Netanyahu's coalition government couldn't wait to demonstrate their contempt for the wishes of their indispensable ally and enabler the United States, and embarrass its President...again, in what is becoming a humiliating pattern for American policymakers.
Western powers angered as Israel agrees settler homes
The new houses are to be constructed Israel at Gilo, in East Jerusalem.Western powers have expressed dismay at Israeli plans to build 1,100 more homes on a settlement on Jerusalem's edge.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague too urged Israel to revoke its decision.
"Settlement expansion is illegal under international law, corrodes trust and undermines the basic principle of land for peace," he said in a statement.
The authorities have now approved the building of almost 3,000 homes in Gilo over the past two years.
The chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said the decision represented a rejection of a proposal by the Quartet of Mid East negotiators - the US, the EU, Russia and the UN - for new talks between the Palestinians and Israelis, expected to be made officially on Friday.
"With this, Israel is responding to the Quartet's statement with 1,100 'NOs'," he said.
Meanwhile, the UN rapporteurs on housing, water, sanitation and food rights said there had been a "dramatic increase" in the demolitions this year.
"The impact and discriminatory nature of these demolitions and evictions is completely unacceptable," they said in a statement.
So home demolitions have accelerated this year, and we all know who's homes are being demolished, Palestinians, since only settlements are accorded the ability to accommodate what the Likud likes to label "Natural Growth".
ABC went with a headline that contains a false premise:
Israel approves settlements despite peace talks
The ABC piece starts with this:
Israel has approved the construction of 1,100 new settlement homes on disputed land in the West Bank, less than a week after promising to pursue peace with the Palestinians.
ABC in a remarkable leap of wishful thinking is conflating Bibi's empty promise of peace talks with actual peace talks.
The plan dramatically increases the size of the Jewish settlement there.
Former White House and state department official, Hillary Mann Leverett, told Al Jazeera the criticism of Israel could be a lot stronger.
"What Hillary Clinton did today in her what I would call criticism without content is to dramatically underscore how the United States has moved from a position as arbiter, presider over a peace process to a partisan role in the conflict, firmly on Israel's side,' she said.
ABC got that right. Hillary's gently worded "tisk tisk" illustrated a symptom of the problem. The other day Thomas Friedman put his finger on the core of the problem with US's Middle East policy in his column.
Israel: Adrift at Sea Alone
This has also left the U.S. government fed up with Israel’s leadership but a hostage to its ineptitude, because the powerful pro-Israel lobby in an election season can force the administration to defend Israel at the U.N., even when it knows Israel is pursuing policies not in its own interest or America’s.
As American politicians dither, thousands of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli Gulags are reaching the end of their rope.
Palestinians detained in Israel start hunger strike
27 SEPTEMBER 2011
Ma’an – 27 Sept 2011
www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=424063
Palestinian detainees in Israeli jails have started a hunger strike to protest their treatment by the Israeli prison services, Palestinian Authority Minister of Detainee Affairs Issa Qaraqe said Tuesday.
Detainees are threatening to disobey all prison rules if their demands are not met, Qaraqe said, adding that the move would be unprecedented.
The Republicans' attack that Obama hasn't been Israel's true friend is so preposterous its beneath contempt.
Most pro-Israel president ever
Of course, Obama's outrageous surrender to Netanyahu still won't impress the Israel-Firsters. They have despised him from day one, for all kinds of reasons, and predictably condemned the speech. Meanwhile, Israel's thuggish far-right foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, told reporters that: "I am ready to sign on this speech with both hands."
Lieberman is telling the truth - he could have written Obama's speech - and the neocons are lying. But neocons are adherents of the Sen Mitch McConnell (R-KY) school: They have only one goal, which is to defeat this president. And although privately they celebrate their amazing success at intimidating Obama into submission, publicly they denounce him and send scary emails to senior citizens in Florida and New Jersey warning them that Obama wants to destroy Israel.
Bibi is insisting that Israel should keep all of what Israel defines as Jerusalem. Israel has used illegal annexations to expand the size of Jerusalem's municipal boundary by 1,080% since 1967.
Israel Continues to Build Illegal Settlements in Occupied Jerusalem
After capturing East Jerusalem in the 1967 war, Israel unilaterally expanded the Jerusalem Municipal Boundaries to include Palestinian East Jerusalem and areas of the West Bank. The Jerusalem municipal area was expanded from 6.5 Km² to 70.5 Km2 (growing to 10.8 times its original size). The expansion entailed the annexation of open spaces inside the West Bank. These open spaces were integrated into Israeli planning schemes and became sites for the construction of the illegal Israeli settlements that soon sprung up throughout the recently occupied territory. Utilizing this open space, Israel began to construct settlements in strategic locations around Palestinian cities and villages.
In East Jerusalem these settlements served a dual purpose. First, the new settlements formed buffers between Palestinian neighborhoods, cutting them off from each other and creating small and fractured Palestinian enclaves. Second, the influx of Jewish settlers into the new settlements in East Jerusalem contributed to a Jewish Israeli demographic majority within the newly expanded Jerusalem municipal boundaries. Migration to East Jerusalem settlements contributed to the Israelization, and more precisely, the Judaization, of the city. As a result, the demographic composition of the city rapidly changed, leaving 28% Palestinian and 73% Jewish. The construction of Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem has continued since 1967 with existing settlements almost continually expanded and new settlements created.
No other nation recognizes Israel's illegal annexations to Jerusalem.
Netanyahu knows from experience he can expect a boost in his popularity with Israel's voters by snubbing Obama. Fist Bibi jammed his thumb in Obama's eye at the U.N., and now following up by stomping on his foot with this announcement.
I think Netanyahu is also doing his best to give President Obama a foreign policy black eye to take him down a notch going into next year's election, in hopes it will help a Republican take the White House next year.