Obama, Netanyahu to meet at U.N. in New York

JERUSALEM (JTA) -- President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are set to meet on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly meeting.

Netanyahu is scheduled to arrive Wednesday in New York for the General Assembly meeting. He told his Cabinet Sunday that he will meet with Obama, as well as other world leaders, upon his arrival.

White House National Security Council spokesman Ben Rhodes confirmed the scheduled meeting to reporters over the weekend. Obama is not scheduled to meet with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, according to the White House.

Netanyahu and Abbas are both scheduled to address the General Assembly on Sept. 23, after which Abbas said he will submit a bid for full membership for the state of Palestine in the U.N. Security Council.

The truth is Israelis want peace, Israel wants peace - but the actions of Netanyahu don't. What's your problem Obama and Netanyahu? You are acting like villians of the peace process,  if you are not willing to acknoweldge what you say from the other mouth, what good is your word? Netanyahu will dupe Obama or scare the crap out of him.

Mike Ghouse
# # #

"The U.N. is not a place where Israel wins praise, but I think that it is important that I go there in order to represent both the State of Israel and the truth -- and the truth is that Israel wants peace and the truth is that the Palestinians are doing everything to torpedo direct peace negotiations," Netanyahu said Sunday.

Netanyahu reiterated that the only way for Israel and the Palestinians to achieve a peace agreement is through direct negotiations. He said that Abbas a year ago had declared a year ago that the Palestinians' goal was to be accepted as a U.N. member and its attempt "will fail."

"It will fail because it must go through the U.N. Security Council. Decisions that are binding on U.N. members pass through the Security Council," the Israeli leader said. "I am convinced that the activity of the U.S., which is deeply cooperating with us, as well as the activity of other governments with which we are also cooperating will result in the failure of this attempt."

The Israel Project presents a very different perspective

Reponse to President Abbas Statement on UN Actions

Washington, Sept. 17

- Last night, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said that when he comes to the U.N. next week, he is not just going to ask countries to vote for a Palestinian state; he is going to ask them to vote for the exact physical boundaries of that state.

He said: "We are trying to get a full membership in the U.N., on the 67 borders, so we will be able, afterwards, to go back to negotiations…during which we will discuss final status issues, Jerusalem, refugees, borders, water, security, settlements and the issue of our prisoners, that by that stage will be prisoners of war, not terrorists or criminals. Even if this won't be the case, they will be our top priority."

At that point, what would be left for the Palestinians to negotiate? And then later, how can Abbas go to his people and tell them to take less than what the U.N. promised them? He’d once again be up a tree without a ladder.

If such a resolution passes, the entire idea of peace talks under the "land for peace" concept will be destroyed because the U.N. already will have given the land to the Palestinians, but Israel won’t have received peace.

Israel would be left with zero leverage in any peace talks.

Additionally, Abbas told his people that the resolution will call for the Palestinian state to be established on the "1967 borders" – not the 1967 lines with mutually agreed upon swaps that President Obama recently called for. This would reduce the width of Israel just north of Tel Aviv to about nine miles (15 km) at its highest population areas of Tel Aviv, Netanya and Herzliya, leaving Israelis and their international airport just beneath the hills from which Palestinian terrorists could shoot rockets at Israeli civilians.

We already saw what happened in Gaza when Israel withdrew: Palestinian terrorists used the area as a launching pad to fire thousands of rockets at Israeli civilians. Those attacks have continued as recently as last week. People are still dying but still Abbas has been unwilling to come to the negotiating table. Even now the Palestinian people answer to two leaders: Abbas and Iran-backed Hamas. Hamas is recognized by the United States, the European Union and other entities as a terrorist organization whose very charter calls for the destruction of Israel and to "kill the Jews." Polls shows that the vast majority of Palestinians who support a two-state solution see it merely as a step toward doing away with Israel.

The "1967 borders" formula that Abbas spoke of last night, in addition to his calling for East Jerusalem as their capital, implies Israel ceding control of the Old City including the Jewish Quarter and the Western Wall to Palestinian control. This is unacceptable. Every peace negotiation has recognized the need for the city to remain united with some form of shared sovereignty, with holy sites administered by each separate religion.

All peace plans have recognized the need to adjust these borders. Leaving out key phrases such as "mutually agreed-upon swaps" or "1967 lines with demographic adjustments" renders the Palestinian resolution totally unacceptable. In previous peace talks, Israel has offered all of Gaza plus 94% of the pre-1967 lines, the West Bank AND other land swaps. But the Palestinians rejected these offers.

