In May, on a visit to Jerusalem, I spent half a day in Silwan, where an extremist settlers' group runs and profits from an archaeological site - arguably the most sensitive and most politically-charged archaeological dig in the world.

The group, Elad, is busily Judaizing Silwan, turning it into "Ir David," (the "City of David") both by turning it into a site that exclusively champions the Jewish narrative of Biblical Jerusalem and by settling extreme right-wing Jews in this vast, densely-populated Palestinian village.

How did it happen that the government of Israel officially sub-contracted to an extremist settlers' organization one of the most sensitive sites in Israel, a stone's throw from the world's most sacred site to Jews and the third most sacred site to Muslims? How did it happen that the government appointed the cat to guard the cream?

BitterLemons-International today published this article by Debra DeLee, APN's President and CEO:

Obama means what he says
Debra DeLee

Israeli leaders say they're bewildered by the Obama administration's "obsession" with West Bank settlement growth. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was recently quoted asking/grumbling "what do they want from me?" His aides told reporters and American Jewish leaders that Washington's position on settlements is "childish", "stupid" and "delusional" and that the Obama team should "come to its senses."

Israeli diplomats were recently instructed not to use the term "natural growth" in reference to West Bank settlement expansion. Instead, Israeli spokespersons must talk about the need to provide and maintain "normal life" for the settlers.

by Talia Sasson

Attorney Talia Sasson filed the settlement outpost report to the Sharon government [and is now a Meretz member]

Netanyahu mentioned three points in the Bar Ilan speech with regard to the continuation of construction in the settlements: There will be no confiscations of private Palestinian land; no new Israeli settlements will be established in the West Bank; the needs of the Israeli settlers in the West Bank must be met.  What do these statements mean?

The new resolution that the Union of Reform Judaism that was just adopted by the URJ's Board of Trustees meeting in New Orleans shows just how supportive most American Jews are of President Obama's push for Mideast peace.

It is significant that the organization representing the largest Jewish denomination in the U.S. comes out with such language on Obama's regional policy, on his Cairo speech, on settlements and on settler violence.

The following was written by our intern Dan Fischer:

APN's Ori Nir told me that when he was a teenager in Israel, he used to play with his friends the "ultimate chutzpah" game. They would try to one-up each other by completing the sentence: "The ultimate chutzpah would be..."

Israel's Foreign Minister Avigdor "drown them in the Red Sea" Lieberman scored high last week when he complained to the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Security Committee that Israel has bad PR internationally.

Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu one-upped even Lieberman Tuesday.

Please check out my latest op-ed:

A new Peace Now analysis of Israel's 2009-2010 state budget shows that the Israeli government still grants West Bank settlers preferential treatment.

The new report shows that settlement local councils receive a much higher percentage of financial transfers from the government than the settlers' proportion in Israeli society and that per-capita gross investment in public construction in West Bank settlements (not including East Jerusalem) is more than triple the investment in public construction within the Green Line.

The analysis also shows that at least 16 illegal outposts enjoy support from the Agriculture Ministry's Settlement Division. It shows that Settlers who export goods to Europe receive millions of shekels to compensate for loss of tax discounts in the European Union, which does not recognize exports from as part of the Israeli-European free-trade agreement.

The report shows how the government of Israel grants settlers a variety of benefits, even though most settlers need them less than the larger proportion of low-income Israelis who reside within the state of Israel.

To view the report click here.

The following was written by our intern, Dan Fischer:

APN's Ori Nir told me that when he was a teenager in Israel, he used to play with his friends the "ultimate chutzpah" game. They would try to one-up each other by completing the sentence: "The ultimate chutzpah would be..."

Israel's Foreign Minister Avigdor "drown them in the Red Sea" Lieberman scored high last week when he complained to the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Security Committee that Israel has bad PR internationally.

Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu one-upped even Lieberman Tuesday.

Last week, my colleague Lara Friedman of APN and Peace Now's Settlement Watch Director Hagit Ofran published an excellent report debunking the common (bogus) arguments made by those who oppose a West Bank settlements freeze.

Following is an article by Talia Sasson, the author of the famous Sasson Report, pointing out the hollowness of Netanyahu's statements in his Bar Illan speech on settlements. Her article is published in today's Yedioth Ahronoth.

Together - perhaps with the addition of Dan Kurtzer recent Washington Post article debunking Netanyahu's contention that there are Israeli-American understandings about continued West Bank settlement construction - these pieces serve to solidify the Obama administration's justified, uncompromising demand for a comprehensive settlement freeze.

Now that Nethanyahu's speech is behind us, we can prepare for the upcoming Washington visit of Avigdor Lieberman, Netanyahu's foreign minister.

