Tag Archives: West Bank

Obama to visit Israel in spring

Posted on by

President Obama is planning to visit Israel this spring, the White House confirmed to Al Monitor Tuesday. It will be his first trip to the Jewish state since taking office.

“When the President spoke with Prime Minister Netanyahu on January 28, they discussed a visit by the President to Israel in the spring,” NSC spokesman Tommy Vietor said by email Tuesday, in response to a query.

“The start of the President’s second term and the formation of a new Israeli government offer the opportunity to reaffirm the deep and enduring bonds between the United States and Israel and to discuss the way forward on a broad range of issues of mutual concern, including Iran and Syria,”  Vietor said.  “Additional details about the trip – including the dates of travel – will be released at a later time.”

Obama will also travel to the West Bank and Jordan.

Israel’s Channel 10 reported Tuesday that President Obama will visit Israel on March 20th. The White House did not confirm his travel dates.

Israeli sources told Al-Monitor that President Obama initiated the plan for the Israel trip, early in his and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s new terms. “It reflects a priority,” a former Israeli official surmised.

The early spring trip also gives Obama the opportunity to try to reach out to Israeli leaders and the public before potential new tensions strain the alliance, including over the timeline for diplomacy with Iran. It also offers perhaps something of a fresh start for relations between the two leaders who have often been at odds over the past four years, even as US-Israeli security cooperation has expanded to unprecedented levels. Continue reading →

Avineri: Israel behavior in sharp break with past

Posted on by

The Israeli government’s rapid expansion of settlements in Jerusalem and the West Bank in the wake of the UN vote on Palestine has alarmed Israel’s allies in the United States and Europe and represents a sharp break with Israeli foreign policy strategy in the past, argues Shlomo Avineri in Haaretz:

In responding to the UN vote on Palestinian statehood, the government’s decision to build in E-1 and in East Jerusalem is the exact opposite of the underlying principles of how Zionist and Israeli international policies have evolved over the years. When Israel wins broader and deeper international support, it can achieve its aims, and when it is isolated it fails to achieve them.

What the government is doing now is not successfully challenging the Palestinian leadership. Rather it is engaging in unnecessary quarreling with Israel’s supporters in the democratic world – the United States and the European countries. It is not enough to think you are right and to convince your supporters of that: In the cruel world of international politics, a small nation can achieve its aims only if it is able to forge alliances with the powers-that-be and to ensure their support – not out of love, but because they are convinced there is congruence between their countries’ interests, or their leaders’ considerations, and the aims of, in this case, Zionism and the State of Israel. […] Continue reading →

Israeli official: Agreement not to build in sensitive E1 zone ‘no longer relevant’

Posted on by


As Israel announced that it was withholding tax payments to the Palestinian Authority Sunday, an Israeli official told Al-Monitor that Israel considers its 2009 understanding with the Americans that it would not build in the sensitive E1 zone of East Jerusalem “no longer relevant.”

“The Palestinians want to use the peace process in order to bring about the end of the State of Israel,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu charged on Sunday, as the Israeli government said it was withholding some $100 million in tax funds to the Palestinian entity. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas returned home to a hero’s welcome in Ramallah Sunday, following his successful bid to get the United Nations to vote to grant the Palestinian Authority upgraded status in the world body last week.

Angered by the United Nations vote, Israel on Friday announced that it was building 3,000 new settlement homes in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, and allowing zoning and building planning to go forward in the sensitive E1 zone, that if pursued would effectively divide the West Bank.

“I understand there was some agreement with the Americans in 2009 … at the start of this government’s term of office not to build in E1,” the Israeli official, speaking not for attribution, told Al-Monitor Sunday by email. “That commitment has been kept in full.”

“Now we have two new factors making it no longer a relevant understanding,” he continued. First, “new elections in a few weeks [that] will bring a new government…and [secondly, the Palestinian Authority’s] fundamental violation of all prior agreements and re-writing of the rules.”

There is “no place for criticism (or even surprise) by [the] Americans,” he added. The “agreement [was] kept in full, for four long years.”

US officials did not immediately respond to requests for guidance from Al-Monitor Sunday.

But two former senior US officials told Al-Monitor that the Israelis know full well that building in E1 would cross an American red line, for both Republican and Democratic administrations.

“Building in E-1 has been a red-line for the United States, and for a reason–it would lead to the bifurcation of the West Bank and render territorial contiguity there nearly impossible,” former senior State Department official Robert Danin told Al-Monitor Sunday, noting that he spent over 20 years working Middle East issues for the State Department under both Republican and Democratic administrations. “I don’t see any administration acquiescing to building there.”

Continue reading →