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As Ma’an reported earlier…
ABOARD A US MILITARY AIRCRAFT (AFP) — US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said the Arab Spring has left Israel “increasingly isolated” in the Middle East and that its military might could not make up for a weakened diplomatic position.
Speaking to reporters aboard his plane bound for Israel as part of a Middle East tour, Panetta said it was crucial for Israel to shore up its relations with Egypt and other countries in the region that had proved valuable partners in the past.
“There’s not much question in my mind that they maintain that (military) edge. But the question you have to ask is it enough to maintain a military edge, if you’re isolating yourself in the diplomatic arena?” Panetta said.
“At this dramatic time in the Middle East, when there have been so many changes, it’s not a good situation for Israel to become increasingly isolated. And that’s what’s happening,” he said…
Now, Leon wasn’t quite done delivering broadsides at the various parties…
US defense secretary urges return to negotiations
US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Monday called for “bold action” from Israeli and Palestinian leaders to achieve peace, but said freezing of US funds to Palestinians was a mistake…
…“I want to emphasize that there is a need, and an opportunity, for bold action on both sides to move toward a negotiated two-state solution. There is no alternative to negotiations,” Panetta said at a news conference with Barak.
Panetta told reporters that the US Congress decision to block $200 million in aid did not come at the right time, the Israeli news site Ynet reported.
Both Israelis and Palestinians gain from US aid, Ynet quoted Panetta saying…
…Palestinian leaders say they cannot negotiate while Israel refuses to renew a partial moratorium on settlement building on Palestinian lands, which last expired in September 2010 bringing talks to a halt.
F*ck ya, It’s not just a ‘moratorium on settlement building’ that needs to be addressed…! Obama refuses to take ‘no’ for an answer…
… Israel on Sunday formally accepted an international proposal to return to peace negotiations with the Palestinians, but any immediate resumption of talks appeared unlikely as the Israelis and Palestinians differed sharply over the letter and spirit of the proposal
A senior Palestinian official said over the weekend that after three days of deliberations, the Palestinian leadership had decided not to return to talks unless Israel halted all settlement construction and agreed to clear terms of reference for the negotiations — requirements that were perhaps implied but not spelled out in the Sept. 23 statement of the so-called quartet of Middle East peacemakers, which is made up of the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia.
But facts never get in the way of the Obama administration. A State Department spokesman released a statement Sunday: “We welcome the Israeli government’s announcement today expressing readiness to resume negotiations with the Palestinians, as called for by the Quartet.The Palestinians expressed support for the Quartet approach on September 29. The U.S. once again calls on both parties to resume negotiations without preconditions, on the timetable proposed by the Quartet, as the best means to advance their interests, resolve their differences, and fulfill the President’s two-state vision.” Umm, but didn’t, you know, the Palestinians say just the opposite?
However, as the recently released UNOCHA report points out in plain english, it’s Israel clearly stepping up it’s ‘game’…
UN statistics show that Israel’s occupation is more aggressive
…The UNOCHA report said that the Israeli Occupation Authorities demolished 409 Palestinian structures in 2011 compared with 290 over the same period in 2010. Just over 800 Palestinians have been injured to-date in 2011; the figure for January to September 2010 was 374.
Attacks by illegal Jewish settlers accounted for 139 Palestinians being injured so far this year; in 2010 the figure was 74. Settler-related incidents resulting in Palestinian injuries or property damage, said UNOCHA, numbered 326 in 2011 compared with 202 in 2010.
The report also revealed that the number of Palestinians injured at the hands of Israeli forces has doubled in 2011 when compared to last year: 471 Palestinians were injured by the Occupation forces this year while there were 194 such cases in 2010. Israeli forces have killed 85 Palestinians this year; in 2010 the figure was 53…
…Panetta, who met the country’s military ruler Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, strongly urged Egypt to provide better security in the Sinai Peninsula, after Israel said an attack on its south was mounted from there.
“I am concerned about the situation in the Sinai,” Panetta told reporters after the talks.
The Pentagon chief “strongly urged” Tantawi “to provide better security in the Sinai,” he said, adding that Egyptian leaders reassured him they were “confident” they could ensure security in the peninsula.
“Any friction in that area could create real problems for the region,” Panetta said…
I’m not very surprised at this little bit of news… Palestinians protest against US in Ramallah…
Meanwhile… Bracing for UN bid fallout in Gaza…
God Bless the Palestinians…!
31 Comments
There shouldn’t be any preconditions; the Palestinians should just negotiate their land loss on israeli terms and be happy that israel even talks to them.
Our relationship with Israel is so totally bizarre that it defies rational explanation.
You are doing as good a job as anyone, showing that is true.
Recommended.
On a side note, I really wish someone would ask Obama (D – USA) “is it enough to maintain a military edge, if you’re isolating yourself in the diplomatic arena?”
As for the rest…
“Palestinian leaders say they cannot negotiate while Israel refuses to renew a partial moratorium on settlement building on Palestinian lands”
But they expect Israel to negotiate without a “partial moratorium” on rocket attacks?
