying that would ignore the rights of Israel’s Arab citizens, some 20 percent of the country’s population.

The two sides also remain far apart on the Palestinian demand for a capital in East Jerusalem and recognition of the right of return of Palestinian refugees and their descendants to their former homes in Israel.

When the talks restarted last July, Kerry set a goal of nine months to reach a final accord. But U.S. efforts are now focused on reaching an agreed framework for continuing the negotiations beyond April.

In comments to the New Yorker magazine published this week, President Barack Obama said the chances of reaching a final treaty were less than 50 percent, reflecting a more sober view in Washington.

Referring to the attempts to reach accords on Iran’s nuclear program, Syria’s civil war and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Obama said: “We may be able to push the boulder partway up the hill and maybe stabilize it so it doesn’t roll back on us.”

“The whole American approach seems to be ‘Ignore the lessons of the failures of the past 20 years,’ ” Alpher said, adding that Washington had adopted the agenda of the 1993 Oslo interim accords between Israel and the Palestinians that “nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.”

“This was from the start a formula for failure,” he said.

Greenberg is a McClatchy special correspondent.

http://www.star-telegram.com/2014/01/20/5499771/kerrys-obsession-with-palestinian.html?rh=

Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/2014/01/20/5499771/kerrys-obsession-with-palestinian.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy

Kerry Bribes Palestinian Muslims w/$75 Million in Aid to Want Peace

If you have to constantly be bribed to want peace, then you don’t really want peace. You just want someone else’s money.

Secretary of State of John Kerry announced a $75 million dollar boost in “aid” to be handed over to the Palestinians while meeting with Mahmoud Abbas today.

“US officials say the aid is designed to boost Palestinian public support for faltering peace talks with Israel by showing them tangible benefits from the process.”

In reality much of that money will be funneled into “well-connected” businesses in a system that runs on monopolies for people who happen to be related to Palestinian Authority leaders.

Kerry is bribing influential figures in the Palestinian Authority to accept an Israeli surrender to be delivered bu Kerry.

US infrastructure spending on the Palestinian Authority alone is up to $100 million. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Obama’s visit to the Palestinian Authority in the spring led to the release of $500 million to the Palestinian Authority that had been blocked by Congress. But apparently that $500 million didn’t sufficiently convince them to want peace.

Nor does the money that the US sends through the UNRWA or any other more convert means. But I’m sure that last $75 million will finally convince them to want peace.

Considering that 62% of them support suicide bombings against civilians, all the billions of dollars in US aid that came before didn’t make a dent… except in our budget.

source

Kerry warns Israel or is it 'Do as we say or they'll be trouble?"

Stop fueling the PA Mr. Kerry.

Kerry's recent warnings below in the Jerusalem post come at a volatile time in the so-called peace talks and many believe he is simply working to the plan of the PA. His warnings we feel are a threat or if you like bribe - "Do it our way or bear the consequences.

US Secretary of State John Kerry painted a very bleak picture of what would be the result of a break-down in the current Israeli-Palestinian talks, warning on Thursday of a third intifada and international isolation of Israel

Kerry's warnings, or threat, came in an unusual joint interview with Channel 2's Udi Segal and Maher Shalabi of Palestine TV.

The Secretary of State's warnings of a third intifada came two days after a poll conducted by the Arab World For Research & Development showed that only 29% of West Bank and Gaza Palestinians said they would support a third intifada, though 60% believe one is possible."The alternative to getting back to the talks is the potential of chaos," Kerry said. "Does Israel want a third intifada?"

Kerry's dire warnings echoed comments he made in Jordan after meeting King Abdullah II, and before a second meeting in two days with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

In a signal that the three-month old talks were indeed in a troubled spot, Kerry extended his visit another day and is scheduled to meet with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Friday morning, for the third time since Wednesday. A meeting the two held Wednesday evening, following Kerry's first meeting with Abbas, went on past midnight, Israeli officials said.

"I believe that if we do not resolve the issues between Palestinians and Israelis, if we do not find a way to find peace, there will be an increasing isolation of Israel, three will be an increasing campaign of the de-legitimization of Israel that has been taking place on an international basis," he said in the interview..