Lieberman is arriving Tuesday night and will meet here with Secretary Clinton (on Wednesday) National Security Advisor Jones (on Thursday) and with congressional leaders.

Lieberman is a man on a mission. His goal: to improve Israel's image abroad. Last Tuesday, I kid you not, Lieberman was quoted as telling the Knesset's Security and Foreign Affairs Committee that Israel "cannot continue with a successful foreign policy without changing the way we are perceived" internationally. He lamented: "We have a fundamental problem: we are not perceived well."

Could it be that Mr. Lieberman, Israel's number one PR agent, has something to do with this image problem?

For those who need a reminder, here is my colleague Lara Friedman's compilation of Lieberman's greatest hits:

[this was posted today on the Washington Post - Newsweek PostGlobal]

The Speech Netanyahu Won't Give
By Ori Nir

Here's what Benyamin Netanyahu should - but most likely won't - say in his much-anticipated policy speech on Sunday.

The polls cited today in the Associated Press story (and carried by Haaretz, JTA and others) which allegedly found that most Israelis back continued settlement construction, were commissioned by a far-right Israeli organization and by the settlers' University of Ariel. The questions - surprise, surprise - are skewed accordingly.

Unfortunately, AP neglected to mention who commissioned the poll and neglected to quote the actual questions.

Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel's largest circulation newspaper, today publishes an interesting investigative piece on the state of settlement construction in the West Bank. If you closely follow Peace Now's reports on settlement construction, you are probably familiar with the data -- at least with the general trends.

Here is Yedioth's story:

You've got to read it to believe it: An American Jewish settler, Aaron U. Raskas, sitting at the poolside, at his settlement of Rimonim near Ramallah, marveling at the sight of little settler kids splashing water, and telling fellow Americans that West Bank settlements do no damage to Palestinians.

Wow! So many comments!

I would like to thank all of those who took the time to comment.

Let me briefly address some of the comments and questions.

Check out my new op-ed on Prime Minister Netanyahu's coices following his meeting with President Obama, published in today's edition of the Washington Jewish Week.

Reactions are welcome

Coming to Washington on the heels of a thorny, sour visit by Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas seemed determined today to show that he and his Palestinian Authority are not a problem but a part of the solution.

Abbas briefed a small group of Middle East policy shapers at a Washington area hotel. Attending were analysts at Washington think tanks, a couple of representatives of Arab-American groups and representatives of three pro-Israel organizations, including Americans for Peace Now.

Benjamin Netanyahu is known (and often mocked) for his blunt depiction of how he saw Israel's relationship with the Palestinians in the post-Oslo years of the late 1990's. "If they give, they will receive. If they don't give, they won't receive," Prime Minister Netanyahu said back then (1998), suggesting that the burden of delivery was on the Palestinians and that Israel will act on its commitments under the Oslo agreements only once the Palestinians fulfill theirs.

In the Oval Office Monday, the comeback prime minister experienced some giving and receiving Obama style. After weeks of preparations, having leaked to the media that he was bringing to Washington a new plan for Mideast peace, Netanyahu ended up giving President Obama very little with which the U.S. could work to advance peace in the Middle East. And he received very little in return.

Benjamin Netanyahu will arrive politically bruised in Washington Sunday.

His first fifty days in office have not been successful. The media criticized the manner in which he constructed his government and depicted it as too large, wasteful and poorly staffed. Then Netanyahu flip-flopped on the budget and now he is perceived as putting at risk Israel's relations with the United States - its chief national security asset.

It is unsurprising, therefore, that most Israelis are unhappy with Netanyahu's performance: 52% disapprove of his performance as prime minister according to a Friday Haaretz poll. Only 28% of those polled said they were satisfied with Netanyahu. Only 27% said they think Netanyahu is a better prime minister than his disgraced predecessor, Ehud Olmert.

Go to Hebron. Observe how several hundreds of ultra-national Israeli settlers, a minority in a Palestinian town of 160,000 - have turned the lives of its Palestinians residents into a living hell.

Go to Hebron. Look at how a small Jewish minority rules over an oppressed Arab majority and you will see why Israel needs a two-state solution in order to survive in the future as a democratic Jewish state.

In the next two weeks, Prime Minister Netanyahu will try to do the impossible: to devise a peace initiative that is substantial enough to avert a major conflict with the Obama administration, yet conservative enough to avoid the breakup of his government coalition.

Jetlagged, over the weekend in Jerusalem, I had time to scan the dailies' special Independence Day supplements. There was quite a lot to read, including a retrospective re-evaluation of Israel's Declaration of Independence in Yedioth Ahronoth and a charming reportage in Maariv that focused on beautiful places and people across the country. I was especially moved by Yair Lapid's essay in Yedioth, headlined "I Have Another Dream."

