hz, Author at Netzach Yisrael

Column One: Obama and Israel, Strike and Counter-Strike

hzDecember 29, 2016December 30, 2016Articles

Jerusalem Post

UN Security Council

By Caroline B. Glick: UN Security Council Resolution 2334 was the first prong of outgoing President Barack Obama’s lame duck campaign against Israel. US Secretary of State John Kerry’s speech on Wednesday was the second.On January 15, stage 3 will commence in Paris.

At France’s lame duck President François Hollande’s international conference, the foreign ministers of some 50 states are expected to adopt as their own Kerry’s anti-Israel principles.

The next day it will be Obama’s turn. Obama can be expected to use the occasion of Martin Luther King Jr. Day to present the Palestinian war to annihilate Israel as a natural progression from the American Civil Rights movement that King led 50 years ago.

Finally, sometime between January 17 and 19, Obama intends for the Security Council to reconvene and follow the gang at the Paris conference by adopting Kerry’s positions as a Security Council resolution. That follow-on resolution may also recognize “Palestine” and grant it full membership in the UN.

hzDecember 28, 2016December 28, 2016Articles

Bloomberg

US Secretary of State John Kerry

By Michael Arnold, Chris Strohm and David Wainer: Strained U.S.-Israeli ties reached another low on Wednesday as Secretary of State John Kerry and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu traded blame over the stalled Middle East peace process, with President-elect Donald Trump vowing a fresh start when he takes office on Jan. 20.

Kerry, in a speech Wednesday in Washington, said Netanyahu’s policies backing the expansion of settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank were putting a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict increasingly out of reach. Netanyahu, minutes later, accused Kerry of anti-Israel bias and said the U.S. focus on settlements was “unbalanced.”

“This conflict is and always has been about Israel’s very right to exist,” Netanyahu said. “How can you make peace with someone who rejects your very existence.”

hzDecember 28, 2016December 29, 2016News

AIPAC

Secretary of State John Kerry’s speech today was a failed attempt to defend the indefensible.

Contrary to Secretary of State Kerry’s address today, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution that the administration unconscionably failed to block was unfair, unbalanced and represented a profound departure from the policies of previous Democratic and Republican administrations for nearly the past forty years. Secretary Kerry placed overwhelming, disproportionate blame for the failure to advance peace on our ally, Israel, while neglecting numerous Israeli peace offers and Palestinian refusal to resume direct talks.

hzDecember 28, 2016News

JTA

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected a policy speech by Secretary of State John Kerry, saying the emphasis by the United Nations and the Obama administration on settlement construction downplayed the role of Palestinian repudiation of Israel’s legitimacy as an obstacle to peace.

“How can you make peace with someone who rejects your very existence?” Netanyahu said in a speech Wednesday barely an hour after Kerry spoke in Washington, D.C. “This conflict is not about houses in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, Gaza or anywhere else. This conflict has always been about Israel’s very right to exist.”

hzDecember 28, 2016December 28, 2016News

Reuters

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Wednesday said Israel’s building of settlements on occupied land was jeopardizing Middle East peace, voicing unusually frank frustration with America’s longtime ally weeks before he is due to leave office. In a swiftly issued statement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Kerry of bias. He said Israel did not need to be lectured to by foreign leaders and looked forward to working with President-elect Donald Trump, who has vowed to pursue more pro-Israeli policies.

In a 70-minute speech, Kerry said Israel “will never have true peace” with the Arab world if it does not reach an accord based on Israelis and Palestinians living in their own states. Kerry’s remarks, and Netanyahu’s reply, marked the closing chapter of a bitter U.S.-Israeli relationship during President Barack Obama’s administration over differences on settlement-building and the Iran nuclear deal signed last year.

Full text of John Kerry’s speech

hzDecember 28, 2016News

Reuters

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Jerusalem’s city hall canceled a vote on Wednesday on applications to build nearly 500 new homes for Israelis in East Jerusalem, a municipal official said, plans that had drawn U.S. criticism in a raging dispute over settlements. The proposed settlement is part of building activity that the U.N. Security Council demanded an end to on Friday, a resolution that a U.S. abstention made possible.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu requested the decision be put off, said Jerusalem Planning and Housing Committee member Hanan Rubin, hours before U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is to give a speech laying out his vision for ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

hzDecember 27, 2016Articles

Bloomberg

By Eli Lake: The way the White House tells it, the U.S. had no choice. For eight years, President Barack Obama has been pleading with Israel to stop building settlements. But they didn’t listen. So reluctantly, the president instructed his United Nations ambassador to abstain from a Security Council resolution that affirmed for the first time in 36 years that every Jewish home in East Jerusalem and the West Bank was a “flagrant violation of international law.”

Ben Rhodes, Obama’s speechwriter and deputy national security adviser, whined about this on Friday after the vote. “There’s a huge record on this, and I think it’s very unfair and inaccurate to suggest that somehow this was an outcome that we sought,” he said. “If it was an outcome that we sought, we would have done this long ago.”

I don’t believe him. Obama’s decision to break precedent by declining to veto Friday’s resolution looks entirely premeditated.

hzDecember 27, 2016News

Bloomberg

Buildings under construction in Maale Adumim

Israel is pushing ahead with building plans in areas the UN Security Council recently declared as occupied Palestinian territory and weighing new steps against UN agencies as the censure from the international body roils domestic politics.

The Jerusalem municipal planning committee on Wednesday is set to review requests to build hundreds of apartments in East Jerusalem. That would contradict the terms of Resolution 2334, which demands that Israel halt all building in areas it won in the 1967 Middle East war and brands construction there illegal.

hzDecember 27, 2016News

JTA

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will deliver a speech laying out his vision for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. State Department spokesman Mark Toner confirmed Tuesday that Kerry would deliver the speech Wednesday morning in Washington, D.C.

“In the speech, the secretary will lay out a comprehensive vision for how he believes the conflict can be resolved in the Middle East,” Toner told reporters.

hzDecember 27, 2016December 27, 2016Articles

JTA

Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the UN

By Daniel S. Mariaschin: The feeling in this country following the adoption of the anti-settlements resolution in the U.N. Security Council on Friday is more than palpable. For those who observe Shabbat, there was the knowledge on Friday afternoon that a vote in New York would occur after all had sat down to dinner, with the outcome unknown until early the next evening. For others, Shabbat dinner was served with the TV volume turned up to hear the outcome of the vote.

By Saturday evening, and continuing into the new week, the resolution and its ramifications had become Topic A in cafes, barber shops, supermarkets and offices. The national letdown caused by the American abstention — outrage may be a better word — can be felt everywhere. Now the conversation is turning to what may come next. There is concern that another shoe will soon drop, possibly a Security Council measure that would outline the parameters of a settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — a development that would fly in the face of the long-supported notion that only face-to-face negotiations can bring about a lasting peace agreement.

Column One: Obama and Israel, Strike and Counter-Strike

Strained U.S.-Israeli Ties Reach Another Low After Kerry Speech

AIPAC Statement on Secretary Kerry’s Speech

Netanyahu ‘Deeply Disappointed’ in Kerry’s Speech, Rejects UN Vote

In Parting Shot at Israel, Kerry Warns Middle East Peace in Jeopardy

Israel Pulls Back from Approving New East Jerusalem Homes Ahead of Kerry Speech

Obama Fulfills His Prophecy on Israeli Settlements

Israel to Build in Jerusalem, Mulls More Steps Against UN

John Kerry to Deliver ‘Comprehensive Vision’ for Middle East Peace

After UN Settlement Resolution, Will Another Shoe Drop?