ROMNEY PUTS ALL THE BLAME ON PALESTINIANS - HAS HE BEEN FOLLOWING THE ISRAELI CRUELTIES ON THE NEWS?

Ewen Mac Askill writes in The Guardian online about Mitt Romney's comments blaming the Palestinians for not wanting peace with Israel.  Writes Mac Askill:

"The latest clip shows Romney dismissing the chances of peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, not an unusual view, but he then goes on to firmly put the blame solely on the Palestinians.

"He contentiously described the the Palestinians as "committed to the destruction and elimination" of Israel and indicated he was unlikely to pursue, as president, the creation of a Palestinian state, warning that Iran would use it as a base for attacks on Israel."

I guess that Romney, in putting the blame on the Palestinians, has never heard of Israeli soldiers firing tank shells at Palestinian civilians, or Israeli warplanes wantonly destroying essential infrastructure in Gaza, or Israeli hardliners cruelly forcing Palestinian families off their land, so that Jewish settlers can illegally and immorally move in.

WHY DID OBAMA VETO UN RESOLUTION CALLING ISRAELI SETTLEMENTS ON PALESTINIAN LANDS "ILLEGAL"?

What was Obama thinking when he ordered Susan Rice U.S. ambassador to the United Nations to veto a security council resolution calling Israeli settlements on Palestinian land in occupied East Jerusalem "illegal"?

It is beyond doubt that under international law, land taken by a state in a military conflict must be returned to the vanquished. Israel seized this land from Palestinians in the 1967 War.

Erecting Israeli settlements upon this land violates international law and is "illegal."

ISRAEL CLAIMS THAT IRAN IS "EXTREME ENEMY OF PEACE"

This is getting ridiculous. The Netanyahu government in Israel is accusing the Palestinians of talking with "extreme enemies of peace" because a Palestinian official met with the Iranian Foreign Minister.

The BBC reports:

"Israel has accused a senior Palestinian official of meeting "the extreme enemies of peace" after he held talks with Iran's foreign minister."

Israel's response follows the classic treatment of "enemies." First demonize them, then attack them.

Israel's government seems to have the George W. Bush sickness: refuse to talk or have any dialog with those countries that have insulted you or said bad things about the Holocaust.

Just as Bush would not have diplomatic relations with Hugo Chavez and Venezuela because Chavez called him the devil, so it seems that Israel will have nothing to do with Iran or even establish talks with the Iranian government because Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called the holocaust a figment of the imagination or that the government of Israel should be wiped off the map.

Because of these words, however harsh and intemperate not to say foolish, Israel now deems Iran an "extreme enemy of peace."

George Bush attacked Iraq because he claimed Iraq was a threat to world peace. It turned out that it was Bush who was the genuine threat. I would argue that it is the same with Israel. It terms Iran an extreme enemy of peace but I see Israel as the great destabilizer in the Middle East when it comes to peace. Just look at the Israeli three-week war against Gaza this past January, or the cruel Israeli month-long military campaign against Lebanon several years ago that left a thirty-mile swath in southern Lebanon filled with unexploded cluster bombs.

ISRAELI COURT WILL SENTENCE ISRAELI PEACE ACTIVIST TOMORROW

An Israeli peace activist who has been protesting the continued encroachment of Israeli settlements on Palestinian land will be sentenced tomorrow by an Israeli court, probably to several months incarceration, writes Rory McCarthy for guardian.com.uk.

Reports McCarthy:

"A prominent Israeli peace activist is expected to be sentenced to several months in jail tomorrow in a high-profile prosecution which began after he tried to stop the demolition of Palestinian homes near a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank."

The activist is a plumber, Ezra Nawi, 50, who has been organizing protests against what he considers illegal seizure of Palestinian lands for Israeli settlements. He was arrested and charged for assaulting a policeman when the Israeli Army sent bulldozers to destroy Palestinian shacks on land that Israeli settlers wanted to expropriate.

"His trial has sparked a broad campaign of support from academics, musicians and artists. "You have here the whole misery and cruelty of the occupation in a nutshell," David Shulman, a Hebrew University professor and activist with the Israeli-Palestinian peace group Ta'ayush, wrote in the Ha'aretz newspaper.

