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Paul Merrell

Trump is just what Netanyahu needs to annex the West Bank | +972 Magazine - 0 views

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war & peace Israel Palestine Netanyahu Trump Bennett

shared by Paul Merrell on 14 Feb 17 - No Cached
  • A slip of the tongue from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last month is worthy of attention. In an unprepared response to a Likud Knesset member, Netanyahu said: “What I’m willing to give to the Palestinians is not exactly a state with full authority, but rather a state-minus, which is why the Palestinians don’t agree [to it].”
  • This almost never happens to Netanyahu. He is calculated, in contrast to Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman who once threatened to execute Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and destroy his movement. In his public appearances, Netanyahu’s statements are carefully worded. His mind operates mechanically, and it is for this reason that a slip of the tongue warrants attention. He has given away more than he intended to. Netanyahu’s words need to be tied back his stance during the negotiations with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, as part of the 2013-4 peace talks initiated by then-Secretary of State John Kerry. Netanyahu’s position was that even following an agreement, Israel would retain security control over the entire area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea over the coming decades. The best case scenario for the Palestinians would have been a severely handicapped state. What would a less ideal scenario have looked like? In order to answer that question, we must also look at Netanyahu’s support for the Formalization Law and for settlement expansion, two processes he has pushed forward with since Donald Trump entered the White House. The significance of these processes, territorially-speaking, is the end of the “temporary” occupation and the effective annexation of around 60 percent of the West Bank.
  • Where Netanyahu differs from Jewish Home head Naftali Bennett is in the type and reach of annexation, not in the principle of annexation itself. Bennett wants to advance from legal to practical annexation as soon as possible. Netanyahu is more cautious. He first of all wants de facto annexation, and to do it in stages so that the world and the Palestinians can adjust to the new reality.
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  • This would be followed by a self-evident de jure annexation, which would seem almost natural. Palestinians would be left with what they currently have: enclaves that are barely connected to one another. Israel would govern them externally and enter them at will. As far as Netanyahu is concerned, if the Palestinians want to call this kind of autonomy a state, that’s their affair. This would also mark the definite end of the Oslo Accords; the Palestinian Authority would not be upgraded to a sovereign state on the entirety of the 1967 territories. Netanyahu is exploiting Abbas’ adaptability and passivity. Abbas pays no attention to the voices calling on him to shutter the Palestinian Authority and hand over the keys to Israel, who would then have to bear full responsibility for its policies. He persists in security cooperation with Israel on the grounds that they share the same enemies: Hamas and the Islamic State. Abbas and the PA also have an interest in keeping the benefits that they receive as part of a ruling class sponsored by Israel. The continued existence of a hobbled PA is also in Europe’s interests. European countries donate heavily in order to keep the PA in its current incarnation, on the premise that it is a stable factor in fighting radical Islam and prevents the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from engulfing the continent’s cities.
  • Yet Netanyahu is using Trump even more than he is using Abbas, hence the importance of their upcoming meeting in D.C. Trump’s position on Israel-Palestine remains unclear, and his limited attention prevents him from getting into the details. He is a man of simplistic principles that can be summarized in a formula — the opposite of Barack Obama and Kerry. Trump rejected UN Security Council Resolution 2334, which reaffirmed the international understanding of the borders of June 4, 1967 as the future border between Israel and a sovereign Palestinian state. Trump also condemned Obama’s decision not to use the U.S.’s veto. Trump also denounced Kerry’s final speech on the Middle East, in which he portrayed the Netanyahu government’s annexationist policy as racist. Israel believes that continuing to rule over the Palestinians when there are equal numbers in both demographic groups will allow it to remain a Jewish and democratic state. Kerry called this an illusion, saying that the result would be “separate but unequal.” He deliberately used the term for the racist regime of separation that formerly prevailed in the U.S. According to Kerry, such a regime is in opposition to America’s democratic principles, and as such, the U.S. could not support it. Trump’s executive orders and senior appointments, however, have shown that he has a different understanding of American democracy and the rights of minorities.
  • Netanyahu and Trump hold similar basic positions. Netanyahu can try to nail down Trump’s agreement to a “state-minus” policy, and present it as a security necessity that will prevent the West Bank from falling into the hands of radical Islamists. As part of such an approach, Netanyahu could also secure the president’s blessing for settlement expansion in the West Bank, especially in the Jerusalem area. In play are two sets of Israeli building plans aimed at completely sealing off the area that separates Palestinian Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank: Givat HaMatos, which sits between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, and the larger expanse between Jerusalem and the settlement of Ma’ale Adumim, also known as the E1 area. The surprising hush that has fallen over the campaign for a law that would annex Ma’ale Adumim indicates that it will be on the agenda when Netanyahu and Trump sit down together. An agreement with Trump would allow Netanyahu to tackle the expected opposition from Western European countries to the plan for a state-minus. These countries’ guiding values will be far more similar to those of the Obama administration than the Trump administration. Meanwhile, Netanyahu was encouraged by the U.K.’s decision to activate Article 50 in order to leave the European Union, and its overtures to Trump as a replacement; he hurried to meet Prime Minister Theresa May, who had herself just returned from D.C. The Israeli government has also drawn encouragement from the various messages coming out of Europe that continued settlement-building endangers the two-state solution. That is, indeed, the aim. Up until Kerry’s speech, that had also been the automatic response of the Obama administration. From the moment Kerry declared that the settlements were creating a racist regime, Netanyahu perceived the danger of a new international agenda. Instead of the question of a Palestinian state, attention is now on the question of whether Israel is an apartheid state
Paul Merrell

America's Staggering Hypocrisy | Consortiumnews - 0 views

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war & peace foreign policy Ukraine MSM WaPo neocons

