Israel: Netanyahu's New Year Message "No Concession on Security & Jewish Identity"

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu celebrated Rosh Hashanah with a message on ongoing direct talks with Palestinians: "Lasting peace must be anchored in security and it must be anchored in the recognition of the Jewish state’s permanence in this region, not merely as a fact, but as something that our neighbors accept by right."

Israel-Palestine: Israel’s Security Summit, Abbas and Netanyahu Clash on Core Issues
Video and Transcript: Obama’s New Year Message to Israelis

Transcript:

Dear Friends,

Sitting here in Jerusalem, the united capital of Israel, I want to wish Jewish communities around the world a Happy New Year – Shana Tova.

I hope it will be a year in which our people enjoy security, prosperity and peace.

Last year was one of the safest years in two decades.

But last week’s brutal murder of four Israelis, including a mother of six and a pregnant woman, reminds us that we must never take our security for granted.

We must continue a firm policy that makes clear that terror and missile attacks on our citizens will not be tolerated.

The past year has also seen a resurgence of the Israeli economy.

Israel has weathered the financial crisis better than nearly any other industrialized country.

Our economy is now firmly back on a robust path towards long-term growth.  But of course we know that the crisis is not over and we shall act resolutely, decisively, but also carefully.

In the year ahead, my government will continue on the path of economic reform because a stronger economy means a stronger Israel.

The last few days have also seen a renewal of the peace process.

I had been calling for direct talks with the Palestinians for a year and a half.

I am pleased that President Abbas joined me in those talks without preconditions.

I believe that we should make every effort to reach an historic compromise for peace over the coming year.

I guarantee one thing.  This will not be easy.  But as Israel’s Prime Minister, it is my responsibility to make every effort to forge a lasting peace with our neighbors.

Lasting peace must be anchored in security and it must be anchored in the recognition of the Jewish state’s permanence in this region, not merely as a fact, but as something that our neighbors accept by right.

In the next year, Israel will face many challenges.

I have no doubt that in meeting those challenges, Jewish communities around the world will stand by Israel’s side – I think we've seen that every step of the way up to now. We'll see that every step of the way going forward.

May you all have a healthy and happy New Year.  Shana Tova.

Israel-Palestine: Israel's Security Summit, Abbas and Netanyahu Clash on Core Issues

Israel's Security Summit: On Monday, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with members of the Israel Security Council led by Maj.-Gen. (ret.) Uzi Dayan. In the meeting, four strategic measures were discussed in detail: "Maintaining a solid Jewish majority in the State of Israel, preventing the creation of a hostile Palestinian entity that could threaten Israel from Judea and Samaria as is the case today in Gaza, the Iranian threat, and the de-legitimization assault against Israel."

The Israel Security Council also stated that there must be clear red lines during negotiations with Palestinians, especially in maintaining the Jordan Valley as Israel's eastern security border. The need to to strengthen Jewish-democratic identity in Israel and to prevent Iran from arming itself with nuclear weapons were also conveyed to PM Netanyahu.

Video and Transcript: Obama’s New Year Message to Israelis
Israel-Palestine Analysis: Can Ramallah’s “Security” Card Advance the Talks? (Yenidunya)

No Israeli Presence in the West Bank: Talking to al-Ayyam on Monday morning,  Palestine Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas said: “We clarified that [the Palestinian Authority] would not agree to continued Israeli presence, military or civil, within a future Palestinian state.”

Abbas-Netanyahu Challenge on Core Issues: According to Al Quds, Abbas has said that if he is pressured on key issues at the direct talks, such as borders and refugees, he "will take his bags and leave". Abbas stated that the issue of the pre-1967 borders are as important as Israel's emphasis on its security.

Abbas said late Monday that he has asked the U.S. "to intervene in the settlement issue", with the freeze ending in less than three weeks. It appears that Israeli "gestures" instead of an extension of the freeze did not work in Ramallah. Abbas does not see these gestures --- such as transferring an important piece of land from Israeli to Palestinian control, releasing hundreds of prisoners, and removing dozens of checkpoints --- as a substitute of a concession on settlements.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat denied on Monday that there will be a meeting between President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem in mid-September. "What has been agreed upon is a meeting between President Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu in Sharm el-Sheikh on Sept. 14 only," Erekat told Xinhua.