"If we do not resolve the question of settlements, and who lives where and what rights they have; if we don't end the presence of Israeli soldiers perpetually in the West Bank, then there will be an increasing feeling that if you cannot get peace with a leadership that is committed to non-violence, we may wind up with a leadership that is committed to violence," he added.

In a press conference alongside Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh in Amman on Thursday, Kerry reiterated this theme. "What is the alternative to peace?" he asked. " Prolonged continued conflict. The absence of peace really means you have a sort of low-grade conflict, war."

He said that "as long as the aspirations of people are held down one way or another" and as long as the conflict continued without a solution, the "possibilities of violence" increase.

He did say, however, that both Netanyahu and Abbas "reaffirmed their commitment to these negotiations despite the fact that at moments there are obviously tensions."

Following his scheduled meeting with Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Friday, Kerry is to continue his regional visit with trips to the United Arab Emirates, Algeria and Morocco. He has already visited this week – in addition to Israel, the Palestinian Authority and Jordan – Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

Jerusalem post

Kerry Stay Home

by Prof. Efraim Inbar 
BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 219,
November 10, 2013 

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: US Secretary of State John Kerry warned of a 
return to Palestinian violence and Israel’s isolation should peace talks fail. 
This is yet another reflection of the Obama administration’s inability to 
properly understand the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel has strong 
international backing and will not be isolated as Kerry indicates. The 
Palestinians know that a return to violence will only be met by a strong 
Israeli response. 

US Secretary of State John Kerry warned of a return to Palestinian violence 
and Israel’s isolation if the faltering peace talks between Israel and the 
Palestinians ultimately fail. This is a typical leftist Pavlovian response to the 
impasse in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations that is now over a decade old. Such 
thinking primarily reflects the frustration that the optimistic evaluations that 
the conflict can be ended quickly remain unfulfilled. Unfortunately, Kerry’s 
remarks tell the Palestinians to hold on to their maximalist positions. This 
reflects an inability to grasp the intricacies of protracted intractable ethnic 
conflict and a misguided American policy. 

There is definitely a possibility that the Palestinians, in particular the radical 
forces, will recur to violence. In reality these forces try to kill Israelis all the 
time, and a dearth of terrorist attacks in recent years can only be attributed to 
the work of the Israeli security forces. Yet the likelihood of massive organized 
violence by the Palestinian Authority (PA) is small. Rocking the boat 
endangers too many vested interests of the Palestinian ruling class. The PA 
leadership has probably registered the heavy price paid by the Palestinians 
during their terrorist campaign at the beginning of the twenty-first century, as 
a result of Israeli countermeasures. 

Moreover, even if the Palestinians miscalculate once again and go for a “third 
Intifada,” Israel’s capability to contain terrorism and other modes of civilian 
struggle is high. The Israeli army can be trusted to meet all challenges 
successfully. Most important, a large majority of Israelis believe that the 
Palestinian demands, such as Jerusalem and the “Right of Return,” are the 
real obstacles to peace. This large consensus about Palestinian intransigence 
allows for significant social mobilization and resilience in protracted conflict. 
Israelis will go once more to war with a feeling of “Ein Breira” (no choice) and 
are likely to win that engagement as well. 

Large parts of the hypocritical world may indeed see Israel as the culprit for 
the failure of the negotiations and for a new round of Israeli-Palestinian 
violence. But such negative attitudes do not necessarily lead to international 
isolation. Public statements and the voting record of states at the UN – an 
ineffective, morally bankrupt organization – are not indicative of the true 
nature of interstate relations. 

National interests dictate state actions, and in most cases bilateral relations 
with Israel are hardly affected by the ups and downs in the peace talks with 
the Palestinians. For example, the rising powers India and China have 
expanded their bilateral ties with Jerusalem because it is in their interest to 
engage a successful state such as Israel. Nowadays, when the Iranian threat 
dominates the region, Arab Sunni states such as Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi 
Arabia, who are exasperated with American behavior, are in the same 
strategic boat as Israel. Generally, the Middle East – especially today, while in 
the throes of a colossal political, social, and economic crisis – is hardly paying 
attention to the Palestinian issue. In the Caucasus and in Central Asia, Muslim 
Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan are friendly to Israel. 