shared by Paul Merrell on 09 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • Since World War II – and extending well into the Twenty-first Century – the United States has invaded or otherwise intervened in so many countries that it would be challenging to compile a complete list. Just last decade, there were full-scale U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, plus American bombing operations from Pakistan to Yemen to Libya. So, what is one to make of Secretary of State John Kerry’s pronouncement that Russia’s military intervention in the Crimea section of Ukraine – at the behest of the country’s deposed president – is a violation of international law that the United States would never countenance?
  • Kerry decried the Russian intervention as “a Nineteenth Century act in the Twenty-first Century.” However, if memory serves, Sen. Kerry in 2002 voted along with most other members of the U.S. Congress to authorize President George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq in 2003, which was also part of the Twenty-first Century. And, Kerry is a member of the Obama administration, which like its Bush predecessor, has been sending drones into the national territory of other nations to blow up various “enemy combatants.” Are Kerry and pretty much everyone else in Official Washington so lacking in self-awareness that they don’t realize that they are condemning actions by Russian President Vladimir Putin that are far less egregious than what they themselves have done?
  • And, what do Hiatt and other neocons at the Washington Post say about confronting the Russians over the Ukraine crisis, which was stoked by neocon holdovers in the U.S. State Department, such as Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland,  and the U.S.-funded National Endowment for Democracy, which was founded in 1983 to replace the CIA in the business of destabilizing targeted governments? [See Consortiumnews.com’s “What Neocons Want from Ukraine Crisis.”] The Post is demanding a new Cold War with Russia in retaliation for its relatively non-violent interventions to protect pro-Russian provinces of two countries that were carved out of the old Soviet Union: Georgia where Russian troops have protected South Ossetia and Abkhazia since 2008 and in Ukraine where Russian soldiers have taken control of Crimea. In both cases, the pro-Russian areas felt threatened from their central governments and sought Moscow’s assistance. In the case of Ukraine, a neo-Nazi-led putsch – representing the interests of the western part of the country – overthrew the democratically elected president, Viktor Yanukovych, who came from the eastern region. Then, under the watchful eye of the neo-Nazi storm troopers in Kiev, a rump parliament voted unanimously or near unanimously to enact a series of draconian laws offensive to the ethnic Russian areas in the east and south.
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  • If Putin is violating international law by sending Russian troops into the Crimea after a violent coup spearheaded by neo-Nazi militias ousted Ukraine’s democratically elected president – and after he requested protection for the ethnic Russians living in the country’s south and east – then why hasn’t the U.S. government turned over George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and indeed John Kerry to the International Criminal Court for their far more criminal invasion of Iraq? In 2003, when the Bush-Cheney administration dispatched troops halfway around the world to invade Iraq under the false pretense of seizing its non-existent weapons of mass destruction, the U.S. touched off a devastating war that killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and left their country a bitterly divided mess. But there has been virtually no accountability. And, why haven’t many of the leading Washington journalists who pimped for those false WMD claims at least been fired from their prestigious jobs, if not also trundled off to The Hague for prosecution as propagandists for aggressive war? Remarkably, many of these same “journalists” are propagandizing for more U.S. wars today, such as attacks on Syria and Iran, even as they demand harsh penalties for Russia over its intervention in the Crimea, which incidentally was an historic part of Russia dating back centuries.
  • Though the Russian case for intervention in both Georgia and Ukraine is much stronger than the excuses often used by the United States to intervene in other countries, the Washington Post was apoplectic about Russia’s “violation” of suddenly sacred international law. The Post wrote, “as long as some leaders play by what Mr. Kerry dismisses as 19th-century rules, the United States can’t pretend that the only game is in another arena altogether. Military strength, trustworthiness as an ally, staying power in difficult corners of the world such as Afghanistan — these still matter, much as we might wish they did not.” The Post also laments what it sees as a “receding” tide of democracy around the world, but it is worth noting that the U.S. government has a long and sorry record of overthrowing democratic governments. Just a partial list since World War II would include: Mossadegh in Iran in 1953, Arbenz in Guatemala in 1954, Allende in Chile in 1973, Aristide in Haiti twice, Chavez in Venezuela briefly in 2002, Zelaya in Honduras in 2009, Morsi in Egypt in 2013, and now Yanukovych in Ukraine in 2014. The next target of a U.S.-embraced “democratic” coup looks to be Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela. Perhaps the closest U.S. parallel to the Russian intervention in Ukraine was President Bill Clinton’s decision to invade Haiti in 1994 to reinstall Haiti’s elected president Jean-Bertrand Aristide to office, though Russia has not gone nearly that far regarding Yanukovych in Ukraine. Russia has only intervened to prevent the fascist-spearheaded coup regime in Kiev from imposing its will on the country’s ethnic Russian provinces.
  • Thus, the overriding hypocrisy of the Washington Post, Secretary Kerry and indeed nearly all of Official Washington is their insistence that the United States actually promotes the principle of democracy or, for that matter, the rule of international law. Those are at best situational ethics when it comes to advancing U.S. interests around the world.
Paul Merrell

BDS SOUTH AFRICA: ISRAEL INCHES CLOSER TO 'TIPPING POINT' OF SOUTH AFRICA-STYLE BOYCOTT... - 0 views

www.bdssouthafrica.com/...s-closer-to-tipping-point.html

war & peace Israel Palestine BDS negotiations Kerry pipelinestan

shared by Paul Merrell on 25 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • Analogies with apartheid regime in the wake of Mandela’s death could accelerate efforts to ostracize Israel. This has happened in recent days: The Dutch water company Vitens severed its ties with Israeli counterpart Mekorot; Canada’s largest Protestant church decided to boycott three Israeli companies; the Romanian government refused to send any more construction workers; and American Studies Association academics are voting on a measure to sever links with Israeli universities. Coming so shortly after the Israeli government effectively succumbed to a boycott of settlements in order to be eligible for the EU’s Horizon 2020 scientific cooperation agreement, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement is picking up speed. And the writing on the wall, if anyone missed it, only got clearer and sharper in the wake of the death of Nelson Mandela.
  • When the United Nations passed its first non-binding resolution calling for a boycott of South Africa in 1962, it was staunchly opposed by a bloc of Western countries, led by Britain and the United States. But the grassroots campaign that had started with academic boycotts in the late 1950s gradually moved on to sports and entertainment and went on from there to institutional boycotts and divestment. Along the way, the anti-apartheid movement swept up larger and larger swaths of Western public opinion, eventually forcing even the most reluctant of governments, including Israel and the U.S., to join the international sanctions regime. 
  • We’re really great at knowing where thresholds are after we fall off the cliff, but that’s not very helpful,” as lake ecologist and “tipping point” researcher Stephen Carpenter told USA today in 2009.  Israel could very well be approaching such a threshold. Among the many developments that could be creating the required critical mass one can cite the passage of time since the Twin Towers attacks in September 2001, which placed Israel in the same camp as the U.S. and the West in the War on Terror; Israel’s isolation in the campaign against Iran’s nuclear programs; the disappearance of repelling archenemies such as Osama bin Laden, Muammar Gadhafi, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and, to a lesser degree, Yasser Arafat; the relative security and lack of terror inside Israel coupled with its own persistent settlement drive; and the negative publicity generated by revelations of racism in Israeli society, the image of its rulers as increasingly rigid and right wing and the government’s own confrontations with illegal African immigrants and Israeli Bedouin, widely perceived as being tinged with bias and prejudice.  In recent days, American statesmen seem to be more alarmed about the looming danger of delegitimization than Israelis are. In remarks to both the Saban Forum and the American Joint Distribution Committee this week, Secretary of State John Kerry described delegitimization as “an existential danger." Vice President Joe Biden, speaking to the same JDC forum, went one step further: “The wholesale effort to delegitimize Israel is the most concentrated that I have seen in the 40 years I have served. It is the most serious threat in my view to Israel’s long-term security and viability.” 
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  • One must always take into account the possibility of unforeseen developments that will turn things completely around. Barring that, the only thing that may be keeping Israel from crossing the threshold and “going over the cliff” in the international arena is Kerry’s much-maligned peace process, which is holding public opinion and foreign governments at bay and preventing a “tipping point” that would dramatically escalate the anti-Israeli boycott campaign.  Which only strengthens Jeffrey Goldberg’s argument in a Bloomberg article on Wednesday that Kerry is “Israel’s best friend." It also highlights, once again, how narrow-minded, shortsighted and dangerously delusional Kerry’s critics, peace process opponents and settlement champions really are (though you can rest assured that if and when the peace process collapses and Israel is plunged into South African isolation, they will be pointing their fingers in every direction but themselves.
  • Paul Merrell on 25 Dec 13
     