Again, in the Abbas plan announced last night, the Western Wall and key Christian sites would be out of Israeli control, and 500,000 Jews would be left in "Palestine." And we still won’t know who will lead this new Palestinian country a few months later - Abbas or Hamas. So we need to ask:

• Will a future Palestinian state be a peaceful neighbor that will work with Israel, or will Israel continue to face daily rocket attacks on Israeli citizens – this time with rockets coming from the Judean Hills onto Tel Aviv, Netanya and Herzliya?
• Will it be controlled by the Palestinian Authority or Iran-backed Hamas?
• Will it be a durable and democratic state that will contribute to peace in the Middle East or be controlled by Iran?

Israel wants a Palestinian state, and so should the rest of the world. But lasting peace can only be achieved through negotiations that settle all outstanding issues to the satisfaction of both sides with mutual respect and security. Israeli and Palestinian relations are very complicated, with shared power, water and security issues affecting both sides. Borders and refugee issues need to be resolved through mutual agreements. Peace cannot be imposed, it can only be negotiated. By definition, peace is an agreement, and it takes two to reach such an agreement.

The only way to get answers is to vote against the U.N. resolution and get the parties back to the table so there can be a real two-state solution with enduring homelands for the Jewish and Palestinian people - not a state of endless war. The Palestinian resolution, if passed, will provide the world a dangerous illustration that the U.N. stands for terror, not for peace.

-Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi

Founder & President

The Israel Project

www.theisraelproject.org

Israel shooting in its own foot - MJ Rosenberg

This is beginning to look like one of the worst periods in Israel's history. (Read this from the New York Times.) The Turkish government has essentially broken relations with Israel over Netanyahu's refusal to apologize for storming the Mavi Marmara relief ship and killing nine Turkish nationals in the process. Ordinary Egyptians (not the government) attacked the Israeli embassy in Cairo, forcing all of its personnel to return home to Israel. And the Palestinians, having despaired of achieving anything in negotiations with Israel under current conditions, are taking their case to the United Nations, where an overwhelming majority of the General Assembly will endorse Palestinian statehood, even though Israel will still control the territory of the new state. Each of these events, standing alone, would be catastrophic for Israel. In combination, they create a perfect storm, one whose force can only be kept at bay by the U.S. government. But our government is unwilling to do what will ultimately help Israel if it means publicly opposing Netanyahu in an election year. That sounds counter-intuitive. Politicians always want to give Israel whatever it wants in an election year. But this time around, standing with Israel's leader does not mean supporting Israel simply because it is he who, more than anyone else, is responsible for the tsunami heading towards his county's shores. He is the one who ended negotiations with the Palestinians by refusing to accede to Obama's request for a settlement freeze. (Palestinians rightly refuse to negotiate while the land they are negotiating over is being gobbled up by settlers.) He is the one who refused to apologize to Turkey for killing its nationals, even after the United States devised a formula that both sides seemed happy with. (Netanyahu backed down out of fear of his thuggish foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman.) As for the Egyptians, they identify Netanyahu with the Mubarak regime, which barely raised a word of protest against the occupation of the West Bank or the strangulation of Gaza. Now the Israel-Egypt peace treaty, the most critical component of Israel's security, is itself in jeopardy. None of this happened overnight and all of it can be traced to the continuation of the 44-year-old occupation. Obama understands all of this, but when he tried to push the Israelis to start negotiations to end it once and for all, Israel's 'supporters' in America went ballistic. When Netanyahu told them to get Obama to back down "to save Israel," they did. AIPAC made sure that every member of Congress knew that they were being "scored" on the level of their support for Netanyahu. A low score meant closed checkbooks. Our president surrendered. In that spirit, the U.S. is opposing Palestinian statehood on Netanyahu's behalf. But not Israel's. Israel is in big trouble and it needs allies who will help it prevail over this sea of misfortunes. It doesn't have those allies. It just has self-proclaimed supporters in the habit of telling the Israeli government whatever it wants to hear. Accordingly, there is no one who is telling Israel — from a position of strength — that it needs to end the occupation. The United States is, once again, playing the role of Israel's enabler. But there is another way. Media reports indicate that the Obama administration is desperate to avoid the Palestinian statehood resolution from coming up for a vote at the U.N. later this month. What that really means is that the United States is desperate to avoid jeopardizing U.S. interests throughout the Arab and Muslim world (including our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan) by voting against the measure. So why not vote "yes"? The resolution simply codifies the U.S. policy favoring a two-state solution. Because it will change nothing on the ground (the Israelis will still control all the territory), bilateral Israeli-Palestinian negotiations will still be necessary to achieve a final status agreement. The U.N. resolution does not substitute unilateralism for negotiation. It simply levels the playing field so that negotiations will be between two states, not one powerful state and one occupied supplicant. Any real change on the ground requires mutual agreement by both sides on all the issues: borders, security arrangements, Jerusalem, water resources, settlements, refugees. Nothing would be rammed down either side's throat because, as provided for in every significant proposal for negotiations (including all U.N. resolutions and the Arab League Initiative), every change in the status quo must be mutually agreed upon. So what's the problem? The problem is that the United States has promised Netanyahu to veto the resolution in the Security Council. (The Palestinians might opt for the General Assembly, where they are likely to prevail, but actual recognition as a state can only be conferred by the Security Council.) But how about this? The administration tells Israel and the Palestinians that we will vote "yes" in the Security Council (enabling passage) if the resolution includes language recognizing Israel as a Jewish state. This is a new and superfluous condition that the Israeli right has come up with recently that threatens to destroy any possibility of an agreement. Palestinians see this demand for what it is: moving the goal post. For the Israeli right, however, demanding recognition not just as Israel but "as a Jewish state," represents their last-ditch condition to block peace if agreement is reached on everything else. In fact, it is no big deal. Israel is going to be a Jewish state (unless, of course, the two-state solution is replaced by the one-state solution) no matter what it's called. Palestinians know that. Any Palestinian fear that "Jewish state" language will jeopardize the rights of Palestinian Israelis can itself be addressed within the U.N. resolution. It can include language echoing the Balfour Declaration, which called for a Jewish state with the caveat that it be "clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine." If the Palestinians agreed to the "Jewish state" formulation, the United States would not only be free to vote for the resolution but might be able to convince Israel to vote for it as well. And we would be well on the way to implementation of the two-state solution. Netanyahu, for his part, owes Obama big time. How about, for once, giving the United States a break? Not to mention Israel.

