Netanyahu says Israel will never withdraw to 1967 borders.
It is so annoying that the U.S. corporate media decides that big news doesn't exist and non-news is big news. The New York Times, for example, has gone six days without any news from Iraq (where the U.S. is spending 10 billion dollars a month). But more immediately, the coverage this week about Israel and Palestine includes an article about the start of former Israeli President Ehud Olmert's corruption trial, but not even a reference to current Premier Benjamin Netanyahu's announcement that Israel will never withdraw to the 1967 borders. In fact, I could only find a report of the interview in the Turkish Weekly.
Recall what Obama said after his meeting with Netanyahu in Washington: that the resolution of the Israeli-Palestine crisis must include "a viable, independent Palestinian state with contiguous territory that ends the occupation that began in 1967." This has been broadly interpreted as a call by the U.S. for Israel to ultimately withdraw from the occupied territories.
In response to this, Netanyahu told Haaretz:
"The things he [Obama] said about the occupation are not new. He also said them in Cairo, and in fact that is the formula adopted by the road map and it does not say we have to go back to the 1967 borders."This is the formula adopted by [Israeli] governments before the one I head, which did not agree to go back to the 1967 borders. We certainly would [also] not agree to that. In the matter of the settlements he also said nothing new. These disagreements should not prevent the beginning of the process which, among other things if it is successful, will also decide this issue."
This is convoluted, but very clear: Neither the earlier Israeli governments, nor Netanyahu would ever agree "to go back to the 1967 borders." They are going to keep all or part of the land they seized, despite the world consensus that this seizure, occupation, and ethnic cleansing was illegal and immoral, and an ongoing devastation to the lives of Palestinians.
It is simply staggering that both the U.S. government and the U.S. media simply ignores these provocative and incendiary commitments, while continuing to condemn any little provocative statement by any Palestinian political grouping.
In some sense, this is a litmus test for the Obama administration. With Netanyahu drawing a line in the sand, will Obama do something to challenge this? Or will he tacitly or explicitly support an Israeli policy that guarantees years or even decades of further misery, violence, and instability.
I am afraid to reach the obvious conclusion suggested by the deafening silence in Washington and in the U.S. corporate media.
There used to be a "world consensus" that the earth is flat. Consensus does not make something illegal. If you think that there is some "Law" that is being violated have the decency to tell us which one. The West Bank, in 1967 and now, was not legally part of any other country than Israel, and the Jews have treaty rights to Palestine through the Palestine Mandate and other international treaties.
The 1947 Partition was not a treaty obligation but a "Recommendation" of the General Assembly that was rejected by the Arabs, so the recommendation isn't binding on anyone.
Jews have national rights to the entire West Bank under international law. This is from the Resolution of San Remo of 1920. See the resolution at http://www.therightroadtopeace.com/infocenter/Heb/SamRemoRes.html
It's because the media, as well as most of our politicians are bought and paid for by the Military Industrialists, (as well as Israeli sycophants) who lust after the monetary advantages of Israel's warmongery.
But both can only do so in part, before castrating themselves.
Israel may return 90% of the West Bank, but they will never give back all of '67 captured land because they want this, and have no illusion about winning the good will of the Arab world. After the intifadas and the pullouts of the last decade, there is no gesture any Arab can make to change this.
Palestinians may be able to let go partially too... of that 10%, of their refugees, of a military and other such masculine makings of a nation.
With these traumas to both sides, there is a realistic process for peace.
http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/mapstellstory.html
Obviously this wasn't good enough. So power-that- be decided to go with fraudulent headline:" Netanyahu: Israel Will Never Withdraw from Occupied Territories"
Shame.
The decent people of the World can shed there embarrassment about a rouge people and deal with them as they should have decades ago.
No contact with the rest of the World, seize all their assets, no support from the diaspora, no international flights, no trade, naval blockade, no participation in the financial world,The list is endless and the bullies would soon be whimpering and grovelling and we would be a step closer to removing the cancer created after the second world war.
I don't think anyone uses rouge anymore. You're dating yourself. LOL
Netanyahu probably has in mind something less fair, that is retaining some territory without a swap, but the other side still claims it will never recognize Israel's right to exist. These are not unreasonable pre-negotiation claims. They are not helpful, but they are not devastating either.
A deal that is acceptable to the Palestinian leadership (which would have to include the people in Gaza to be taken seriously) would be an end to the 1967 occupation even if it did not involve a return to the 1967 borders. Netanyahu is right about that point. In calling for the end of the occupation the US does not, and should not, care about the exact contours of what the resulting peace looks like. We should care (but don't always) that it is something that could legitimately be called a fair peace. But that is a different issue.
The State Department presumably has plenty of people who can Google these things and spend time reading foreign policy magazines and parsing statements too, so they know this too.
The only dummies, I hate to say, are the American public -- for believing our own government's lies that the United States is attempting to be an honest brokers in this dispute.
Like hell.
RWNJ administration onna "mission from Gawd" - a danger to the U.S. with our support of such and should be shunned.