Moreover, isolation of Israel is unlikely because of the large existing 
reservoirs of support for Israel in many quarters. Canada and Australia are 
ruled by governments most responsive to Israeli concerns. Even in Western 
Europe, concerns about Muslim immigration and foreign aid place the 
Palestinians in a problematic spot. Above all, two-thirds of Americans have 
consistently favored Israel over the past two decades, which translates into 
Congressional support. The US is Israel’s most important ally and even the 
Obama administration has maintained the strong support and cooperation in 
the military sphere. 

But the prism of the Obama administration on the Middle East and global 
affairs is fundamentally flawed. An American foreign policy that supports the 
Muslim Brotherhood, estranges its traditional Arab allies such as Egypt and 
Saudi Arabia, allows Iran to get closer to the bomb, sees in Turkey’s Erdoğan
a great friend of the West, and insists that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can 
be ended in nine months is dangerous and does more damage that good. 
Similar complaints about poor US political judgment are abundantly voiced 
by America’s friends in Asian and Eastern European capitals. 

It is the enemies of the US who rejoice in President Barack Obama’s foreign 
policy, and who relish in America’s perceived decline in world affairs. 

Ironically, at this historic juncture, even an isolationist America would be a 
better alternative for those that want the good guys to win. Therefore, dear 
President Obama, please do us a favor: save some money and keep Kerry at 
home. 


Prof. Efraim Inbar, director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, is a 
professor of political studies at Bar-Ilan University and a fellow at the Middle East 
Forum. 

BESA Center Perspectives Papers are published through the generosity 
 of the Greg Rosshandler Family
source

more recent posts on John Kerry

Palestinians: We Do Not Trust The Americans

Unbelievable - Kerry to israel - "Why do you want to build in what willeventually be Palestine?

Grappling with troubled peace process, Kerry urges Israeli settlementlimits

US to give $75 million more in aid to Palestinians - YES MORE AID after the palestinians throw a tantrum and as Israelis are kiddnapped and murdered

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Palestinians: We Do Not Trust The Americans

"We want the Americans to be involved in the peace process. But the U.S. should focus its pressure on the Israelis and not on us. We want the Americans to force Israel to accept the two-state solution and dismantle all the illegal settlements." — Senior aide to Palestinian Authority's Mahmoud Abbas 

The Palestinians' biggest fear is that the U.S. will try to impose a solution. That is why Abbas and his top aides have begun moves in the international community to persuade as many countries as possible to get involved in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, especially the European Union, United Nations and Russia. The last time the Americans tried to extract concessions from the Palestinians, within a few weeks the Palestinians launched the Second Intifada against Israel; Abbas has already threatened as much.

As U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry embarks on a fresh mission to prevent the collapse of the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, the Palestinian Authority [PA] appears to be doing its utmost to internationalize the conflict with Israel.

The Palestinians want other international parties, especially the European Union, United Nations and Russia, to play a major role in the current U.S.-sponsored peace talks.
They perceive these parties as being more sympathetic to, and supportive of, the Palestinians.

The PA's biggest fear is that Washington will try to impose a solution that would certainly fail to win the backing of most Palestinians and Arabs.

Unconfirmed reports recently suggested that Kerry was considering the possibility of forcing his own deal on the Israelis and Palestinians as early as next year.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry sits with PA President Mahmoud Abbas in Amman, Jordan, on June 28, 2013. (Image source: U.S. State Department)

A forced solution, Palestinians warn, would also severely undermine the credibility of the PA leadership, whose leaders would be accused by many Palestinians and Arabs of capitulating to American pressure and threats.

The PA has come to learn that U.S. threats to cut off financial aid are not to be taken seriously. The U.S. administration has previously issued similar threats, but never carried them out. The last threat came before the PA unilaterally applied for the status of non-member observer state in the United Nations.

