Whenever peace talks are close at hand, the Palestinians ratchet up the pressure by launching a wave of violence. The goal is to improve negotiating position and to ensure that after Israel gives up something new, that the talks will be torpedoed anyway. This helps the Palestinians immensely because they always demand that the new round of talks begin where the last one left off.

As well know, there was minimal violent protest by the Palestinians in West Bank/Judea and Samaria over the past couple of years. In fact, things were going so well, that the US has been training a large Palestinian army with the stated goal of giving the PA the tools needed to manage its own society.

In fact, the Palestinians had been finding their pseudo-non-violent protests at Bi’lin and similar villages to be so effective that both the PA and Fatah called for this movement to grow.

And yet, over the past few days, there have been numerous incidents of violence and rioting by the Palestinians. As always, in these early days, it’s mostly youth they are sending out. It makes for effective news and propaganda to have Israeli soldiers “fight” boys who are merely “throwing rocks.” Eventually, however, it is very likely that as the clashes escalate, that adult Palestinians will enter the fighting, just as they did in 2000 and 2001. This time, Israel may have to contend with a 30,000-strong American-trained Palestinian army or soldiers from that army.

Did I mention they have American and Israeli weapons?

For the escalation and especially for its timing, we can thank President Obama who took a diplomatic snafu by Israel, one for which the Israelis apologized profusely and immediately, and turned it into a major diplomatic crisis between Israel and the US. By displaying such anger over what had not caused violent Palestinian protests, he forced the hands of the PA, which has been inciting its people by expressing similar anger.

It’s true that some of the violence was instigated by the PA over the construction and re-opening of the Hurva synagogue in Jerusalem’s Old City. This building, with a history going back many centuries, was destroyed by the Jordanians after they took over the Old City in 1948 and after they ensured that every last Jew was evicted from land under their control. It took until now to rebuild it and the photos I’ve seen make it appear to be beautiful. Perhaps having a building of such importance, and particularly because it has a religious function, made the Palestinians seek to express their rancor, as they often do, with a stone-throwing exhibition from the Haram Esh Sherif compound down at people praying at the Western Wall. This led to clashes with Israeli police. It is very possible to claim that these activities were the result of the Hurva re-opening.

However, the clashes have really not ended since then. One has to ask why, and the only logical explanation is that Obama’s got Abbas’s back. By taking such strident and public steps to punish Israel for announcing the construction of new homes in Ramat Shlomo, Obama made it clear that Israel had crossed a line in the sand that he felt they had no right to cross. This left Abbas with little recourse but to ensure that his people knew that he also has a line in the sand and if crossing it is so egregious that the US administration can attack and humiliate Israel, then what else can Abbas and his people do but use their tried and true method of gaining attention and sympathy?

This serves nobody. It is not in America’s interest to have another Palestinian war, it is not in Israel’s interest AND it is not in the Palestinians’ interest. Until now, they have been watching their economy boom as Israeli goodwill measures freed up Palestinians movement to some degree. Business is thriving. However, this intifadah/war will undermine this progress.

Did I mention that many Palestinians and Israelis could die in such a war?

Maybe Obama can vilify and attack the PA now? I mean, just this week they commemorated a terrorist who murdered about 37 Israeli civilians, and this was planned before the so-called “proximity talks” were to begin. It’s not as if he doesn’t have a very good reason to attack the PA and using the same logic he used in attacking Israel, it would seem that going after the PA would be a no-brainer.

It’ll happen when cows can fly.

This is the right week to have photos of Jerusalem, isn’t it?

These are from Antohinson’s Flickr pages.

This is a three part post.

1.

Jerusalem Cemetery, Absalom's Tomb

This was a hard week for Israel, but I think it came out of it okay there are harder weeks to come. The relationship with Obama’s administration in the US and Israel’s administration under Netanyahu will continue to be challenging.

I have a strange feeling that the Americans were acting as they did because they were acting on psychological profiling of Netanyahu. He caved in to American demands and heavy pressure in 1998, signing the Wye Accords without getting much in return. It was 12 years ago and I recall that at the beginning of the trip, Netanyahu attempted to get Pollard freed. It didn’t happen and still hasn’t happened but Netanyahu gave in at Wye.

In fact, some Israeli MKs asked Biden before the Ramat Shlomo announcement fiasco to release Pollard in time for this year’s Passover. Fat chance of Pollard getting out now. Then again, it would probably regain for Obama a lot of the goodwill he has lost in the past week with many Israelis and supporters of Israel.