    Note that this article's original is behind a paywall in Haaretz, one of Israel's market-leading newspapers.  There can be no questioning of the facts that: [i] the Palestinian Boycott, Divesment, and Sanctions ("BDS") movement is rapidly gaining strength globally; and [ii] that factor weighs heavily in the negotiations between Israel and Palestine for a two-state solution. Although not bluntly stated, the BSD movement's path runs directly to a single-state solution that would sweep Israel's present right-wing government from power and result in a secular state rather than a "Jewish state." And the E.U., Israel's largest export market, has promised to go even farther in sanctioning Israel than the considerable distance it has already gone if the negotiations do not result in a two state solution. Labeling all products produced wholly or in part in Israel-occupied Palestine territory is among the mildest of sanctions under discussion, a measure already adopted in two E.U. nations. The BSD Movement's success has also been marked by Israel attaining the pariah state status previously experienced by South Africa. Only the U.S., Canada, and a half-dozen or so tiny island nations closely aligned with the U.S. still vote in favor of Israel at the U.N. For example, the vote on granting Palestine U.N. observer state status was 138-9, with 41 abstentions.  The prospect of an end to the non-secular Jewish state has enormous ramifications for U.S. foreign policy, not the least of which is the influence of the Israel lobby in the U.S. that has thus far led the U.S. to three Treasury-draining wars in Southwest Asia and Northern Africa and host of minor military actions in other area nations, as well as a near-war in Syria, averted mainly via Russian diplomacy that outfoxed Secretary of State John Kerry. Time will tell whether the diplomatic outreach by Iran will succeed in averting war with the greatest military power remaining in the Mideast after Israel itself. "Protectin
Paul Merrell

US, Afghan security deal at risk as Karzai calls for delay in signing | Fox News - 0 views

www.foxnews.com/...zai-calls-for-delay-in-signing

war & peace Afghanistan Pipelinestan U.S.-Afghan-Agreement

shared by Paul Merrell on 22 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • The tentative security deal reached between Secretary of State John Kerry and Afghan President Hamid Karzai could be at risk after Karzai told a gathering of elders that the signing should be put off until after next year's Afghan presidential election -- and signed only if it is approved by the council and the parliament. 
  • A delay in the signing would be problematic for the U.S. government, which wants an agreement as soon as possible to allow American planners to prepare for a military presence after 2014, when the majority of foreign combat forces will have left Afghanistan.  Despite the decision to defer signing the agreement until after the scheduled April 5 election, Karzai spoke in support of the deal on the first day of the meeting of the 2,500-member national consultative council of Afghan elders known as the Loya Jirga Thursday in Kabul.  At one point, Karzai acknowledged there was little trust between his government and Washington. He was quoted by Reuters as saying "My trust with America is not good. I don't trust them and they don't trust me. During the past 10 years I have fought with them and they have made propaganda against me.'' 
  • Karzai did not address one of the biggest points of contention in the proposed deal, the U.S. request for jurisdiction over its own troops. Lack of agreement over that issue helped scuttle a similar agreement with Iraq and prompted Washington to order most troops out of that country in 2011.  The Loya Jirga retains the right to revise or reject any clause of the deal. If the deal is approved by the council, whatever version of the pact that is extant must also be approved by the Afghan parliament. 
  • Paul Merrell on 22 Nov 13
     
    Here's hoping that the Jirga or Afghan Parliament will nix the deal as Iraq did, by refusing to grant U.S. troops and contractors immunity from Afghan criminal law. I read the leaked U.S. markup version of the deal two days ago. It would extend the U.S. Afghan War until 2024 or beyond. Kerry and Obama might be upset; both announced that Kerry had signed the deal this morning. According to Kerry, U.S. involvement will gradually wind down to about 15K troops plus who-knows-how-many contractors and subcontractors. Number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan when Obama took office: 26,607. Number of U.S. troops there as of October, 2013: roughly 51,000. Our Nobel Peace Prize Prez who jokes to his staff about how many people he kills. Ha, ha. Funny. Not.  Let's remember that as recently as June, Obama said that the U.S. could have all troops out before the present deal expires in 2014 if there's no new agreement. I can hope.
Paul Merrell

Abbas rejects US plan for permanent Israel troop presence | Maan News Agency - 0 views

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war & peace Israel Palestine Kerry

shared by Paul Merrell on 14 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • RAMALLAH (AFP) -- President Mahmoud Abbas has rejected US proposals for Israel to keep troops in a future Palestinian state along its border with Jordan, a Palestinian source said on Friday.Following a meeting on Thursday evening with US Secretary of State John Kerry in the West Bank city of Ramallah, "President Abbas has rejected the ideas presented by the secretary of state", the source said.Abbas also gave Kerry a letter on "Palestinian red lines," the source added, singling out "the refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state."Abbas "rejected the ideas on security because there is not a third party."This refers to a plan by former US national security adviser James Jones under which a third party would deploy along the Palestinian-Jordanian border.The Palestinian source said that "all disputed issues must be settled."Israeli and Arab media reports say the plan envisaged by Washington would see Israel maintain a military presence on the border after a peace agreement with the Palestinians.An international force would be acceptable to the Palestinians, but Israel opposes such a solution.
  • Paul Merrell on 14 Dec 13
     
