Joe Biden, the US vice-president, condemned a plan by Israel to build 1,600 homes on occupied Palestinian land in an East Jerusalem settlement.
| Okay, Israel, you may shake in your boots now, you got Slow Joe coming down on you ... |
| President Obama sent his Number 2, the self-proclaimed Friend of Israel, to persuade the government of Israel to do nothing while the UN's strengthened sanctions against Iran go forward. Those would of course be the strong sanctions incumbent on every member state except Russia, China, and perhaps a few others I don't remember. Dear VP Biden, Friend of Israel, saw fit to couple love-drenched platitudes with this condemnation of Israeli development in East Jerusalem, annexed by Israel as part of her indivisible national capitol in 1967 following the Six Day War. On the other hand, dear President Obama, friend of Son of Israel Rahm Emanuel and of Palestinian Hamas supporter Whatsisname, at whose Hyde Park kitchen table he wrote his second memoir, will likely never set foot in the Jewish state. Perhaps that's why the Israelis don't trust VP Biden's assurances that Israeli security is the highest priority to America. |
| Said more briefly: Biden's an idiot. |
The Israeli interior ministry's approval of the plan cast a cloud over a visit to the country by Biden just hours after he pledged strong support for the Israeli government.
In an unusually strong statement issued after he arrived 90 minutes late for a dinner with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, Biden said: "I condemn the decision by the government of Israel to advance planning for new housing units."
| Arriving significantly late for dinner is an insult. So is the first thing public statement dear VP Biden made following his arrival. Israelis may be a blunt and plain-spoken people, but even they notice such things. |
He said the blueprint for Ramat Shlomo, an ultra-Orthodox settlement in an area of the West Bank annexed to Jerusalem, "undermines the trust we need right now and runs counter to the constructive discussions I've had in Israel".
| Oh well. Might as well go home. |
The approvals came just a day after the Israeli defence ministry announced that 112 apartments would be built in Beitar Illit, a settlement on the occupied West Bank. The new building comes at a delicate moment in the long-stalled peace process after Israeli and Palestinian leaders agreed to start indirect negotiations.
| These are indirect talks, after Annapolis, etc were face-to-face negotiations. Special Envoy Mitchell has apparently announced that the agreements of the Annapolis negotiations will not be the starting point of this round of talks. There are those who believe this is a distinct leap backward, not a mere step toward the rear, and designed to harm Israel. There are those, of course, who think a leap backward is exactly the right direction for Israel to go. |
The interior ministry said the Ramat Shlomo approvals had been passed by the Jerusalem district planning committee. A spokeswoman said there were 60 days to appeal against the decision. Ramat Shlomo, built 15 years ago, is on land captured in the West Bank in 1967 and annexed to Israel in a move not recognised by the international community.
Israel's interior minister, Eli Yishai, who heads a religious party in Netanyahu's governing coalition, said the timing of the plan's approval was coincidental. "There was certainly no intention to provoke anyone and certainly not to come along and hurt the vice-president of the United States," Yishai told Israel's Channel One television.
"Final approval [for the project] will take another few months. I agree that the timing [of the announcement] should have been in another two or three weeks."
Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, said the announcements were "destroying our efforts" in peace negotiations. "With such an announcement, how can you build trust?" he said. "It's a disastrous situation."
Earlier in the day, Biden said Israel and the Palestinians needed to "take risks for peace".
| Not that Joe is risking anything, mind you ... |
| Nor are the Palestinians. |
But his talk of a "moment of opportunity" obscures a reality in which the two sides are a long way apart. Although the peace process has been under way for nearly two decades, there have been no direct negotiations between Israeli and Palestinian leaders since Israel's war in Gaza a year ago.
In talks with Netanyahu, Biden appeared to focus not on the struggling peace process but on Iran, saying Washington was committed to preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. "There is no space between the US and Israel when it comes to Israel's security," Biden said after their meeting.
"We are determined to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons," Biden said.
In private, he is also believed to have cautioned the Israeli government against any unilateral military strike on Iran, and to have tried to win Israeli support for the US administration's policy, which is moving towards sanctions against Iran.
Netanyahu made clear the Israeli government hoped for a tougher sanction regime against Iran. "The stronger those sanctions are, the more likely it will be that the Iranian regime will have to chose between advancing its nuclear programme and advancing the future of its own permanence," he said. Netanyahu frequently cites the need to address Iran's nuclear ambitions as his priority in government and Israeli leaders have pointedly not ruled out a military option. |