Friedman is absolutely right in this case regarding Biden's reaction. Biden
should have angrily marched right out of Israel as soon as he learned about
the housing announcement. But you see, Netanyahu knew that Biden wouldn't do
that, which is why Netanyahu was willing to take the gamble. Leave it up to
those shrewd Jews to manipuate the Americans!


Driving Drunk in Jerusalem

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN - NYT

March 13, 2010


I am a big Joe Biden fan. The vice president is an indefatigable defender of
U.S. interests abroad. So it pains me to say that on his recent trip to
Israel, when Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu's government rubbed his nose in
some new housing plans for contested East Jerusalem, the vice president
missed a chance to send a powerful public signal: He should have snapped his
notebook shut, gotten right back on Air Force Two, flown home and left the
following scribbled note behind: "Message from America to the Israeli
government: Friends don't let friends drive drunk. And right now, you're
driving drunk. You think you can embarrass your only true ally in the world,
to satisfy some domestic political need, with no consequences? You have lost
total contact with reality. Call us when you're serious. We need to focus on
building our country."

I think that -- rather than fuming and making up -- would have sent a very
useful message for two reasons. First, what the Israelis did played right
into a question a lot of people are asking about the Obama team: how tough
are these guys? The last thing the president needs, at a time when he is
facing down Iran and China -- not to mention Congress -- is to look like
America's most dependent ally can push him around.

And second, Israel needs a wake-up call. Continuing to build settlements in
the West Bank, and even housing in disputed East Jerusalem, is sheer
madness. Yasir Arafat accepted that Jewish suburbs there would be under
Israeli sovereignty in any peace deal that would also make Arab parts of
East Jerusalem the Palestinian capital. Israel's planned housing expansion
now raises questions about whether Israel will ever be willing to concede a
Palestinian capital in Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem -- a big
problem.

Israel has already bitten off plenty of the West Bank. If it wants to remain
a Jewish democracy, its only priority now should be striking a deal with the
Palestinians that would allow it to swap those settlement blocs in the West
Bank occupied by Jews for an equal amount of land from Israel for the
Palestinians and then reap the benefits -- economic and security -- of
ending the conflict.

Unfortunately, that is not what happened last week. For nine months now,
America's Middle East special envoy, George Mitchell, has been trying to
find a way to get any kind of peace talks going between Israelis and
Palestinians. The Palestinians don't trust Netanyahu, and Netanyahu has
serious doubts as to whether the divided Palestinian leadership can deliver.

Nevertheless, Mitchell was eventually able to persuade the two sides to
agree on "proximity talks" -- the Palestinians would sit in
Ramallah and the
Israelis in Jerusalem and Mitchell would shuttle 30 minutes between them.
After a decade of direct talks, this is how far things have fallen.

Mitchell's and Netanyahu's aides struck an informal deal: If America got
talks going, there would be no announcements of buildings in East Jerusalem,
nothing to embarrass the Palestinians and force them to walk. Netanyahu
agreed, U.S. officials say, but made clear he couldn't commit to anything
publicly.

So what happened? Biden arrived the day after the proximity talks started
and out came an announcement from Israel's Interior Ministry that Israel had
just approved plans for 1,600 new housing units in Arab East Jerusalem.

Netanyahu said he was blindsided. It's probably true in the narrow sense.
The move seems to have been part of a competition between two of Netanyahu's
right-wing Sephardi ministers from the religious Shas Party over who can be
the greater champion of building homes for Sephardi orthodox Jews in East
Jerusalem. It is a measure of how much Israel takes our support for granted
and how out of touch the Israeli religious right is with America's strategic
needs.

Biden -- a real friend of Israel's -- was quoted as telling his Israeli
interlocutors: "What you are doing here undermines the security of our
troops who are fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. That endangers us
and endangers regional peace."

This whole fracas also distracts us from the potential of this moment: Only
a right-wing prime minister, like Netanyahu, can make a deal over the West
Bank; Netanyahu's actual policies on the ground there have helped
Palestinians grow their economy and put in place their own rebuilt security
force, which is working with the Israeli Army to prevent terrorism;
Palestinian leaders Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayyad are as genuine and
serious about working toward a solution as any Israel can hope to find;
Hamas has halted its attacks on Israel from Gaza; with the Sunni Arabs
obsessed over the Iran threat, their willingness to work with Israel has
never been higher, and the best way to isolate Iran is to take the
Palestinian conflict card out of Tehran's hand.

In sum, there may be a real opportunity here -- if Netanyahu chooses to
seize it. The Israeli leader needs to make up his mind whether he wants to
make history or once again be a footnote to it.



Jeff Snyder, SysOp - Armageddon BBS  Visit us at endtimeprophecy.org port 23
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