    No surprise here. The Israeli government is not bargaining in good faith; it wants to continue its expansion into Palestinian territory. When Kerry couldn't persuade Israel from backing off from its preposterous demand that Palestine emerge only as a neutered state without a military, Kerry suggested that the Palestinians accept those conditions. It's a waiting game for both Israel and Palestine. As soon as the U.S.-imposed 6 months of negotiations are over; Israel can get back to flank speed on its settlement building and Palestine's promise expires to refrain from taking Israel to the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity and war crimes. The 4th Geneva Convention requires that Israel have withdrawn from the territories it seized in the 1967 war as soon as hostilities ceased and prohibits Israel from migrating its own citizens to the seized territories, as Israel has been doing since 1967.  
Paul Merrell

John Kerry says 'airstrikes alone' will not defeat 'genocidal' Isis militants | World n... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...coalition-isis-iraq-syria-nato

war & peace Iraq Syria ISIL U.S.-foreign-policy war-propaganda civil-liberties Kerry politics-of-fear

shared by Paul Merrell on 01 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • Secretary of state will use Nato summit to seek ‘world coalition’Saudi king: terror ‘in Europe in a month and US a month after’US operations in Iraq costing $7.5m a dayUK PM will seek new powers to tackle Isis
  • Paul Merrell on 01 Sep 14
     
    Kerry: We all must destroy Iraq and Syria to save them and our own skins.  Kerry's NYT op-ed is at http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/30/opinion/john-kerry-the-threat-of-isis-demands-a-global-coalition.html?_r=0
Paul Merrell

Biden suggests 'military solution' to Syrian conflict - 0 views

www.politico.com/...talks-military-solution-218139

war & peace Syria ISIL Al-Nusrah Biden Kerry pace-negotiations

shared by Paul Merrell on 27 Jan 16 - No Cached
  • Joe Biden signaled a possible new direction for U.S. policy toward Syria in remarks in Turkey on Saturday, where the vice president was meeting with Turkish leaders to discuss the bloody civil war next door. Biden was speaking at Istanbul’s Dolmabahçe Palace, where he held meetings with Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.Story Continued Below The U.S. is “neither optimistic nor pessimistic,” but “determined” to reach a political solution to the Syrian conflict, he said. But Biden also seemed to go past Obama administration statements in suggesting the U.S. would be willing to use military means if necessary. “We do know that it would be better if we can reach a political solution, but we are prepared — we are prepared if that’s not possible to make — to have a military solution to this operation in taking out Daesh,” the vice president said, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State in the Levant, also known as ISIS or ISIL. Turkey and the U.S. have had intense differences over which of the witches’ brew of militant groups in the region to characterize as terrorist groups, and the meeting seemed intended to close those gaps.
  • Davutoglu said they had agreed on “a united front against terrorism,” mentioning the Islamic State, the PKK and Jabhat al-Nusra, al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria. “We believe we should be acting against all these terrorist organizations in harmony,” the Turkish prime minister said. “We are on the same page regarding this as well.” Biden reassured Turkey, which is dealing with a flare-up in its long-running conflict with Kurdish separatist groups led by the PKK. The PKK, Biden said, “is a terrorist group plain and simple” – one he said has defied the Turkish government efforts to make peace. Until that changes, “you must do what you need to protect your people,” Biden said. But Davutoglu also described a Kurdish militia that is reportedly working with U.S. special forces in Syria, the YPG, as a terrorist group, indicating some remaining disagreement between the two allies. “We believe that YPG is a part of the PKK, and it receives open support from the PKK,” he said. Biden, pointedly, did not mention the YPG in his own list of terrorist groups. According to Al Jazeera, the U.S. recently took over a Syrian air base near the Turkish border with the YPG’s help.
  • Biden’s remarks come days ahead of long-anticipated Syria peace talks, which have been in limbo amid a bitter feud between the Middle East’s longtime rivals: Iran and Saudi Arabia. Secretary of State John Kerry is in Riyadh, where he held talks with top Saudi officials — discussions Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir described as “clear and transparent and frank.” Kerry did not announce a date for the Syria talks, which were originally slated for Jan. 25 in Geneva but were delayed amid disagreements over who would represent the Syrian opposition. The discussions will convene “very shortly,” Kerry said, “because we want to keep the process moving and put to full test the readiness and willingness of people to live up to the two communiques and U.N. resolution, and begin the process of bringing the transition council — transition governing process of Syria into a reality.” The National Security Council declined to say whether Biden’s remarks signaled a shift in U.S. strategy, and directed questions to the vice president’s office. But Kerry, in Riyadh, said the goals of the U.S. and its allies hadn’t changed: “a transition governance process, for a new constitution, for elections, and for a ceasefire.” "The vice president was making the point that even as we search for a political solution to the broader Syrian civil war, we are simultaneously pursuing a military solution against Daesh," Biden's office said. "There is no change in U.S. policy."
  • Paul Merrell on 27 Jan 16
     
    But Kerry, in Riyadh, said the goals of the U.S. and its allies hadn't changed: "a transition governance process, for a new constitution, for elections, and for a ceasefire." The key phrase is "a transition governance process." In other words, the U.S. still insists that Bashar al Assad, who polls show would win any election in Syria, must step down as head of government before a new constitution is adopted, and new elections are held." The Syrian opposition, funded and led by Saudi Arabia, has just vetoed participating in the peace process unless Assad agrees to step down as a negotiation pre-condition.  But Assad, Russia, and Iran are adamant that Assad will not step down unless first defeated in an election, in other words, the only transition will be made by elected officials, that the will of the Syrian people runs Syria, not invading mercenaries.    
Paul Merrell

Kerry angers Israel with talk of 'binational state' | TheHill - 0 views

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war & peace Israel 2-state-solution Kerry Netanyahu

shared by Paul Merrell on 08 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • Secretary of State John Kerry caused consternation in Israel when he said the nation threatens to implode if a two-state solution is not reached with Palestinians, drawing the ire of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.“Israel will not be a binational state,” Netanyahu said emphatically at the opening of his weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday, according to the Times of Israel.Kerry warned Israel that the collapse of the Palestinian Authority (PA) threatens to destabilize the nation.ADVERTISEMENT“If there is a risk that the PA could collapse — and it is in Israel’s interest for it to in fact survive, as the prime minister suggested — should more therefore not be done to sustain it?” Kerry said in a Saturday speech at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., on Saturday.“The one-state solution is no solution at all for a secure, Jewish, democratic Israel living in peace. It is simply not a viable option,” he added.
  • He said a two-state solution is possible only if both sides want peace.“But in order for there to be peace, the other side must decide that they also want peace, and unfortunately that is not what we are seeing,” he said on Sunday.
Paul Merrell

