Likud minister: U.S. pressure bolsters Palestinian hardliners
Minister Begin describes Washington's scrutiny on Jerusalem as departing from past U.S. administrations.
By News Agencies Tags: Likud Barack Obama Israel news East JerusalemThe Obama administration's pressure on Israel to curb settlement activity will bolster Palestinian hardliners and hinder peace efforts, a senior cabinet minister said on Monday.
Tensions with Washington flared three weeks ago, and have simmered unresolved since, over the announcement of an Israeli blueprint for 1,600 more homes for Jews in areas of the West Bank that Israel annexed to East Jerusalem.
The Palestinians, who want statehood in the West Bank and Gaza with a capital in East Jerusalem, backed out of planned U.S.-mediated peace talks with Israel, demanding the new project be scrapped.
Benny Begin, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's inner cabinet, described Washington's scrutiny on Jerusalem as departing from previous U.S. administrations' view that the city's status should be resolved in peace negotiations.
"It's bothersome, and certainly worrying," Begin told Israel Radio. "This change will definitely bring about the opposite to the declared objective. It will bring about a hardening in the policy of the Arabs and of the Palestinian Authority."
This month's diplomatic deadlock has seen a spike in Israeli-Palestinian violence in the West Bank, as well as in the Gaza Strip, whose Islamist Hamas rulers spurn Israel and deride Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's peace strategy.
Hoping to salvage negotiations, the United States has been seeking unspecified goodwill gestures from Israel toward the Palestinians.
A senior Israeli official said these included "assurances" regarding East Jerusalem, where Netanyahu has refused to stop building. Israel regards the entire city as its eternal and indivisible capital, a claim not recognized internationally.
U.S. President Barack Obama gave Netanyahu an unusually frosty reception at White House talks last week, denying him the traditional photo opportunity or joint statement.
Begin's misgivings about the Obama administration have been echoed by others in the seven-member inner cabinet, which guides policy and is dominated by right-wingers including the premier.
Begin, son of the late right-wing Prime Minister Menachem Begin, is on record as opposing a Palestinian state in the West Bank, which Israel captured along with Gaza in the 1967 Six-Day War and peppered with settlements.
Israel quit Gaza in 2005 but vows to keep West Bank settlement blocs under any accord.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak, the lone left-winger in the inner cabinet, has taken a different tack on the U.S. spat.
"The U.S. administration is looking for an answer to the question of whether Israel is energetically and seriously going along with it toward broad understandings in the diplomatic process," he told reporters on Sunday.
"In other words, direct talks on core questions," he said. "This is the question bothering the U.S. administration more than the concrete requests ... that are still being discussed in the contacts between us."
Netanyahu has offered the Palestinians direct negotiations without preconditions. But, to Abbas's chagrin, he has made clear that Israel would only accept a Palestinian state shorn of some sovereign powers and which recognized Israel as a Jewish state.
The feud with Washington put Netanyahu in a political bind. Meeting any U.S. demands on settlements -- after a 10-month partial construction freeze he announced in November - could endanger his coalition and bolster the centrist opposition.
Netanyahu's Likud party has fallen behind the opposition Kadima in polls this month, for the first time since last year's election. A survey in Friday's Maariv newspaper suggested Likud would take 28 of parliament's 120 seats if a ballot were held now, against 29 to Kadima.
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?they will be dragged, kicking and screaming all the way to peace? ?
Time to turn the table.
Can you imagine the EU postings on Haaretz if the internet would have been around when the USA settlers did their number on the native American Indians. The USA government signed all manner of peace treaties and then broke each one as they slaughtered their way across the country. And then stole Texas and California in agressive wars with Mexico. Bloody hypocrites. At least Israel is sitting on their own native indiginous land.
over 45 years. Time to change track. Besides the US is now I hope a sincere impartial interlocatur and will drag any recalcitrant people from either side.
How about Likud intransigence bolsters Palestinian hardliners? Every roadblock set in front of an independent Palestinian state empowers hardliners on the other side. Jerusalem for Palestinian capital? Say no and not only bolster hardliners but increase their recruitment as well. Keep building where the Palestinians hope to have a state--bolsters hardliners. Shoot children with who throw rocks, ditto. How do you want to bolster hardliners? Take your pick.
Yes, Americans are upset about our Middle East policies where Israel and Palestine are concerned. We are totally fed up with past out of control support for everything Israel does. The times they are a changing.
You been watching the news? Last week Barack Hussein Obama achieved three election pledges he promised the American people. And 12 million out of 308,904,000 is not going to carry much weight. When you think Hispanics and South Americans and African Americans compose healy one thirs of the population at 102.5 million. It is to do with demographics. The Jewish block vote doesn't matter as much as it once did so exactly what punishment are you
for his domestic agenda if he continues to blunder about with ME policies which are important to his domestic supporters.
The Obama-U.S pressure will not be the last ! The 'palestinian hardliners', is not new in the Jewish History. It is first documented in the Arabs holy book & Jews suffered from it & their sufferings were paid handsomely by the fulfillments of G-d promise in our time. We the blessed & lucky generations of Jews ! Now & since the establishment of the Jewish State; again & again we learned only Israel can keep us secured. And no pressure will ever takes of joy !
Likud starting to pee in its pants. Shock treatment working.
What a cheek this man has talking about hardliners ,my God these prople live in make beleive world ,they lie to themselves and beleive their own lies ,Isarel has alaways been run by hardliners it just who is more than the others.
he needs to state his reasons clearly.he needs to make others understand that the other side has interest in destroying us. they have no other aim.tom paine and the western intellectual tradition find no home among the arabs.
What Obama achieved in his demands it is exactly what Japan achieved in Pearl Harbor ? to unite Israelis around Jerusalem and against common threat ? Arabs and Iran.
It was Likud and Netanyahu that said all prior agreements were bogus and invalid, not Obama. Obama is not changing policy, maybe just the means to get there. Prior means have not worked in getting good faith negotiations on all issues from both sides addressed. The current Israeli government doesn't want to address some issues and only wants to dictate others. That hasn't worked in any prior negotiation and apparently isn't working now. No preconditions means none from you too.
how ironic... hardliners"international law" will get bolstered... if lieberman/ayalon his band wagon are asked to simply stop the illegal settlements ? this is the mentality problem that exists any delay and any excuse to keep building will be taken. expect the worse from Nethanyahu and his group when it comes to settlements.
new to the job would be able to not only undertsand the regions's problems but also give us solutions.sisyphus had an easier job. the president is a product of affirmative action.he is not a problem solver.