Canada takes firm pro-Israel line at G8 summit JPOST DEAUVILLE, France – Group of Eight leaders had to soften a statement urging Israel and the Palestinians to return to negotiations because Canada objected to a specific mention of 1967 borders, diplomats said on Friday. Canada’s right-leaning Conservative government has adopted a staunchly pro-Israel position in international negotiations since coming to power in 2006, with Prime Minister Stephen Harper saying Canada will back Israel whatever the cost. Diplomats involved in Middle East discussions at the G8 summit said Ottawa had insisted that no mention of Israel’s pre-1967 borders be made in the leaders’ final communique, even though most of the other leaders wanted a mention. A spokesman for Harper would not comment on the line Canada had... Walter Russell Mead let’s him have it in The Dreamer Goes Down For The Count By Charles Krauthammer, WASHINGTON POST It’s on the basis of such solemn assurances that Israel undertook, for example, the Gaza withdrawal. In order to mitigate this risk, President George W. Bush gave a written commitment that America supported Israel absorbing major settlement blocs in any peace agreement, opposed any return to the 1967 lines and stood firm against the so-called Palestinian right of return to Israel. By Ted Belman Jonathan Kay is the Senior Editor of the National Post. He just wrote I want to support Israel, but Netanyahu is making it difficult. I was surprised because I know him and though I knew he was to the left of me, I never realized how far left. He starts it by writing The Middle East conflict is a fight about land. But it’s also a fight about time — about which exact historical moment we should use as our benchmark in assessing what real estate belongs to whom. He goes on to say he thinks the right time is 1949. Why do I pick 1949 and not, say, 1900 (no Israel) or July, 1967 (Greater Israel)? Because historical benchmarks are meaningful only when they offer some realistic guide to shaping the present. And so in choosing between divergent, irreconcilable geographical visions cherry-picked from history, pragmatism should be our guide. The Jews and their state are not going anywhere. But neither are Palestinians suddenly going to give up their... CAMERA A poll of more than 1000 American Jews conducted by Frank Luntz, PhD of Luntz Global on behalf of CAMERA on May 16-17 finds continuing, deep support for Israel. News media accounts often amplify a vocal fringe in the American Jewish community that espouses extreme views and policies far out of the mainstream. Often, for example, J Street, a group whose views represent a tiny percentage of American Jews, is reported as an equal counterpart to AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, whose various positions, according to the poll, express majority, mainstream views. Similarly, some news reports have claimed American Jews are increasingly alienated from Israel due to perceived failures of the Israeli government and people to move expeditiously to achieve peace. By Boaz Ganor, JCPA A few months ago, White House Counter-Terrorism Advisor John Brennan said, “Islamists and Jihadists are not our enemy.” In response, I wrote an op-ed in the Jerusalem Post which explains that moderate Arab leaders know that Jihadists and Islamists are the enemy. By saying that Islamists and Jihadists are not the enemy, the United States – the spearhead of Western society and the protector of liberal values in the world – is sending a confusing message to its allies worldwide. Israeli People and Experts: We Support Netanyahu and Don’t Want to Return to 1967 Borders. U.S. Media: Israelis Don’t Like Netanyahu and Israeli Experts Say 1967 Borders are OK We are living in Satireworld. I mean what more can you say? Well, I can say the title of this article that sums it up: Israeli People and Experts: We Support Netanyahu and Don’t Want to Return to 1967 Borders. U.S. Media: Israelis Don’t Like Netanyahu and Israeli Experts Say 1967 Borders are OK Here’s the evidence: New York Times headline:” Israelis See Netanyahu Trip as Diplomatic Failure.” “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel returned from Washington on Wednesday to a nearly unanimous assessment among Israelis that despite his forceful defense of Israel’s security interests, hopes were dashed that his visit might advance peace negotiations with the Palestinians.” Actually, Israelis generally have no hopes that anything is going to... Compliments of Anglo Saxon Ra’anana Real Estate Quote for the Week Real peace between nations is accomplished by people in the field like us. Dr Ahmed Said of the Ramalla Central Hospital on a visit to the Carmel Medical Center in Haifa. (Is everybody listening out there?! ) As those who read GN regularly will have noticed, we avoid politics of any kind so what follows is merely a report on what happened: Our Prime Minister addressed a joint sitting of Congress and the Senate in Washington D C yesterday. He received twenty-six standing