Anyway, I wonder whether the American profile of Netanyahu indicated that he would falter under severe pressure. He was an officer in one of Israel’s elite commando units, so one would think this profile would be wrong, but I can’t imagine what else they would have been thinking.

2.

Jerusalem View

One of our fine writers, Sarke, reminds us of the Sabbath Manifesto, which is a list of things people can do on the Sabbath to make that day special, um, like the sabbath. Once upon a time, we had one of our bigger debates here and I recall that I spoke about the Sabbath being a day of special time even if one treats that time without consideration for, say, keeping the car engine off. It looks to me as if the Sabbath Manifesto idea is exactly what I was talking about and it’s nice to see it make waves.

And then some Pharaoh’s Daughter makes everything go down smoother.

3.

I’m not done. The music brings up more questions.

We have become so consumed by the political fight, that it’s hard sometimes to remember that there is beauty in our traditions, in our heritage. The poetry has been stolen by this bitter fight over land that has lasted longer than virtually any of us have been alive. It’s important to fight this theft and to keep our ability to see beauty; to understand that while there is much evil out there, it is tempered with good.

The war has always been, to some degree, a war of semantics: terrorist; revolutionary; war; intifadah. Today, it’s apartheid; war crimes; settlements; theft. Words that steal beauty. Words that indicate the opposite.

It is odd to watch as Israel becomes the accused even as ample evidence exists to show the other side has no desire for peace or compromise. How many times has Abbas been described as a “moderate?” Is there a publication out there which does not refer to him as a moderate? And yet, Olmert offered him peace and was rejected outright. Olmert was not called a moderate because he offered peace. A war of words.

A Palestinian commemoration of a terrorist who murdered over 30 Israeli civilians is glossed over this week, just like most of their anti-Israel rhetoric, but the announcement – one which was an admitted mistake – of construction in a Jewish neighborhood in an area that will clearly remain inside Israel in any deal, is treated as a breach of faith and exhibit A in the supposed Israeli attempt to stall peace. This after a year of stating over and over that Israel is ready to talk and being rebuffed time after time.

How did they – let’s leave “they” vague – manage to take a democracy and depict it as a worse offender than the dictatorships surrounding it? Whose rhetorical trick is that? Meanwhile some of the very same critics fight wars in far-away lands, killing innocent civilians in the process, and hold another country accountable to standards they violate when that country has actually been attacked, unlike the critical countries.

How have good intentions, ethical intentions, such as, for example, waiting years before responding with war to thousands of rocket attacks, or dropping “door knocker” bombs on buildings prior to attacks in a time of war, providing warning to BOTH residents and fighters (who you generally try not to warn) to leave, considered affronts to the ethics of war?

And how is it that the world is allowing a mad regime to develop technology that can wipe out entire cities with one or two successful rocket attacks, even as that regime announces over and over again its intention to annihilate another country?

You don’t need to answer. The questions are rhetorical.

The reason is that the world is insane.

In an upside down world, taking a day of rest and small pleasures may be the most sane thing one can do.

Shabbat shalom.

UPDATE: Haaretz and Ynet report that Netanyahu has indeed caved in to American pressure, promising to slow construction in east Jerusalem and beyond, agreeing to discuss final status issues in these negotiations and easing up the blockade on Gaza despite the absence of progress on Gilad Shalit and real signs that Hamas is in some trouble in Gaza.

No, not Israel! Obama.

Look, Israel made a mistake. Heck, I wrote two posts about that idiotic mistake because it was so huge. Then, Israel apologized profusely for the mistake.

However, the Obama administration decided that this gave them a pretext for taking a very aggressive stance toward the Netanyahu government. Essentially, we saw a repeat of last year’s settlement freeze fiasco, multiplied by a factor of two or three. Suddenly Israeli officials were being lambasted by American politicians and officials, new demands were on the table, the press was being leaked “Obama furious stories,” and it became very clear that this US administration would indeed treat Israel differently than any other country in the world.

That isn’t the worst of it, however. This NY Times article shows the worst part of it.

But in discussions in recent days, some senior officials have amplified their argument that the American approach needs to change. They said that Israel’s announcement that it would build 1,600 new houses in a disputed area of Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem, undermining a trip by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., further called into question the Netanyahu government’s commitment to seriously engaging in the peace talks.

Do you get that?

It’s Israel’s fault there are no peace talks.

At this point, in order to win this idiotic battle, that might only change the course of history, the Obama administration is rewriting history in order to explain its policy.