News from The Associated Press - 0 views

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war & peace Syria Assad U.S.-foreign-policy

shared by Paul Merrell on 16 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday accepted Russia's long-standing demand that President Bashar Assad's future be determined by his own people, as Washington and Moscow edged toward putting aside years of disagreement over how to end Syria's civil war. "The United States and our partners are not seeking so-called regime change," Kerry told reporters in the Russian capital after meeting President Vladimir Putin. A major international conference on Syria would take place later this week in New York, Kerry announced. Kerry reiterated the U.S. position that Assad, accused by the West of massive human rights violations and chemical weapons attacks, won't be able to steer Syria out of more than four years of conflict. But after a day of discussions with Assad's key international backer, Kerry said the focus now is "not on our differences about what can or cannot be done immediately about Assad." Rather, it is on facilitating a peace process in which "Syrians will be making decisions for the future of Syria." Kerry's declarations crystallized the evolution in U.S. policy on Assad over the last several months, as the Islamic State group's growing influence in the Middle East has taken priority.
  • President Barack Obama first called on Assad to leave power in the summer of 2011, with "Assad must go" being a consistent rallying cry. Later, American officials allowed that he wouldn't have to resign on "Day One" of a transition. Now, no one can say when Assad might step down. Russia, by contrast, has remained consistent in its view that no foreign government could demand Assad's departure and that Syrians would have to negotiate matters of leadership among themselves. Since late September, it has been bombing terrorist and rebel targets in Syria as part of what the West says is an effort to prop up Assad's government. "No one should be forced to choose between a dictator and being plagued by terrorists," Kerry said. However, he described the Syrian opposition's demand that Assad must leave as soon as peace talks begin as a "nonstarting position, obviously."
  • Earlier Tuesday in the Kremlin, Putin noted several "outstanding issues" between Russia and its former Cold War foe. Beyond Assad, these include which rebel groups in Syria should be allowed to participate in the transition process and which should be deemed terrorists, and like the Islamic State group and al-Qaida, combatted by all. Jordan is working on finalizing the list of terrorist vs. legitimate opposition forces. Representatives of Syria's opposition themselves hope this week to finalize their negotiating team for talks with Assad's government. The U.S., Russia and others hope those talks will begin early next year. Appearing beside Kerry, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov hailed what he described as a "big negotiating day," saying the sides advanced efforts to define what a Syrian transition process might look like.
  • Paul Merrell on 16 Dec 15
     
    A very big U.S. blink, given Assad's popularity in public polling and the likelihood that he would be reelected in any election mandated by a peace accord (which is why the U.S. and allies have been insisting that Assad step down as a negotiation pre-condition.  
Paul Merrell

Kerry condemns Russia's 'incredible act of aggression' in Ukraine | Reuters - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...sa-kerry-idUSBREA210DG20140302

war & peace Kerry wars of aggression comedy Ukraine Russia

shared by Paul Merrell on 03 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • "You just don't in the 21st century behave in 19th century fashion by invading another country on completely trumped up pre-text," Kerry told the CBS program "Face the Nation."
  • Paul Merrell on 03 Mar 14
     
    Unless you're the U.S., of course. Witness Uncle Sam's  "trumped up pretexts: in the 21st Century for invading Afghanistan, Iran, and Libya, not to mention the trumped-up pretexts  for unleashing Neo-Nazi "protesters" on the lawfully-elected government of Ukraine.  John Kerry is well on his way to becoming my favorite comedian!
Paul Merrell

IPS - Lavrov Reveals Amended Draft Circulated at "Last Moment" | Inter Press Service - 0 views

www.ipsnews.net/...raft-circulated-at-last-moment

war & peace arms-control-law Iran Iranian nukes myth Kerry Obama Israel France Saudis whodunnit

shared by Paul Merrell on 16 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • Nov 15 2013 (IPS) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov revealed a crucial detail Thursday about last week’s nuclear talks with Iran in Geneva that explains much more clearly than previous reports why the meeting broke up without agreement. Lavrov said the United States circulated a draft that had been amended in response to French demands to other members of the six-power P5+1 for approval “literally at the last moment, when we were about to leave Geneva.” Lavrov’s revelation, which has thus far been ignored by major news outlets, came in a news conference in Cairo Thursday that was largely devoted to Egypt and Syria. Lavrov provided the first real details about the circumstances under which Iran left Geneva without agreeing to the draft presented by the P5+1.
  • The full quote from Lavrov’s press conference is available thanks to the report from Voice of Russia correspondent Ksenya Melnikova. Lavrov noted that unlike previous meetings involving the P5+1 and Iran, “This time, the P5+1 group did not formulate any joint document.” Instead, he said, “There was an American-proposed draft, which eventually received Iran’s consent.” Lavrov thus confirmed the fact that the United States and Iran had reached informal agreement on a negotiating text. He further confirmed that Russia had been consulted, along with the four other powers in the negotiations with Iran (China, France, Germany and the UK), about that draft earlier in the talks –- apparently Thursday night, from other published information. “We vigorously supported this draft,” Lavrov said. “If this document had been supported by all [members of the P5+1], it would have already been adopted. We would probably already be in the initial stages of implementing the agreements that were offered by it.”
  • Then Lavrov revealed for the first time that the U.S. delegation had made changes in the negotiating text that had already been worked out with Iran at the insistence of France without having consulted Russia. “But amendments to [the negotiating draft] suddenly surfaced,” Lavrov said. “We did not see them. And the amended version was circulated literally at the last moment, when we were about to leave Geneva.” Lavrov implies that the Russian delegation, forced to make a quick up or down decision on the amended draft, did not realise the degree to which it was likely to cause the talks to fail. “At first sight, the Russian delegation did not notice any significant problems in the proposed amendments,” Lavrov said. He made it clear, however, that he now considers the U.S. maneuvre in getting the six powers on board a draft that had been amended with tougher language – even if softened by U.S. drafters — without any prior consultation with Iran to have been a diplomatic blunder.
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  • “[N]aturally, the language of these ideas should be acceptable for all the participants in this process – both the P5+1 group and Iran,” Lavrov said. The crucial details provided by Lavrov on the timing of the amended draft shed new light on Secretary of State John Kerry’s claim in a press conference in Abu Dhabi on Monday of unity among the six powers on the that draft. “We were unified on Saturday when we presented a proposal to the Iranians.” Kerry said, adding that “everybody agreed it was a fair proposal.” Kerry gave no indication of when on Saturday that proposal had been approved by the other five powers, nor did he acknowledge explicitly that it was a draft that departed from the earlier draft agreed upon with Iran. Lavrov’s remarks make it clear that the other members of the group had little or no time to study or discuss the changes before deciding whether to go along with it.
  • Although the nature of the changes in the amended draft remain a secret, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has charged that they were quite far-reaching and that they affected far more of the draft agreement that had been worked out between the United States and Iran than had been acknowledged by any of the participants. In tweets on Tuesday, Zarif, responding to Kerry’s remarks in Abu Dhabi, wrote, “Mr. Secretary, was it Iran that gutted over half of US draft Thursday night?” Zarif’s comments indicated that changes of wording had nullified the previous understanding that had been reached between the United States and Iran on multiple issues.
  • Zarif’s tweet, combined with remarks by President Hassan Rouhani to the national assembly Sunday warning that Iran’s rights to enrichment are “red lines” that could not be crossed, suggests further that the language of the original draft agreement dealing with the “end game” of the negotiating process was also changed on Saturday. Kerry himself alluded to the issue in his remarks in Abu Dhabi, using the curious formulation that no nation has an “existing right to enrich.” One of the language changes in the agreement evidently related to that issue, and it was aimed at satisfying a demand of Israeli origin at the expense of Iran’s support for the draft. Now the Obama administration will face a decision whether to press Iran to go along with those changes or to go back to the original compromise when political directors of the six powers and Iran reconvene Nov. 20. That choice will provide the key indicator of how strongly committed Obama is to reaching an agreement with Iran.
  • Paul Merrell on 16 Nov 13
     