AND MORE FROM MJ ROSENBERG:

Shooting Ourselves In The Foot At The U.N. It is amusing watching the usual suspects — including those in the Obama administration — announce their opposition to the United Nations resolution that would grant the Palestinians their long-sought state. Some of the opposition comes from the lobby and its congressional cutouts who are dedicated to preserving the status quo (i.e., the occupation). The Obama administration surely has a far more nuanced position but is terrified at the prospect of challenging the lobby as it faces a tough re-election campaign. In any case, the United States looks utterly helpless. The Palestinians no longer view President Obama as an honest broker. Having watched him back down after every attempt to bring Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to the peace table, they view Obama as no different from his most recent predecessor. As for the Israeli leadership, it openly disrespects the president. Netanyahu, like most bullies, is only impressed by those who bully him right back. Obama's repeated capitulations win him no points with Netanyahu, who believed from day one that Obama could be rolled. He has been proven right while his many dovish critics at home — who insisted that there would be a price to be paid for disrespecting the United States — look like Nervous Nellies. It is the United States that is paying the price, not Israel. Look at how the Obama administration is handling the upcoming U.N. vote. This week, in a last ditch attempt to avert a U.N. vote, the administration dispatched Dennis Ross, the National Security Council official in charge of Arab-Israeli affairs, to the region, along with David Hill, who is filling in as Special Envoy to the region following the resignation (in disgust) of George Mitchell. Hill is a respected foreign policy professional, but both Palestinians and Israelis know that Ross is the guy who matters. He is also the official responsible for the administration's failure to make any headway on Israel-Palestinian issues since coming to office. That is not because Ross is inept; he isn't. But he is a true-blue supporter of right-wing Israeli policies, best known for, between government jobs, having led AIPAC's own think tank, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. More than any administration official since Elliot Abrams — in the George W. Bush administration — Ross believes that the United States must never publicly differ with the Israeli government about anything. (Apparently it was Ross who devised Vice President Biden's pledge that there must be "no daylight, no daylight" between Israeli and U.S. policies.) Dispatching Ross to talk to Palestinians and Israelis about the U.N. vote demonstrates that the administration is just going through the motions on Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy. After all, the Palestinians don't trust Ross at all and the Israelis know that he is fully on their side. Ross brings nothing new to the table and certainly nothing to induce the Palestinians to forego their statehood initiative. If the United States was dedicated to advancing diplomacy rather than reassuring the lobby, it would pressure Netanyahu to return to negotiations based on the '67 lines (as has been the case with all previous negotiations), with a settlement freeze as a form of earnest money. In return, the Palestinians would drop its U.N. initiative. Unfortunately, that won't happen because the lobby (and its friend, Dennis Ross) will not permit pressure on Israel, just on the Palestinians — who have been warned that if they go ahead with the vote, they will lose U.S. aid. So it looks like there will be a U.N. vote and the United States will be among the few nations in the world to vote "no." Not even Mahmoud Abbas' repeated assurance that his first act following the vote will be to open negotiations with Israel will have an impact on the U.S. position. No, we will stand with Netanyahu even though internationally the perception that the U.S. and Israel are joined at the hip is the last thing any president wants. But let's not give up hope. This weekend is the 10th anniversary of 9/11, a particularly inauspicious time for the Obama administration to look like Netanyahu's puppet. This is not to say that the terrorists who would love to strike America again are seriously concerned about the Palestinians. They aren't. But America's seeming hostility to the Palestinians and our "no daylight" alliance with Israel gives them a convenient pretense to commit terrorism. And it gives the vast majority of the people in the Middle East, who are fighting against both Al-Qaeda and their Western-backed dictators, further reason to question our motivations in the region. The Palestinian issue is the one issue on which all Muslims are united. No matter whether they are Saudis or Iranians, Indonesians or Afghans, the one issue that brings Muslim together is the belief that the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the blockade of Gaza are terrible wrongs, supported by the United States. (Muslims aren't the only ones who feel this way, as will be demonstrated by the overwhelming vote for the Palestinian statehood resolution that the U.S. and Israel will stand virtually alone in opposing.) The Obama administration should keep that in mind when it decides how it will handle the vote. Promoting the two-state solution, starting with a vote FOR a Palestinian state at the U.N., is not only the moral thing to do — just as it was when the U.S. supported Israel's statehood at the U.N. in 1947 — but it is also the right thing to do from the standpoint of America's security. For Israel's sake, for the Palestinians', and for our own, the President should tell the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. to vote "yes."

