Tag: israeli palestinian conflict
Danziger Draws

Danziger Draws

Jeff Danziger lives in New York City and Vermont. He is a long time cartoonist for The Rutland Herald and is represented by Counterpoint Syndicate. He is a recipient of the Herblock Prize and the Thomas Nast (Landau) Prize. He served in the US Army in Vietnam and was awarded the Bronze Star and the Air Medal. He has published eleven books of cartoons, a novel and a memoir. Visit him at DanzigerCartoons.

Surprise! Kevin McCarthy Says He Is 'Willing' To Run For Speaker Again

Surprise! Kevin McCarthy Says He Is 'Willing' To Run For Speaker Again

Ousted House Speaker Kevin McCarthy flip-flopped on Monday, saying he was open to taking the gavel back amid a Chernobyl-level meltdown in the Republican Party over the crisis in Israel.

Last week, shortly after a small band of MAGA maniacs engineered his ouster, McCarthy stated he would not seek the post again.

But that was last week. “Whatever the conference wants, I will do,” McCarthy told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt during an interview on Monday.

The prospect of McCarthy being reinstated solely with the votes of Republicans seems highly unlikely after his primary right-wing foe, Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, achieved hero-level status among some MAGA faithful for ejecting McCarthy. McCarthy would need at least four of the eight Republican nihilists who voted him out last week to have a sudden change of heart.

McCarthy's cynical play to regain the speakership comes as House Republicans war with each other over their inability to provide extra aid to Israel after Hamas’ attack over the weekend. Nine Americans have been confirmed killed in the fighting, and there are unverified reports of potential American hostages—claims that McCarthy immediately sought to capitalize on.

"Our top priority right now must be to rescue all American hostages," he tweeted out Monday morning. "The Biden Administration cannot repeat the failures of Afghanistan. NO American left behind!"

McCarthy's potential successors are working overtime to cast themselves as the answer to the Republican-led predicament. “Make no mistake: The United States will always stand with Israel, our greatest ally in the Middle East,” Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana tweeted out Saturday. And Sunday on Fox News, Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio pledged that his first priority as speaker would be to help Israel. Both Scalise and Jordan are further right than McCarthy, and Jordan—the biggest chaos agent of the trio—has won the backing of former President Donald Trump.

House Republican infighting has ground the lower chamber to a halt due to the absence of a speaker. But now, instead of the House caucus simply making a binary choice between Jordan and Scalise for a new speaker, McCarthy is back in the mix. Nothing but further delay and pandemonium can come of that.

In the meantime, American priorities at home and allies around the globe will suffer the consequences.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos

Kerry Cautions Israel: Two-State Solution Is Now In ‘Serious Jeopardy’

Kerry Cautions Israel: Two-State Solution Is Now In ‘Serious Jeopardy’

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry warned on Wednesday that Israel’s building of settlements was endangering Middle East peace, expressing unusually frank frustration with the long-time American ally.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shot back at Kerry and accused him of showing bias against the Jewish state.

In a 70-minute speech just weeks before the Obama administration hands over to President-elect Donald Trump, Kerry said Israel “will never have true peace” with the Arab world if it does not reach an accord based on Israelis and Palestinians living in their own states.

His remarks added to strain in the U.S.-Israeli relationship — characterized by personal acrimony between President Barack Obama and Netanyahu — after the United States cleared the way for a U.N. resolution last week that demanded an end to Israeli settlement building.

“Despite our best efforts over the years, the two-state solution is now in serious jeopardy,” Kerry said at the State Department. “We cannot, in good conscience, do nothing, and say nothing, when we see the hope of peace slipping away.”

“The truth is that trends on the ground – violence, terrorism, incitement, settlement expansion and the seemingly endless occupation – are destroying hopes for peace on both sides and increasingly cementing an irreversible one-state reality that most people do not actually want.”

Kerry condemned Palestinian violence which he said included “hundreds of terrorist attacks in the past year.”

