BETRAYAL OF ISRAEL"I do believe is that Iran has legitimate energy concerns,
legitimate aspirations
Barack Hussen Obama
Barry Rubin (TOCS episode; full One Jerusalem Audio interview) asks why Israel should put any faith in future US promises, given the vehemence and brazenness with which this White House has thrown aside past assurances. Good question! Via friend of the blog Rick Richman, check out how utterly explicit the East Jerusalem exception was in US/Israeli understandings surrounding the temporary construction freeze:
It was only two months ago that George Mitchell had the following colloquy with Charlie Rose about the demand for a settlement freeze in Jerusalem:
GEORGE MITCHELL: ... So what we got was a moratorium, ten months, far less than what was requested, but more significant than any action taken by any previous government of Israel for the 40 years thatsettlement enterprise has existed...
CHARLIE ROSE: And you and Secretary Clinton praised Prime Minister Netanyahu for agreeing to that.
MITCHELL: Yes.
ROSE: It does not include East Jerusalem. There've been announcement in the last 48 hours of new settlement construction in East Jerusalem where the Palestinians want to make their capital.
MITCHELL: Yes... for the Israelis, what they're building in is in part of Israel. Now, the others don't see it that way. So you have these widely divergent perspectives on the subject. Our view is let's get into negotiations... The Israelis are not going to stop settlements in, orconstruction in East Jerusalem... It's what they regard as their country. They don't say they're letting us go ahead when we build in Manhattan.
Something to remember as the WH continues to implicitly rewrite history, ensuring that lines like "[U.S. officials'] goal of stopping construction of new Israeli housing units on disputed territory" now apply to East Jerusalem though they've never done so before. Apparently any bit of Israeli land can magically become "disputed territory" if Israel's genocidal enemies and their Western anti-Israel enablers insist long enough.
The UN physically walked over every inch of the Israeli/Lebanese border and certified that Israel has fully withdrawn to its side of the Blue Line. Didn't matter. Hezbollah needed a pretext to keep killing Israelis and pursuing their stated goal of wiping out every last Jew in Israel. So, courtesy of Jimmy Carter and the United Nations, Har Dov suddenly became "disputed territory."
The Secretary of State hailed as "unprecedented" a construction freeze that explicitly didn't include East Jerusalem, a sentiment later echoed by the WH's Peace Process czar. Doesn't matter. Obama seems personally committed to pursuing his undeniably counterproductive vendetta against the Jewish State, presumably for a combination of personal and institutional reasons. So East Jerusalem now has to be subtly established as Palestinian territory, and duly established it shall be.
References:
* The Region: The single payer option [Rubin / JPost]
* Lebanon's Crisis And Ours with Barry Rubin [Omri Ceren Show]
* AUDIO :: Professor Barry Rubin -- Full Interview! [One Jerusalem Audio]
* The Second Time Will Be a Tragedy Too [Richamn / Commentary Contentions]
* After meeting, deafening silence [Rozen & Smith / Politico]
* Our Favorite Part of this AP Story is the Phrase "Hezbollah's representative in Iran" [Mere Rhetoric]
* In Just Seven Short Paragraphs, Jimmy Carter Tells 2 Lies, Makes 2 Incoherent Arguments, Takes an Anti-Israel Stance that the State Department Mocks, and Just Generally Annoys the Hell Out of Us [Mere Rhetoric]
* The UN Makes It Official: There Is Absolutely No Agreement That Won't Be Changed If Israel's Genocidal Enemies Refuse To Accept For Long Enough [Mere Rhetoric]
* Obama Won't Let Go. The Joys of Beating Up on an Ally. [Peretz / TNR]
* Obama and Netanyahu: pointless poison [WaPo]
Related Mere Rhetoric Categories:
* American Politics
* Israel
* Anti-Israel Diplomacy