    The article adds more detail than quoted. The picture that emerges is that John Kerry and French foreign minister Laurent Fabius carried water for the Israelis and Saudis to blow up the negotiation at the last moment, after all sides had preliminarily agreed to a text, by substituting a new and very substantially different text without consulting the other P-5+1 members or Iran. That is a down and dirty negotiation tactic; no wonder the negotiation failed. It should be kept in mind that the Israeli and Saudi governments' real goal is not halting Iran's development of a nuclear industry but is instead to persuade or trick the U.S. into bombing Iran back into the Stone Age, as the U.S. did to Iraq in the early 1990s under Emperor Bush 1 with a repeat performance by Emperor Bush II a decade later.  As to Kerry's preposterous claim that no nation has a right to enrich uranium, in reality every nation has that right jus cogens, with the only limitations being on nations that are members of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which nations still retain the right to enrich up to 20 percent as Iran has been doing. Claims to the contrary are either misinformed or mere false propaganda. See http://armscontrollaw.com/2013/11/07/scope-meaning-and-juridical-implication-of-the-npt-article-iv1-inalienable-right/
Paul Merrell

» Bombshell: Kerry Caught Using Fake Photos to Fuel Syrian War Alex Jones' In... - 0 views

www.infowars.com/-fake-photos-to-fuel-syrian-wa

war & peace Syria Kerry lies

shared by Paul Merrell on 25 Sep 13 - No Cached
  • Secretary of State John Kerry opened his speech Friday by describing the horrors victims of the chemical weapon attack suffered, including twitching, spasms and difficulty breathing.
  • Attempting to drive the point home, Kerry referenced a photograph used by the BBC illustrating a child jumping over hundreds of dead bodies covered in white shrouds. “We saw rows of dead lined up in burial shrouds, the white linen unstained by a single drop of blood,” said Kerry. The photo was meant to depict victims who allegedly succumbed to the effects of chemical weapons via Assad’s regime. However, the photograph used in this context has been exposed as a fake. It had been taken in 2003 in Iraq and was not related to Syrian deaths whatsoever and was later retracted.
  • Paul Merrell on 25 Sep 13
     
    You'll need to visit the linked page to see the photo to see how compelling the image was juxtaposed with Kerry's statement. Rather blatant pro-war propaganda from our Secretary of State. Also note that while the image was retracted by the BBC, it was apparently not retracted by the State Department. 
Paul Merrell

Asia Times Online :: The Kerry-Lavrov chess match - 0 views

www.atimes.com/...CEN-01-310314.html

war & peace Ukraine Russia U.S.-foreign-policy

shared by Paul Merrell on 04 Apr 14 - No Cached
  • It's hardly a match between equals - as one is playing Monopoly while the other plays chess. It's as if Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has been postponing his checkmate, while US Secretary of State John Kerry increasingly realizes he's facing the inevitable. Lavrov has explained over and over again, a loose federation is the only possible solution for Ukraine, as part of a "deep constitutional reform". That would imply ethnic - and even sentimentally - Russian eastern and southern Ukraine would be largely autonomous. Kerry gave signs of agreeing around two weeks ago that Ukrainian regions need more decision power; but then the White House recharged its moral blitzkrieg - coinciding with <a href='http://asianmedia.com/GAAN/www/delivery/ck.php?n=a9473bc7&cb=%n' target='_blank'><img src='http://asianmedia.com/GAAN/www/delivery/avw.php?zoneid=36&cb=%n&n=a9473bc7&ct0=%c' border='0' alt='' ></a> President Barack Obama's trip to The Hague and Brussels. Still, even after an inconclusive four-hour Kerry-Lavrov chess match in Paris, there will be a checkmate.
  • The Russian solution is the same plan proposed by Moscow already a few weeks ago, and again discussed on the phone by Obama and President Vladimir Putin on Friday - which prompted Kerry to redirect his flight to Paris. Each Ukrainian region, according to Lavrov, would be able to control its economy, taxes, culture, language, education and "external economic and cultural connections with neighboring countries or regions". That's such a sound plan that even former - or perennial, depending on spin - cold warriors such as Henry Kissinger and Zbig Brzezinski reasonably agree. The key problem is that Washington immovably considers the present Kiev set up - also known as the Khaganate of Nulands, as in State Department Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nulands - as legitimate. Moscow sees them as a bunch of putschists and fascists. And Washington still refuses to press Kiev to accept a federal system - thus allowing, among other things, Russian as an official second language. The latest American stunt is a massive propaganda drive of "The Reds are coming" kind, about Russian troops massing at the border(pliant corporate media spins numbers over 100,000). Kerry, for the moment, is at least refraining from hysteria; he admits Washington and Moscow agree a diplomatic solution is a must, just to revert to the new meme - the artificial, Pentagon/NATO-spun "prelude to an invasion".
  • Paul Merrell on 04 Apr 14
     
