Kerry and Abbas at World Economic Forum, May 26, 2013
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the harassment of the pro-Israel organization Z Street by the IRS. A couple of days later, I suggested that left-wing Jewish groups cooperated with the administration in calling for scrutiny of Zionist groups, because of their pathological hatred of ‘settlers’ and ‘settlements’.
Now investigative reporter Alana Goodman has shown that there were numerous Zionist groups in addition to Z Street that were improperly targeted by the IRS. It also turns out that the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and even Palestinian negotiator Ahmed Querya — as well as Jewish groups like J Street, the New Israel Fund, and the Union for reform Judaism, along with administration-friendly journalists — all called for IRS investigations of Zionists who might be funding settlement activities.
Yes, it’s all about a few Jews living in a place that the administration — like the Jordanians in 1948 and the PLO today — believes should be free of them. Transferring these Jews out has been a top priority goal of US policy for decades.
Now think about this. Our new Secretary of State, John Kerry, recently proposed a $4 billion program to develop the ‘Palestinian economy’:
“These experts believe we will increase the Palestinian GDP by as much as 50 percent over three years,” Kerry told the closing session of the World Economic Forum meeting on the shores of the Dead Sea in Jordan.
“The most optimistic estimates foresee enough new jobs to cut unemployment by two-thirds to eight percent down from 21 percent and to increase the median wage by 40 percent,” said the top US diplomat.
Some 100,000 jobs in home construction alone could be created in the next three years, while tourism could triple.
The economic predictions are ridiculous, but never mind. What I find interesting is that this is precisely an attempt to create Arab ‘facts on the ground’ in Judea and Samaria — to create a Palestinian state by simply building it, on disputed land.
In other words, at the same time that the administration is trying to choke off Jewish building in the territories, by pressuring Israel (there is an unannounced freeze on construction in effect since Obama’s recent visit) and by using the IRS against private parties that might assist ‘settlers’, Kerry plans to finance a massive building campaign for Palestinian Arabs!
So while the administration does all it can to stop Jews from building on land within existing settlements, because they say it will hurt the peace process by foreclosing options, it finds nothing wrong with encouraging extensive Arab construction in the same disputed territory.
This is just another illustration of the way our government has swallowed the completely false story that the Arabs are the default owners of all the land outside the Green Line.
Technorati Tags: John Kerry, Israel, Palestinians
This is pretty annoying, but I”m not that worked up about it.
I mean, as Gomer Pyle would say, “Surprise, surprise, surprise!”
What did we expect from Obama & Co.?
I’m not overly alarmed over this because this plan depends on private sector investment. This in turn puts specific investment decisions in the hands of business leaders.
Business leaders, one would think, are more concerned about business-relevant issues as opposed to politics. They want to know that their investments are in stable enterprises, sited in secure environments, that stand a good chance of turning a profit.
What business leaders really want to place bets on behalf of their owners and stockhoders in areas controlled by the PA? A civil war could break out between Fatah and Hamas at any time. A new Intifada could break out between the PA and the IDF at any time – and some way this is already happening in ‘slow motion’ as I write this.
Even absent such conflict as I describe above, there is the basic corrupt nature of the PA. Who really wants to have to deal with them?
Maybe Obama will try to make this happen by offering U.S. guarantees to investors, but that involves taxpayer money that Congress will have say over. If Obama goes that route, he’ll be picking yet another fight with Congress over Israel.
January 2017 can’t arrive soon enough, but these lame-brained schemes hatched by morons such as Kerry are sure to fail in the meantime. This reveals a major advantage held by Israel vis-a-vis the U.S. in this ongoing tug-of-war between putative “allies”: Obama and Co. are a bunch of morons and hacks; I’m sure Netanyahu or Bogie Ya’alon have more brains in their respective toenail clippings that the entire foreign policy staff of the Obama administration combined.
The Administration seems to me totally confused and wrongheaded in its Middle East priorities. Doesn’t it understand that there is no real chance now of any peace deal between Israel and the Fatah-Hamas Palestinians?
It is almost as if the Administration totally frustrated by what is happening in Syria and Egypt is compensating for its do-nothingness by playing the ‘Israel- Palestinians negotiation game.
As Assad Hizbollah Iran are on a ‘surge’ of a kind the U.S. seems witless as to what to do.
PS I see more and more pro- Israel voices saying Al Quaeda is a lesser evil than the Assad regime. I do not know if that will be true, but Assad and Co. and especially with Iran at the heart of this certainly seem now the far greater threat to Israel.
Of course they understand! But for whatever reason, one of the highest priorities of US policy is to get the Jews out of what they think is Arab land. Maybe they think Muslims will suddenly stop trying to kill Americans if we show how much we care.
By the way, this makes the US an accomplice to racist ethnic cleansing.