The inevitable conclusion to the last two posts. Keep in mind that these concessions are meant to punish Israel for provocations specifically related to Biden's visit, which even Biden admits weren't provocations at all.
Fatah-led Palestinians in the West Bank responded to Biden by honoring child-murdering American-killing filthbag Dalal Mughrabi immediately after the VP explicitly asked them not to ("I said... to the Palestinians, Abbas and Fayyed... they should not do that"). Hamas-led Palestinians in the Gaza Strip launched multiple rocket barrages, one of which killed an Israeli farm worker who was there earning money to send back to his wife and child in Thailand.
So obviously Obama has blackmailed Netanyahu into giving concessions to Fatah-led Palestinians in the West Bank and Hamas-led Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Because unlike the Israelis they responded to Biden's visit with warmth and good will. Obviously:
Netanyahu has bowed to U.S. demands and promised the Obama administration that Israel will make several goodwill gestures toward the Palestinians. For the first time since Operation Cast Lead, Israel has agreed to ease the blockade on the Gaza Strip. Netanyahu has also agreed to discuss all core issues during the proximity talks, with the condition of reaching final conclusions only in direct talks with the PA... Netanyahu also agreed to release hundreds of Fatah-affiliated prisoners as a gesture to PA President Mahmoud Abbas.
There are a couple other concessions being made, of which the most significant involves incorporating so-called "core issues" into the upcoming proximity talks. The Palestinians will get to send Mitchell scurrying back and forth with demands for Israeli territorial concessions, all the while refusing to sit down across from their would-be partners in peace. Sure that model is a literally Chamberlain-esque diplomatic throwback to the worst days of Arab rejectionism. But the foreign policy gurus in the Obama White House say it will convince the Palestinians to make peace, and look what a good job they've done navigating the Middle East so far.
There's also plenty more hypocrisy in play. Israel was explicitly allowed to build in East Jerusalem under the terms of the temporary settlement freeze that Clinton called "unprecedented," while the Palestinian Authority is forbidden from inciting terrorism under any number of accords. Israel had told the US in advance that East Jerusalem construction would continue - taking away the White House's outraged claims of surprise - while the Palestinians had assured the US that the pro-terrorist celebration had been called off. Etc etc.
But those are just details. The overarching dynamic is that Obama's leveraging what's left of the US-Israel special relationship to coerce Israeli concessions, and that he's doing it on the basis of unblinking contradictions and incoherent arguments. No one outside of his most devoted and dishonest worshipers still denies that. Sure the lack of a suitable pretext has prevented him from totally detonating the alliance. But give him some time.
References and related after the jump...
and more from MereRhetoric.com
Compare And Contrast: "Condemnation"-Worthy Israeli And Palestinian Symbolism During Biden Visit
I know that this jarring juxtaposition - coming as it does from our pro-Israel President - has already been hashed out at length. But most of those discussion happened in the context of Obama and Biden's lack of response to the Palestinian Authority, after Abbas responded to Biden's peace visit by holding a ceremony in honor of a child-murdering, American-killing terrorist filthbag. Nonetheless mere silence in the face of Palestinian incitement won't do from this pro-Israel White House. Instead what's called for is active reward:
"In a phone call between Netanyahu and Clinton, the Israeli PM reportedly conveyed a detailed list of gestures Jerusalem was willing to perform... These measure likely include the release of Palestinian prisoners, the removal of West Bank checkpoints and perhaps even a willingness to transfer West Bank territories to PA control."... Oddly, I see no mention of trust-building moves demanded of the Palestinians after their calls to "rage" and the celebratory naming of a square after terrorist Dalal Mughrabi. Isn't some gesture being asked of them?
So Biden showed up in Jerusalem. Just afterward a mid-level Israeli housing official from the most junior party in the government bureaucratically advanced the construction of 1,600 East Jerusalem homes, thereby violating exactly zero agreements. Biden declared that the symbolic import of the decision was a threat to the peace process, and Clinton all but detonated the US/Israeli special relationship.
