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Argos Media

Reserved Relations with Israel: Obama's New Middle East Diplomacy - SPIEGEL ONLINE - Ne... - 0 views

www.spiegel.de/...0,1518,624053,00.html

US Israel Rose Gottemoeller Joe Biden AIPAC Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Nuclear Weapons Iran Gilad Erdan

shared by Argos Media on 11 May 09 - Cached
  • The members of the leading pro-Israel lobby in the US were visibly moved as they listened to Vice President Joe Biden's speech last Tuesday. It was music to the ears of the 6,500 delegates of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee who had gathered in the Washington Convention Center.
  • "With all the change you will hear about, there is one enduring, essential principle that will not change; and that is our commitment to the peace and security of the state of Israel," he told his audience.
  • Gottemoeller is an important figure. The US assistant secretary of state is one of the world's foremost experts on nuclear weapons and is currently leading disarmament talks with Russia and working on strengthening the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). In her address to the UN, Gottemoeller called on a number of presumed nuclear powers to join the NPT. "Universal adherence to the NPT itself, including by India, Israel, Pakistan and North Korea … remains a fundamental objective of the United States," she said.
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  • Something that sounded self-evident was in fact breaking a major taboo in US diplomacy. Washington had never before named Israel as a nuclear power. Every US administration has ignored, at least officially, Israel's nuclear arsenal, which it first produced in the late 1960s and has modernized and expanded ever since.
  • An agreement between the governments of Richard Nixon and Golda Meir obliged the US and Jerusalem to stay silent on the Israeli nuclear program. Every US president since has agreed that this was the best way to protect Israeli security. Israel refuses to this day to release any information on its nuclear weapons and in doing so has eluded any form of international inspections. The country has also avoided any non-proliferation talks. The logic is compelling: If something doesn't officially exist then it can't be counted, inspected or reduced.
  • Now Obama wants to revive it and he is doing so by keeping his distance from Israel. The outing of Israel as a nuclear power was just the pinnacle of a strategy that is aimed at giving America back its capability to act in the Middle East.
  • The White House had already made it clear that it would be making demands on the Israelis. The new Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should make sure there is a complete halt to the building of settlements in the West Bank. During his recent visit to Turkey, Obama declared that the US "strongly supports the goal of two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security."
  • Ever since, relations between the US and Israel have become decidedly frosty. Israeli Environment Minister Gilad Erdan even went so far as to say that "Israel does not take orders from Obama." The old friends have never seemed so far apart.
  • On Monday the Times of London quoted Jordan's King Abdullah as saying that the US is planning to promote a peace plan for the Middle East that involves a "57-state solution" in which the entire Muslim world would recognize Israel. According to the newspaper, the king and President Obama had come up with the plan during his visit to Washington in April and details are likely to be thrashed out in the coming month, particularly when Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu travels to Washington to hold talks with Obama next Monday.
  • The Times said that Israel may be offered incentives to freeze the building of settlements, including the offer by Arab states to grant visas to Israelis and to allow Israeli airline EL AL to fly through Arab air space.
Pedro Gonçalves

Israel threatens to overthrow Abbas over Palestinian statehood bid | World news | guard... - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...li-minister-threatens-abbas-un

Israel Palestine Avigdor Lieberman Palestinian Authority

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 14 Nov 12 - No Cached
  • Israel should topple the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, if he presses ahead with a request for recognition of the state of Palestine by the United Nations general assembly in two weeks' time, the hardline foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, has urged.In a draft paper distributed to the media, Lieberman argued that overthrowing the Palestinian leadership was Israel's only viable option, faced with the certainty of an overwhelming vote in support of the Palestinian bid."A reality in which the United Nations recognises a Palestinian state according to a unilateral process will destroy all Israeli deterrence and completely harm its credibility," the paper said.
  • Lieberman's extreme stance comes as the Israeli cabinet is considering a range of punitive measures it could take in response to the vote, expected on 29 November. These include the full or partial annulment of the 1993 Oslo Accords, financial penalties and an acceleration of settlement expansion.The minister of strategic affairs, Moshe Yaalon, warned the Palestinians would pay a "heavy price" if they submitted a resolution seeking "non-member state" status at the UN general assembly. It would be a "flagrant breach" of the Oslo Accords, which provided for a limited measure of self rule for the Palestinians, he told army radio.Another government minister, Gilad Erdan, called for the immediate annexation of all Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
  • The Israeli foreign ministry sent a diplomatic cable on Sunday to all Israeli representatives across the globe warning that the Palestinian resolution was a "clear violation of the fundamental principle of negotiations".It continued: "The adoption of the resolution will give Israel the right to re-evaluate previous agreements with the [Palestine Liberation Organisation] and consider cancelling them partially or completely, and would make progress in the peace process more difficult in the future."
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  • According to a government source, the Israeli cabinet has discussed a number of possible measures, but has taken no concrete decisions. Among a "toolbox" of actions under consideration are:• full or partial annulment of the Oslo Accords, under which the Palestinian Authority (PA) was established• withholding tax revenues Israel collects on behalf of the PA• cancellation of permits for thousands of Palestinian labourers to work in Israel• withdrawal of travel privileges for senior PA officials• acceleration of building programmes in West Bank settlements• unilateral annexation of the main Jewish settlement blocks.
  • Lieberman's draft paper proposed Israeli recognition of a Palestinian state on provisional borders encompassing around 40% of the West Bank in exchange for the Palestinian leadership dropping its approach to the United Nations.
  • The UnS is also expected to impose punitive measures in response to a vote in favour of Palestinian statehood at the general assembly. The US Congress froze $200m (£126m) of aid to the Palestinians in response to their bid for full membership of the UN last September. Despite the decision later being overturned, the money has still not been released.
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