He's a funny guy, just don't talk to him on the phone or social media (why bother?).
"US considers release of Israeli spy to spur Mideast talks" by Anne Gearan | Washington Post April 01, 2014
JERUSALEM — The Obama administration is considering the early release of convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard as part of an effort to keep US-backed peace talks from collapsing, according to US and Israeli officials.
If he does that it is treason.
Related: The Kerry Chronicles: How Many Palestinian Lives is Pollard Worth?
Here is a very interesting (and correct) take: "This may be good for some Palestinian prisoners rotting in Israeli jails if they are released in return for Pollard but as far as a peace deal, it will be Israel screwing the pooch again."
The acknowledgment came as Secretary of State John F. Kerry made an abrupt detour to the region as a standoff between Israel and the Palestinians have left the negotiations in deep peril.
Pollard’s release would be an enormous prize for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, providing President Obama with a significant chit in the US-led effort to create an independent Palestinian state.
Forget the sour spin for a moment; that is where this post got its title.
The Obama administration, like Republican and Democratic administrations before it, has publicly resisted strong Israeli lobbying to lighten Pollard’s sentence for spying for a friendly country.
He turned nuclear missile locations over to Israel who turned them over to Russia!
But Pollard’s fate was always presumed to be a potential element of any US-backed solution to the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Really? Or is it an Israeli condition tossed in to sabotage talks completely?
Kerry, accompanied by US mediator Martin Indyk, met with Netanyahu for four hours on Monday night, postponing a planned late-night meeting with Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian Authority president. He met instead with the Palestinian chief negotiator.
The main subject of Kerry’s emergency visit was how to extend peace talks after an impasse was reached over the overdue release of Palestinian prisoners, but the separate question of Pollard’s fate, and what his release might buy for Israel and the United States, hung over the discussion.
A US official said that Pollard’s early release is under discussion, but that no decision has been made. The official requested anonymity to discuss ongoing internal debate over a politically sensitive issue.
A senior Israeli government official confirmed that the Israelis were seeking Pollard’s early release, as part of negotiations on extending talks.
Many writers, bloggers, and analysts -- even the New York Times -- thinks this is a bad idea on the basis of a promise to continue go-nowhere talks.
Release now would probably require a grant of clemency from Obama, but the White House could also recommend an early release late next year, when Pollard becomes eligible for it.
A possible deal being struck for a guy lucky to still be alive?
The political question for the White House is whether to spend the chit now, later — in what is expected to be a drawn-out peace negotiation — or at all.
There is THAT WORD again!
Pollard, 59, was a civilian intelligence analyst for the US Navy who was arrested in 1985 after providing classified information to Israeli agents. He pleaded guilty, was sentenced to life in prison, and is eligible for release in November 2015. He has served almost 29 years.
Pollard has supporters in Israel across the political spectrum, from old leftists to ultra-nationalists. In 2002, when he was out of office, Netanyahu visited Pollard in prison.
Related: Globe Not on Guardian
It's all a "game," isn't it?
Israeli backers say that Pollard’s sentence was unduly harsh and that a defendant convicted of the same crime today would receive a maximum of 10 years. The Israelis also note that he was spying not for an enemy state, but for an ally of the United States. Pollard was awarded Israeli citizenship in 1995.
Like that somehow makes it less treasonous or criminal to the U.S.?
The arrogance is astonishing!
Clemency has eluded Pollard for five administrations.
Meaning if Obama were to do this, the Manning kid must be released and the U.S. must stop making threats and drop all charges against Edward Snowden.
US diplomats have pressed the two sides to move beyond side issues such as Pollard and Palestinian prisoners and focus on issues such as borders and security arrangements that would allow for two states for two peoples.
More like a roadblock.
Netanyahu has refused to carry out the scheduled weekend release of some two dozen Palestinian prisoners, and Abbas has threatened to walk out with a month to go before Kerry’s deadline for an outline of a peace deal.
Netanyahu told his Likud Party Sunday that he will not allow the release unless Palestinians agree to extend talks and warned he would refuse to do it at all unless assured the release would be in Israel’s interest.
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I don't want to talk too much about the "peace process."
"Efforts in Mideast talks renewed" by Josef Federman | Associated Press March 31, 2014
JERUSALEM — American mediators held urgent contacts with Israeli and Palestinian officials Sunday in hopes of salvaging troubled Mideast peace talks — searching for a formula to bring the sides back together and extend the negotiations beyond a late-April deadline.
Officials from all sides said diplomacy has picked up over the past 24 hours, and an Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief journalists, said talks with the Palestinians via the Americans were going on throughout the day.
If they are not supposed to leak why is this in the paper?
