--From a letter by over 300 Israeli figures, including former diplomats and minister, sent to the British Parliament ahead of its non-binding vote today on Palestinian independence.**
APN's daily news review from Israel
Friday October 10, 2014
Quote of the day:
"The Israeli government is living a contradiction. In public, when it faces public opinion and rightist
voters, it curses the Palestinian reconciliation government. But under the counter, quietly, it cooperates with
it."
--Haaretz reporter Barak Ravid on yesterday's Palestinian unity government cabinet meeting - the first held in Gaza
since Hamas got power in the Strip in 2007.**
Please join us for a briefing call with Yariv Oppenheimer, the Director of Israel’s Peace Now movement, on Monday,
October 13, at 11:00 AM Eastern Time.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had a rough meeting in the Oval Office on October 1st.
President Obama chided him for Israel’s settlement activity in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Right after the meeting, administration officials provided a glance into what Netanyahu probably heard from Obama. New settlement activity “will only draw condemnation from the international community, distance Israel from even its closest allies, poison the atmosphere not only with the Palestinians, but also with the very Arab governments with which Prime Minister Netanyahu said he wanted to build relations,” said State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki.
Netanyahu was fuming as he left the White House for New York, where he told Israeli reporters who he thinks is responsible for the rocky meeting with President Obama.
Approving new settlement construction on the eve of his meeting with Obama wasn’t enough. Blaming Peace Now for the White House’s criticism of settlement expansion wasn’t enough either. Prime Minister Netanyahu just had to stick a finger in President Obama’s eye by accusing him of being un-American.
White House fumes at PM’s 'American values' statement that echoes malicious rhetoric of birthers
and other crazy Obama-haters.
Chemi Shalev
You want to give Benjamin Netanyahu the benefit of the doubt. You prefer to assume that he knew not what he was doing, that he fell in love with his own wisecrack, as he is wont to do, and simply didn’t think things through. You want to believe that we have not reached the stage when the Israeli prime minister would wantonly detonate a stink bomb in an American president’s face, as if he couldn’t care less.
Nonetheless, you have to wonder. You can say a lot of things about Netanyahu: Stupid isn’t one of them. So how could have gone down the route of declaring White House criticism of his government’s moves in East Jerusalem “un-American”? How could he have ignored the multiple numerous alarm bells and whistles that should have warned him to think twice and even thrice before taking this road? How could he have exposed himself to the kind of withering reaction issued by the White House yesterday, summed it up in one loaded little word: “odd.”
On October 1, the Israeli Peace Now movement broke the news that on the eve of Rosh Hashana, when nobody was paying attention, the Netanyahu government went ahead with final approval of a plan for construction of a new settlement in East Jerusalem – Givat Hamatos. To understand why this plan is so significant and problematic, see this analysis from Peace Now. For further dismantling of the excuses offered by Netanyahu and other settlement apologists after news of the approval came out, see this analysis from Danny Seidemann.
The news of this new settlement approval – which came on the heels of the takeover of 7 new properties by settlers in Silwan – cast a pall over Netayahu’s subsequent meeting in Washington, DC with President Obama. In the wake of that meeting, and following statements from the Obama Administration condemning the new settlement approval, Netanyahu and his fellow settlement defenders/apologists apparently decided that their best defense would be to go on offense – against Peace Now.