A Chessmaster Or A Pawn?

Through much of President Obama's time so far as Commander in Chief many of his supporters including yours truly have likened him to a chessmaster with some of his moves, especially in the area of diplomacy. But now Spencer Ackerman highlights an exchange between Joke Line, uhmm Joe Klein and Bibi Netanyahu along with Secretary Clinton about whether or not a settlement freeze by Israel is still a precondition of peace negotiations with the Palestinians, and asks if for once President Obama himself isn't getting played. I highly recommend you read the post because it asks some tough questions and points out some even tougher potential consequences. It appears for all intents and purposes that Bibi is the one moving towards a checkmate.

Treasonous

Someone needs to ask Congressman Eric Cantor if he is an American or an Israeli. And fast!

JERUSALEM — The Obama administration's policy on Israel is misguided, puts too much emphasis on the issue of settlements and ignores the bigger threat of a nuclear-armed Iran, a U.S. delegation of Republican congressmen visiting Israel said Thursday.

Led by minority whip Eric Cantor from Virginia, the only Jewish Republican in Congress, the delegation of 25 Republicans say their weeklong mission to Israel is designed to show solidarity with the Jewish state and promote Mideast peace. A group of Democratic congressmen are expected to visit next week.

Cantor said that instead of focusing on issues such as Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank, Obama should concentrate on "the primary issue of import ... and that is the existential threat that Iran poses not only to the state of Israel but to the United States."

The congressman said he is "concerned about what the White House has been signaling of late."

No Congressman sets the foreign policy of this country, the President does that. And Cantor going overseas to another country to undermine President Obama's poicy stance is way the fuck out of bounds, even for the GOP. Its time some enterprising journalist actually asked him some tough questions.

What Didn't That Moron Screw Up?

Just when you thought you had a good grasp on all that President Bush had screwed up in his eight years in office all of a sudden a story like this comes out.

While in Washington, Netanyahu argued that Israel already dismantled settlements in the Gaza Strip, going beyond the road map, and was rewarded with the takeover of Gaza by the Hamas militant group and hundreds of rockets raining on Israeli towns, Israeli sources said. Still, shortly after he returned to Israel, the government tore down an unauthorized outpost, Maoz Esther. Israel is committed under the road map to remove about 26 such outposts, typically small groups of rudimentary structures with a few families. Settlers began rebuilding Maoz Esther almost immediately.


Netanyahu spokesman Mark Regev said there are no plans for a full settlement freeze. "The issue of settlements is a final status issue, and until there are final status arrangements, it would not be fair to kill normal life inside existing communities," he said.

Regev said the Israeli government is relying on "understandings" between former president George W. Bush and former prime minister Ariel Sharon that some of the larger settlements in the occupied West Bank would ultimately become part of Israel, codified in a letter that Bush gave to Sharon in 2004. In an interview with The Washington Post last year, Sharon aide Dov Weissglas said that in 2005, when Sharon was poised to remove settlers from Gaza, the Bush administration arrived at a secret agreement -- not disclosed to the Palestinians -- that Israel could add homes in settlements it expected to keep, as long as the construction was dictated by market demand, not subsidies.

Elliott Abrams, a former deputy national security adviser who negotiated the arrangement with Weissglas, confirmed the deal in an interview last week. "At the time of the Gaza withdrawal, there were lengthy discussions about how settlement activity might be constrained, and in fact it was constrained in the later part of the Sharon years and the Olmert years in accordance with the ideas that were discussed," he said. "There was something of an understanding realized on these questions, but it was never a written agreement."

Regev said Israeli and U.S. negotiators are discussing the degree to which the terms of the 2004 letter will apply under the new administration, but U.S. officials indicated that Obama wants to move beyond the 2004 letter and hold Israel to its commitments under the road map. "The bottom line is we expect all the parties in the region to honor their commitments, and for the Israelis, that means a stop to settlements, as the president said," a senior administration official said.

So to recap President Bush four years ago entered into a secret agreement with Israel with no guidance from nor connsultation with Congress that was in direct conflict with his public pronouncements of being serious about peace in the Middle East. Thankfully so far President Obama has shown that he is indeed serioous about a two state solution between Israel in Palestine and he has pressed Bibi Netanyahu on halting the settlements as have members of the leadership in Congress, something that hasn’t happened in the past. But that doesn't change the fact that while we were fighting a war in Iraq that many in the Middle East felt was a war against Islam, here was our neocon President unilaterally giving concessions to Israel over land he had absolutely no right to grant them. Who in the hell in his Administration recommended that letter? Was it Colin Powell? Condi Rice? Dick Cheney? What possible benefit would have ever come from such an arrangement?

I think by now most of us realize that one of the major factors threatening our national security is continued unrest between Israel and Palestine and yet Bush effectively insured that not only would that unrest continue, it would probably get worse as the settlements keep expanding. Not only that he probably did more to undermine the more moderate Abbas leader and usher in Hamas just with that one “secret” agreement. Hell is it even legal for President Bush to enter into such an arrangement all on his own? That’s what the hell I want to know. Now lets be real here, Presidents of this country have a long history of allowing Israel more latitude than any of our other “allies” but what Bush did, in my opinion, went way beyond the pale. He had Condi Rice going to promote the “Annapolis” agreements all throughout the Middle East during his second term, knowing full well he already had undermiined those agreements all on his own. And now any road to a true lasting two state solution is made even more complicated than before. Tell me why any Arab countries would trust the US to be an honest broker in these negotiations now after hearing about this secret agreement.

Unbelievable.

Said It To His Face

I know many progressives and members of J Street have been anxiously waiting to see how President Obama would handle a meeting with Israel's Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu especially when it comes to a two state peace solution with the Palestinans. Well even though we don't know what was said behind closed doors I would say what President Obama had to say in front of the cameras was encouraging.

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One subject that is particularly tricky and contentious is the issue of Israel's settlements in the West Bank. And to my warm suprise President Obama wasn't afraid to address the issue publicly.

Haaretz reports today that “Israel has moved ahead with a plan to build a new settlement in the northern West Bank for the first time in 26 years, pursuing a project the United States has already condemned as an obstacle to peace efforts.” In a much-anticipated press conference today with Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, President Obama said that new Israeli settlements “have to be stopped”:

OBAMA: Now, Israel is going have to take some difficult steps as well. And I shared with Prime Minister the fact that, under the road map, under Annapolis there’s a clear understanding that we have to make progress on settlements, that settlements have to be stopped in order for us to move forward. That’s a difficult thing to recognize, but it’s an important one. And it has to be addressed. I think the humanitarian situation in Gaza has to be addressed

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