Uri Avnery on Palestinian Vote

URI Avnery September 17, 2011 Sad and Happy

“WILL THIS be the happiest day of your life?” a local interviewer asked me, referring to the approaching recognition of the State of Palestine by the UN.

I was taken by surprise. “Why would that be?” I asked.

“Well, for 62 years you have advocated the establishment of a Palestinian state next to Israel, and here it comes!”

“If I were a Palestinian, I would probably be happy,” I said, “But as an Israeli, I am rather sad.”

LET ME explain.

I came out of the 1948 war with four solid convictions:

(1) There exists a Palestinian people, though the name Palestine had been wiped off the map.

(2) It is with this Palestinian people that we must make peace.

(3) Peace will be impossible unless the Palestinians are allowed to set up their state next to Israel.

(4) Without peace, Israel will not be the model state we had been dreaming about in the trenches, but something very different.

While recovering from my wounds and still in uniform, I met with several young people, Arabs and Jews, to plot our course. We were very optimistic. Now everything seemed possible.

What we were thinking about was a great act of fraternization. Jews and Arabs had fought each other valiantly, each fighting for what they considered their national rights. Now the time had come to reach out for peace.

The idea of peace between two gallant fighters after the battle is as old as Semitic culture. In the epic written more than 3000 years ago, Gilgamesh, king of Uruk (in today’s Iraq) fights against the wild Enkidu, his equal in strength and courage, and after the epic fight they become blood brothers.

We had fought hard and had won. The Palestinians had lost everything. The part of Palestine that had been allotted by the UN to their state had been gobbled up by Israel, Jordan and Egypt, leaving nothing for them. Half the Palestinian people had been driven from their homes and become refugees.

That was the time, we thought, for the victor to stun the world with an act of magnanimity and wisdom, offering to help the Palestinians to set up their state in return for peace. Thus we could forge a friendship that would last for generations.

18 years later I brought this vision up again in similar circumstances. We had won a stunning victory against the Arab armies in the Six-Day war, the Middle East was in a state of shock. An Israeli offer to the Palestinians to establish their state would have electrified the region.

I AM telling this story (again) in order to make one point: when the “Two-State Solution” was conceived for the first time after 1948, it was as an idea of reconciliation, fraternization and mutual respect.

