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One-Sided Deal

Neve Gordon · Obama's Latest Offer to Israel

Imagine a sheriff offering the head of a criminal gang the following deal: ‘If you agree to stop stealing from your neighbours for three months, I’ll give you cutting edge weaponry and block any efforts by other law enforcement authorities to restrain your criminal activities.’

Sounds absurd? Then how about this: in return for a three-month freeze of illegal construction in the occupied West Bank (but not in occupied East Jerusalem, where it may continue), Barack Obama has promised to deliver 20 F-35 fighter jets to Israel, a deal worth $3 billion. Moreover, his administration has vowed to curb action by the United Nations on the Goldstone Report, block anti-Israel UN resolutions concerning the Gaza flotilla raid, and defeat resolutions aimed at exposing Israel's nuclear programme at the International Atomic Energy Agency.

In such situations it’s important to keep in mind that the sheriff (Obama) and not the gang leader (Netanyahu) is the major culprit.

israel palestine

Comments

  • 15 November 2010 at 7:53pm
    Geoff Roberts says:
    Well, I suppose that you have try all possible ways of persuading this man that it's time a for a settlement, but this is ridiculous. Netanyahu will take the jets and renege on any promise to stop building. Where's Peace Now when we need them?
  • 16 November 2010 at 5:23pm
    Geoff Roberts says:
    Everybody's speechless, it seems. No other comments? Odd.
  • 18 November 2010 at 9:39am
    semitone says:
    Why is Obama not Netanyahu the major culprit? No-one's holding a gun to Bibi's head (so far as I know) and demanding he send in the bulldozers. Obama probably wanted to sell $3bn worth of F-35s to Israel anyway, just as he probably wanted to hush up the Gaza flotilla raid stuff and Israel's nuclear arsenal. It's awful that he wants to do this, obviously, but if he was going to do it anyway why not get a 3-month halt to illegal building for free?
  • 18 November 2010 at 12:55pm
    HenryFTP says:
    It's not a true "sale" of F-35s when the purchase price is given by the United States to Israel as "military aid" (something the U.S. wouldn't do for Britain even when it was fighting Nazi Germany alone). So one does need to ask what the U.S. thinks it is getting out of this deal (as no one could seriously believe that the parties are anywhere near reaching an agreement that would make even the partial settlement freeze permanent within the next three months).
  • 22 November 2010 at 9:14pm
    joshua kinch says:
    Wouldn't it be better to say "Israels latest offer to itself".What does Obama have to do with it?