The PA also keeps warning the Americans that financial aid cuts would lead to the collapse of the "moderate" Palestinian camp and pave the way for a Hamas takeover of the West Bank.

Kerry and his team are evidently unaware of the fact that neither Abbas, whose term of office expired several years ago, nor any other Palestinian leader is authorized to make real concessions to Israel.

The last time the Americans tried to extract concessions from a Palestinian leader was in the year 2000, when President Bill Clinton dragged Yasser Arafat to Camp David and exerted heavy pressure on him to accept Ehud Barak's offer to hand over to the Palestinians most of the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.

The result of the U.S. pressure was that Arafat ran away and within a few weeks Palestinians launched the Second Intifada against Israel; Abbas, in Arabic, has already threatened as much.

Today, the PA is already facing growing criticism for agreeing to return to the negotiating table unconditionally three months ago. Palestinian leaders have justified their decision by arguing that Kerry forced them to drop their pre-conditions and resume the peace talks with Israel.

"We want the Americans to be involved in the peace process," said a senior aide to PA President Mahmoud Abbas. "But the U.S. should focus its pressure on the Israelis and not on us. We want the Americans to force Israel to accept the two-state solution and dismantle all the illegal settlements."

Palestinian Authority officials say they are now convinced that the U.S. administration has no intention to force Israel to comply with all the demands of the Palestinian negotiators, including a full withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines. That is why Abbas and his top aides have begun moves in the international community to persuade as many countries as possible to get involved in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

And that is why the Palestinians have recently been directing their criticism not only against Israel, but also against the U.S. administration.

PA leaders say they have lost their confidence in the U.S. administration's ability to serve as an honest broker in the negotiations between the Palestinians and Israel.
Hours before Kerry was scheduled to meet with PA President Mahmoud Abbas in Bethlehem, several Palestinian officials and groups issued statements denouncing U.S. "bias" in favor of Israel.

The Palestinians also called for holding protests during Kerry's visit to Bethlehem to express their opposition to U.S. policies in the region, particularly regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In fact, anti-U.S. protests have become a common occurrence in the West Bank each time a U.S. official arrives to meet with Palestinians.

The Palestinian Authority's strategy now is to prove to the world that Israel is not interested in peace and the U.S. cannot be trusted with brokering a comprehensive and just solution.

The Palestinians are willing for now to pursue the talks with Israel to avoid being held responsible for the failure of the peace process.

They want to show the world that it is Israel that should be blamed for the collapse of the talks because of its refusal to comply with all the Palestinian demands. Moreover, the Palestinians are hoping, through the continued dialogue with the U.S. administration, to show the world that the Americans cannot do anything to bring about peace -- a step which they hope would pave the way for the involvement of other parties in the conflict.

  Khaled Abu Toameh

Grappling with troubled peace process, Kerry urges Israeli settlementlimits

Doesnt Kerry realise yet the fake palestinians dont want peace with Israel.  

By Lesley Wroughton

BETHLEHEM, West Bank 

 U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry urgedIsrael on Wednesday to limit settlement building in occupied territories to help push peace talks with the Palestinians back on track.

Faced with grim Israeli and Palestinian assessments of progress in the talks, Kerry also appeared to slap down Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and warmly endorsed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's commitment to seeking a two-state solution.

Friction over the talks has risen this past week on the back of Israeli plans, announced in tandem with its release of 26 Palestinian prisoners, for some 3,500 new homes for Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

"Let me emphasize at this point the position of the United States of America on the settlements is that we consider them... to be illegitimate," Kerry, reaffirming long-standing U.S. policy, said after discussions with Abbas.

Speaking to reporters in the West Bank town of Bethlehem, Kerry said it would be better if settlement building was "limited as much as possible in an effort to help create a climate for these talks to be able to proceed effectively".

Palestinians have warned of a brewing crisis if Israel continues to assert that they had effectively agreed to turn a blind eye to the settlement campaign, in exchange for the progressive release of 104 long-serving inmates.

Kerry dismissed Israeli suggestions there had been an understanding with the Palestinians about settlement expansion and stated "unequivocally" his belief that Abbas was "100 percent committed" to peace talks.