ovations – we counted 27 but what’s one standing ovation between friends – in a 45 minute speech. This morning , his detractors detracted and his admirers admired but our guess is that there were a lot more of the latter and a lot fewer of the former than there were before his appearance. The reason? Simple. Nobody, but nobody does it as well as our PM. And, with the greatest respect, that includes most... By effectively ignoring most of Obama’s speech on the Middle East, the media has missed its most significant element: the enunciation of a new US foreign policy doctrine for the area – the Obama doctrine. It has serious implications for Israel. First and foremost, the Obama doctrine for the Middle East prioritizes the engagement of the public in the Middle East, rather than the engagement of the states in the region. America’s strategic credibility is based, then, on being seen to support populist calls for reform, rather than on supporting its long-time strategic allies. Thus, when choosing between supporting regimes that have been strategic allies or supporting the people demonstrating against those regimes, the Obama administration has taken the side of the demonstrators, arguing that in any case the status quo cannot hold. A few weeks ago I posted that a letter was sent to Ban Ki Moon by Yesha Council. I am trying to confirm whether these letters are the same. Go back and read the letter carefully. Also read the comment by Howard Grief. Ted Belman Int’l group of some 60 lawyers say UN resolution on statehood would be a violation of all past agreements between Israel, the Palestinians. An international group of some 60 attorneys, including former Foreign Ministry legal adviser Alan Baker, has appealed to United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to prevent a General Assembly resolution on unilateral Palestinian statehood, based on the pre-1967 lines. In a letter dated Wednesday, the attorneys noted that such a resolution would be a violation of all past agreements between Israel and the Palestinians. They added that it would also contravene UN resolutions 242 and 338.
Canada stands on guard for Israel
“The Canadians were really very adamant, even though Obama expressly referred to 1967 borders in his speech last week,” one European diplomat said.Poor Obama, he had it coming
But the last few weeks have cast him as the least competent manager of America’s Middle East diplomatic portfolio in a very long time. He has infuriated and frustrated long term friends, but made no headway in reconciling enemies. He has strained our ties with the established regimes without winning new friends on the Arab Street. He has committed our forces in the strategically irrelevant backwater of Libya not, as he originally told us, for “days, not weeks” but for months not days.
Where he has failed so dramatically is in the arena he himself has so frequently identified as vital: the search for peace between Palestinians and Israelis. His record of grotesque, humiliating and total diplomatic failure in his dealings with Prime Minister Netanyahu has few parallels in American history. Three times he has gone up against Netanyahu; three times he has ingloriously failed. This...What Obama did to Israel (screwed her)
Every Arab-Israeli negotiation contains a fundamental asymmetry: Israel gives up land, which is tangible; the Arabs make promises, which are ephemeral. The long-standing American solution has been to nonetheless urge Israel to take risks for peace while America balances things by giving assurances of U.S. support for Israel’s security and diplomatic needs.
For 2 1/2 years, the Obama administration has refused to recognize and reaffirm these assurances. Then last week in his State Department speech, President Obama definitively trashed them. He...Belman’s realism trumps Kay’s pragmatism
The MSM misrepresents Jewish support for Israel
In fact, the poll results show strong belief in Israel’s commitment to peace efforts and apprehension about its existential situation and its Palestinian adversaries with their “culture of...The Arab Spring from a Counter-Terrorism Perspective
World War III is occurring right now. It is not only a war of ideas, it is a religious war – not between Islam and the rest of the world, but first and foremost a war within the religion of Islam. It is a war of the culture of Islamic radicalism against the rest of the world, which includes the majority of Muslims worldwide.
In the competition between the Iranian axis and the pragmatic axis, the Iranian axis is winning. Hizbullah is growing...The MSM misrepresents reality
By Barry Rubin, PAJAMAS MEDIAGood News, Israel
The Obama Doctrine
It is in this context that Obama’s approach to the Arab-Israeli conflict needs to be understood. One...Attorneys to Ban: Halt unilateral Palestinian statehood
According to the attorneys, the legal basis for the establishment of the state by the League of...
Ted Belman
Jerusalem, Israel
Saturday 28 May 2011
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