We envisaged two states living closely together, with borders open to the free movement of people and goods. Jerusalem, the joint capital, would symbolize the spirit of the historic change. Palestine would become the bridge between the new Israel and the Arab world, united for the common good. We spoke of a “Semitic Union” long before the European Union became a reality.

When the Two-State Solution made its extraordinary march from the vision of a handful of outsiders (or crazies) to a world-wide consensus, it was this context in which it was viewed. Not a plot against Israel, but the only viable basis for real peace.

This vision was firmly rejected by David Ben-Gurion, then the undisputed leader of Israel. He was busy distributing new Jewish immigrants across the vast areas expropriated from the Arabs, and he did not believe in peace with the Arabs anyhow. He set the course that successive Israeli governments, including the present one, have followed ever since.

On the Arab side, there was always support for this vision. Already at the Lausanne Conference in 1949, an unofficial Palestinian delegation appeared and secretly offered to start direct negotiations, but they were roughly rebuffed by the Israeli delegate, Eliyahu Sasson, on direct orders from Ben-Gurion (as I heard from him later).

Yasser Arafat told me several times – from 1982 to his death in 2004 – that he would support a “Benelux” solution (on the model of the union between Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxemburg), which would include Israel, Palestine and Jordan (“and perhaps Lebanon too, why not?”)

PEOPLE SPEAK about all the opportunities for peace missed by Israel throughout the years. That is nonsense: you can miss opportunities on the way to a goal that you desire, but not on the way to something you abhor.

Ben-Gurion saw an independent Palestinian state as a mortal danger to Israel. So he made a secret deal with King Abdullah I, dividing between them the territory allocated by the UN partition plan to the Arab Palestinian state. All Ben-Gurion's successors inherited the same dogma: that a Palestinian state would be a terrible danger. Therefore they opted for the so-called ”“Jordanian option” – keeping what is left of Palestine under the heel of the Jordanian monarch, who is no Palestinian (nor even Jordanian - his family came from Mecca).

This week, the present Jordanian ruler, Abdullah II, flew into a rage when told that yet another Israeli former general, Uzi Dayan, had again proposed turning Jordan into Palestine, with the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as “provinces” of the Hashemite kingdom. This Dayan is, unlike his late cousin, Moshe, a pompous fool, but even a speech by such a person infuriates the king, who is mortally afraid of an influx of Palestinians driven from the West Bank into Jordan.

Three days ago, Binyamin Netanyahu told Cathy Ashton, the pathetic “foreign secretary” of the European Union, that he would agree to anything short of Palestinian statehood. That may sound strange, in view of the “historic” speech he made less than two years ago, in which he expressed his support for the Two-State Solution. (Perhaps he was thinking of the State of Israel and the State of the Settlers.)

In the few remaining weeks before the UN vote, our government will fight tooth and nail against a Palestinian state, supported by the full might of the US. This week Hillary Clinton trumped even her own rhetorical record when she announced that the US supports the Two-State Solution and therefore opposes any UN vote recognizing a Palestinian state.

APART FROM the dire threats of what will happen after the UN vote for a Palestinian state, Israeli and American leaders assure us that such a vote will make no difference at all.

If so, why fight it?

Of course it will make a difference. The occupation will go on, but it will be the occupation of one state by another. In history, symbols count. The fact that the vast majority of the world’s nations will have recognized the State of Palestine will be another step towards gaining freedom for Palestine.

What will happen the day after? Our army has already announced that it has finished preparations for huge Palestinian demonstrations that will attack the settlements. The settlers will be called upon to mobilize their “quick-reaction teams” to confront the demonstrators, thus fulfilling the prophecies of a “bloodbath”. After that the army will move in, pulling many battalions of regular troops from other tasks and calling up reserve units.

A few weeks ago I pointed to ominous signs that sharpshooters would be employed to turn peaceful demonstrations into something very different, as happened during the second intifada. This week this was officially confirmed: sharpshooters will be employed to defend the settlements.

All this amounts to a war plan for the settlements. To put it simply: a war to decide whether the West Bank belongs to the Palestinians or the settlers.

In an almost comical turn of events, the army is also providing means of crowd dispersal to the Palestinian security forces trained by the Americans. The occupation authorities expect these Palestinian forces to protect the settlements against their compatriots. Since these are the armed forces of the future Palestinian state, which is opposed by Israel, it all sounds a bit bewildering.

According to the army, the Palestinians will get rubber-coated bullets and tear gas, but not the “Skunk”.