"I want to make it extremely clear that at no time did the Palestinians in any way agree as a matter of going back to the talks, that they somehow condone or accept the settlements," he said.

In Jerusalem earlier, Netanyahu had said the U.S.-brokered negotiations had failed to make any real progress.

Speaking to reporters with a stone-faced Kerry at his side, Netanyahu accused the Palestinians of creating "artificial crises" and of trying to "run away from the historic decisions that are needed to make a genuine peace".

Hours later, Kerry said Abbas "wants to try peace and he understands it requires compromise by all the parties".

The chief U.S. diplomat, citing "difficulties" in the peace process, had said earlier in Jerusalem that the United States was convinced that Netanyahu was also determined to pursue an end to the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"As in any negotiation there will be moments of up and moments of down, and it goes back and forth," Kerry said.

Kerry, whose shuttle diplomacy helped to revive the talks last July after a three-year break, has set a nine-month schedule for an agreement, despite widespread skepticism.

PALESTINIAN FRUSTRATION

Few details have emerged from the negotiations, held at unannounced times and at secret locations in line with pledges to keep a lid on leaks.

But Palestinian officials have been airing frustration over a lack of movement on core issues such as the borders of a Palestinian state, security arrangements, the future of Israeli settlements and the fate of Palestinian refugees.

Abbas, in a speech on Monday, said that despite all the meetings nothing had changed on the ground.

Netanyahu said he hoped Kerry's visit would "help steer (the negotiations) back to a place where we could achieve the historical peace that we seek".

Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, territories it captured in the 1967 Middle East war and which Palestinians seek for a state along with the Hamas Islamist-run Gaza Strip, are considered illegal by most countries.

Israel cites historical and biblical links to the land, where more than 500,000 Israelis now live alongside 2.5 million Palestinians.

In another development, Netanyahu said former Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman would return to the cabinet after his acquittal in a corruption trial on Wednesday.

The right-wing powerbroker is a hardliner on Palestinian peace talks, which he has said have no chance of succeeding.

In the Gaza Strip, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said any deal reached by Abbas, a rival of the Islamist group, "would not be binding on our people".

see also.... 

US to give $75 million more in aid to Palestinians - YES MORE AID after the palestinians throw a tantrum and as Israelis are kiddnapped and murdered

http://www.reuters.com/

Abbas urges EU firms to boycott settlements

As Kerry, Netanyahu meet in Rome, Palestinian president calls on EU to boycott settlements. 'Such activities are a violation of international law,' Abbas says

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday urged European and other foreign companies not to deal with businesses based in Jewish settlements.

"I call on European companies and foreign companies doing business in the settlements to put an end to their activities," he said after a meeting with European Council president Herman van Rompuy in Brussels

"Such activities are a violation of international law," he said.

Abbas said such a boycott would not be aimed at the state ofIsrael but only targeted at Jewish settlements on occupied Palestinian land in the West Bank and east Jerusalem.

A UN rights expert has singled out several major international firms – including Motorola, Hewlett Packard, Veolia, G4S and Volvo Group – for their involvement in building and maintaining settlements.

Several European retail giants also import produce from the West Bank, which is home to large farms producing fruit, vegetable and flowers.

Earlier Wednesday, US Secretary of State John Kerry and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met in Rome and spoke as they began talks that were also expected to cover Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations but appeared likely to be overshadowed byIran.

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Kerry’s Peace Process Exploding

On Saturday night a Palestinian terrorist snuck into the Israeli community of Psagot, north of Jerusalem and near Ramallah, and either shot or stabbed a nine-year-old girl, Noam Glick. Noam was rushed to hospital in Jerusalem and, fortunately, is in stable condition.

The terrorist, however, melted back into the Palestinian population and has not yet been apprehended, and the attack was part of a pattern

.In the Jewish year that ended on the Rosh Hashanah holiday on September 4, a single Israeli was killed in a Palestinian terror attack, though there were scores of potentially lethal rock- and firebomb-throwing incidents and kidnapping attempts, as well as some thwarted suicide bombings.

