HOT POTATO, HOT POTATO – Expect Gobs of Denials!
Nove
mber 13, 2007
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
If the DEBKAfile exclusive turns out to be correct, it will amount to the most treacherous diplomatic betrayal of Israel in the last 100 years. And if it is true, it leaves no doubt that US Secretary of State is willing to betray the “apple of God’s eye” for an achievement of success award in her cap, which will leave Israel standing alone to fight Goliath. I do indeed hope this exclusive information received by DEBKAfile is not correct.
Our foreign policy since the Regan Administration has been constant appeasement through secret back door deals, thinking it will cause regimes hating us to become our bosom buddies. This approach, in the world in which we live, is rank insanity. It is no wonder that even our so-called allies don’t trust us, and our enemies laugh at our inability to perceive they will never be our “buddies.”
I have always advocated that the international community of nations, including the US, should let Israel and the Islamic nations of the Middle East decide on their own peace plan, whether it be accomplished by war or diplomacy.
I agree with what former Prime Minister Barak says in the second article from YNetNews, which follows the DEBKAfile.
Israel should decide.
And, for whatever it is worth, when Israel does eventually end up in the Negev Wilderness, I hope former Prime Minister Netanyahu survives the ordeal and ends up as their leader for three and one-half years.
Begin DEBKAfile Exclusive
DEBKAfile Exclusive: Israeli leaders dismayed to learn Washington is secretly lifting its boycott of Syria.
Palestinians want more concessions too
November 12, 2007, 10:33 PM (GMT+02:00)
Although the US promised Israel that its renewed contacts with Syria would be confined to the Lebanon controversy, DEBKAfile’s sources report that a Washington-Damascus rapprochement is in full flight.
The US ambassador will soon return to Damascus and Syrian officials are made warmly welcome in the US capital these days.
The rumors circulating Monday, Nov.
12, asserting that Israel’s defense minister Ehud Barak was pushing prime minister Ehud Olmert hard to enter into peace talks with Syria were put about by Olmert’s own office. The PM is weaving and feinting to avoid admitting that he was manipulated by Washington into attending the Annapolis peace conference alongside Syria, in breach of the American promise to Jerusalem.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has gone so far as to offer the Syrian delegate the conference floor to press his case for Israel to return the Golan which Syria lost in the 1967 War. The Golan issue will even be incorporated in the closing document.
The favors the Bush administration is bestowing on Damascus, none of which were cleared with Israel, have encouraged the Palestinians to inflate their demands and harden their negotiating stance.
Mahmoud Abb as,
as DEBKAfile first revealed on Nov. 5, wants the Annapolis declaration to include the following points:
The Palestinian Authority will recognize Israel, but not as a Jewish state;
Palestinian sovereignty over Temple Mount including the Western Wall (last relic of the Jewish Temple) will be absolute;
There will be no Palestinian compromise on the 1948 refugees’ “right of return”;
The Palestinian state will enjoy full sovereignty over its land, skies, electro-magnetic space and underground resources, including water;
Israeli-Palestinian peace talks will be held to the deadline of August 2008.
These tough Palestinian conditions may force the conference’s delay from November to December. Mahmoud Abbas is using the extra time to send a delegation to Damascus to discuss cooperation to their mutual advantage in wheeling and dealing with Washington.
DEBKAfile’s Jerusalem sources add: Prime minister Olmert can hardly admit that by going along with the US-promoted peace conference, he fell into a trap which has cornered Israel against a hostile lineup, restored the Syrian president Bashar Assad’s fortunes in Washington and encouraged the Palestinians to stiffen their price for attending. Instead, he is pretending he is under extreme duress at home from his defense minister and army command to join Syria in peace talks.
In fact, DEBKAfile’s military sources report, Israel’s high command is amazed by the Bush administration’s amity with Damascus just two months after Israel’s chief of staff Lt.
Gen. Gaby Ashkenazi and military intelligence worked in close harmony with the Americans over the raid they set up to destroy Syria’s secret nuclear project.
Begin YNetNews Article
Barak: Israel should launch its own peace initiative
Defense minister says Israeli peace plan could stop other initiatives from being forced on country
Roni Sofer
Defense Minister Ehud Barak supports a comprehensive peace initiative that would include promoting a peace agreement with Syria, Ynet has learned Monday evening.
Barak has told his associates in recent days that only such an initiative could stop other peace plans, like the Arab peace initiative, from being forced on Israel.
According to the defense minister, the issue of talks with the Syrians should be reexamined, and a change of policy may lead to positive results. He stressed that with Syria, “the price is known and the outcome important.”
“Why not have an Israeli initiative?” Barak asked his aides. “Why shouldn’t we stipulate out interests, what we want, what we are willing to give, and then launch our own peace plan as a starting point for negotiations?” he added.
Meanwhile, the preparations for the Annapolis peace conference continued in full speed. On Monday night, three members of the Israeli negotiating team left for Washington in order to coordinate expectations with the Americans ahead of the summit.
FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc.
We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest
in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
For more detailed information go to:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml.
You may use material originated by this site. However, if you wish to use any quoted copyrighted material from this site, which did not originate at this site, for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner from which we extracted it.