Word: netanyahu
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...dancing and theater shows. And yet to much of the outside world, the Katzes are participating in an illegal land grab forbidden by the Geneva Conventions, which prohibit an occupying power from settling its own civilians on militarily controlled land. Some Israelis have admitted as much. While Benjamin Netanyahu, then as now Prime Minister, was negotiating with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in 1998, Foreign Minister Ariel Sharon got on Israeli radio and urged Israelis to settle more land fast. "Grab the hilltops, and stake your claim," he said. "Everything we don't grab will go to them." (See pictures...
...Middle East for a generation. The Obama Administration says negotiations between the Palestinians and the Israelis can only proceed if Israel agrees to stop settling occupied land. "The settlements have to be stopped in order for us to move forward," said Barack Obama when he met with Netanyahu in May. But for Israeli politicians on both the left and the right, even agreeing to freeze the settlements - much less dismantling them - is easier said than done. And the Katzes are one of the reasons why. (Read "Despite Jewish Concerns, Obama Keeps Up Pressure on Israel...
...that this should come as much of a surprise. Sharing Jerusalem may be one of the basic requirements of the two-state solution as developed over the past two decades, but Netanyahu has been a late and reluctant convert to the two-state formula - and even then, on terms many of his supporters acknowledge are unlikely to be acceptable to any Palestinian leader. And he has pushed back against Washington's demand for a freeze in settlement construction. The two sides remain locked in negotiations on the issue, with an already previously postponed meeting between Netanyahu and President Obama...
...Refusing to even discuss East Jerusalem's status raises the ante, providing further reason for skepticism among Arabs that Netanyahu is serious about a two-state solution. The Obama Administration has warned Israel not to proceed with a residential project in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem, noting that the U.S. views such construction in the same light as settlement expansion. But while the Netanyahu government may be willing to dismantle some of the settlement outposts built without permission in the West Bank (they're usually rebuilt by settlers within days), the Prime Minister made clear on Sunday that...
...Even though Obama is backed by a vast international consensus - the key European powers, Russia and the U.N. have all publicly supported the U.S. position - Netanyahu clearly believes he can force the President to back down. And in doing so, the Israeli leader has taken a position from which he'll find it difficult to retreat. Netanyahu will get strong political support within Israel for standing up to Washington on Jerusalem (as he has done by resisting pressure for a settlement freeze), and he expects that the more symbolically powerful issue of the Holy City will win him support...