Israel is still dressed in blue and white. Two days after Independence Day, national flags are everywhere, even on tree trunks in West Jerusalem. I don't remember so many flags on Independence Days in Jerusalem in the past, flags of so many kinds. 

When two Israeli tank shells shattered Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish's Gaza home in January, killing three of his daughters and his niece, his personal tragedy turned - with the help of the Israeli and international media - into a symbol of the Gaza War. For Israelis, in particular, this disastrous incident brought home the realization of the carnage among innocent Gazan civilians.

Many have predicted in recent days that Binyamin's Netanyahu's premiership - he is expected to be sworn in shortly - means the end of the peace process. How can a prime minister who refuses to utter the phrase "two-state solution" pursue a meaningful peace process with the Palestinians, they ask.

The answer is vigorous encouragement. Encouragement from within Israeli society, which is still solidly supportive of the two-state solution, from within the American Jewish community - also solidly supportive of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, as recent polls have shown - as well as from the Obama administration and the international community.

My new op-ed on the vision for Israel and its relations with the Palestinians was just published in the Baltimore Sun. Here it is

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.viewpoint18mar18,0,2793131.story

baltimoresun.com

Viewpoint: Where is Abba Eban when we need him?

By Ori Nir

March 18, 2009

Remember Abba Eban?

As Benjamin Netanyahu prepares to (again) become the prime minister of Israel, as hate-monger Avigdor Lieberman prepares to be sworn in as Mr. Netanyahu's foreign minister, and as security hawk extraordinaire Moshe Yaalon prepares to take over the defense ministry, I really miss Abba Eban. I miss Israel's quintessential diplomat, who fought so eloquently and effectively to portray to the world a just, moral and peace-seeking Israel in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.

(The following article has been sent for syndication by U.S. Jewish weeklies)

NOT EVERY DAY IS PURIM

By Ori Nir

A colloquial Hebrew expression says "not every day is Purim," which can loosely be translated to "you can't fool all the people all the time."

Israelis - and many in our pro-Israel community in the U.S. - in the past wanted to believe that Palestinian economic development is the path to resolving Israel's conflict with the Palestinians: If only the Palestinians have full stomachs and some cash in their pockets, they will forget about Israel's occupation of the West Bank, about their land being gradually eaten up by Israeli settlements, about their aspirations for independence and sovereignty being ignored.

If you're reading this blog, you probably seldom read the Jerusalem Post, which is why you may have missed the Post's interview with Elliott Abrams, the Bush White House Mideast policy czar - his first interview since he left his position as deputy assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser for global democracy strategy.

The Post got the scoop because its reporter Ruthie Blum Leibowitz is Abrams' sister-in-law. That probably has something to do with why I find the interview so satisfying and so frustrating at the same time.

I am now a regular contributor to GlobalSecurity.org

My first contribution was an analysis of yesterday's Israeli elections. Here it is:

JTA: The Global News Service of the Jewish People

http://jta.org/news/article/2009/01/25/1002499/op-ed-two-states-only-solution-to-gaza-lifeline

Op-Ed: Two states the only hope for Gaza normalcy

By Ori Nir · January 25, 2009

WASHINGTON (JTA) -- Last week I dug up an old, yellowing Israeli intelligence report from April 1987 headlined "The Gaza Strip toward the year 2000." It was authored by the "Civil Administration," Israel's military government, only several months before the eruption in Gaza of the first intifada.

The secret document, distributed to Israel's top security leadership, provides both a high-resolution snapshot (more than 200 pages) of Gaza and a careful forecast. Amazingly, it predicted a process of multifaceted integration of the Gaza Strip into Israel.

Reading the report, written less than 22 years ago, is like a voyage to ancient history. What the report clearly shows, however, is that policy mistakes and misunderstandings about Gaza are as old as Israel's 41-year-old occupation of the strip.

The population of Gaza in 1987 was 633,600. Today it has climbed to more than 1.5 million. The report predicted that by the year 2000, the strip's population would reach 1 million -- a "maximal forecast" depicted as "unreasonable," meaning unreasonably high. In fact, by 2000, the strip's population had mushroomed to 1.132 million. The fertility rate for 2000 was predicted to drop from 6.60 to 5.80, but it remained at 6.55 and was estimated at 5.19 in 2008.

The report did talk, casually , about the "increase in the strength" of the fundamentalist Islamist political stream, but noted that although the Islamists support Israel's destruction, they believe that their first focus ought to be "preparing the hearts and minds" within their community.