With the sides unable to agree on the terms of a promised Israeli prisoner release, the negotiations appear to face a risk of collapse in the coming weeks. Secretary of State John Kerry, in Paris, was considering an unscheduled return to the Middle East on Monday in search of a formula to extend the negotiations.
It's release Pollard, right?
I hope he didn't tie up traffic again.
Is that stuff really helping the catastrophic climate change crisis?
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel told a closed meeting of officials from his Likud Party, “In any case, there won’t be any deal without getting something in return.”
Typical Israeli attitude, and it's why no one likes them.
****************
Under heavy pressure from Kerry, Israel and the Palestinians agreed last July to hold nine months of peace talks, setting a late-April deadline for a deal. When that became unrealistic, Kerry scaled back his goals and said he would aim for a preliminary “framework” agreement by April, with the goal of continuing negotiations through the end of the year to iron out the final details.
Well, the framework failed and not even the bridging proposals are taking root.
But even that more modest goal has run into trouble due to a snag over the prisoner release. When the talks began last summer, Israel promised to free 104 long-serving Palestinian prisoners in four stages, with the final release coming by the end of March. After carrying out the first three releases, Israel has balked at releasing the final group without a Palestinian commitment to extend talks.
Israel’s defense minister said Sunday that “this is a critical week for the Israeli-Palestinian issue.” Moshe Yaalon was speaking after meeting visiting US military chief General Martin Dempsey.
Related: Dempsey said Israel and the United States are closer now in their assessment of the threat Iran poses and America's willingness to act.
Why do you think he went there? To get his marching orders!
Yaalon said Israel appreciates the United States’ “commitment and contribution” in facilitating talks. Israeli officials say they are under no obligation to carry out the final release because of what they say is a Palestinian failure to negotiate in good faith.
Every time Israel accuses someone of something it is conduct of which they themselves are guilty.
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I'm sorry I'm not more enthusiastic; I'm just tired of getting an Israeli press release as a news narrative.
"Mahmoud Abbas moves threaten to derail peace talks; Seeks to join 15 international organizations" by Jodi Rudoren, Michael R. Gordon and Mark Landler | New York Times April 02, 2014
JERUSALEM — The Middle East peace talks verged on a breakdown Tuesday night, after President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority defied the United States and Israel by taking concrete steps to join 15 international agencies — a move to gain the benefits of statehood outside the negotiations process.
That's an appropriate statement since all Kerry and Obama have done is adopt Israel's position throughout the negotiations.
The move, which appeared to catch US and Israeli officials by surprise, prompted Secretary of State John F. Kerry to cancel a planned return to the region on Wednesday, in which he had expected to complete an agreement extending negotiations through 2015.
He was going to rush back to secure Pollard's release, but now that the Palestinians have blocked peace again.... the Zionist spin has me dizzy.
In that emerging deal, the United States would release an American convicted of spying for Israel more than 25 years ago, while Israel would free hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, as well as slow down construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
They don't even mention Pollard by name. That suggestion must not have gone over well, nor did the "slowdown" in construction of settlements.
Abbas, who had vowed not to seek membership in international bodies until the April 29 expiration of the talks that Kerry started last summer, said he was taking this course because Israel had failed to release a fourth batch of long-serving Palestinian prisoners by the end of March, as promised.
Israeli officials say they are not bound by their pledge because no meaningful negotiations had taken place since November.
Has something to do with the religion.
US officials, while rattled, said the Palestinians appeared to be using leverage against Israel rather than trying to scuttle the negotiations.
As if they had any!
Abbas, they noted, did not move toward joining the International Criminal Court, a step Israel fears most because the Palestinians could use the court to contest Israel’s presence in the West Bank.
Still, a senior US official said Kerry’s decision not to return to the region immediately reflected a growing impatience in the White House, which believes that his mediating efforts have reached their limit and that the two sides need to work their way out of the current impasse.
In announcing the moves, Abbas said, “This is our right.” He has been under pressure from other Palestinian leaders and the public to leverage the nonmember observer-state status they won at the United Nations in 2012 to join a total of 63 international bodies.
It's the way Israel went to become established and recognized, and yet it is not good enough for those they oppress.
“We do not want to use this right against anybody or to confront anybody,” he said, as he signed the membership applications live on Palestinian television. “We don’t want to collide with the US administration. We want a good relationship with Washington because it helped us and exerted huge efforts. But because we did not find ways for a solution, this becomes our right.”
The United States voted against the Palestinians’ 2012 bid in the UN General Assembly, and it blocked a similar effort in 2011 at the Security Council, arguing that negotiations with Israel were the only path to peace and statehood.
Everyone knows the U.S. carries Israel's water at the U.N.
Washington has also opposed Palestinian membership in the international agencies, which under a law passed by Congress could prompt a withdrawal of financial aid to the Palestinian Authority and a shutdown of the Palestinian mission in Washington.