On Tuesday, in a Rosh Hashanah greeting, Netanyahu told the nation that there was no guarantee that negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians would succeed, but he vowed to aim for a peace agreement by the end of the year. (Interpretation: Our red lines are crystal-clear, sothere can be no improvement if Palestinians do not come to terms.) He said:

We are trying in good faith, but not naivety, to reach a peace agreement. Any arrangement between us and the Palestinians will be based on two criteria: security and recognition of Israel as a Jewish state.

Security, because no peace will last without a strong anchor of actual security on the ground, not on paper and not as a hazy international commitment. The second thing is the recognition that Israel is the national state of the Jewish people.

If we are asked to recognize a Palestinian state, it is both natural and appropriate that the Palestinians recognize the state of the Israeli people as a Jewish state.

Israel-Palestine Analysis: Can Ramallah's "Security" Card Advance the Talks? (Yenidunya)

After the killing of four Israeli settlers and wounded of two others in the West Bank on 31 August, the Palestinian Authority arrested dozens of Hamas members. However, Hamas' war on the peace process has continued through an attempt to legitimise the targeting of the settlers.

On Friday, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah praised Hamas for the West Bank attacks and said, "This is the way to free Jerusalem and Palestine." Supported byIran's statements calling the participants of peace talks in Washington "traitors", Hamas sharpened its tone.

Israeli settlers in the West Bank are legitimate targets since they are an army in every sense of the word, senior Hamas official Ezzat al-Rashk said on Saturday:

They are now a real army in every sense of the word, with more than 500,000 automatic weapons at their disposal, on top of the basic protection by the [Israel Defense Forces].

Israel-Palestine Talks: So What is a Settlement? (Stone)
Israel-Palestine: An Interview with Hamas Leader Khaled Meshaal (Narwani)

In response, Ramallah arrested dozens of Hamas members and vowed to hit them with the iron fist.

Hamas' action, rather than undermining the talks, may have strengthened the Palestinian Authority's hand in the negotiations. Officials from Ramallah are sending message to Washington that extra pressure on the PA damage the chance for peace and security of the region.

On Sunday, the chief PA negotiator Saeb Eerekat said that if his organisation and Israel "sign[ed] an endgame agreement on all core issues, I believe we will bring Gaza back." Then Erekat added that he feared the "Palestinian Authority will dissolve if we fail to reach an endgame agreement".

Talking to Palestinian newspaper al-Ayyam on Monday morning, PA leader Mahmoud Abbas took the message further by linking it to a core demand: "We clarified that [the Palestinian Authority] would not agree to continued Israeli presence, military or civil, within a future Palestinian state." Message? want peace and security, it is that Palestinian state, existing peacefully alongside Israel, that should have a monopoly over the use of power in its terrority.

Ramallah had already warned that they would leave the negotiation table if the 10-month-freeze in the settlements did not continue. Its latest deployment of peace and security will be put to two Israeli groups: a relatively "practical" camp in giving concessions but conceding on security and a relatively "conservative" one that moving strategically to capitalise on the failure of the talks. The former one is the alliance of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak alliance and the latter is the team of Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Shas leader Eli Yishai.

Lieberman has already said that the direct talks with the Palestinians would not bring a general peace agreement. He is backed by Yishai, who recently said that the Israeli forces lost against 2000 Hezbollah men "because Israel's people had distanced themselves from God". On the other side, Netanyahu says that creative thinking can remove obstacles on the way to Mideast peace and Ehud Barak fills in the details by saying that Israel will neither cancel the 10-month curb on settlement expansion nor extend it before getting a concession from the other side on borders.

Meanwhile, Israeli officials are playing another card on the negotiation table. Israel's ambassador to the US, Michael Oren, said on Friday that West Jerusalem is offering the Palestinians gestures, in place of extending the settlement moratorium, to keep them in peace negotiations. Indeed, the move seizes upon the PA's "security" theme, with the gestures including the removal of checkpoints and transfer of greater control of the West Bank to Ramallah.

Yet all of this may be overshadowed by the news from diplomatic circles who said on Sunday that Israel is considering calling off the meeting with the PA's negotiating team, scheduled to be held in Jericho on Monday, after news of the discussion was leaked to the press. [Editor's Note: The meeting has been cancelled.]

