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" ... no certainty that the United States will continue after Israel's March elections to protect Israel with its veto." That would seem to indicate that the Obama Administration is doing some very tough talking to Israeli government officials behind the scenes. But I doubt that Obama would have the U.S. abstain or vote in favor of a Security Council Resolution condemning Israel unless it was on a matter that would inflicit little actual pain on the Israeli government. In that scenario, Kerry could claim plausibly that the U.S. abstention or vote in favor was a "message" to Israeli gobvernment to get serious about making the two-state solution happen. But I have to admit it would warm my heart to see a Security Council Resolution adopted authorizing the use of force to break the Gaza siege and to push Israeli troops and its settlers back to the 1967 borders.  

This would be funny if the consequences of war were not so horrible. Viewing the situation through a very big telescope from Mars, we begin with the Neocons and Zionist Israelis hijacking the U.S. military to invade and conquer Iraq, and thereby break the OPEC oil monopoly by pumping more oil from Iraq and selling  oil cheap on the market. But Big Oil, recognizing the threat to its profits if oil supply is increased and the prices depressed, hires James Baker, chief of White House staff under Reagan and Bush I. Baker has a short meeting with Bush Jr. and the Neocon/Zionist Israeli dream of breaking OPEC and restoring cheap oil is abruptly terminated. The Iraq War is no longer about changes in the oil supply and prices. But  the Neocons in the Bush II administration are stuck with the war they started. They waffle and delay, with the theater of Saddam Hussein's capature and execution, until Barack Obama comes into office, push for a "surge" to save the war effort, then when that fails reluctantly collaborate in U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. Their efforts to maintain a covert military presence hiding under the cover of the world's largest U.S. Embassy comes to a screeching halt when the new Iraqi government they had installed refuses to immunize U.S. soldiers and citizens from criminal prosecution. The U.S. exits Iraq. Now the Iraq government that the Neocon/Israeli Zionists installed aligns itself with Iraq and Syria against the U.S. military strikes on Syria that Israel wants. Iraq and Syria had been the two major remaining obstacles to Israeli hegemony and empire in the Mideast.   Then the Neocons/Israeli Zionists changed Iraq from a secular state to a Shia Muslim state with a for-all-pracitical-purposes-independent Kurdish state in the north. Now suddenly, those two major obstacles become three, as Iraq moves farther from the U.S. and closer toward Shia Iran and secular Syria, because of a sequence of events the Neocon/Israeli Zionists had set in motion ag

Israel's election is in the morning, although it will take a bit longer to learn who will become the Prime Minister. (Much depends on which party gets the nod from the Israeli President to try to form a ruling coalition; then it takes time tio form one.)  But this campaign promise deserves more credibility than most campaign promises in the U.S.: It's a promiose to do more of what Netanyahu has been doing since he came to power.  Multiple U.N. Security Council regulations have demanded that Israel return to its pre-1967 borders. And the U.N. General Council Resolution that is Israel's claim to legitimacy (although further action that never happened was required to become effective never happened) specifically provided that its allocation of territory to the Israeli government was conditioned on the existing rights of Palestinian within that territory be preserved. Moreover, Israel took Jerusalem (and other lands) during its 1967 Six-Day War. Under the 4th Geneva Convention, Israel was required to withdraw from all occupied territories and to permit all refugees to return to their homes "immediately upon cessation of hostilities." So Obama's campaign promise is a promise to commit a war crime and crime against humanity.  The truly disgusting parts are that: [i] the majority of Israeli Jews support that position; and [ii] the U.S. government even though it routinely calls the eviction of Palestinians in Jerusalem and the West Bank to construct Israeli homes and settlements "illegal", routinely vetoes U.N. Security Council resolutions to bring Israel into compliance with the older S.C. resolutions and international law.   