To remind the Obama folks, Israel WANTED peace talks. Netanyahu actually stood on a podium and accepted the premise of a two state solution. He backed off his demand that the Palestinians enter negotiations only after acknowledging that Israel is a Jewish state. He spoke often of having talks with Mahmoud Abbas. He even agreed to slow or freeze settlement construction.

What did the Palestinians do? They walked away from a peace offer in 2008, announced in the Washington Post that they now planned to wait because they thought that Obama-Netanyahu tensions were certain to follow as a result and within 2 years Netanyahu’s government would fall. They upped their demands of a settlement freeze to include a Jerusalem construction freeze. They continued to incite internationally and at home against Israel. And they did nothing about making peace.

It is so obvious that they would rather pursue a single state solution that I’ve had the pleasure of writing 4 posts about how they believe they are currently in their endgame (put “endgame” into our search box). They believe time is on their side, and Israel is reeling from numerous blows in recent years that have weakened its society and its motivation to continue the fight. However, their ace in the hole, the Palestinians believe, is Obama.

He is proving that they are right. The US could have been an honest broker here. The Year 2000 Clinton Parameters, for example, exhibit a great sensitivity and understanding regarding the needs and concerns of both the Israelis and Palestinians. Obama, however, has placed a great deal of pressure upon Israel, with very little on the Palestinians. This is now happening again, and he has made it so public, that whoever comes down from the tree first, will harbor great anger at the other side. That is to say, he has intentionally sown the seeds of a long-term conflicted relationship with the US that will be very hard to repair. He did this when peace talks are supposed to restart – peace talks that were proceeding despite the absence of a moratorium on east Jerusalem construction.

“There’s an issue of street credibility here,” said Aaron David Miller, a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, who was deeply involved in the Camp David talks during the Clinton administration.

Mr. Miller said that while the administration had “been thinking for months” about the advantages and risks of putting its own plan on the table, “they are worried about being accused of imposing their own solution.”

But such a plan could also, in the minds of some senior American officials, force Mr. Netanyahu to choose between the peace talks and the right-wing elements of his coalition, or to try to form a new coalition with the more centrist Kadima Party, led by Tzipi Livni, the former foreign minister.

If that’s really what they’re thinking in the White House today, they fail to understand that the problem isn’t the Likud. The problem is the White House. Israel has already offered REASONABLE peace twice in the past decade and once less reasonably (though certainly not justified in launching the war the Palestinians launched in 2000). Everybody knows the approximate parameters of a final deal. Netanyahu even said that he accepts a two state solution and is willing to negotiate. His ambassador to the US has stated that Israel is willing to make tough compromises.

Now Obama thinks he can produce a deal that will be superior to Clinton’s? After he has attacked Israel and its leadership so publicly? He thinks he can bring down the coalition in Israel and usher in a new age with Likud and Kadima?

Perhaps Obama should be focusing on the crew that has rejected negotiations, rejected previous peace offers, publicly stated a reluctance to enter new negotiations, and is benefiting from US military training and Israeli opening of avenues that enable the robust growth of the Palestinian economy.

It seems like a no brainer.

Unless you have a different plan in mind.

Obama has a different plan: to force and compel Israel to give up things, while he asks nothing from the Palestinians except to show up. Obviously, any Israeli government entering negotiations with this handicap, will seek to avoid closing any deal at all. They’d be crazy not to sabotage the talks.

In the meantime, with all this time wasted, Obama has forbidden Israel to tackle Iran militarily. The joke here is on Israel, since Obama won’t have to deal with the danger of an Iranian rocket reaching US shores for some years. The joke is, of course, that he actually treats the Iranians better than he treats the Israelis.

It may be time for those Jews who vote to think carefully about which party deserves their vote in November.

A little while back, I had the bitter pleasure of criticizing the J Street student division for having a challenging time describing themselves – and ultimately they rejected the description – as “pro-Israel.”

It turns out the J Street students were prescient. They were merely expressing publicly what J Street, the organization, would demonstrate a few months hence.

Today, J Street went on the offensive.

…The Obama administration’s reaction to the treatment of the Vice President last week and to the timing and substance of the Israeli government’s announcement was both understandable and appropriate.

As Vice President Biden said, “Sometimes only a friend can deliver the hardest truth.” That is what he, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and White House Senior Advisor David Axelrod have done in recent days – and J Street, along with many friends of Israel, stands solidly behind them.