While the Palestinians’ pursuit of the international route is widely viewed as a poison pill for the peace talks, both Abbas and Kerry held out hope Tuesday night that they could still be salvaged....
Yet they have reached their limits, and it's all the Palestinians fault for asking the world to recognize their decades-long plight.
“It is completely premature tonight to draw any kind of judgment, certainly any kind of final judgment, about today’s events and where things are,” Kerry told reporters in Brussels, where he was meeting with NATO foreign ministers on the Ukraine crisis.
“I’m not going to get into the who, why, what, when, where, how or why we’re where we are today,” he added. “The important thing is to keep the process moving and find a way to see whether the parties are prepared to move forward.”
You know, the mixed messages really have me confused.
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Related:
"Qatar’s leader, Sheik Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, renewed calls for an Arab mini-summit to resolve differences between the militant group Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, and Abbas’s Western-backed Fatah group in the West bank. Qatar supports Hamas. In his own speech to the summit hours later, Abbas snubbed the Qatari ruler. He poured lavish praise on Saudi Arabia for what he called its generous financial aid to the Palestinians — and made no mention of a proposal by Tamim to set up a fund to help the Arab residents of eastern Jerusalem. Tamim said the resolution adopted a year ago was never implemented, so Qatar will set it up on its own with $250 million from its coffers."
Oh, so the Palestinian split is also a battle for power in the Sunni Arab world, 'eh?
Then why does Israel always claim it is Iran?
At least they all agree on this: Jewish state rejected by Arab League
Did you get your eviction notice yet?
Let the blame game begin!
"Jockeying over blame begins at peace talks" by William Booth and Anne Gearan | Washington Post April 03, 2014
RAMALLAH, West Bank — Israelis and Palestinians began to jostle Wednesday over who should be blamed for the possible collapse of peace talks, even as their representatives met with US officials late into the night to try to keep the negotiations alive.
A day after a major breach, it remained unclear Wednesday night how Secretary of State John Kerry would keep his signature diplomatic effort going....
A decision by Israel over the weekend to delay or cancel a release of a final batch of 26 Palestinian prisoners triggered the Palestinian action, which have left the peace process in limbo.
‘‘Both sides have taken unhelpful steps over the last 24 hours,’’ a senior State Department official said, referring to the Palestinians’ signing of UN treaties and an announcement by Israel that it would build 708 housing units in disputed neighborhoods of East Jerusalem.
That last bit was the final nail in the coffin.
Kerry canceled plans to visit Abbas in the West Bank on Wednesday, but he spoke by phone with both Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
US diplomats do not want the Palestinians to seek greater recognition for a Palestinian state through the United Nations because they say that, ultimately, any viable sovereign Palestinian state must arise from talks with the Israelis, whose military occupies much of the West Bank and who maintain a naval and land blockade of the Gaza Strip.
What a strange position for a nation that immediately recognized Israel through the same channels, although I am surprised to see the Israeli siege described as such.
Neither side has informed chief US envoy Martin Indyk that they want to quit, according to a US official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the discussions.
There was no official word Wednesday from Netanyahu about the Palestinian moves.
Israeli opposition leader Isaac Herzog said neither side should walk away. But some members of Netanyahu’s coalition government said the Palestinians should be punished.
‘‘They will pay a heavy price,’’ Tourism Minister Uzi Landau said on Israel Radio.
What does that mean, more bombings and missile strikes? Cast Lead III?
Kerry had sought Tuesday to play down the severity of the breach and said the immediate goal is to find ways to keep the two sides talking. A senior administration official in Washington said Kerry has gone as far as he can as mediator, absent major decisions by the parties themselves....
It was not clear whether Abbas’s move was part of negotiating brinksmanship or a fundamental shift away from talks with Israel. The Palestinian leader has been under heavy domestic pressure to abandon the negotiations, especially after Israel reneged on its promise to release the prisoners.
They have been ready for talks since day one and have been given the old Israeli run-around!
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"Israel cancels planned release of Palestinian prisoners; Move retaliates for Palestinian act; Kerry trying to save negotiations" by Michael R. Gordon and Isabel Kershner | New York Times April 04, 2014
One of the tough guys of the Amerikan media.
JERUSALEM — Israel said Thursday it would not go through with an already delayed release of Palestinian prisoners and was considering further sanctions against the Palestinians as the threat to the peace talks deepened further despite Secretary of State John Kerry’s frantic efforts to keep the process alive.
This is becoming a bad comedy and farce!
The talks have spiraled into an impasse as each side accuses the other of bad faith and both are now placing impediments in the way of a resolution.