“God Bless the Palestinians”
I’ll go along with that (I pray daily for God’s blessing on all the peoples of the world), but how about throwing in a prayer for Gilad Shalit if he’s still alive? After five years it sure would be nice if your heroes would let the International Red Cross pay a visit…
But they expect Israel to negotiate without a “partial moratorium” on rocket attacks?
How about as soon as Israel stops this sorta crap, from today… Witnesses: Israeli helicopters fire on southern Gaza…
We got a deal, ironymeter…?
Israel needs Arab Spring to stop they fear their old friends are leaving and they don’t know how their new friends will react. Their old friends who are still around are their real worry because if given a choice between really helping their own people out or starting a war against Israel to unite their people well war with Israel lets them keep their money and power.
Heck just an oil embargo alone could get them a Palestinian homeland without them risking a single solder.
America cannot survive another rise in oil prices.
Until the Israeli voters get rid of the right wing Likud government there will be no hope for any real chance of peace.I believe this wil happen in the next few years as the public gets increasingly disgusted with these wingnuts.
*heh* Israel is already starting to reap the ‘rewards’, TCU…!
Egypt to draft new Israel gas deal…
That would be why the Cypriot NG fields are so crucial these days to Israel, TCU…!
Turkish Cypriot leader: EU not sincere or impartial over Cyprus…
Until the Israeli voters get rid of the right wing Likud government there will be no hope for any real chance of peace.
That is my very same gloomy outlook, litvak…!
israel had the chance for real peace under Yitzhak Rabin and you know what happened to him. There is no way israel will go with any government other than likudniks as long as the US congress props them up. By the time a more liberal and forward looking government gets in place the “facts on the ground” will have pushed the Palestinians out or simply killed them. The biggest joke was I once read that some israeli bigwig referred to the massive Hamas military machine (I don’t have a link handy).
By the time a more liberal and forward looking government gets in place the “facts on the ground” will have pushed the Palestinians out or simply killed them.
Eggs-actly…! 8-(
It is amazing that in four short years since President Obama was elected that the democrats have went from having majorities in the house and senate to losing it all. This democracy is over as we know it. The republicans are smart. They are not only winning the elections with their intransigent positions but they are setting the stage to make certain that democrats never get in control again. Un-friggin-believable!!! This is what we get for voting for a inexperienced candidate.
A fuel embargo? You mean like this?
Militants attack Egyptian gas pipeline to Israel (emp. mine)
This is at least the fifth or sixth time, but Egypt has killed about 4 bedouins so far.
It is a great tactic though. :)
Israel refuses to stop its 45 year long colonization of the Palestinian territories as a precondition to peace talks? Is it any wonder that Barak, sometime in the past, called Netanyahu “an armor-plated bullshitter.”
Netanyahu is a bullshitter, and everyone including the president and the Palestinians know it. He is taking this conflict all the way to Apartheid and its next phase. We will have to see if the US can support Israel in such a political situation. I believe we will, even though the isolation Panetta talks about will reach its peak. Right now the Knesset is considering action that would annex the West Bank.
So is anyone fooled by Israel’s call for peace negotiations without preconditions?
It’s not our fault for voting for Obama. The oligarch set us up and there isn’t really a dimes worth of difference between the candidates.
This massive wave of Republicans winning landslides when they were almost totally crushed followed a wave of democrats leaving obscurity too. They have gamed the system so that there is no way for us to remove their asses without getting ugly.
There is a book called “Shadow Elite” that discusses these cabals and how flexible they are. Take one member out and another fills the same roll, while the scape goat, or the latest victim slides back in through the back door.
The real power in this country never leaves their seats. Obamas new Defense Policy Board is full of retreads of the worst kind. Madeleine Albright, Jamie Gorelick, Jane Harman, Ret Gen Cartwright & Ret Adm Roughead.
Gorelick stood in the way of the 9/11 investigation looking at the Saudis. It’s a role she is familiar with.
Obama makes goatse look like a demure virgin.
The Israeli terrorists can be jailed just and tamed like they were in Greece if they actually wanted to do so. Instead the IDF kills and jail Palestinian natural born leaders.
On the bright side: shutting off payments to the PA will destroy Abbas, the quisling’s authority.
Case in point.
Story of a land grab
Adam Horowitz/Mondoweiss
October 5, 2011
“The following presentation was put together by Hagit Ofran, Peace Now’s settlement monitoring expert. It shows the Anatot settlers’ land grab.”
http://www.slideshare.net/hagitofran/anatot-takeovereng
As ironymeter has pointed out, absolutely NO irony in U.S.SecDef making that statement.
In a related matter, Erdogan ups the rhetoric. Who know whether that will amount to a hill of beans or whether he is just playing Turkish street like O is playing us, but bears watching.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/10/05/israel-a-nuclear-threat-to-the-middle-east-turkish-pm/
One could write a book about Gorelick, but she seems to escape notice.