Um, false.

It’s true that only a friend can deliver the hardest truth. However, when the friend starts frothing at the mouth yelling at his junior friend and then after a year of obvious failure, falls right back into his previous pattern of undermining the possibility of negotiations by creating undue expectations that he will deliver the friend on a platter to his nemesis, then the friend’s behavior is neither understandable nor appropriate. In fact, it harms the peace process while undermining Israel and unfairly laying the blame for any failures at its feet.

Then J Street offers their recommendation for an agreement:

We urge the United States to take this opportunity to suggest parameters to the parties for resuming negotiations – basing borders on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed land swaps, with the Palestinian state demilitarized and on territory equivalent to 100% of the area encompassed by the pre-1967 Armistice lines.

Hmmmm, where have I heard that before?

Oh wait, I know!! First I heard Israel offer that to the Palestinians at Taba and then I heard Israel offer it to the Palestinians in 2008. The first time, it led to nothing but more violence, and the second time it led to nothing and a couple of months later we had Cast Lead.

The Obama administration will find vast support among American Jews and other friends of Israel for a bold new approach that aims to advance that interest and guarantees Israel a secure, democratic and Jewish future.

Yes it would.

Which is why most sane supporters of Israel realize that Obama has just stumbled again, just as he did when he first came to power and gave the Palestinians a reason to do nothing for an entire year, by demanding that the Israelis unilaterally stop all settlement construction and including east Jerusalem, part of Israel’s capital. They anticipated more pressure on Israel and did nothing while it was pending.

Now we are back to square one. It’s easy to blame it on Israel, especially if one rejects Netanyahu’s explanation that he had no idea that new construction in Ramat Shlomo would be announced on the eve of new talks with Biden visiting as a gesture of goodwill. However, even if this is true, and chances are it is NOT true, the last thing the US should have done is go on the warpath with Israel.

Ramat Shlomo is a Jewish neighborhood in a part of Jerusalem that will remain in Israeli hands. Building there is certainly part of the consensus of Israeli society both on the Left and the Right. If you’re offended about the timing of the announcement, that is fair. However, an apology was made at the highest levels and making a big stink over construction there is inappropriate, particularly since it plays into the hands of the Palestinians who are on the other side of these negotiations.

It also interferes, in a fundamental way, with Israel’s sovereignty. Contrary to the opinion of some commentaries out there, Israel is not a child and does not require hand-holding or scolding. The complexities of Israel’s existence are perhaps difficult to comprehend these days where the primary opponent has become the Palestinians, not so much other Arab states, and where the “settlements” have become the perceived stumbling block and not Palestinian refusal to compromise or negotiate. However, Israel is a sovereign state, and it has the right to govern itself.

In fact, as we watch Hillary berating Netanyahu like he’s a five year old dipping his hand into the cookie jar, and Oren being treated by the Administration as Israel treats the envoy of a country whose leader goes around the world accusing Israel of war crimes and intentional murder of Palestinian children, one wonders what the Americans expect to happen. Do they think the Palestinians will now negotiate in good faith? Or do they think the Palestinians will realize they’ve now bought another year or so? Do they think the Palestinians will offer any significant concession, or gain brazenness and complacency – as we’ve already seen with their subsequent commemoration of a square to a terrorist who murdered Israeli civilians? Do they think the Israeli public will trust the Americans to be honest brokers, or that they will come to view this administration with wariness and distrust, thus undermining any concessions Israel could have made that now will appear to be forced upon Israel and against its best interests?

One thing is certain. If Obama would apply to his Iranian problem the same vigor he applies to castigating Israel, insulting its leaders and undermining the prospect of bringing the parties to the negotiating table by weakening Israel’s position, Iran would have stopped or at least slowed its nuclear plans long ago.

I guess we have our own amateurs running the place.

Which is all to say that once again J Street is in the wrong and as a friend to Israel the best thing it could do is reject the US administration’s misplaced full-court press on Israel and try to bring the two countries back to the equilibrium which existed before Obama came to power. That will enhance the already remote prospects for peace faster than any other approach.

This is not an easy post to write.

As our readers know, I am a dedicated Zionist and strong supporter of Israel. It is with a heavy heart, then, that I must report a development today that will probably make the life of one Palestinian a truly living hell.

Earlier today, Israeli forces in Ramallah captured a Hamas terrorist by the name of Maher Ouda. Ouda is in his mid-forties and accused of being involved in the murder of at least 10 Israelis and possibly as many as 70 Israelis.