The Skunk is a device that produces an unbearable stench which attaches itself to the peaceful demonstrators and will not leave them for a long time. I am afraid that when this chapter comes to an end, the stench will attach itself to our side, and that we shall not get rid of it for a long time indeed.

LET’S GIVE free rein to our imagination for just one minute.

Imagine that in the coming UN debate something incredible happens: the Israeli delegate declares that after due consideration Israel has decided to vote for recognition of the state of Palestine.

The assembly would gape in disbelief. After a moment of silence, wild applause would break out. The world would be electrified. For days, the world media would speak of nothing else.

The minute of imagination has passed. Back to reality. Back to the Skunk.

Israel needs to stop talking and start negotiating - Haaretz

Killing the Oslo process, giving up on the two-state solution and perpetuating Israel's rule over millions of Palestinians would jeopardize its very existence as a Jewish and democratic state.

Haaretz Editorial

As if the crisis in relations with Turkey, the deterioration of Israel's ties with Egypt and Jordan and the erosion of its standing in Europe were not enough, government spokesmen are now trying to outdo each other in promising to deepen the occupation of the territories.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman threatened on Wednesday that a UN decision to recognize a Palestinian state "will have grave consequences." His deputy, Danny Ayalon, called for annexing the West Bank settlement blocs and expediting construction in the settlements. MK Ofir Akunis (Likud ), a close associate of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, did not make do with annexing the "blocs"; he proposed applying Israeli sovereignty to the entire territory.

Concern over the disastrous impact such irresponsible reactions could have on regional stability brought U.S. President Barack Obama's envoys, Dennis Ross and David Hale, as well as EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton here this week. The three were recruited for a last-ditch effort to reach an agreed-on formula that would allow a resumption of direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians and reduce the danger of an outbreak of violence in the territories.

As they shuttled between Ramallah and Jerusalem, the envoys discovered that the parties were entrenched in their positions. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas held fast to his demand that talks be based on Obama's speech of May 19 (the 1967 borders with mutually agreed territorial swaps ) and a 90-day hiatus on construction in the settlements. Netanyahu insisted that the Palestinians agree in advance to recognize Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people. He also rejected Abbas' demand to freeze construction in the settlements.

Neither the crisis with the Palestinians in the international arena nor the danger that it will deteriorate into a violent regional confrontation are decrees of fate. Instead of flexing its muscles and spouting deranged ideas, the government must cooperate wholeheartedly with representatives of the Quartet to find a creative solution that will stop the deterioration.illing the Oslo process, giving up on the two-state solution and perpetuating Israel's rule over millions of Palestinians would jeopardize its very existence as a Jewish and democratic state.

Obama’s Unique Opportunity by GIDEON LEVY

How is it that the supposedly new America is continuing to sing the same old songs from its evil past??

By Gideon Levy

What is the American president going to say to his citizens? What will he say to the citizens of the world? How will he rationalize his country's opposition to recognizing a Palestinian state? How will he explain his position, which runs counter to the position of the enlightened - and less enlightened - world?

And above all, what will Barack Obama say to himself before he goes to bed? That the Palestinians don't deserve a state? That they have a chance to get it through negotiations with Israel? That they do not have equal rights in the new world that we thought he was going to establish? Will he admit to himself that, because of opportunistic election considerations - yes, Obama is now being exposed as quite an opportunist - he is also harming his country's interests as well as the (real ) interests of Israel, and is acting against his own conscience too?

It is difficult now to understand Obama's America. The man who promised change is turning out to be the father of American conservatives. With regard to Israel, there is no difference between him and the last of the celebrants at the Tea Party. We did not expect a great deal from Hillary Clinton; she can continue to recite hollow speeches about negotiations-shmegotiations - but Obama?

Et tu, Brute? After all, in your Cairo speech you promised a new dawn for the Muslim world, you promised a new America to the Arab world. And what came of this? The same old American wolf - which blindly and automatically supports every whim of Israel's to such an extent that it is not clear which is the world power and which is the protectorate - and not even dressed in sheep's clothing. The riddle remains unsolved: How is it that the supposedly new America is continuing to sing the same old songs from its evil past? How is it that Obama is behaving as if he does not understand that the Palestinians will no longer agree to live another four decades without civil rights, certainly not in view of all that is taking place around them in the awakening Arab world?