Around that time, as a reporter covering Palestinian affairs, I met with the Israeli governor of Gaza, who told me that Israel had "no problem" with the Islamists because they were not engaged in any subversive or violent activity. To the contrary: Israel's military government in Gaza, dividing and ruling as it always did, gently nurtured the Islamists as a counterweight to the Palestinian Liberation Organization during the 1980s.

The most fascinating -- and today fantastical -- chapter in the report is the one examining the social trends in the strip. It predicted the accelerated socio-political integration of the Gaza Strip into Israel, as well as "an increase in reciprocal dependency between the Gaza Strip and Israel." It predicted the "penetration of the Strip's employees into high-level professions in Israel," and even Gazans' "imitation of the Israeli life style."

So much for that. The Palestinians of Gaza rebelled against Israel's occupation months after the report was issued and have been fighting for independence for more than two decades.

The Palestinians of Gaza, just like their brethren in the West Bank, need and deserve political independence. But the Gaza Strip simply cannot live in political or economic isolation. The 22-year-old Israeli report is clear about that. Its message is that the Gaza Strip has no viability, no future, as an isolated, detached entity.

At the time there was no fence between Israel and Gaza, not even a roadblock or a checkpoint at the entrance to the strip. Today it is impossible to imagine open borders between Israel and Gaza.

Israel will not become again an economic lifeline for Gaza in the foreseeable future. Neither will Egypt, its southern neighbor. Both Israel and Egypt see Gaza as nothing but trouble.

The only real viable hope for Gaza is a link to the other Palestinian territory, the West Bank. Only a strong relationship with the West Bank, reinforced by unhindered safe passage between the two Palestinian territories, can provide the remedy for Gaza. In other words, the only real hope for Gaza lies in the two-state solution.

Israelis and Palestinians must keep in mind that a cease-fire is not an alternative to peace. Israelis and Palestinians, and the international third parties that help them advance toward peace, must remember that just as a two-state solution is the only way in which Israel can secure its long-term character as a Jewish and democratic state, so does the two-state solution provide the only hope for Gaza to reach a reasonable level of normalcy and sustainability in the long run. Only a two-state solution can provide the uninterrupted, robust lifeline to the West Bank that the Gaza Strip needs.

The war and the cease-fire that followed show yet again that only a two-state solution provides a horizon of hope for Israelis and Palestinians to reach the peace and long-term security that they so much deserve.

(Ori Nir, formerly the Palestinian Affairs correspondent for the Israeli daily Ha'aretz, is the spokesman for Americans for Peace Now, a Zionist Jewish organization supporting Peace Now, Israel's largest peace movement.)

Having recently read David Grossman's wonderful book on the biblical story of Samson, I think the lead of this piece is brilliant. One may disagree with Grossman's conclusion that Israel must speak to Hamas. But his fundamental point is so simple and so correct, so profound: Israel cannot and must not address the Palestinians only by force. It must always remember that its ultimate goal is to live in peace with its neighbors. 

This piece, in tomorrow's Haaretz, is really worth reading.

===========

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1056955.html

_20/01/2009

David Grossman / Israel's success in Gaza only proves it is strong, not right

_{By David Grossman}

Like the pairs of foxes in the biblical story of Samson, tied together by their tails, a flaming torch between them, so Israel and the Palestinians - despite the imbalance of power - drag each other along. Even when we try hard to wrest ourselves free, we burn those who are tethered to us - our double, our misfortune - as well as ourselves.

And so, amidst the wave of nationalist hyperbole now sweeping the nation, it would not hurt to recall that in the final analysis, this last operation in Gaza is just another stop along a trail blazing with fire, violence and hatred.

As satisfied as Israelis are that the technical weaknesses of the Second Lebanon War were corrected, we should be paying heed to another voice - the one that says the Israel Defense Forces' successes in the confrontation with Hamas do not prove that it was right to embark on such a massive campaign, and are certainly no justification for Israel's mode of operation in the course of the fighting. These military successes merely confirm that Israel is stronger than Hamas, and that under certain conditions it can be tough and cruel in its own way.

When the guns become completely silent, and the full scope of the killing and destruction becomes known, to the point where even the most self-righteous and sophisticated of the Israeli psyche's defense mechanisms are overcome, perhaps then some kind of lesson will imprint itself on our brain. Perhaps then we will finally understand how deeply and fundamentally wrong our actions in this region have been from time immemorial - how misguided, unethical, unwise and above all, responsible, time after time, for fanning the flames that consume us.

