Jerusalem: An Open Letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Dear Prime Minister Netanyahu,

We're neighbors, and in the past we've exchanged greetings.

I'm not a member of the Likud party, and I don't think I ever voted for the Likud, owing to my middle-of-the-road leanings. Which is not to say that other members of my household haven't voted for you: As is commonly said, where there are two Jews, there are three opinions.

I would like to say a few personal words to you about the Ramat Shlomo crisis - or "non-crisis" as it is now being called - with the United States. It has me enraged.

I don't think Ramat Shlomo is a "non-crisis", given the orchestrated demonization of Israel resulting from and facilitated by this matter. It is indeed a full-blown crisis, albeit a manufactured to order crisis: After you apologized in private and in public to Vice President Biden, the matter seemed to have subsided until someone in the Obama administration decided to stir it up for political leverage.

The Obama administration made a calculated decision that the announcement by the Jerusalem planning commission of the theoretical future construction of 1,600 apartments in a Jewish neighborhood in East Jerusalem, which will remain part of Israel as part of any two-state settlement agreement, should be used to extract negotiating concessions from your government. Regarding Israel’s construction policy in East Jerusalem, Israel's ambassador to the U.S., Michael Oren, wrote in an op-ed, entitled "For Israel and America, a Disagreement, Not a Crisis", in today's New York Times:

That policy is not Mr. Netanyahu’s alone but was also that of former Prime Ministers Ehud Barak, Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres and Golda Meir — in fact of every Israeli government going back to the city’s reunification in 1967. Consistently, Israel has held that Jerusalem should remain its undivided capital and that both Jews and Arabs have the right to build anywhere in the city.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/18/opinion/18oren.html

Mike Oren, with whom I served in the army and whom I admire, would also characterize Ramat Shlomo as a "disagreement", i.e. a non-crisis. A mere disagreement? Note the following language in an article entitled "Israel Seeks to Mend Rift With the U.S." from The New York Times:

The United States was still waiting for a response from Israel to a number of demands made by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in a telephone call last Friday, including a halt to new building projects in East Jerusalem and other acts that could be deemed provocative in the delicate atmosphere surrounding the peace talks.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/18/world/middleeast/18mideast.html?hp

Without a favorable response, you are being denied permission to meet with Hillary or Vice President Biden next week in the United States. Peace talks? There are no peace talks. As reported by Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic, Obama has made it known to all that he does not like you, that he doesn't think you're bright, and that he is seeking Israeli regime change. See: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/03/what-obama-is-actually-trying-to-do-in-israel/37548/

Obama will obviously squeeze Israel for all its worth without requiring anything from the Palestinian Authority. Concerning the demands being made solely of Israel, I cannot say it better than Rabbi Stuart Weinblatt:

"Why was Abbas’ refusal to accept the US request and Israeli offer for direct negotiations not an 'insult and affront' to the United States and the Vice President?

Why was Assad’s meeting with Ahmadinejad the day after the US announced that we were sending an ambassador to Syria ignored by the State Department and not deemed to be an 'insult and affront' to the United States?

Why is Palestinian Authority incitement of rioters in Jerusalem and elsewhere not condemned by this administration and not an 'insult and affront' to the United States and the Vice President?

Why is the naming of the main public square in Ramallah by Abbas in honor of Fatah terrorist Dalal Mughrabi, murderer of 38 Israelis - 13 of them little kids not an impediment to the peace process and not an insult and affront to the US and Israel????

Not to mention – why does this administration insist on viewing construction in a vacant piece of land, adjacent to existing housing seen as thwarting the two state solution?"

http://weeklystandard.com/blogs/friends-do-not-treat-friends-manner

Obama now is also claiming that Ramat Shlomo is a non-crisis and professing his friendship:

“'Israel’s one of our closes allies,' [Obama] told Fox News. 'The Israeli people have a special bond and it’s not going to go away.'

However, the US president said that the new housing units 'weren't helpful' in carving out a peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

The expansion of Ramat Shlomo was a poor choice for Israel, Obama said, but added that, 'friends are going to disagree sometimes.'

'What we've said is we need both sides to take steps to make sure that we can rebuild trust,' he said. 'What we need right now is both sides to recognize that it is in their interests to move this peace process forward.'"

http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=171252

Well, I've got news for you: Obama is no "friend" of Israel. Friends engage in discussion without preconditions. Friends attempt to iron out their differences without inciting others to riot. Friends do not engage in blackmail.

Obama will not agree to allow you to meet next week with Hillary or Vice President Biden in the U.S. if you do not make the concessions that they are demanding? No disaster. Let Obama continue with his policy of undermining friends while appeasing enemies, i.e. the Obama Doctrine. Israel's friendship with the United States, premised upon common underpinnings of democracy and freedom, will remain intact.

Yours sincerely,
Jeffrey

[Three rockets have been fired into Israel from Gaza over the past 24 hours. The last qassam rocket killed a Thai agricultural worker. Obama stands responsible for legitimizing this renewed violence; the blood is on his hands.]