Biden, Kerry Call for Settlement Freeze
This is AIPAC summitteering I can believe in:
Vice President Joe Biden and U.S. Sen. John Kerry pledged to confront Iran and protect Israel, but called on the Jewish state to freeze settlements. In their addresses Tuesday on the closing day of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee policy conference, both said President Obama was committed to removing Iran’s nuclear threat. [...]
“Israel,” [Biden] said, “must work toward a two-state solution, not build settlements, dismantle outposts and allow Palestinians access to freedom of movement.” [...]
“Israel, too, must take hard steps toward the path to peace,” Kerry said, calling for greater freedom of movement for Palestinians and a settlement freeze.
That’s good stuff. Will we see policy follow through from the administration and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee?
28 Responses to “Biden, Kerry Call for Settlement Freeze”
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May 5th, 2009 at 1:24 pm
Anyone have video? I bet they were booed.
May 5th, 2009 at 1:31 pm
Re Zaid
Booing would have been totally insufficient. Stoning would have been more appropriate. Settlements today, settlements tomorrow, settlements forever.
May 5th, 2009 at 1:33 pm
Will we see policy follow through from the administration and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee?
No. This has been another installment of Simple Answers To Simple Questions. Please join us next week when we answer the question, “Can you drop a 250-lb anvil on an egg without breaking it?”
May 5th, 2009 at 1:36 pm
Re: SLC
Brilliant response. Please make sure to let us all know of your repeat performances so we don’t miss any more of your brilliant analysis and unique perspective on the complexity of the Middle East. What a troll.
May 5th, 2009 at 1:42 pm
Settlements today, settlements tomorrow, settlements forever.
Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.
The nice thing about SLC is that he doesn’t bother to hide his ideological forebears. How’re those jackboots fitting you?
May 5th, 2009 at 1:46 pm
4, 5, don’t bother; SLC’s been singing that song since the Atlantic. He never explains why settlements are good, except presumably that they make Palestinians and critics of Israel.
May 5th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
*make Palestinians and critics of Israel angry.
May 5th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
Oh, yeah…and Bibi will fall in line with Biden and Kerry. Bibi wants to be a world historical figure. We’ll be lucky if Bibi doesn’t challenge Obama by sending the Israeli airforce over Iraq to attack Iran and daring Obama to do something about it…like shoot down 75 Israeli war planes. It would also give the right wing the comeback issue they need to blow upthe Obama administration. Will Bibi dis Obama like he did Clinton as a prelude? There are dogs and then there are tails. Bibi forever, eh?
May 5th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
As long as Bibi & co. can keep waffling and stalling settlements will continue to be built so schmucks from the Bronx can disposess those who have lived there for eons.
Waffle and stall long enough and all the land will be gone. They they can be magnanimous and say, “OK, no more settlements, see how good we’re being!”
May 5th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
I think it’s time for the U.S. to just back out of the Israel/Palestinian peace talks. The U.S. is divided on the proper path, Israel is divided on the proper path, and there isn’t even a legitimate political Palestinian entity. What are we gaining by staying involved in a failed process?
May 5th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
Booing would have been totally insufficient. Stoning would have been more appropriate. Settlements today, settlements tomorrow, settlements forever.
What, no “from the Nile to the Euphrates?”
May 5th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
“Will we see policy follow through from the administration and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee?”
Hopefully not. And I say this as someone who strongly opposes the settlements. If the Senate and the Administration try to do anything real on the settlements, Israel will simply ignore it. Israel can survive without our aid, and they know damn well we won’t cut it off anyway. Any action we take will be a bluff and Israel will call it. In the end, it will only make us look weak and stupid.
May 5th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
I hope there’s an “or else” clause. For example, freeze/dismantle settlements or else we cut off your $3 billion a year in military aid.
May 5th, 2009 at 2:15 pm
Noting fostert’s comment, I hope Israel can survive without our aid. But if we cut off aid, I also hope the USA doesn’t get so much of the blame for every bad move the Israelis make.
May 5th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
The Settlement Enterprise has gone beyond the point of no return – any prattle about freezing settlement activity is no longer of any consequence.
The only discussion should be directed to how Israel will be able to continue to exist as a “flyspeck nation” (5.5 million Jews) in a sea of Arab neighbours. As there is absolutely no prospect that the status quo will last for another ten, twenty or fifty years, the only possibility for peace and continued existence is the Saudi initiative which obviously requires that the discussion to be focused not on the freezing of settlements, but on dismantling them.
By having various US politicians making demands for freezing settlements, the US and the MSM have again fallen for the time-proven Israeli tactic of distraction from the main issue
May 5th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
The Israelis need some living room.
May 5th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
@1 Zaid: “Anyone have video? I bet they were booed.”
Nobody was booed. Biden and Kerry both got several perfunctory standing O’s, were met with silence when they briefly talked about a settlement freeze a and two-state solution, and then were warmly applauded at the end of their speeches.