Obviously, the Palestinians cannot be let off the hook for their crimes and mistakes. That would be tantamount to belittling and condescending to them, as if they were not mature adults with minds of their own, responsible for their own decisions and failures. The inhabitants of the Gaza Strip may have been "strangulated" in many ways by Israel, but even they have other options for protesting and drawing attention to their misery than the launching of thousands of rockets against innocent citizens in Israel.

We must not forget that. We cannot pardon the Palestinians or treat them forgivingly, as if it were obvious that whenever they feel put upon, violence will always be their sole response, the one they embrace almost automatically.

Yet even when the Palestinians act with indiscriminate violence, when they use suicide bombings and Qassam rocket fire, Israel is stronger than them, and it can have a tremendous impact on the level of violence in the conflict as a whole - and hence on calming it down and even bringing it to an end. The current confrontation has not shown that anyone in the Israeli leadership really grasps the critical significance of this aspect of the conflict in any fully conscious or responsible way.

One day, after all, we will seek to heal the wounds we inflict today. How will that day ever come if we do not understand that our military might cannot be the primary instrument for carving out a path for ourselves in this region? How will that day ever come if we fail to comprehend just how graveness is the responsibility that lies on our shoulders by dint of our complex and fateful relations, both past and future, with the Palestinians in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the Galilee?

When the clouds of colored smoke dissipate from the politicians' claims of sweeping and decisive victory; when we discover the actual achievements of this operation, and how far they are from what we really need in order to live a normal life here; when we finally admit that a whole country eagerly hypnotized itself, because it needed so badly to believe that Gaza would cure it of Lebanon-itis - maybe then we will settle accounts with those who, time after time, incite the Israeli public, whipping them into a frenzy of arrogance and a euphoria of power. Those who have taught us over the years to scoff at belief in peace and any hope for change in our relations with the Arabs. Those who have convinced us that the Arabs understand only force, and therefore that is the only language we can use in our dealings with them.

And because we have spoken to them for so long in that language, and that language alone, we have forgotten that there are other languages for speaking to human beings, even to enemies, even bitter foes like Hamas - languages that are as much our mother tongue as the language of planes and tanks.

We must speak to the Palestinians: That is the most important conclusion from the most recent round of bloodshed. We must speak also to those who do not recognize our right to exist here. Instead of ignoring Hamas at this time, we would do better to take advantage of the new reality that has been created by beginning a dialogue with them immediately, one that would allow us to reach an accord with the whole of the Palestinian people. We must speak to them and begin to acknowledge that reality is not one hermetic story that we, and the Palestinians, too, have been telling ourselves for generations. Reality is not just the story we are locked into, a story made up, in no small measure, of fantasies, wishful thinking and nightmares.

We must speak to them, and create, within this closed-off, deaf reality, the very possibility for speech. We must create this alternative, so mocked and maligned today, which in the tempest of war has almost no place, no hope, no believers.

We must speak to them as part of a calculated strategy. We must initiate speech, insist on speech, let no one put us off. We must speak, even if dialogue seems hopeless from the start. In the long run, this stubbornness will contribute much more to our security than hundreds of planes dropping bombs on a city and its inhabitants.

We must speak out of understanding, born as we look out at the horrible devastation, as we grasp that the harm we are capable of inflicting on each other, each people in its own way, is so enormous and so destructive and so utterly senseless, that if we surrender to it and accept its logic, it will end up destroying us all.

We must speak, because what has happened in the Gaza Strip over the last few weeks sets up a mirror in which we in Israel see the reflection of our own face - a face that, if we were looking in from the outside or saw it on another people - would leave us aghast. We would see that our victory is not a genuine victory, and that the war in Gaza has not healed the spot that so badly needs a cure, but only further exposed the tragic and never-ending mistakes we have made in navigating our way.

Check out my new op-ed / analysis in the Washington Times on how Obama could leverage the Arab League's peace initiative to kick-start the peace process.

Doug Bloomfield was not the only one who called the Conference of Presidents and the Daily Alert that it sponsors on ignoring the settlers' Hebron rampage. The New York Jewish Week http://www.thejewishweek.com/viewArticle/c51_a14235/Editorial__Opinion/Editorial.html (link has expired) editorialized on it and the Forward published a news story.  Blogger Richard Silverstein's posting on this is also worth checking out.

Doug Bloomfield rips the Conference of Presidents' Daily Alert in this week's Washington Jewish Week for the Conference's reluctance to even mention settler violence. Interestingly, today's Daily Alert did mention the Hebron rampage; better late than never.

...American Friends of Peace Now sent a letter to President Bush last week, urging him not to provide American funding to pay for proposed high-tech crossing points in Israel's security barrier in the West Bank.