From memory of a number of years ago, so don’t take the details as gospel. In Peter Lance’s book on TWA800, he makes a strong case that it was another wet test for Bojinka. It was Gorelick who side-tracked the “investigation” to that ludicrous argument about fuel vapors & exploding gas tanks.
What was she trying to hide? Here’s where my memory is fuzzy but some complicated scheme she was involved in that placed a felon in the prison cell next to Ramzi Youssef in The Tombs for purposes unrelated to terrorism. I think the felon was supposed to be a jail house informer on some one else. Anyhow, Youssef was able to communicate with the outside world thru Gorelick’s mole, and we know what followed.
One Israeli is being held prisoner by Palestinians, while 5,554 Palestinians are currently imprisoned by Israel.
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/stats/prisoners.html
You might want to browse this website, http://www.ifamericansknew.org , ironymeter, to learn more about what is happening, and how unfair your false equivalency is.
Every single day, at http://mondoweiss.net/ , a website with a liberal Jewish perspective that publishes news from the Middle East, there is a feature called “Today in Palestine.”
Day after day of Jewish Israelis destroying Palestinian orchards, wells, and houses. Day after day of Jewish Israelis attacking Palestinians. Day after day of the vicious Jewish Israeli “settlers”, many of whom are from the U.S., attacking Palestinian farmers and international peace observers.
Another informative website:
http://jewishvoiceforpeace.org/
There have been many such deals (cease fires), do you have any numbers on which side is more often the first to break them?
“false equivalency”?
I never tried to compare the two: why not respond to what I said instead of to words you put in my mouth?
My message was simply that Shalit should be afforded the protections due a prisoner of war: do you disagree?
And for the record: Yes, the same goes for the Palestinian prisoners in Israel.
Here is your false equivalency:
“Palestinian leaders say they cannot negotiate while Israel refuses to renew a partial moratorium on settlement building on Palestinian lands”
But they expect Israel to negotiate without a “partial moratorium” on rocket attacks?”
You are saying that Jewish Israelis should continue to steal Palestinian land during “negotiations,” and that Palestinians should be penalized for their ineffective attempts at self defense. Israel/Palestinian “negotiations” are like “negotiating” with someone over sharing a pizza while one of the parties is gobbling the pizza up as fast as he can.
What is there to “negotiate” besides the prompt removal of all Jewish Israeli “settlers” from the Palestinian land they have stolen? And reparations to the Palestinians for decades of Jewish Israeli theft, ethnic cleansing, and apartheid? What does the firing of homemade rockets, which fall on Palestinian land that has been stolen from them, have to do with anything?
Perhaps the point you are trying to make is that the Palestinians, uniquely among the peoples of the world, should have no right to resist occupation and oppression. Israel, as you know, does not allow Palestinian non-violent protest. Armed protest is not allowed, either. Israel screams when homemade rockets fall on land Jewish Israelis have stolen, but justifies brutal military attacks on unarmed, defenseless Palestinian families.
I can tell you that if Canadians were ethnically cleansing my small town in Washington state, bulldozing our houses and farms, “arresting” children in the middle of the night in order to terrify their families, and strangling our economy ( http://mondoweiss.net/2011/10/study-finds-israeli-occuption-costs-palestinians-6-9-billion-a-year-in-lost-commerce.html), we would not be as long-suffering and patient as the Palestinians have been, and we sure wouldn’t be “negotiating” in what we have seen to be a very rigged game.
Damn straight.
“The real power in this country never leaves their seats. ”
And it seems that Cheney is evidence they intend never to die either.
Think AIPAC or the Cynthia McKinney phobia: the fear of getting AIPACed. That simply means that a whole lot of money will be dumped into your adversary’s bank account.
Barak engaged in ceasefires with Hamas, but then claims that he never promised not to kill terrorists. The IDF enters Gaza and kills Palestinians, often just farmers or children play close to the border, and the rockets fly.
We need to stop fooling ourselves. Israel needs Hamas in order to maintain its “victim” persona.
I asked for numbers because I don’t have them, and apparently neither do you. I would be willing to wager that if one were to check on every ceasefire agreement there has been and add up who broke the most, it would be the Palestinians.
If you’re willing to wager enough $$$ to pay for my time, I’ll do the research. That’s really a hell of a good offer, you know: if you win you show me wrong on FDL, get a pile of research done for free, and get money in your PayPal.
So… Just how confident are you?
Did you miss this part? “why not respond to what I said instead of to words you put in my mouth?”
Here, let me try again:
Why not respond to what I said instead of to words you put in my mouth?
“we sure wouldn’t be “negotiating” in what we have seen to be a very rigged game.”
I understand: as it happens, I was saying to my wife only hours ago that there is no point to playing a game that’s impossible to win.
So, since you “wouldn’t be negotiating” I guess the whole question of mutual preconditions (partial moratorium on settlement building for partial moratorium on rocket attacks) is a moot point.
America exceptualism ;^)