So, before the scheduled high-level meeting in Sharm-e-Sheikh on 14 September, the question is put forth: can the Palestinian Authority's own "security" card, ironically brought into play by its rival Hamas, offer a way forward in talks or will the sticking points over Israeli settlements --- the moratorium on West Bank expansion ends in less than three weeks --- ensure that there is no movement?

Israel-Palestine Talks: So What is a Settlement? (Stone)

This weekend a friend suggested that, when her interest and that of others returned to the Middle East because of developments such as the launch of Israel-Palestine direct talks, it might be helpful to provide essential background information.

Her wish is our command. Andrea Stone, in AOL News, offers a handy guide to the key issue of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem:

Israel-Palestine: An Interview with Hamas Leader Khaled Meshaal (Narwani)

Neighborhoods. Colonies. Facts on the ground. Suburbs. Unauthorized outposts. Jerusalem.

Whatever you call Jewish areas outside of Israel's 1967 border, the peace talks between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas that opened at the White House will have to confront what to do with a half-million Israelis living in disputed territory that Palestinians want for their new state.

There are other intractable core issues, such as refugees and security, that must be worked out before a peace deal can be signed. But the question of settlements, which are seen by some Israelis as bargaining chips in a future land-for-peace agreement with the Palestinians, may be the most difficult to tackle. And they could end talks even before they seriously begin.

A 10-month moratorium on settlement construction, imposed in November under pressure from an Obama administration eager to set favorable conditions to restart peace negotiations, runs out Sept. 26. Netanyahu has said he won't extend the freeze even though Abbas has made clear he'll walk out if construction resumes.

Never mind that construction never really ended: Projects that had already been approved or started were grandfathered in. Schools, community centers and other public buildings were exempted from the moratorium, as was East Jerusalem. And when violations are added to the concrete mix, there has been no actual let-up in the pace of construction.

"Negotiating over the future of the West Bank while still building settlements is akin to two people talking about splitting a pizza pie while one of the parties is nibbling on the pie," said Ori Nir of the group Americans for Peace Now. "It is nibbling away at a future Palestinian state."

But Michael Oren, Israel's ambassador to the U.S., told AOL News this week that the Palestinians should not "demand our concession on a core issue as a precondition for negotiating," noting that "we believe that the settlement issue is part of the borders issue, which is a core issue to be discussed only in direct talks."

So, on the eve of direct negotiations between the two sides, here is a primer on this most vexing of issues:

What is a 'settlement'? Like most things in the Middle East, there is no simple answer.

Before the United Nations voted to partition Palestine in 1947, the word settlement, or yishuv in Hebrew, referred to Jewish communities established before the state of Israel came into being.

The word took on a different meaning after the Six Day War in 1967 when Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza, the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights from neighboring Arab states. Jewish Israelis soon moved across the border, or Green Line, to build residential areas they called settlements but the Arabs called colonies.

Kfar Etzion, which had been a Jewish community before 1948 and was destroyed in Israel's war of independence, was the first settlement in late 1967. The next year a group of religious Zionists moved into a hotel in Hebron, the vanguard for a population that would come to include four settlers killed by Hamas this week.

Where are the settlements? Throughout the West Bank. They range from dense urban neighborhoods to isolated hilltop trailers to small villages to sprawling new cities.

Two of the three largest settlement blocs, Maale Adumim and Gush Etzion, lie close to Jerusalem and are viewed by many Israelis as suburbs they hope to keep in a land swap with the Palestinians. A third bloc, Ariel, sticks into the northern West Bank like a finger and is more controversial. Its new cultural center is the target of an actors' boycott.

Also close by the Green Line are several recently built ultra-Orthodox cities, including Modi'in Illit. They have attracted religious settlers in search of more affordable housing for families that typically can have 10 or more children.

Since the 1990s, about 100 illegal outposts have sprung up in isolated areas of the West Bank. Unlike other settlements, they have not been authorized by the Israeli government, although a 2004 report found officials often look the other way.

How many settlers are there? According to the group Peace Now, which keeps the most comprehensive database based on government information and its own research, there are about 290,000 settlers in 120 settlements in the West Bank. In addition, there are another 190,000 Israelis living beyond the Green Line in east Jerusalem.