Benjamin Netanyahu is facing difficulties in the new Israeli election because of single-digit popularity ratings. But his Likud Party is still expected to be tapped post-election to form a new ruling coalition. Thus the world needs to worry about who is running against Netanyahu and the positions that person, Danny Danon, takes.  Here, Danon paints himself into the corner of annexing the entire West Bank as Israeli territory if the U.N. Security Council recognizes the Palestinian Authority as the "state of Palestine" in a vote expected on Monday. But he may find himself in a position where he has to face the impact of this statement.  The U.S. has been unusually elusive on whether it will exercise its veto power on the proposed Resolution, saying only that it "does not support" the Resolution, which is diplomaticspeak for "we may abstain from voting."   The Resolution, although presented by the PA, was actually drafted by the French. The EU Parliament just went on record as supporting Palestinian statehood. And there seems to be growing recognition among Israel's friends in the U.S. that the nation needs to be rescued from itself, before the Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions Movement does away with the Israeli state as part of its advocated single-state solution. BDS is approaching the strength of its predecessor organization that broke the back of the apartheid state of South Africa. I would not be surprised if the resolution passes with a U.S. abstention.  If that happens, watch for extreme fireworks in Israel and Palestine. The Israeli settlers in Palestine are violent, radical, and their interests in retaining their settlements rule Israeli politics. The last published draft of the resolution sets a 2017 deadline for conclusion of peace negotiations, borders along the pre-1967 borderline, a freeze on further Israeli colonization of the West Bank, retuirn of water rights, and recognition of an independent Palestine state government.   What Israel wants,

Not mentioned in the article: the Knesset's Regulation Bill formally annexed territory inside the West Bank and holds that Israeli law, rather than military law, will now govern the annexed portions. That is the fact that establishes a clean break with the 2-state solution and flies in the face of international law including the Fourth Geneva Convention, which strictly prohibits annexation and requires the immediate withdrawal of invading military forces from occupied territories immediately upon cessation of hostilities, which occurred in 1967. The two-state solution is dead, although the Regulation Bill will likely be overturned by the Israeli Supreme Court. Trump gave Israel's ultra-right wing leaders way too much encouragement.

There is a possibility that the U.S. may abstain from voting and allow the resolution to pass. The Obama Administration was considering such a move even before the flap over Netanyahu's speech to Congress because of Israel's refusal to negotiate in good faith for a 2-state solution. And if ever there was a situation crying out for a smackdown of Israeli government, it was Netanyahu's speech.   

This is the largest part of the real back story on John Kerry's feverish effort to negotiate a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine apartheid problem. The Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions ("BDS") movement against Israel is growing rapidly, nearly doubling the rate of growth of the former BDS movement that successfully ended apartheid government of South Africa.   Israel has become a pariah state diplomatically because of its war crimes against Palestinians and because of BDS, is increasingly becoming a pariah state economically. At the same time, Israel has illegally colonized Palestine to the extent that a 2-state solution is all but impossible, meaning that the most likely outcome is that Israel will cease being the "Jewish State" and be forced to grant equality to Palestinians as well in a new secular government. The situation became all the more dire for Israel as the "Jewish State" when the U.N. General Assembly granted Palestine observer state status, opening the way for Palestine to, e.g., pursue criminal prosecution of Israeli leaders for war crimes before the International Criminal Court.  That has dramatically increased the Palestinian Authority's leverage in negotiations. Kerry is on a rescue mission to see if he can coerce the Palestinian Authority to cede sufficient land and powers to Israel to make a 2-state solution credible. Kerry's leverage is that the U.S. has been underwriting the Palestinian Authority's expenses and can threaten to withdraw the financial support.  All of which brings it down to the question of Palestinian Authority leadership corruption. If the PA stands tall and refuses to accept Kerry's ridiculous demands, there will almost certainly be no 2-state solution, ever, because Israel continues to colonize Palestine and has locked up most of Palestine's water resources. Further colonization means still less water for an "independent" Palestine state. The Palestine Authority, on the other hand, suffered f

The return of the occupied Golan Heights is absolutely required by the U.N. Charter, Geneva Conventions, and numerous U.N. Security Council resolutions.  Israel's purported security concerns do not create a lawful exception. What is really at stake in the Golan Heights and the occupied territories of Palestine is whether the U.N. Charter did in fact put an end to the right of Conquest. 