Then Biden showed up in Ramallah. Just afterward Palestinian President Abbas joined officials from his faction to honor this terrorist cretin, violating every anti-incitement commitment that the Palestinian Authority has ever signed. Meanwhile Palestinian officials from all factions incited violence in Jerusalem, the pretext being that the Jews had restored a historic synagogue which Arab leaders had gleefully declared destroyed forever. The symbolic import of Palestinian behavior failed to raise similar ire from the White House - not for lack of requests from Israel - while Obama himself lied about condemning the riots:
Dozens of Palestinian students from the youth division of Fatah, the party led by "moderate" Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, gathered in Ramallah in theWest Bank on Thursday to rename the main public square in honor of Dalal Mughrabi, the woman who in 1978 helped carry out the deadliest single terrorist attack in Israel's history. Mughrabi was the leader of a Fatah PLO terror squad... They first killed a renowned American photojournalist (who was incidentally the niece of U.S. Democratic party Senator Abraham Ribicoff) who was taking nature photos, then hijacked a bus and commandeered another, embarking on a bloody rampage that left 38 Israeli civilians dead, 13 of them children. Fatah representatives at the ceremony on Thursday described Mughrabi as "a courageous fighter who held a proud place in Palestinian history." "We are all Dalal Mughrabi," declared Tawfiq Tirawi, a member of the Fatah Central Committee.
Unlike Netanyahu's brother-in-law, I don't think that Obama is an antisemite. I just think that he provides bracing confidence and diplomatic succor to antisemites. Very, very genocidal antisemites.
and one more article missed in the U.S. media/press is the following article from Mere Rhetoric:
Gazans Again Committing War Crimes, Killing Israeli Civilians In Rocket Attacks
The first, tragic casualty of the Obama Intifada?
Thursday's brief afternoon rain could not wash the blood out of a small pile of sand, where hours earlier the body of Thai worker Mane Singauephon had lain. He was killed around 11 a.m., when a rocket fell through the roof of a hothouse where he worked on the border with Gaza... He had come to the small community of Netiv Ha'asara more than three years ago to support his wife and child back home. "Ten workers witnessed the death of their friend," said Yair Farjun, head of the Ashkelon Coast Regional Council... Singauephon had been hit in several parts of the body, including his head, back and left arm.
The geopolitical upshot is that the post-Cast Lead deterrent which had kept peace in the south of Israel is breaking down. Emboldened by - achem - international anti-Israel diplomacy, and knowing that Israel's options are constrained by a potential Goldstone II, Hamas is back to genocidal incitement against Israeli civilians:
As noted, the IDF has thus far shown relative restraint in its response to attacks directed at our territory. One of the important reasons for this is the criticism leveled atIsrael internationally because of the Goldstone Report and Gaza blockade. Another reason is that these rocket attacks are usually inefficient and sporadic. A third reason is the "understanding" shown to the difficulties faced by Hamas, which genuinely attempts to prevent attacks. However, the rocket that killed a man inIsrael Thursday changed the equation.... it's quite clear that the frequent rocket fire in the past day was carried out as result of Hamas incitement and the calls by its leaders for an Intifada, in the context of tensions in Jerusalem over the holy sites.
Those riots, of course, came in the context of Obama's smart diplomacy over Jerusalem. It turns out that convincing the Palestinians that they'll be able to wipe out Jewish holy sites in the Old City - again - doesn't dampen their enthusiasm for violence.
Back in Gaza Hamas has seeded the entire Strip with rockets and explosives in preparation for another war, the better to maximize civilian casualties. They're apparently hoping for more Palestinian civilian casualties than during Cast Lead, which was itself a huge civilian-murdering success for them. There are 500 pages of photographs and testimony showing that they used kids as human shields, transformed mosques into weapons and barracks, and flagrantly committed war crimes. All of which was obvious during the war and none of which kept Goldstone and his ilk from demonizing the Jewish State.
References:
* 10 workers saw their friend die [JPost]
* Deterrence tested in Gaza [YNet]
* Netanyahu To Obama: Actually, We're Going To Keep Letting Jews Build Homes In Jerusalem [MR]
* 'Hamas used kids as human shields' [JPost]
* One Jerusalem Conference Call - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu On Hamas's "Double War Crime" [Videos] [MR]
Related Mere Rhetoric Categories:
* Palestinians
* Anti-Israel Journalism
* Human Rights