His parting words are unlikely to change anything on the ground between Israel and the Palestinians or salvage the Obama administration’s record of failed Middle East peace efforts.

In a statement, Netanyahu said Kerry’s speech “was skewed against Israel.” The Israeli leader said Kerry “obsessively dealt with settlements” and barely touched on “the root of the conflict – Palestinian opposition to a Jewish state in any boundaries”.

The Israelis are looking past Obama and expect they will receive more favorable treatment from Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20. The Republican used his Twitter account on Wednesday to denounce the Obama administration, including its U.N. vote and the nuclear accord it reached with Iran last year.

“We cannot continue to let Israel be treated with such total disdain and disrespect. They used to have a great friend in the U.S., but not anymore,” Trump said in a series of tweets. “Stay strong Israel, January 20th is fast approaching!”

Trump had openly lobbied against the U.N. resolution and would be expected to veto any further ones deemed anti-Israel.

He has vowed to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and has appointed as ambassador a lawyer who raised money for a major Jewish settlement, has cast doubt on the idea of a two-state solution and even advocated for Israel’s annexation of the West Bank, a notion even further to the right than Netanyahu’s own stance.

IMPASSIONED SPEECH

Kerry’s speech provided some insights into an issue that he personally feels passionate about and had hoped to resolve during his years as secretary of state.

He defended the U.S. decision to allow the passage of a U.N. resolution demanding an end to Israeli settlements, saying it was intended to preserve the possibility of a two-state solution.

The United States abstained in the Dec. 23 U.N. resolution, in what many see as a parting shot by Obama who had an acrimonious relationship with Netanyahu.

Kerry vigorously defended the U.N. resolution and rejected criticism “that this vote abandons Israel”.

“It is not this resolution that is isolating Israel. It is the permanent policy of settlement construction that risks making peace impossible.”

In a pointed reply to Netanyahu who said last week that “Friends don’t take friends to the Security Council”, and who has insisted the Obama administration had orchestrated the resolution, Kerry hit back, saying: “Friends need to tell each other the hard truths, and friendships require mutual respect.”

Kerry defended Obama’s commitment to Israel’s security and U.S. support for Israel in international platforms. Earlier this year, the United States and Israel agreed a $38 billion in military assistance over the next decade.

(Additional reporting by Matt Spetalnick in Washington and Jeffrey Heller in Jerusalem; Writing by Yara Bayoumy; Editing by Alistair Bell)

IMAGE: U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry (L) meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Manhattan, New York, U.S., September 23, 2016. REUTERS/Darren Ornitz/File Picture

U.S. Abstention Paves The Way For U.N. To Denounce Israeli Settlements

U.S. Abstention Paves The Way For U.N. To Denounce Israeli Settlements

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – The United States on Friday allowed the U.N. Security Council to adopt a resolution demanding an end to Israeli settlement building, defying heavy pressure from long-time ally Israel and President-elect Donald Trump for Washington to wield its veto.

A U.S. abstention paved the way for the 15-member council to approve the resolution, with 14 votes in favor, prompting applause in the council chamber. The action by President Barack Obama’s administration follows growing U.S. frustration over the unrelenting construction of Jewish settlements on land Palestinians want for a future independent state.

“Israel rejects this shameful anti-Israel resolution at the U.N. and will not abide by its terms,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has encouraged the expansion of Jewish settlements in territory captured by Israel in a 1967 war with its Arab neighbors, said in a statement.

The U.S. action just weeks before Obama ends eight years as president broke with the long-standing American approach of shielding Israel, which receives more than $3 billion in annual U.S. military aid, from such action. The United States, Russia, France, Britain and China have veto power on the council.

The resolution, put forward by New Zealand, Malaysia, Venezuela and Senegal a day after Egypt withdrew it under pressure from Israel and Trump, was the first adopted by the council on Israel and the Palestinians in nearly eight years.

The U.S. abstention was seen as a parting shot by Obama, who has had an acrimonious relationship with Netanyahu and whose efforts to forge a peace agreement based on a “two-state” solution of creating a Palestinian state existing peacefully alongside Israel have proven futile.