Well, tough luck for Ouda because now he’s really going to suffer. In an Israeli prison.

How do I know this?

Because today, Marwan Barghouti, the Fatah terrorist leader widely held to be the “Nelson Mandela” of the Palestinians who will apparently merely need to be released in order to bring them to some sort of, uh, holy land, showed the world what it means to be incarcerated in an Israeli jail for the murder of four Israeli civilians and the attempted murder of one.

Yes indeed. Today, Marwan Barghouti completed his doctorate.

He has finished his thesis and other obligations!! He is going to be considered by a faculty committee at an Egyptian university as to whether he has completed all of his obligations towards a Ph.D.

Now at this point, you’re thinking, “Those horrid, vicious Israelis must have broken his thumbs so that he had to type with eight fingers.” Nope, it doesn’t say that in the story.

Maybe you’re thinking, “Surely some NGOs financed by Naomi Chazan’s New Israel Fund are planning to sue the Israel prison system for “shaking” Barghouti until all his knowledge spilled out.” Nope, as far as I know, the NGOs are busy undermining Israel with important accusations.

Your mind is telling you, “Well, hell, of course he had time to finish a doctorate, what else is he going to do?” Well, Israeli prisons permit conjugal visits, just ask Samir Kontar, the Lebanese terrorist and murderer who killed a little girl after murdering her dad in front of her and forcing her to watch. Yup, Samir got married and had conjugal visits during his horrendous stay in an Israeli prison.

Now you’re thinking, “Get outta here!”

Nope. It’s all true and I’m staying.

How did Barghouti get his degree?

Barghouti, 50, is one of several hundred Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prisons who enroll in studies at universities around the world, including in Israel.
…
Barghouti was able to complete his thesis with the help of hundreds of books and documents that Israeli authorities allow inmates to bring into prison.

Hundreds of Palestinian prisoners are currently enrolled as students with the Open University of Israel, which facilitates their studies by allowing them to sit exams in jail.

You’re thinking, “Sure, only ‘hundreds’ of prisoners are enrolled in university studies, but there are thousands of Palestinian prisoners. Ha!”

Maybe so, but some are still completing their high school studies. They’ll have opportunities in future arrests, especially if murder is involved.

That’s right, all you need to do is murder or plan to murder some Israelis and then you get to study for a number of years, generally uninterrupted except for the pesky conjugal visits or management duties for your in-prison political machinery that influences Palestinians outside prison.

And you don’t really need to worry about the 4 life sentences imposed upon you by the dastardly Israelis because at some point a live or dead Israeli soldier will be traded for your release and that of a thousand or so others. It’s not a question of “if” but “when?”

The sweetest part of the story is that it’s obvious that Israel wants to help the international community support the Palestinians as much as possible. Sure, the Palestinians get billions of dollars in aid from UNWRA and other bodies, but they don’t need to waste that money on things like education. After all, the Israelis will take care of any gaps. You didn’t believe me about the high school studies, but now you will:

Barghouti, who is also a Fatah member on the Palestinian Legislative Council, completed his high school exams while in Israeli prison in 1980.

See? I told you this was a painful post to write. I can only imagine the pain Maher Ouda is going through right now as he decides whether to apply for an MA degree. Poli Sci or Sociology? If only the Zionist occupiers would stop with the newspapers, television and radio available in Arabic, Hebrew and English and start offering cooking and yoga classes!

And yet…

“Dr. Marwan Barghouti.”

It has a nice ring to it.

Dr. Marwan Barghouti Thanks His Jailers for Their Kind Offer to Subsidize His Education

Tel Aviv Storm

Both photos taken by the talented Tommy Junger from his Tel Aviv-Jaffa collection.

Sunset * Tel Aviv

A rough week diplomatically for Israel. Fortunately, it remains a beautiful and vibrant place, despite setbacks.

Shabbat shalom!!

So I called the Israeli government amateurish and blamed them for recent debacles relating to Israel, especially the announcement of 1600 new units in Ramat Shlomo, Jerusalem, on the eve of new peace talks with the Palestinians while US VP Biden was on a “let’s get everybody on the same page” tour of the Holy Land.

One of the points I made in the ensuing debates is that Israel snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. After a year of stalling by the Palestinians, the Israelis with a right wing government in place managed to enlighten the world that there were no peace talks because of the Palestinians, not the Israelis. The world believed and pushed the Palestinians back to the table.