""Inside the occupied Palestinian territories is a shadow state where the only real law is the law of the gun, where land is being taken away from its rightful owners every day, and where the very few who stand up to protest, without violence, like Ezra Nawi, are sent to prison."

"Another Hebrew University academic and peace activist, Amiel Vardi, who teaches classics, said: "I don't know of anyone as dedicated as Ezra." Vardi, too, said Nawi was different from most. "We are others. Even for those who work with us for years and perhaps understand more or less what we are doing, we are still others," he said. "Not Ezra. Ezra is accepted as a human being, meaning they both belong to the same group. He is not so much of an other.""

STOP ISRAEL'S SETTLEMENTS ON PALESTINIAN LAND

Robert Kagan writes today in The Washington Post on Obama's policy towards Israel and its settlements:

"Instead, by insisting that the Israeli government not only put a freeze on new settlements but also halt “natural growth” in existing settlements, the administration has set up an unavoidable and possibly unpleasant confrontation with Israel, precisely at the moment it is importuning a truculent Iran. This sets up quite an image: Unclench the fist at a government that daily calls us the Great Satan, while balling up a fist at a longtime ally."

That Iran calls America "The Great Satan" is no big deal. But that Israel continues to subjugate the Palestinians and build settlements on Palestinian land is of life-and-death consequence, because it will surely lead to another war in the Middle East, this time maybe turning into a world war.

It is about time that the U.S. government stood up to Israel and demanded an end to these unjust and illegal settlements. Israelis have no legal right to put up homes on land seized in the 1967 War, nor do they have any right to commandeer land rightfully owned by Palestinians so that Israelis can use it for their new outposts or for "natural growth."

ISRAEL MAKES UNREASONABLE DEMANDS THAT PALESTINIANS RECOGNIZE ISRAEL AS "THE JEWISH STATE"

What is the purpose of Netanyahu and Lieberman demanding that the Palestinians acknowledge Israel as the "Jewish state?" Juan Cole points out that Israel is truly a multicultural state. So the demand is merely a pretextual obstacle to any sincere deal with the Palestinians.

OBAMA'S APPOINTMENTS SHOW FAIRER TREATMENT TOWARDS PALESTINIANS

Ben Armbruster of Think Progress notes an important Obama appointment- Chas Freeman as chairman of the National Intelligence Council.

Writes Armbruster:

"Freeman — a former Ambassador to Saudi Arabia who once served as President Nixon’s chief translator in China in 1972 — not only opposed the Iraq war, but has demonstrated a commitment to a well-rounded understanding of key U.S. national security issues and the importance of an even-handed U.S. role in the Israel-Palestine dispute . . ."

Armbruster writes that the right wing is up in arms against Freeman:

"However, Freeman’s views have the right wing outraged (yet some are afraid to go on record) and have “provoked a fierce behind-the-scenes lobbying campaign to torpedo the appointment.” Some examples:

"– Frank Gaffney: “This is a really serious error. …[Freeman] has compromised the objectivity that one would want in the person whose job it is to oversee the production of National Intelligence Estimates.”

"– Steve Rosen: This is a profoundly disturbing appointment. …Freeman is a strident critic of Israel… His views of the region are what you would expect in the Saudi foreign ministry."

Perhaps for once U.S. foreign policy will not respond in knee-jerk fashion and agree with everything Israeli leaders do or say just because they are Israelis. Freeman seems as if he is genuinely open to hear both sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict before he makes a foreign policy decison.

Armbruster also notes that these same Freeman critics also complained about Obama's appointment of George Mitchell as his special envoy to the Middle East:

"Gaffney and Rosen echo the right’s discomfort at George Mitchell’s appointment as President Obama’s Israeli-Palestinian envoy. The Wonk Room’s Matt Duss notes, “One of the reasons conservative pro-Israel zealots have been displeased” with Mitchell is because he “has in the past shown that, not only does he recognize how provocative and harmful the [Jewish] settlements [in the West Bank] are, he’s actually been willing to say so in public.”"