In exchange for freezing settlement activities, with the exclusion of “natural growth” and removal of random outposts, Israel demands Arab steps toward normalization that include opening airspace for Israeli planes, opening Israeli interest agencies in Arab countries, and a Palestinian commitment to enter negotiations on “the permanent status arrangement”. It also demands that the negotiations lead to the “end of the conflict” and an “end to the demands” of Israel, in addition to the establishment of a demilitarized Palestinian state whose airspace and border are controlled by Israel, as well as a solution to the refugee problem outside Israel. All this is required in exchange for a partial freeze of settlement building? Radicalism can only generate a similar reply. Thus, I say that all of Israel is a settlement outpost in Palestinian territories and that if it does not accept a fully sovereign Palestinian state in the territories occupied in 1967, originally 22% of historical Palestine, then the Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims should resume their claim of all of Palestine. Today's column is about what I have read in Israeli dailies over the past two weeks. In sum, it implies that there is a gang of war criminals, or maniacs, exercising power in Israel, and that peace is unthinkable as long as the current radical coalition exists. Some Israeli news items contradict each other. In a party meeting with Likud members, Benjamin Netanyahu referred to the fact that American pressure with respect to the settlements issue had been reduced. Yet, other news items said after the meeting of US envoy George Mitchell with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak in New York and then in London, that the Obama administration did not agree on any of Israel's demands. Indeed, it still opposes “the natural growth” of the settlements and the exclusion of Jerusalem from the issue of settlements. Mitchell also made a list of a hundred random outposts against a list of 23 made by Barak who promised to eliminate them within weeks. Mitchell informed Barak that the Obama administration did not mandate him to make any concessions to Israel with regard to the settlements issue, and added that he would meet Netanyahu in Israel this week as he would also meet President Mahmoud Abbas. There is no possible solution. While the Israelis were focusing on the settlements issue, the Municipality of Jerusalem was authorizing the construction of 20 housing units in the Scorpions Mountain, i.e. in the heart of Arab Jerusalem which is the only Jerusalem, since the western part of the city is nothing but modern residential suburbs. Moreover, the Israel Land Fund was seeking only Jewish tenants for a large apartment in Beit Hanina with low rent. It keeps stealing, purchasing, or confiscating with the assistance of the Israeli government and the Municipality of Jerusalem that denies the Palestinians construction permits in their city, and then it demolishes any building they own on the pretext of the absence of permits. Yedioth Ahronoth said that the Obama administration would offer Israel two benefits in exchange for freezing settlement building. The first is the commitment by certain Arab states that do not have diplomatic ties with Israel (particularly Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and the small Persian Gulf states) to open their airspace to Israeli planes. The second benefit is the reopening of the Israeli interest agencies in the small Persian Gulf states and North Africa. The daily claimed that the Obama administration obtained commitments from Arab states to offer Israel benefits in the form of a “down payment”. I am writing in the clearest possible terms that Saudi airspace will not be open for Israeli planes before the establishment of a Palestinian state. I ask the readers to keep in mind the content of these lines and to hold me accountable for it in the future. Regarding the settlements, I say that Ma'ariv and other dailies came up with a news item which says that Israel is angry because the Bush administration made a verbal commitment allowing it to build in the settlements, and that the Obama administration does not recognize this commitment. In this connection, Minister Dan Meridor said: “We never had a deal with a Republican administration; we had an agreement with the United States. Agreements must be honored.” I say that the Bush administration, or any US administration, or government around the world, does not have the right to make commitments on Palestinian territories, and let George Bush accommodate the Jews in Texas, not on the land of another people. But were any commitments made? Elliott Abrams confirms it while Dan Kirtzer denies it, which implies that the commitments do not exist. Elliott, a radical Likudist who achieved fame owing to the Iran-Contra Affair, is an Israeli before being an American; therefore, his testimony is rejected. In comparison, Kirtzer is a Jew like Abrams and a pious man who was ambassador to Egypt and Israel. I have always found him moderate and peace-loving, in addition to being an American diplomat, not an Israeli agent in the US administration, as is the case with Abrams. There is a certain mania in Israeli news, and consequently, what I am reading cannot come true. Then I read Nazi material with unacceptable radicalism, even if readers froze their minds and their humanity. This will be the topic of my next column. http://www.j-khazen.blogspot.com/
