Is convergence the object of the peace process negotiations
[I UPDATED THIS ARTICLE AT 6:30 AM]
By Ted Belman
I attended a briefing today by an employee of the government who was very involved with everything going on in J&S. I will try to interview her on Skype and record it.
She said many things of importance. This is what I can remember:
1. Israel wants the EU and US Aid to continue financing projects in Area C even if this means that the EU has a say in what, when and why of the projects. Thus we are relinquishing our independence or control for this money. The sad thing is that the money involved is a little over $1 billion dollars, just a third of what we get from the US. Better to forfeit the $1 billion and remain in control of J&S.
2. No one including Kerry has confidence in the peace process so why is Kerry pushing it. That’s because it is a cover for a hidden agenda which she would not disclose.
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Were the guidelines for the “peace” talks leaked? (update)
Palestine Today, an organ of Islamic Jihad, has been a surprisingly good source for accurate news (that doesn’t involve Islamic Jihad.)
They published a set of supposed guidelines for the “peace” talks starting this week, and they don’t sound like someone’s idea of misinformation.
So here they are, as best as I can translate them, and you can make up your own minds:
It is expected that negotiations will take 6-9 months and will be based on the following guidelines:
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My Rock of Gibraltar (Not Yours)
Sure, Britain should give the rock back to the Spanish. But why stop there?
Francis Drake setting sail from Plymouth to fight the Spanish Armada it was not. Yet on Monday the British press ran heavy with images of the helicopter carrier HMS Illustrious leaving Portsmouth Naval Base, destination Gibraltar. Madrid is kicking up a fuss, again, over the Rock they have coveted ever since ceding it to Britain “for ever” in the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht. And London, says the Times of London, “is drawing up plans to take unprecedented legal action against Spain for imposing additional checks at the Gibraltar border.”
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US-led Israeli-Palestinian talks get off to confused start. Palestinians shun security issues
US-Israeli-Palestinian negotiations resume Wednesday afternoon, Aug. 14, in deep confusion, senior Israeli officials report to DEBKAfile. They say that the US delegation chairing the negotiations “appears to be at sea on which issue to lead off.” There is anger in Jerusalem over the leak from US Secretary of State John Kerry’s circle of his threat that Israel would face a campaign against its legitimacy unless it gives way to pressures on West Bank settlements.
“The Secretary would be better advised to focus on the hardening of the Palestinian position,” said Israeli sources. They also pointed out that although Kerry had insisted on the talks being held in confidence, his own people were pouring out confidential data to the media. “This can only be explained,” said the Israeli sources, “by the talks having run into crisis before they begin.” (Read more…)
Confronting the End of European Jewry
Last year the U.S. State Department noted that a “rising tide of anti-Semitism” was sweeping through Europe. It was a significant acknowledgement of a critical problem. But as serious as this warning was, the dilemma of European Jewry remains a marginal issue that only gains sporadic attention when there is an egregious crime or a move to ban Jewish religious practices in a specific country. As much as the murder of four Jews in a shooting spree in Toulouse by an Islamist terrorist or the attempts to ban circumcision or kosher slaughter makes headlines, the revival of Jew hatred on the European continent is not so much the function of egregious incidents as it is a historic process that is leading to what seems like an inevitable conclusion.
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For Israel, size matters
A small truncated Israel will invite aggression – by terrorists, armed forces, and those in possession of nuclear weapons.
Where are the negotiations carried out under the auspices of John Kerry going to take us? Their declared purpose is to bring about a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians – Fatah, Hamas, and an assorted group of Jihadists. Any realistic observer of the Middle East well knows that this is mission impossible at this time.
However one thing is for sure: If the negotiators reach an agreement it is going to make the area under Israeli control smaller, much smaller. It will return Israel to the lines that existed before Israel was attacked in the Six-Day War on June 4, 1967. In 1969 Israel’s foreign minister Abba Eban referring to these lines said: “The June map is for us the equivalent of insecurity and danger. I do not exaggerate when I say that it has for us something of a memory of Auschwitz.” Tzipi Livni, sent to negotiate our future by Benjamin Netanyahu, obviously does not share Eban’s strategic vision.
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A national campaign for the application of Israeli sovereignty over Judea and Samaria.
Continuing the Vision
Yehudit Katsover and Nadia Matar, WOMEN IN GREEN
Eretz Israel, the Land of Israel, is on the international negotiating table. Nothing else. Only Eretz Israel. The world is interested in the welfare of Arabs only where it is possible to attack the Jews. Syria is drowning in rivers of Arab blood, demonstrations in Egypt end with many dead, all of Europe is swept by an extremist Islamic wave that threatens to drown it, the entire Middle East shakes and seems to be hanging by a thread, and the world is so good as to utter a few pretty, hypocritical condemnations, and then quickly goes on as usual – to the “most problematic conflict” in the world – the “territories,” a code name for Eretz Israel.
What is in Eretz Israel that draws so much attention? (Read more…)
EU official says U.S. quietly supporting settlement sanctions
All EU member states supported new settlement sanctions, Israeli ambassador was told during meeting on crisis between EU, Israel.
A senior European Union official told an Israeli diplomat last week that the United States is quietly supporting new EU sanctions against the settlements.
Last month, the European Commission published new guidelines prohibiting EU grants, prizes or funding for any Israeli entity with direct or indirect ties to Jewish communities in the West Bank, East Jerusalem or Golan Heights.The guidelines also require any new agreement with Israel to include a clause stipulating that these areas aren’t part of the State of Israel, and therefore aren’t covered by the agreement.
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Gulf States, fearing Islamists and nuclear Iran, align with Israel as Qatar loses Bet on Morsi
Israel and the Gulf States: It’s Complicated: Raphael Ahren, Times of Israel, Aug. 9, 2013—In February 2009, a few days after Israel concluded its Operation Cast Lead against Gaza terrorists, the chief of protocol at Qatar’s Foreign Ministry invited Roi Rosenblit, who at the time headed Israel’s interest office in Doha, for a meeting in his office.
Qatar’s Geopolitical Gamble: How the Gulf State May Have Overreached: Viviene Walt,Time World, July 23, 2013—Qatar, the tiny gas-rich peninsula in the Persian Gulf, had poured nearly $5 billion into Morsi’s government in its one short year in office, propping up Egypt’s teetering economy, and investing — or so it thought — in a lasting relationship with the Arab world’s most populous nation.
Ted Belman
Jerusalem, Israel
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