In the new year, however, two Israelis have already been killed by Palestinian terror: 20-year-old Sgt. Tomer Hazan on September 20 and 20-year-old St.-Sgt. Maj. Gal (Gabriel) Kobi on September 22.

While Hazan’s killer was quickly apprehended, the sniper whose bullet killed Kobi is yet to be found.

Meanwhile it was reported on Friday that terror attacks of all kinds rose “dramatically” in September, with a total of 133 (including, again, large numbers of rock- and firebomb-throwing incidents) compared to 68 in August.

It was last July 29 that the new round of ostensible Israeli-Palestinian peace talks was launched in Washington. It took months of heavy pressure on both sides by the new secretary of state, John Kerry, to reach that outcome.

The clincher was U.S. and Israeli acquiescence to the demand of Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas that the talks be accompanied by Israel’s phased release of 104 “pre-Oslo” (pre-1993) terrorists, including convicted murderers of men, women, and children. The first batch of 26 were released on August 13.

The justification given for the talks, and for the large-scale freeing of murderers, was that the talks would “calm the Palestinian arena” and possibly lead to peace in nine months, the time span that Kerry determined for them from the outset.

If it’s clear by now that the Palestinian arena has not been calmed (let alone making peace preparations), it’s not the first time that talks have in fact prompted a spike in terror.

The original “Oslo” talks in 1993 were followed by almost three years of Palestinian terror attacks that killed hundreds of Israelis. The 2000 Camp David talks were followed by the even more lethal five-year Second Intifada, which killed about a thousand.

There are indications, too, that the current round of talks has been causative of the new terror wave.

Two weeks ago Palestinian-affairs expert Khaled Abu Toameh reported that “a connection seems to exist” between the two phenomena, with Palestinian groups—including the armed wing of Abbas’s own Fatah movement—vowing to escalate terror and stop the talks. It was already known that all the Palestinian organizations, from the Islamist Hamas to the relatively secular Fatah itself, fiercely opposed the negotiations.

Saturday night’s attack in Psagot sparked demands from right-of-center cabinet ministers and Members of Knesset that the talks be halted. Energy and Water Minister Silvan Shalom claimed Israel would reconsider further prisoner releases.

With Israel facing strategic threats, particularly from Iran to the east but also from the Syrian imbroglio and from Hizballah to the north, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu wants to get along with Washington as well as possible and will not easily take such steps. Israel, having entered the talks, may also be in a damned-if-we-do, damned-if-we-don’t position, with 58% of Palestinians predicting a Third Intifada if the talks “fail.”

For now, though, some points should be kept in mind:

● Although cooperation between Israeli and PA security forces—against a common foe, Hamas—has been vaunted as an achievement and promising sign, there has been no indication of any cooperation whatsoever by PA security forces in locating the murderer of Gal Kobi or the attacker of Noam Glick. Palestinian society has long regarded such individuals as heroes.

● Nor has there been any condemnation of these acts by PA officials. Only once, speaking in English to a small group in New York, was Abbas pressed into making a reluctant, equivocal noncondemnation.

● As Netanyahu emphasized in Sunday’s cabinet meeting, “the Palestinian media continues to promote incitement” and “the Palestinian Authority cannot wash its hands of it.” The latest example: Fatah’s Facebook pagepraised the shooter of the nine-year-old girl, combining him with Gal Kobi’s killer into a single mythic figure called “the sniper of Palestine.”

● Finally, in his speech to the UN on September 24, President Obama said that:

In the near term, America’s diplomatic efforts will focus on two particular issues: Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons, and the Arab-Israeli conflict. While these issues are not the cause of all the region’s problems, they have been a major source of instability for far too long, and resolving them can help serve as a foundation for a broader peace.

In reality, the “Arab-Israeli conflict” is now on the back burner, and Sunni Arab states mainly see Israel as a tacit ally against Iran. As for the Palestinian dimension of that conflict, it is not clear how many dead and wounded there will have to be until it is understood that, so long as the Palestinians view Israel as the incarnation of evil, prodding them toward “peace” only makes matters worse.

Nine-Year-Old Girl Shot in Terror Attack

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