Obama also faced pressure from U.S. lawmakers, fellow Democrats as well as Republicans, to veto the measure, and was hit with bipartisan criticism after the vote.

Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20, took the extraordinary step by a U.S. president-elect of personally intervening in a sensitive foreign policy matter before taking office, speaking by telephone with Netanyahu and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi before Egypt, another major U.S. aid recipient, dropped the resolution.

Trump wrote on Twitter after the vote, “As to the U.N., things will be different after Jan. 20th.”

“There is one president at a time,” Ben Rhodes, White House deputy national security adviser, told reporters, dismissing Trump’s criticism.

Outgoing U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon welcomed the resolution. Russian U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin called on Israel to “respect international law.”

But Netanyahu said, “At a time when the Security Council does nothing to stop the slaughter of half a million people in Syria, it disgracefully gangs up on the one true democracy in the Middle East, Israel, and calls the Western Wall ‘occupied territory.'”

Israel for decades has pursued a policy of constructing Jewish settlements on territory captured by Israel in a 1967 war with its Arab neighbors including the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. Most countries view Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank and East Jerusalem as illegal and an obstacle to peace. Israel disagrees.

‘NO LEGAL VALIDITY’

The resolution demanded that Israel “immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem” and said the establishment of settlements by Israel has “no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law.”

The White House said that in the absence of any meaningful peace process, Obama made the decision to abstain. The last round of U.S.-led peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians collapsed in 2014. The Palestinians want an independent state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.

“We could not in good conscience veto a resolution that expressed concerns about the very trends that are eroding the foundation for a two-state solution,” Rhodes said.

American U.N ambassador Samantha Power said the United States did not veto it because the resolution “reflects the facts on the ground and is consistent with U.S. policy across Republican and Democratic administrations.”

Successive U.S. administrations of both parties have criticized settlement activity but have done little to slow their growth.

The Obama administration has called settlement expansion an “illegitimate” policy that has undermined chances of a peace deal.

The Security Council last adopted a resolution critical of settlements in 1979, with the United States also abstaining.

The passage of Friday’s resolution changes nothing on the ground between Israel and the Palestinians and likely will be all but ignored by the incoming Trump administration.

But it was more than merely symbolic. It formally enshrined the international community’s disapproval of Israeli settlement building and could spur further Palestinian moves against Israel in international forums.

PALESTINIAN SAYS U.N. MOVE ‘BIG BLOW’ TO ISRAEL POLICY

Trump is likely to be a more staunch supporter of Netanyahu’s right-wing policies. He has picked a hardline pro-Israel ambassador and vowed to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, in what would be a major reversal of long-standing American policy.

The U.N. action was “a big blow to Israeli policy, a unanimous international condemnation of settlements and a strong support for the two-state solution,” a spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said in a statement published by the official Palestinian news agency Wafa.

“This is a day of victory for international law, a victory for civilized language and negotiation, and a total rejection of extremist forces in Israel,” Chief Palestinian Negotiator Saeb Erekat told Reuters.

Israel’s U.N. ambassador, Danny Danon, said he had no doubt the incoming Trump administration and Ban’s successor as U.N. chief, former Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Guterres, “will usher in a new era in terms of the U.N.’s relationship with Israel.”

After the vote, Netanyahu instructed Israel’s ambassadors in New Zealand and Senegal to return to Israel for consultations. He also ordered the cancellation of a planned visit to Israel by Senegal’s foreign minister and the cancellation of all aid programs to Senegal.

(Writing by Will Dunham and Yara Bayoumy; Additional reporting by Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem, Lesley Wroughton and Susan Heavey in Washington, Matt Spetalnick in New York and Ali Sawafta in Ramallah; Editing by Bill Trott and Cynthia Osterman)

IMAGE: A construction site is seen in the Israeli settlement of Givat Zeev, in the occupied West Bank December 22, 2016. REUTERS/Baz Ratner