India Turns to Israel
At the Maccabiah games held in Israel during July 2013, a contingent of 28 Indian Jews competed with 9000 Jewish athletes from more than 70 countries in the 38 sports contested. The members of the contingent won no medals but their team did beat the British team at cricket. Impressive though this triumph in Tel Aviv may be, far more important is the increasingly cordial relationship between Israel and India.
Cordiality was not always the case. India voted against the November 29, 1947 United Nations Partition Resolution that led to the creation of Israel. It voted in 1949 against Israel becoming a member of the United Nations. It did recognize the existence of Israel as a state in 1950. This position was supported by Hindu organizations throughout the country while the ruling Congress party appeased the Muslim population. But India, a founding member of the nonaligned movement and essentially pro-Arab in its policy positions, did not establish formal diplomatic relations with the Jewish state until January 1992. At that point J. N. Dixit, the Indian foreign minister, complained, “What have the Arabs given us?”
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Dumb, Dumber, Dumberer in Washington
by David P. Goldman, PJ Media
Earlier today, Egypt’s military government arrested former prime minister Mohammed Mursi on charges of conspiring with the terrorist organization Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestinian affiliate. That is as good as it gets in this part of the world. Hamas has murdered 457 Israelis and wounded more than 3,000 since 2000, according to the Israeli government. It is an implacable enemy of the United States as well as the State of Israel. Since taking power, the Egyptian military has shut down illegal tunnel traffic with Gaza, Hamas’ stronghold, and strangled its economy.
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Netanyahu was allowed his own terms of reference
This article coming from the far left is very biased. It presumes that Israel has the obligation to end the occupation by giving the Palestinians what they want rather than that the Palestinians have the opportunity to end the occupation by accepting to what is offered. The author also believes that the US is giving too much support to Israel by letting her avoid satisfying Palestinian demands. Everyone should be reminded that the Palestinians agreed to the terms of occupation in the Oslo Accords which have never been abrogated. There is no obligation on Israel to end the occupation. Both parties have the right to reject any offer they want but neither can complain if the consequence of such rejection is the continuance of the occupation.Ted Belman
By Noam Sheizaf, 972Mag
To register their recent success, Secretary of State Kerry and the Obama administration destroyed whatever was achieved in the last two decades. For the first time since the 1991 Madrid Conference, the starting point for the negotiations are the positions of the Israeli right.
The headlines celebrating the fact that “Israelis and Palestinians are talking again” were misleading. The Palestinian Authority is no more than a regional council in a territory controlled by Israel. Since the PA is completely dependent on Israel for almost all of its functions, Israelis and Palestinians are talking all the time, including on the political level.
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What’s involved in ’67 lines with swaps 
[I just came upon this article which was published in March 2013 by +972Mag, an Israeli a pro-Palestine Blog. It is well worth reading for the numbers disclosed. Ted Belman]
Veteran Israeli negotiator Shaul Arieli discusses the failure of the Oslo Accords,various Israeli prime ministers’ commitment (or lack thereof) to ending the occupation, and the only solution he believes both sides could live with, however unsatisfied they might be with it.
Shaul Arieli is a man on a dual mission: educating Israelis about the conflict and diplomatic process with the Palestinians, and making the point that the two-state solution is both possible and necessary. His latest publication in Hebrew, A Border between Us and You (Yeditoth Ahronoth Books 2013), is a 500-page handbook to the history of the conflict, with an emphasis on the diplomatic and political process. It is written in very simple (and sometimes simplistic) language, with lots of maps, tables and even entries describing notable leaders on both sides. Arieli was thinking about Israeli teenagers when he wrote his book, but lately I find myself going back to it again and again to find a figure or to check historical details for one of my posts.
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How Obama boxed Netanyahu in to an imposed solution
This article was originally published in March 2010. It is the successor to Obama Plans to impose a solution written 4 months earlier. Although Obama didn’t succeed in finishing the job in the first term, he is well on his way to finishing it in his second term. Given all the concessions Netanyahu has made and the determination of the US, the EU and the UN to impose this solution, what choice does Netanyahu and Israel now have?
By Ted Belman
During the lead up to his election victory, he surrounded himself with a host of vehemently anti-Israel advisors including Lee Hamilton, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Samantha Power, Susan Rice and Gen Jones, many of whom advocated imposing a solution on Israel..
He also made common cause with Jewish leftists represented by J Street and Israel Policy Forum who were urging him to increase the pressure on Israel and if that didn’t work, to impose a solution on Israel.
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Ted Belman
Jerusalem, Israel
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