The riddle remains unsolved because it is difficult to comprehend how a black president, who believes in justice and equality, can bow down with such unbearable lightness to a right-wing government in Israel, to narrow election considerations in America, and to Jewish and Christian lobbies. It is difficult to comprehend how his America does not understand that it is shooting itself with a lethal bullet in the heart by supporting the Israeli refusal to make peace. After all, deep in his heart this American president knows that the Palestinians' demand is justified because they too are worthy, finally, of becoming independent - and that Israel supports occupation. Why does one have to wait for the book of memoirs that he will surely write one day in order to hear this? He knows that the Arab Spring, that erupted to a certain extent in the wake of his promising Cairo speech, will now turn its anger and hatred toward America, once more toward America, simply because of its insistent opposition to Palestinian freedom.

Obama is also supposed to know that concern for Israel's future, and genuine friendship toward Israel, must include support for the establishment of a Palestinian state. That is the only way to neutralize the explosive fuse that is going to set off the entire region, against Israel and against the United States. He also knows that America's stance against the entire world will once again arouse the hostility of the world against the U.S. leader. And all of that - for what? For a handful of votes in the next elections. That cannot be considered an excuse on the part of someone who was seen as so promising a leader with such a highly developed awareness of history. A person who sells his country's interests and his own weltanschauung during his first term of office will display similar opportunism during the second term.

How pathetic is the vision of the two American emissaries who are once again shuttling back and forth now in the region and distributing threats. And to whom? To the Palestinians who are turning to a new diplomatic route, but not to the Israeli government for its destructive refusal. How pathetic it is to see Dennis Ross, the eternal American Mr. Negotiations of almost all its administrations, scuttling around with nothing to do between Ramallah and Jerusalem as he has been doing for decades. That is the old, bad America, as if there were no Obama.

The American president this week has the historic opportunity of improving the status of his country, of justifying retroactively the Nobel Prize for Peace that he was awarded, of demonstrating real commitment to imposing peace in the most dangerous region for the fate of the world, and of showing genuine concern for the well-being of Israel - but what do we get instead?

Statehood not meant to Isolate Israel

The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, said Friday his call for statehood was not meant to isolate Israel.

By ETHAN BRONNER and ISABEL KERSHNER

JERUSALEM — The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, announced Friday that he would seek membership for a state of Palestine from the United Nations Security Council next week, putting him on a

TimesCast | Palestinian Statehood Vote

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Men at a coffee shop in Gaza City watched Friday as President Mahmoud Abbas announced plans to apply for Palestinian membership in the United Nations.

Mr. Abbas’s plan, made public in a television address, follows months of failed American and European efforts to restart Palestinian negotiations with Israel. Some fear that Mr. Abbas’s move will raise expectations among his people, with nothing changing for them on the ground. Combined with alarmed reactions from Israeli settlers, violent showdowns could erupt.

But the Palestinians say that after decades of occupation and about 20 years of failed talks with an increasingly hawkish Israel, it is time for a new approach in which the borders of a Palestinian state are first recognized globally and then two states, Israel and Palestine, negotiate final details.

The decision to apply for membership through the Council signals a double defeat for the United States. Washington not only failed to dissuade the Palestinians from a unilateral bid for statehood, but also fell short of its goal of confining the application to the United Nations General Assembly, where Obama administration officials believe a vote in favor of statehood would be more symbolic and less divisive.

The Obama administration has vowed to use its veto at the Council to prevent full recognition of Palestine. But it is eager to avoid doing so because that action would likely leave the United States isolated on the issue, weakening its standing with Arab nations at a politically delicate moment.

“We need to have full membership at the U.N.,” Mr. Abbas said in the speech from his office in the West Bank city of Ramallah, which was broadcast live on Al Jazeera and other outlets. “We need a state, a seat at the United Nations.”

He added, “We are going to the Security Council,” as Palestinian dignitaries gave him rousing applause and a standing ovation. Mr. Abbas called it “our decision, which we have conveyed to everyone.”

The borders Mr. Abbas seeks are those of 1967, meaning East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza would be included. More than 500,000 Israelis have settled beyond those lines.

Israel, while officially accepting the idea of a Palestinian state, wants to leave nearly all of the settlers where they are and keep control of Jerusalem. It also fears militant groups and missiles would penetrate such a state unless Israel controls its borders, an approach rejected by the Palestinians.

One goal of the move is to gain admission to a range of international legal and diplomatic forums where complaints against Israeli occupation and settlement could be pursued. Mr. Abbas said he was not seeking to delegitimize Israel, only to advance negotiations between two equals.

