Makom

Uncovering Israel

Elephants In The Room

FACE 2 FACE
Settlements and the United States

Sand in their eyes
Shaul Arieli

The repeated demands by Barack Obama and the Europeans for a freeze on settlement construction reveals that Benjamin Netanyahu's promise - that Israel will neither build new settlements nor expropriate land for the benefit of the settlements - is nothing more than an effort to throw sand in the public's eyes.

In negotiations on a final-status agreement, it would be possible to reach understandings with the United States and the Palestinians on the completion of projects that are almost finished - for instance, in Ma'aleh Adumim - and new construction within the built-up areas of certain settlements, mainly Modi'in Ilit and Betar Ilit, which abut the Green Line. But to demand more than that in exchange for Netanyahu's speech at Bar-Ilan University - for instance, the trick of relocating Migron settlers to Adam or "high-rise construction" - looks like an attempt to put one over on the Americans. And the Americans are quite familiar with the Sasson and Spiegel reports on the settlements and outposts.

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The Wage of Weakness
Israel Harel

Anyone who acts like a doormat when he visits one foreign ruler should not be surprised when other rulers come along and act as arrogantly as the first. From day one we have let the world understand that we are a country with no self-respect, that we can be insulted and punched and will respond, if at all, with restraint and meekness. French President Nicolas Sarkozy was able to say what he said about Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman because for years Israel has been getting across the message: You can treat us arrogantly.

It isn't the Americans who formulated the belittling and trivializing formula "natural growth" at which the Obama administration is now chipping away in an arrogant and bullying manner. An Israeli government, headed by Ariel Sharon, was responsible for the trivializing. And instead of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declaring, here at home, that no independent nation can agree to have "natural growth" dictate its rate of construction, Defense Minister Ehud Barak has gone off to the United States to plead for this poor little lamb.

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Settlements and the United States

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