    Pepe Escobar again on the Ukraine.
Paul Merrell

As Ambassador Power praises ADL, Abe Foxman savages John Kerry | The Electronic Intifada - 0 views

electronicintifada.net/...-abe-foxman-savages-john-kerry

war & peace Iranian nukes myth Kerry Israel Israel-firsters

shared by Paul Merrell on 11 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), has launched a stinging attack on US Secretary of State John Kerry. Foxman’s open attack on a US secretary of state, especially one who has been so friendly to Israel, is unusual. What makes it more extraordinary is that it comes after another Obama administration official has heaped lavish praise on Foxman and the ADL. “I think Kerry’s outrageous behavior will unite the American Jewish community,” Foxman told Israeli army radio, Haaretz reports.
  • “It is chutzpah to lecture Israel about the risks of peace and war,” Foxman added from Jerusalem, where he is currently visiting. The ADL is one of the most prominent pro-Israel, anti-Palestinian organizations in the United States. It recently published a McCarthyite list of the “Top 10 anti-Israel organizations” which included a number of peace and justice groups. The sources of Foxman’s rage include US diplomacy with Iran, which Kerry has championed, and Kerry’s recent criticism of (though total inaction on) Israel’s ongoing colonization of Palestinian land. Foxman claimed there was a “crisis of trust” between the US and Israel because Kerry had not kept Israel sufficiently informed of the Geneva talks over Iran’s nuclear energy program. Those talks ended last night without a much-anticipated breakthrough, after a last minute French intervention scuppered a deal.
  • Paul Merrell on 11 Nov 13
     
    Make no mistake: Israel's right-wing government and its Zionist/Neoliberal stooges in the U.S. are squarely aimed at blocking any deal that would get in the way of the U.S. launching a war against Iran. 
Paul Merrell

Israel Intelligence Eavesdropped on Phone Calls By John Kerry - SPIEGEL ONLINE - 0 views

www.spiegel.de/...ls-by-john-kerry-a-984246.html

surveillance state war & peace Israel Kerry-wiretapped

shared by Paul Merrell on 05 Aug 14 - No Cached
  • SPIEGEL has learned from reliable sources that Israeli intelligence eavesdropped on US Secretary of State John Kerry during Middle East peace negotiations. In addition to the Israelis, at least one other intelligence service also listened in as Kerry mediated last year between Israel, the Palestinians and the Arab states, several intelligence service sources told SPIEGEL. Revelations of the eavesdropping could further damage already tense relations between the US government and Israel. During the peak stage of peace talks last year, Kerry spoke regularly with high-ranking negotiating partners in the Middle East. At the time, some of these calls were not made on encrypted equipment, but instead on normal telephones, with the conversations transmitted by satellite. Intelligence agencies intercepted some of those calls. The government in Jerusalem then used the information obtained in international negotiations aiming to reach a diplomatic solution in the Middle East.
Paul Merrell

US demands Russia and Syria ground all aircraft as five medical charity staff killed in... - 0 views

www.telegraph.co.uk/...f-killed-in-airstrike-in-syria

war & peace Syria U.N. Kerry Lavrov U.S.-foreign-policy no-fly-zone Assad-must=-go

shared by Paul Merrell on 24 Sep 16 - No Cached
  • The United States has called for an effective no-fly zone over Syria after a spate of airstrikes on humanitarian convoys by Russian and Syrian aircraft left the country’s future “hanging by a thread.” John Kerry, the US Secretary of State told a session of the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday that only a grounding of all aircraft could protect civilians from Bashar al-Assad’s regime and said Vladimir Putin must face a “moment of truth” over the bombing of a UN aid convoy on Monday. “The future of Syria is hanging by a thread,” Mr Kerry said. “We cannot go back to business as usual.” Halting flight would offer a “chance for humanitarian assistance to flow unimpeded," he added.
  • However, Mr Kerry did not use the term "no-fly zone", and his demand is unlikely to lead to formal air policing. 
  • Russian and regime forces have also resumed their bombardment of the rebel-held eastern half of Aleppo, with dozens of airstrikes pummelling the city.  “It is unbelievable the number of airstrikes that are targeting Aleppo neighbourhoods”, said Abdelkafe al-Hamdo, an opposition activist in the city.        Western diplomats said they were urgently trying to revive the ceasefire agreement with Russia, which they see as the only real path to slowing the violence in Syria and trying to restart political negotiations to be bring the five-year war to an end.  The chances for a renewed deal appeared slim after a furious exchanges between the US and Russia at the Security Council on Wednesday. Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, ruled out a fresh ceasefire unless “all sides” agreed, saying rebel groups had used previous truces as an opportunity to rearm and that the US had failed to use its influence with militants to persuade them to respect the ceasefire.
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  • Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, said a genuine ceasefire would depend on transition away from the Assad government. “It is a conflict that is being fed and nourished and armed and abetted and protracted and made more hideous by the actions and the inactions of governments in this room,” he said at the Security Council Session. Theresa May said “there can be no military solution to the conflict in Syria” in a speech in New York. Speaking to President Barack Obama’s US refugee summit, the prime minister said: “We must all put our weight behind efforts in New York to agree a ceasefire and reopen space UN-led negotiations, leading to real political transition away from Assad to a new, inclusive government that governs for all Syrians.
  • Mr Kerry replied that his colleague was living in “a different universe” and accused Russia of deliberately obfuscating about the aid convoy bombing. “This is not a joke,” he said after listing several conflicting accounts of the attack put forward by Russia. Russia’s defence ministry claimed on Wednesday to have spotted a US Predator drone over the UN convoy attacked on Wednesday. It did not directly accuse the US of carrying out the attack, however. In earlier statements, Russian officials variously said the convoy had caught fire spontaneously and that drone footage had spotted a group of militants driving a pick-up truck with a mortar alongside it.
  • Russia dispatched an aircraft carrier to reinforce its flotilla off the Syrian coast on Wednesday, in a deepening of its military commitment there.    The Admiral Kuznetsov, Russia’s only carrier and the flagship of the Russian navy, will join an existing flotilla of six war ships and  four support vessels, Sergei Shoigu, the Russian defence minister, said.   The Soviet- built vessel carries MiG-29 jets and Ka-52 attack helicopters that are expected to take part in combat operations over Syria. 
Paul Merrell