For the Obama administration, the move poses an acute dilemma. It has vowed to use its veto because it argues that the only viable way toward Palestinian statehood is through direct talks with Israel. But for the past eight months, Arab countries have risen in revolt against dictators and the Palestinian question has totemic significance for the entire region.

The United States has struggled to place itself on the side of those seeking justice and freedom in the current revolts. But the Obama administration has supported uprisings in Libya and, less strongly, in Syria, while looking the other way during a crackdown by an ally, Bahrain. A veto of Palestinian membership would intensify Arab perceptions of American double standards.

Moreover, Republican lawmakers have vowed to end American aid to the Palestinian Authority if it seeks United Nations membership, something the administration opposes. That could create further chaos on the ground.

The White House sent two senior diplomats, Dennis B. Ross and David M. Hale, on repeated trips to Jerusalem and Ramallah in recent weeks to try to work out an alternative to a United Nations campaign.

In recent days, senior administration officials said, the United States was trying to get agreement on a statement, backed by the international community, affirming President Obama’s proposal last May to negotiate the creation of a Palestinian state. That plan would use as a baseline the pre-1967 boundaries of Israel, with land swaps. But Palestinian officials said it was too little too late.

“We ask President Obama to face the moment of truth,” Mohammad Shtayyeh, a senior Palestinian official, said afterward. “This is a peaceful measure. There is no reason whatsoever for the United States not to support us on this step.”

The office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel issued a curt statement, saying, “Peace will not be achieved by a unilateral approach to the United Nations.”

Mr. Netanyahu says that the Palestinians must not be rewarded for avoiding direct talks and tough sacrifices. Some of his ministers have called for a range of punitive responses, including annexing portions of the West Bank or removing travel privileges from Palestinian officials. He has not expressed himself publicly on those suggestions.

At the Arab League, which had strongly urged the Palestinians to take the less confrontational path of seeking limited statehood recognition via the General Assembly, an official said the group would now nonetheless stand firmly behind Mr. Abbas. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity in order not to upstage leaders of the league, who were traveling to New York for the United Nations annual meetings.

Officials of Hamas, the militant Palestinian faction that controls Gaza, said Mr. Abbas’s declaration was a useless stunt aimed at continuing what it called fruitless negotiations with Israel, which Hamas does not recognize as a legitimate state.

“The speech is an attempt to justify the negotiations,” said Mahmoud Zahar, a Hamas leader, reached by telephone. He argued that turning to the United Nations would get Mr. Abbas nothing.

Hamas has banned public demonstrations in Gaza to support Mr. Abbas’s move. Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman, told reporters that Mr. Abbas had approached the United Nations unilaterally, without winning support from the group, despite what Mr. Barhoum called the Palestinian president’s rhetoric about reconciliation.

Mr. Abbas’s speech was played live on the official channel Palestine TV with the “UN 194” logo of the statehood recognition bid in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen. Some Palestinians listened; others said it mattered little because the United States would veto it.

Admission to the United Nations as a full member state requires a recommendation from the 15-member Security Council, with a majority of nine votes, and no veto from the five permanent members, which include the United States. Then the submission goes to the General Assembly, which must pass it by a two-thirds vote among the 193 members.

The American vow to veto has already made it clear that the membership application will not make it out of the Council. But as in other matters involving the United Nations bureaucracy, procedural and legal tools can delay the application for weeks or months along the way. And the Palestinians could still subsequently seek less formal recognition of statehood through the General Assembly.

Mr. Abbas is aware of the obstacles ahead, some diplomats said, and may not object to the uncertainty. He ended his speech, saying, “As for other options, we have not yet taken a decision on them.”

The theory is that by going to the Council, Mr. Abbas makes his strongest political and symbolic act. And for Mr. Abbas, a man who is 76 and speaks frequently about retiring, that may be part of the point. In addition, the procedural delays at the Council could provide the time for an alternative negotiation framework to mature.

But that is a distinctly minority view of how events are likely to proceed. Most analysts and officials fear the combination of Israeli and Palestinian intransigence, along with a roiling region, will create the conditions for confrontation rather than negotiation.

Reporting was contributed by Rick Gladstone from New York; Anthony Shadid from Beirut, Lebanon; Mark Landler from Washington; David D. Kirkpatrick and Heba Afify from Cairo; Stephen Farrell from Ramallah, West Bank; Fares Akram from Gaza; and Neil MacFarquhar from the United Nations.