Needless to say, the new construction announcement has given them a perfect excuse to avoid talks again, and allows them to put the blame on Israel. Not only can they blame Israel for the breakdown in talks, but they can retroactively claim that their previously-expressed reservations about going into talks with Israel were justified, as were their demands to halt all “settlement” construction not only in Judea and Samaria/West Bank but also in Jerusalem.

Jerusalem Post tells us:

…On Friday, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said he and Tunisia’s leader, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, have begun to discuss how the Arab League should respond to an Israeli plan for new construction in Ramat Shlomo.

Speaking during a visit to Tunisia, Abbas said Israel’s move “got in the way of” plans to begin US-mediated indirect talks with Israel.

And the Americans are laying it on thick, trying to reclaim the supposedly deteriorated confidence of the Arabs,

In a bid to salvage those negotiations, Mitchell and the top US diplomat for the Middle East, Jeffrey Feltman, called Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Arab League chief Amr Moussa and the foreign ministers of Egypt, Jordan, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates over the past two days, Crowley said.

“We have reached out … to a range of leaders,” he said. “We jointly remain committed to this process, acknowledging that, obviously, it is a difficult environment, given the Israeli statement.”

Boo hoo and sob! Amr Moussa’s poor old feelings must be shattered. He deserves a massage and champagne, preferably provided by an attractive US State Department employee.

Of course, one US government female employee isn’t available to provide this service to Mr. Moussa and his cronies. She’s busy yelling at Netanyahu.

The US State Department said Clinton spoke to Netanyahu by phone for 43 minutes to vent US frustration with Tuesday’s announcement that cast a pall over a visit to Israel by US Vice President Joe Biden and endangered the indirect peace talks with the Palestinians that the Obama administration had announced just a day earlier.

Clinton called “to make clear that the United States considered the announcement to be a deeply negative signal about Israel’s approach to the bilateral relationship and counter to the spirit of the vice president’s trip,” department spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters.

“The secretary said she could not understand how this happened, particularly in light of the United States’ strong commitment to Israel’s security and she made clear that the Israeli government needed to demonstrate not just through words but through specific actions that they are committed to this relationship and to the peace process,” he said.

43 minutes!!! Clinton yelled at him for 43 minutes! You’d think he was given oral sex by Monica Lewinsky.

Well, actually, this is worse. Nobody in Israel can claim to have enjoyed blissful physical pleasure by announcing the construction on that particular day. I mean, Bill Clinton can at least explain what happened by alluding to the loneliness of being President, the need to have his ego massaged, the type of mid-life crisis many men go through at that age and the fact that except in some authors’ or screenwriters’ active imaginations, it really is unusual to have a woman agree to provide oral sex under the desk like a good little servant while the man is on the phone doing business.

Forty three minutes of yelling would seem fair under those circumstances. Netanyahu, of course, must be pretty pissed off since he got the 43 minutes of yelling, but received no reward. In fact, he must be pretty afraid at this point that the Americans will force another Wye Accords-type agreement down this throat, just as they did in 1998 when he agreed to remove Israeli forces from key areas of Judea and Samaria/West Bank.

Hmmmm…how to repay Netanyahu for all of the pressure and yelling coming at him from the Americans?

Hey, I know! Let’s get Eli Yishai, the minister whose ministry announced the construction right in the middle of Biden’s visit, to repay him somehow. Repay with something that’s worth 43 minutes of berating by Hillary.

Sort of a bootleggish video of one of the performers at the 6.0 Jewlicious Festival. This is Basya Schechter.

Here is a bio of Basya.

Let’s review:

US Vice President treats Israeli PM like dirt after Israeli government announces 1600 new residential units in east Jerusalem during his visit to begin long-postponed peace talks.

UN’s Ban releases statement that any Israeli construction in east Jerusalem is illegal according to international law in response to Israel’s untimely announcement.

The EU parliament which appeared to be leaning toward voting against a resolution accepting the Goldstone Report, voted to endorse the Report. The vote was relatively close, suggesting that yesterday’s announcement may have swayed some in the wrong direction and caused some pro-Israel votes to abstain.

The EU parliament vote was also probably influenced by public and government anger at the recent use of European passports by the hit team that killed the Hamas terrorist in Dubai.

The Goldstone Report is not going away because the Israelis have not appointed an independent commission to investigate, so that they have a hard time making the case that they have met the Report’s recommendations.

None of these things should have happened. Being incompetent is one thing, but inviting problems when things are already challenging enough, is downright foolish.