Israel does not count Jerusalem residents as settlers because it annexed the eastern part of the city and some adjoining areas in 1967 and considers itself to have sovereignty there. The international community and the Palestinians, who want the eastern half of the city for their capital, don't recognize the annexations.

Read full article....

Israel-Palestine Analysis: "Security" Moves to the Front in Direct Talks (Yenidunya)

On 1 September, following the murder of four Israelis ahead of the Israel-Palestine direct talks, we said:

The most significant, if cynical, question is: which side can get the most benefit from this tragedy during direct talks? Will this attack boost Israel through attention to its security concerns? Will it make Ramallah a more valuable partner for peace, given the shadow of Hamas and other opposition groups, especially at a time when polls show that more than half of Palestinians in the West Bank do not believe that there will be a peace agreement in Washington?

Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon has offered an answer, underlining the magical word "security" through reference to an "existential threat". He wrote on his Facebook page:

The vicious and cold-blooded attack on four Israeli citizens last night underscores the importance of a security dialogue like the one I just had with our counterparts from Canada and other friends and allies. After the attacks on Israel in recent weeks, the Iranian regime has proven once again the threat that it poses to global peace and security through its proxies like Hamas.

Israel-Palestine Transcript: George Mitchell on the Direct Talks (3 September)
Israel-Palestine Video & Transcript: Clinton-Abbas-Netanyahu Statements and Meeting (3 September)

A day later, Ayalon saw the reward from his warning through pressure on the Palestinian Authority. He said:

While negotiations are restarting in the US, ministers in Abbas' government are continuing with their incitement and encouraging acts of terrorism by visiting the and praising families of terrorists and murderers. These types of visits encourage terrorism, as we saw recently with the murder of four Israelis. The Palestinians need to make a decision, they cannot talk peace and at the same time encourage terrorism.

At the ceremony at the White House marking the official launch of direct Mideast peace talks at the White House, the most prominent word was "peace" (39 times), but it was followed by "security" (24).

Unsurprisingly, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made great use of the term. For him, two points are key: the root of the conflict with Palestinians  has not changed, but there are other "genuine security needs of Israel that have changed", due to Iran and its "proxies". Let's go back to his 2009 speech at Bar Ilan University: "The simple truth is that the root of the conflict has been and remains the refusal to recognize the right of the Jewish People to its own state in its historical homeland." Netanyahu reiterated this position yesterday: "We expect you to be prepared to recognize Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people."

Netanyahu situated this tragedy of this week's killings of Israeli settlement as a contribution to the definition of peace and security in his Washington statement:

The last two days have been difficult. They were exceedingly difficult for my people and for me. Blood has been shed, the blood of innocents: four innocent Israelis gunned down brutally, two people wounded, seven new orphans. President Abbas, you condemned this killing. That’s important. No less important is to find the killers, and equally to make sure that we can stop other killers. They seek to kill our people, kill our state, kill our peace. And so achieving security is a must. Security is the foundation of peace. Without it, peace will unravel. With it, peace can be stable and enduring.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also used the deadly event in the context of "suspicion and skepticism".  "Peace" was not a concrete and immediate action but a series of actions, starting with the willingness to come to Washington. She said:

We understand the suspicion and skepticism that so many feel, born out of years of conflict and frustrated hopes. The tragic act of terror on Tuesday and the terrorist shooting yesterday are yet additional reminders of the human costs of this conflict. But by being here today, you each have taken an important step toward freeing your peoples from the shackles of a history we cannot change, and moving toward a future of peace and dignity that only you can create.

But here is the twist: Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas also adopted the "security" framework. Indeed he offered it even more often than Netanyahu, and he also used the attack on the four Israelis for essential context:

Also, with respect to security, you do know, ladies and gentlemen, that we have security apparatuses that are still being built, that are still young, but that are doing everything that is expected from them. Yesterday, we condemned the operations that were carried. We did not only condemn them, but we also followed on the perpetrators and we were able to find the car that was used and to arrest those who sold and bought the car. And we will continue all our effort to take security measures in order to find the perpetrators. We consider that security is of essence, is vital for both of us, and we cannot allow for anyone to do anything that would undermine your security and our security. And we therefore do not only condemn, but we keep on working seriously. Security is fundamental and very sensitive.