For many years, Israel has taxed Gaza residents, then paid the Gaza government the collected taxes. But Israel began reducing the payments then finally cut it off entirely. Doctors and medical staff in Gaza have had no pay for five months and had been on half-pay for eight months prior to that. Before the rockets began flying, medical supplies and equipment in Gaza were already severely depleted.  Qatar wants to send Gaza $20 million so the Gaza government employees can be paid. Now Israel threatens to expel the special U.N. envoy for the Mideast Peace Process because he offered to transfer the funds.  The Israeli hubris explodes in faux anger. Not a bright move because Gaza and the West Bank are classified as Occupied Territories Israel under the Fourth Geneva Convention. As the occupying power, Israel is required to maintain the elected Gaza government and is responsible for the well being of all Gaza residents. But Israel has been ignoring U.N. decisions including Security Council decisions from the moment the Israeli government was formed in 1948.   Making an enemy of the international human rights officials will prove doubly dumb when Israeli officials are inevitably seated in the dock of the International Criminal Court facing charges for war crimes, crimes against peace, and crimes against humanity. Human rights lawyers and judges pull no punches.   

Which helps explain why, in a recent poll of Palestinians in both Gaza and the West Bank, the Hamas leader outpolled Abbas by something on the order of 70-30 on the question of who Palestinians would vote for as President if elections were held at that time. 

Negotiation of a "2-state solution" for Israel and Palestine has never been anything more than an excuse for continuing the status quo, with Israel dominating both territories in an apartheid state. The 2-state solution, moreover, denies all residents of the former British Mandate Territory of Palestine (including present day Israel) of their fundamental right to self-determination of their form of government established by the U.N. Charter. And the notion of a 2-state solution with territorial swaps ignores the right of Arab residents of the Mandate Territory to return to their homes at the close of hostilities, a right specifically forbidden from being negotiable by Israel and the Palestinian authority; it is an individual right that governments cannot lawfully barter away.   I'm glad to see The Intercept taking a no holds barred, speak-truth-to-power  approach to the Israel-Palestine question. 

Bibi's s**t is hitting the fan. I've been wondering since the day his planned speech was announced whether it might boomerang so strongly that he would find an excuse not to speak to Congress this go-round. It's starting to look more and more like that is the way it will play out. I' betting that it will be an excuse rather than an apology because Bibi is the kind of guy who would rather choke than admit that he's made a mistake.   But how this will play out will be better reflected in likely-voter polls in the run-up to the Israeli election. If those polls show strong signs that the speech will cost him the election, then watch Bibi withdraw from the speech. 

Robert Parry lands another major scoop. But beware of government officials who leak government plans because they do not invariably speak the truth.  I am particularly wary of this report because Obama's planned arming and training of the "moderate Syrian opposition" was such a patent lie. The "moderate Syrian opposition" disappeared over two years ago as peaceful protesters were replaced by Saudi, Qatari, Turkish, and American-backed Salafist mercenaries took their place. Up until this article, there has been every appearance that the U.S. was about to become ISIL's Air Force in Syria. In other words, there has been a steady gushing of lies from the White House on fundamental issues of war and peace. In that light, I do not plan to accept this article as truth before I see much more confirmation that ISIL rather than the Assad government is the American target in Syria. We have a serial liar in the White House.

The Arab League is dominated by Egypt and the Gulf Coast states, all of which have for decades depended on the U.S. for their ultimate defense. This new joint military force, coming at the same time as a similar force among European nations independent of NATO is coming into existence and the E.U. is rejecting American leadership in the Ukraine and in economic matters and, further supports the appearance that a collapse of the American Empire has begun.   This development will also be viewed with alarm in Israel. The Arab nations have long seethed over Israeli mistreatment of Palestinians and Israeli Arab citizens. Several of the Arab nations fought previous wars against Israel over that issue that the Arabs lost, largely because of poor coordination.  A unified Arab force thus poses a threat to the Israeli government.