Israel: The Political Collapse of Opposition Leader Livni? | Enduring America

this is a Trojan horse for the right wing in Israel. Bibi will no longer depend on Israel Betanyu for power. This will enable Bibi to cater to the whims of Obama and that is a very bad thing because Bibi is obviously very willing to not work for Israel’s interests. Bibi froze growth in Judea and Samaria for Jewish people only with Obama’s endorsed ethnic cleansing. Bringing in Kadima will just further the compromising goals that Bibi has enabled.

Israeli politics is in the midst of a political shift which could doom opposition leader Tzipi Livni.

Amidst Livni’s accusation that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been trying to split her Kadima Party and the reaction of Netanyahu’s associates that it was “actually Livni herself trying to ditch [Netanyahu's] Likud [Party],” at least six Kadima members of the Israeli Parliament, the Knesset, signed a document for Netanyahu’s adviser Yitzhak Molho last week, committing themselves to leave Kadima.

The legislators that leave Kadima are expected to form a new faction.. As soon as they number seven, which is the minimum legal requirement to split off from the party, each of those who then move to Likud will become a minister, deputy minister, or Knesset committee chairman.

Livni has been in a very difficult position because of her inability to unite her party against the bill for a referendum on the Golan Heights, taken from Syria in the 1967 war. The recent British arrest warrant for Livni was seen as a stroke of luck for her. However, it now appears that the “secret transfer war” between Kadima and Likud will be a victory for Netyanahu and possibly the political downfall of Livni.

The Prime Minister is playing the internal game well. His strong criticisms of the Goldstone Report on the Gaza War, harsh discourse on Iran, warnings to the Lebanese government, and, most importantly, his “one-time and temporary” emphasis on the settlement freeze — standing up to a US Government which sees this as an “inconvenience” — have met the demands of his center-right constituency. Livni, on the other hand, now looks a politician without a base.

via enduringamerica.com

Posted via web from noahdavidsimon’s posterous

Daled Amos: Netanyahu’s Settlement Freeze Is Not A Betrayal–And Neither Was Begin’s (Updated)

Daled Amos surprised me by considering that perhaps a growth freeze in Judea and Samaria is not a bad thing. his argument is that Begin did it before his peace talks, but then it is pointed out that Carter claimed the agreement was different. Let’s hope that the paper trail of the internet age clarifies that Bibi’s agreement is to ten months and no more then that.

For example, in an op-ed published in the Washington Post in 2000, Carter claimed:

Prime Minister Begin pledged that there would be no establishment of new settlements until after the final peace negotiations were completed. But later, under Likud pressure, he declined to honor this commitment, explaining that his presumption had been that all peace talks would be concluded within three months. (Washington Post, Nov. 26, 2000)

CAMERA finds the charge in Carter’s Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid as well.
This is a distortion picked up by others in the media.

As it turns out, as CAMERA points out, during a symposium commemorating the 25th anniversary of the Camp David Accords, Carter agrees that it was a limited 3-month freeze. In the clip below, after former Attorney General of Israel Aharon Barak describes how he knows that the freeze was only intended for 3 months, you can hear Carter say, “I don’t dispute that” (at 1:04)

Considering the stand of the Obama administration, denying previous understandings between Israel and the US, Netanyahu had better be sure that his 10-month freeze is not interpreted as an ongoing commitment to be re-examined and extended later.

via daledamos.blogspot.com

Posted via web from noahdavidsimon’s posterous

Israel Matzav: NGO: ‘Settlements’ are legal and we’ll go to court to prove it

An Israeli NGO has sent a letter to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton threatening a class action lawsuit if she continues to call Jewish cities and towns in Judea and Samaria ‘illegal settlements.’ The letter, which was also sent to Prime Minister Netanyahu, argues that the ‘settlement freeze’ is illegal under a 1924 treaty in which the United States recognized that Judea and Samaria were part of the British Mandate for ‘Palestine.’

The Office for Israeli Constitutional Law, a non-governmental legal action organization, sent a letter to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last week, warning that by labeling Jewish settlements in the West Bank illegal, she is violating international law.

via israelmatzav.blogspot.com

“The little-known Anglo-American Convention, a treaty signed by the US and British governments in 1924, stipulated that the US fully accepted upon itself the Mandate for Palestine, which declared all of the West Bank within its borders.”

Posted via web from noahdavidsimon’s posterous

The little-known Anglo-American Convention, a treaty signed by the US and British governments in 1924, stipulated that the US fully accepted upon itself the Mandate for Palestine, which declared all of the West Bank within its borders.

“The treaty has been hidden,” said OFICL director Mark Kaplan. “But if you look at the House [of Representatives] deliberations during World War I, people are saying, ‘Look, we’ve invested a lot of money in Palestine, and we expect that this treaty will be upheld.’”

Though the United Nations’ 1947 partition plan declared the West Bank an Arab territory, the mandate’s borders still hold today.

“The mandate expired in 1948 when Israel got its independence,” Kaplan said. “But the American-Anglo convention was a treaty that was connected to the mandate. Treaties themselves have no statute of limitations, so their rights go on ad infinitum.”

“The UN partition plan was just that-a plan,” said OFICL chairman Michael Snidecor in a statement. “The General Assembly has no authority to create countries or change borders.“

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu declared a 10-month settlement freeze last Wednesday, but the letter, which was also sent to Netanyahu’s office, states that under the legal principle of estoppel – which precludes someone from denying the truth of a fact which has been determined in an official proceeding or by an authoritative body – any demand on Israel to freeze construction within the mandated borders is illegal under US law.

According to one adviser, Netanyahu’s staff is reviewing the documents and will discuss the issues before replying to OFICL’s planned actions.

via jpost.com