The Israeli decision came after the Palestinian leadership formally applied for membership in 15 international conventions and treaties, a move Israel deemed as an unacceptable violation of the US-brokered terms for the talks that began in July. But the Palestinians say they took that step only after the Israelis failed to meet the deadline for releasing the prisoners.
Worried that the process was in danger of collapsing, Kerry appealed to the leaders to “lead” and not let the atmosphere deteriorate.
*************
But the Palestinians seemed to think they had the upper hand. “For the first time the Palestinians have something to use against Israel if it does not abide by agreements, and we made use of it,” a Palestinian official close to the negotiations said Thursday. “We will not withdraw the applications. They stand.”
Maan, an independent Palestinian news agency, published what it said were new, stringent conditions set by Palestinian negotiators for any extension of the talks beyond April 29. They include a written commitment from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel that he recognizes the 1967 lines as the basis for the borders of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital and the release of an additional 1,200 prisoners — terms the Israelis would almost certainly reject.
But Yasser Abed Rabbo, a senior Palestinian official, told Agence France-Presse that “Israel has a habit of evading agreements and conventions it has signed,” adding: “That is why conditions for future negotiations must change radically.”
Because of that prayer.
An Israeli official said that Jerusalem was considering further practical steps against the Palestinians. In the past, Israel has applied sanctions such as withholding the transfer of tax revenues it collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority.
Yeah, how generous the Israeli occupiers are to collect your money and then give it to you.
Rami G. Khouri, a Palestinian journalist and director of a public-policy institute at the American University of Beirut, said that after months in which a US mandate for secrecy around the talks had largely held, the fight had leapt into the public sphere.
Are you kidding? I saw a lot of articles all along the way!
“You have some posturing going on, which is just another form of negotiating — they’re negotiating in public now rather than in private,” Khouri said. “Each side is trying to curry favor with public opinion so if things collapse, they can blame the other side.”
Honestly, we know who is to blame these days.
Kerry, who began the day in Algiers, remained engaged in efforts to rescue the talks.
What was he doing there, and how is the jet-hopping helping the greenhouse gas problem?
“We will continue to, no matter what, to try to facilitate the capacity of people to be able to make peace,” he said in Algiers....
As he tries to make war in Ukraine and Syria!
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And in the face of all this doom and gloom, Kerry soldiers on relentlessly.... (puke)
What they are talking about in Zionist Israel?
"Former Israeli prime minister Olmert found guilty of taking bribes" by William Booth | Washington Post April 01, 2014
JERUSALEM — An Israeli court convicted former prime minister Ehud Olmert of taking some $140,000 in bribes from real estate developers when he served as mayor of Jerusalem, a ruling that effectively dashes any hopes Olmert had for returning to high office.
The conviction Monday was splashy news in Israel, and even though the legal proceedings had dragged on for two years, it still came as a surprise for many to learn that, for the first time, a former prime minister may be heading to prison.
The 68-year-old Olmert, a political centrist, had hinted that he would like to run for top office again, and many political analysts here said that if anyone could have cobbled together a center-left coalition to topple Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, it was Olmert.
The butcher of Lebanon.
Now the end of his career is being declared.
‘‘His political life is over. There is no coming back from this, even if his appeal is successful,’’ said Tamir Sheafer, a political scientist at Hebrew University.
Olmert, who will be sentenced April 28, faces 10 years in jail. His lawyer said Olmert will appeal the conviction.
Legal analysts said the conviction would almost certainly entail prison time. The crime carries up to seven years in prison. If he goes to jail, Olmert will join a former Israeli president, Moshe Katsav, who is serving a seven-year sentence for rape.
Olmert’s conviction leaves the Israeli center-left without a major figure who could win enough votes to unseat Netanyahu.
Olmert was one of 13 defendants in the case, which centered on the construction of a hilltop luxury high-rise apartment complex in south Jerusalem called ‘‘Holyland Park,’’ which critics consider an oversized eyesore.
The Israeli media have described the case as the largest corruption scandal ever exposed in Israel
Announcing the verdict in a Tel Aviv courtroom, Judge David Rosen said that Olmert had lied to the court and that the case exposed cozy dealings among cronies in a City Hall that grew more and more corrupt.
Olmert served as mayor of Jerusalem from 1993 to 2003. The court found that he received bribes via postdated checks made out to his brother.
Guilty verdicts on bribery charges were handed down for nine of Olmert’s co-defendants.
Olmert was appointed prime minister in 2006 after his predecessor, Ariel Sharon, suffered a debilitating stroke.
Related: So Long, Sharon
He was forced to resign in 2009 to face charges in a different corruption case involving charges of fraud, breach of trust, and tax evasion. In that case, Olmert was found guilty by an Israeli court in 2012 of breach of trust, and ordered to pay fines. He was acquitted of the major counts of fraud.
He ripped off the Holocaust museum and mentally-retarded kids?
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