Pretty basic stuff on one level and pretty ballsy stuff on another.
http://www.aipac.org/2841.asp
May 5th, 2009 at 4:23 pm
Let them continue building the settlements…and integrate all of the West Bank and Gaza into Israel proper with full citizenship write for all the inhabitants. It will happen eventually, even if it takes another 50 years.
May 5th, 2009 at 5:02 pm
Re Chris D
What, no “from the Nile to the Euphrates?”
Euphrates to the Nile? The Atlantic to the Pacific!
May 5th, 2009 at 5:02 pm
Whoopdie freakin’ doo. A settlement freeze after DECADES of colonization of occupied lands. What a bold statement by Biden and Kerry, asking the Israelis to do what they should have done 30 years ago, but not asking them to do anything about the results of decades of unchecked settlement building or about the blatant segregation in the West Bank. Now that’s some serious straight talk.
For what it’s worth, I agree with Courtney H. about the eventual inevitable outcome in Israel/Palestine. However, 50 more years of oppression is an awful lot to ask the Palestinians to bear.
May 5th, 2009 at 5:15 pm
A settlement freeze is – what is the expression? – “hyper-timid incrementalist bullshit”. If you want to get anywhere in restraining jewish colonialism, you’ll need to have much more meaningful goals than that.
May 5th, 2009 at 7:03 pm
@Jeffrey,16
That’s pronounced “lebensraum”.
May 5th, 2009 at 7:51 pm
A settlement freeze is part of some sort of “good stuff”?
What the fuck kind of incrementalist bullshit is that?
“Please, pretty please. Stop stealing that stuff. It is so hard to blindly support you when you are nothing better than a bunch of thieving bastards! And keep sending us your PAC money!”
Fucking spineless bastards.
May 5th, 2009 at 8:23 pm
The usual illuminating comments (on both sides).
We’ll know that something is moving when Hamas and the PA make a deal. That will mean either that intense pressure is being brought to bear on them both, or that a larger deal is in the works and Hamas doesn’t want to be left out.
For tomemos: As for the settlements, I don’t hold much brief for the settlers. However I do think, as I’ve said here in the past, that settlements are a useful spur to the Palestinians to come to terms sooner rather than later, which from my read the evidence shows they believe would otherwise be in their interests. And not necessarily without some rational basis.
May 5th, 2009 at 9:03 pm
“Please, pretty please. Stop stealing that stuff. It is so hard to blindly support you when you are nothing better than a bunch of thieving bastards! And keep sending us your PAC money!”
That pretty much sums it up, doesn’t it? And yes, our representatives are spineless bastards, but that’s what we want them to be. We want them to vote the way we would vote. And most of our country would be okay with sending the Palestinians to the gas chambers. And guess what? We weren’t very concerned about Jews being sent to the gas chambers, either. The only thing that has changed since then is that there is a Christian movement dedicated to fulfilling the Book of Revelation. That means that the Jews must control all of Israel so that they can be slaughtered by Christians. And I think that’s the scariest thing about the pro-Israel movement. It’s not “we want to help the Jews,” it’s “don’t kill the Jews, because we want to be the ones to kill them.” And I can see the short term gain in Israel courting the radical Christians in America. But they should always watch out for that which they wish for. If they take the West Bank, their Christian allies in America will be coming after them with a bloodthirsty fury.
One thing I’ve learned is that you should never wish for anything. If you get it, it’s never what you thought it would be. And that’s a lesson the Israelis should know all too well. But all humans appear to be incapable of learning that lesson. And it’s why that lesson gets repeated time after time, and in place after place. It’s the one lesson we can never learn.
Every culture falls into the belief that it is somehow exceptional, and the rules that applied to previous fallen empires do not apply to them. We’ve seen Roman Exceptionalism, Dutch Exceptionalism, Spanish Exceptionalism, British Exceptionalism, and now American Exceptionalism. How long before American Exceptionalism gets relegated to history? I’m guessing the same time Israeli Exceptionalism goes there. We’d be wise to ditch the Israelis and try to save ourselves. But we won’t, and we’ll go down with them.
May 5th, 2009 at 11:37 pm
The Israeli… empire… going down like the Romans, Spanish, and British before them? And we’ll go down with them too?
May 6th, 2009 at 2:09 am
Seriously, though, I remember reading some documents where Ben-Gurion and some of the leadership were discussing over what exactly should be the boundaries of the new Jewish state. They seriously discussed as to whether or not Damascus should have been in Israel proper, seeing as how it was supposedly part of the ancient kingdom, but gave up on the idea due to the presence of too many Arabs.
May 6th, 2009 at 11:15 am
Fostert,
I don’t think you understand the Book of Revelation. That’s OK, no one understands the Book of Revelation, except Christ. As Augustine said, not even the holy angels understand what God has in store for the end of this world. But that said, we can say some things that it is clearly NOT, and it is clearly NOT a programmatic list of things that Christians need to do as the end of the world approaches. If anyone thinks that the prophecies of the apocalypse need to be ‘fulfilled’ by killing Jews, then they’ve rather missed the point of the book.
Brett,
Correct me if I’m wrong, but when was modern Syria part of the Jewish kingdom??