'Kerry fails to get Obama backing to confront Israel on peace terms' | The Times of Israel - 0 views

www.timesofisrael.com/confront-israel-on-peace-terms

war & peace U.S. Israel Palestine negotiations Kerry foreign policy

shared by Paul Merrell on 10 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • S Secretary of State John Kerry sought but failed to get backing from President Barack Obama to confront Israel over its objections to his peace proposals, and therefore his bid to try impose terms for peace on Israel and the Palestinians has “pretty much collapsed,” an Israeli TV report claimed on Sunday night.
  • Citing unnamed sources close to the negotiations, Channel 10 news said that Kerry, who had hoped to impose a binding “framework” agreement on the two sides, covering all the key core issues for a peace agreement, sought Obama’s “political backing for confrontation primarily with Israel,” but got the presidential cold-shoulder. It was deemed that now was “not the time for such moves” for the president, the report said. As a result, Kerry’s effort to put together a substantive framework agreement “has pretty much collapsed for now.” There was no independent confirmation of the report.
Paul Merrell

Obama Regime's Hypocrisy Sets New World Record - 0 views

www.informationclearinghouse.info/article37922.htm

war & peace U.S. foreign policy Russia Ukraine Crimea Kerry

shared by Paul Merrell on 12 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • From the moment that Washington launched its orchestrated coup in Kiev, Washington has been accusing Russia of “intervening in Ukraine.” This propaganda ploy succeeded. The Western presstitute media reported (nonexistent) Russian intervention to the exclusion of coverage of Washington’s obvious intervention. Having falsely accused Russia of invading Crimea, the Obama regime now demands that Russia interfere in Crimea and prevent the referendum set for next Sunday. Unless Russia uses force to prevent the people of Crimea from exercising their right of self-determination, John Kerry declared that the Obama regime will not discuss the Ukrainian situation with Russia. So, Kerry has given Russia the green light to send in troops to prevent Crimean self-determination. The presstitute Western media has not noticed that out of one corner of his mouth Kerry denounces Russia for intervening and out of the other corner of his mouth Kerry demands that Russia intervene in behalf of Washington’s interest and suppress Crimean self-determination. What is the point of such an absurd demand on Russia?
Paul Merrell

BBC News - Iran backed out of nuclear deal - John Kerry - 0 views

www.bbc.co.uk/...world-middle-east-24895911

war & peace Iran Iranian-nukes-myth Kerry P5+1

shared by Paul Merrell on 12 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • US Secretary of State John Kerry has said Iran backed out of a deal on its nuclear programme during talks with world powers in Geneva on Saturday. Amid reports that France's reservations scuppered an agreement, Mr Kerry told reporters in Abu Dhabi: "The French signed off on it; we signed off on it." Iran had been unable to accept the deal "at that particular moment", he added. Mr Kerry said he hoped in the next few months they could "find an agreement that meets everyone's standards". Representatives from Iran and the so-called P5+1 - the US, UK, France, Russia and China plus Germany - will meet again on 20 November.
  • Iran stresses that its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes only, but world powers suspect it is seeking to develop nuclear weapons. In a separate development on Monday, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Yukiya Amano, said the agency had agreed a "roadmap for co-operation" with Iran to help resolve remaining issues.
Paul Merrell

'Israel will attack Iran if you sign the deal, French MP told Fabius' | The Times of Is... - 0 views

www.timesofisrael.com/the-deal-french-mp-told-fabius

war & peace Israel Iran Iranian-nukes-myth P5+1 U.S. foreign policy

shared by Paul Merrell on 12 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • French member of parliament telephoned French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius in Geneva at the weekend to warn him that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would attack Iran’s nuclear facilities if the P5+1 nations did not stiffen their terms on a deal with Iran, Israel’s Channel 2 News reported Sunday
  • “I know [Netanyahu],” the French MP, Meyer Habib, reportedly told Fabius, and predicted that the Israeli prime minister would resort to the use of force if the deal was approved in its form at the time. “If you don’t toughen your positions, Netanyahu will attack Iran,” the report quoted Habib as saying. “I know this. I know him. You have to toughen your positions in order to prevent war.” France’s Fabius is widely reported to have scuppered the finalizing of the emerging deal late Saturday, leading to the halting of the negotiations with Iran, and an agreement to reconvene on November 20. Explaining his concerns to reporters in Geneva, Fabius said Tehran was resisting demands that it suspend work on its plutonium-producing reactor at Arak and downgrade its stockpile of higher-enriched uranium. Habib, the deputy president of the Jewish umbrella organization in France, was elected to the National Assembly in Paris in June, to represent the district of southern Europe, which includes French nationals residing in Israel.
  • The TV report on Sunday said Jerusalem believed that Netanyahu’s angry public criticism of the emerging deal, and his phone conversations with world leaders — including Presidents Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin, and Francois Hollande, Chancellor Angela Merkel and Prime Minister David Cameron — had played a crucial role in stalling the deal, but that Israel was well aware that an agreement would be reached very soon. Netanyahu himself said Sunday that he was aware of the “strong desire” for a deal on the part of the P5+1 negotiators, and had asked the various leaders in his calls, “What’s the hurry?” The report, quoting sources in Jerusalem, said Netanyahu and ministers close to him were castigating the United States for its “radical eagerness” in seeking a deal, and saying that Washington appeared fearful of confrontation with Iran. “This is no way to run a negotiation,” the sources were quoted as saying. The Americans “are giving up all of their pressure points, and the Iranians recognize the Americans’ weakness.”
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • At Sunday’s cabinet meeting, Netanyahu expressed outrage that under the terms of the emerging deal, “not a single centrifuge would be dismantled, not one.” Israel believes the imminent deal will leave Iran with uranium enrichment capabilities, and thus enable it to become a nuclear breakout state at a time of its choosing. Secretary of State John Kerry hit back at Netanyahu on Sunday, declaring, “I’m not sure that the prime minister, who I have great respect for, knows exactly what the amount or the terms are going to be because we haven’t arrived at them all yet. That’s what we’re negotiating.”
  • After the talks broke up in Geneva after midnight Saturday, Kerry complained about critics who were “jumping to conclusions” about the terms of the accord on the basis of “rumors or other parcels of information that somebody pretends to know.” Netanyahu on Friday publicly pleaded with Kerry not to rush to sign what he called a “very, very bad deal.”
  • Paul Merrell on 12 Nov 13
     
    Let's remember that Netanyahu made identical go-it-alone threats to attack Iran during the run-up to the U.S. 2012 presidential election to bring pressure on Obama to send U.S. military forces in to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities. All the while, the Israeli Defense Force top brass were telling the press that Israel doesn't have the military power to go it alone against Iran. I doubt that Netanyahu's message mattered much to the French. Netanyahu has a credibility problem on that issue. So Netanyahu tried to play the stick role while the House of Saud offered the carrot of weapons purchases from the French and the like. Some stick. 
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