Netanyahu To Obama: Israel Will Continue To Build In Jerusalem

The AP reports that aides "to Israel's prime minister said Thursday that he has officially rejected President Barack Obama's demand to suspend all construction in contested east Jerusalem, a move that threatens to entrench a year-old deadlock in Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking. The aides said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered his government's position to Obama over the weekend, ahead of the scheduled arrival later Thursday of the U.S. president's special Mideast envoy, George Mitchell. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the contact between the two leaders was private. Washington had put Mitchell's shuttle diplomacy on hold for more than a month as it awaited a reply from Israel. Aides to Netanyahu provided no information on whether the Israeli leader had offered any other concessions to the Palestinians in an effort to restart the long-stalled talks."

Why is it that the United States government begins its dealiings with the issue by assuming that it is Israel that must continue to make concessions just to "restart" direct or even indirect talks with the Mahmoud Abbas. Why is the Palestinian Authority expected to make no concessions? Has Israel not conceded enough already? It withdrew every soldier and settler from Gaze in 2005, and what good did that do? The Islamoterrorists in Gaza kept sending rockets into Israel. Israel needs to make no concessions. Israel is in the position of strength and it Israel is not served in any way by making more concession. Any negotiations if they are to take place should continue with the assumption that Israel need not concede on anything unless they recieve a reasonable concession in return.

"It is just impossible and unacceptable that people try to impress us that we should limit construction in Jerusalem," Benny Begin, a senior Cabinet minister, told foreign reporters and diplomats Thursday. "Jews and Arabs can live throughout the city. This policy will be retained." Tweet