Tuesday, 1 January 2013



IsraPundit


Egypt “On the Verge of Bankruptcy”  

“The country is on the verge of bankruptcy,” Egyptian opposition leader and Nobel Laureate Mohamed ElBaradei told the newspaper al-ArabiyaDec. 23. Unable to reduce subsidies that account for most of a budget deficit that now exceeds 14 percent of GDP, and unwilling to raises taxes, it seems most likely that the Muslim Brotherhood government of Mohamed Morsi will instead take the path of least resistance and allow a steady devaluation of the Egyptian pound. During the past two weeks, central bank intervention to support the pound’s value on the foreign exchange market has stopped and the currency has fallen sharply.
Goldman Graph 3

More on the ceasefire  

By Ted Belman
Israel eases ban on building material for Gaza. and Israel, Egypt Ease Gaza Blockades. This gives me confidence that something important is happening involving Israel, Egypt and the US. I think the cease fire is holding like no other.
This week the Times of Israel reported:
    Bedouin tribes from northern Sinai are threatening civil disobedience along the border with Israel in reaction to new Egyptian government regulations that prevent them from working the land near the border, an Egyptian daily reported on Monday.
    Sayyid Harhour, the governor of northern Sinai, informed tribal leaders last week that they are no longer allowed to work land located within a five-kilometer (three-mile) strip along the border with Israel, due to the strategic importance of Egypt’s eastern border. Harhour assured the leaders that the decision would not affect them, and conveyed their outrage to Defense Minister Abdul Fattah Sisi, the daily reported.
The Egyptian media on Sunday disclosed that the US and Israel plan to build a wall of separation in the Sinai region to further strengthen the Zionist regime’s security. 

Likud still opposed to a Palestinian State  

    Likud opposes a Palestinian state, says party hardliner MK Tzipi Hotovely calls Netanyahu’s 2009 speech calling for a two-state solution a ‘tactical’ move.
    A two-state solution is not part of the Likud platform, MK Tzipi Hotovely declared Monday at a panel discussion in Jerusalem, adding that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s 2009 speech calling for one was a tactical maneuver to placate the world and not an expression of support.

    “We are opposed to a Palestinian state,” the Likud politician said.
I agreed with this when I wrote:

Netanyahu is offering autonomy only

18 Oct 2010 –No doubt PM Netanyahu would have rather spent the last 18 months in hell than to have spent it participating in the peace process under brutal pressure by the Obama administration. Come to think of it, it must have been hell.

Keep in mind that Netanyahu was voted into office on a platform which denied the two-state solution.  The Obama administration succeeded in forcing a dramatic change in that policy.  Or did it? On June 14/09 Netanyahu delivered a speech at Bar Ilan University in which he appeared to accept a two state solution with these words,
    “In my vision of peace, two peoples live freely, side-by-side, in amity and mutual respect. Each will have its own flag, its own national anthem, its own government.”
Although the world spun it as an acceptance, of a Palestinian state, I submit that the same words would apply to an autonomous entity.  Notice that the all important word “state” was not employed.  

On June 14/09 Netanyahu delivered a speech at Bar Ilan University in …Remember limited sovereignty or demilitarized state is autonomy only.

If Pigs Could Fly Polls  

Abraham Center for Middle East Peace Poll
Dr. Aaron Lerner - IMRA: The Israeli media was filled today with the result of the two “If pigs could fly” polls commissioned by the Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace.
Why “if pigs could fly”?
Well, take a look at what the pollsters are asking.
There’s a trick to it.
Notice the loophole: “implementation would take place only after the Palestinians would fulfill all their commitments with an emphasis on fighting terror”
(Read more…)

New Polls: ‘Most Israelis back peace deal that guards security’  

This is very close to the Clinton parameters. According to the suggested deal we would also keep Ariel and Maaleh Adumin because both are settlement blocs. How does one reconcile this with the JCPA poll that found:
    A new poll by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs shows that the vast majority of Israelis are opposed to an Israeli withdrawal from Judea and Samaria. The poll, taken in November, showed that 76% of all Israelis (83% of Israeli Jews) do not believe that a withdrawal to the 1948 armistice lines will bring Israelis a secure peace.

    The large majority of all Israelis said they would change their vote if – 53% if a party proposed leaving the Jordan Valley, 69% for Jerusalem. Among Israeli Jews, the figures were 59% and 79% respectively.
    Among those voters, 50% said that they would not vote for a party advocating withdrawal from the Jordan Valley, and 67% from Jerusalem.
    According to this poll, A high percentage of left-to-center voters would vote right wing if their original party intended to make such significant land concessions.
2 polls find that 2/3 of Israelis would vote for peace agreement, including more than half of Likud Beytenu, Bayit Yehudi voters.
About two-thirds of Israelis would vote in favor of a peace agreement with the Palestinians if a deal which took Israel’s security concerns into account was brought to a referendum, two polls conducted on behalf of the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace found.
The Dahaf Institute poll found that 67% of Israelis say they would support a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians if it takes into account Israeli security concerns.
(Read more…)

Kurds, a nation once again.  

By Jonathan Spyer, GLORIA
In Syria, the Assad regime’s retreat back to Damascus and the Alawi heartlands in the west of the country has made possible the emergence of a Kurdish autonomous area in the country’s northeast.
This area shares a border with Kurdish- controlled northern Iraq. As a result, a contiguous area of Kurdish control, stretching along the southern border of Turkey, has come into being.
This emergent reality is raising again a question long dismissed from serious strategic discussion: namely, that of the establishment of a Kurdish state.
(Read more…)

A Paradox of U.S. Middle East Policy  

by Barry Rubin
The expression, “With friends like you who needs enemies?” is an apt summary of a major problem for U.S. foreign policy during Obama’s second term.
Here’s the issue: a number of supposed allies of the United States don’t act as friends. In fact, they are major headaches, often subverting U.S. goals and interests. But to avoid conflict and, for Obama, to look successful to the domestic audience, Washington pretends that everything is fine.
(Read more…)

Isi Liebler: Habait Hayehudi – yes, but…  

By Ted Belman
In his latest article on Bayit Hayehudi, Isi Leibler begins by writing:
    As a lifelong religious Zionist, I was saddened observing the ongoing collapse of the movement which had made a unique and valuable contribution to the welfare of the nation, upholding enlightened Jewish values, striving for unity and promoting tolerance.

    So when the national religious Habait Hayehudi was resurrected and polls predicted it may become the third-largest party in the Knesset, should I not enthusiastically greet such a phenomenon?
    The answer is yes, but…
First, he extols its virtues:
(Read more…)

John Kerry at State: A Disaster for Israel  

The view that Israel and the Palestinian Arabs equally share blame for the continuation of a decades old conflict is part and parcel of Kerry’s troubling perspective.
Moshe Phillips, AFSI
http://[http://www.forward.com/articles/104489
President Obama’s decision to nominate Senator John Kerry as his next Secretary of State will prove to be a disaster for Israel.
The choice of the American Jewish establishment to vehemently protest the expected nomination of former Senator Chuck Hagel while granting Kerry a free pass for his anti-Israel behavior follows their longtime pattern.
Hagel is a Republican who has a history of marking foolish remarks regarding Israel and has long been seen as an independent thinker on Middle East policy with a non-interventionist outlook.
Kerry, however, is the much bigger problem for Israel.
(Read more…)
 


Ted Belman
Jerusalem, Israel

Posted by Britannia Radio at 19:58