Israel "apologizes" to Biden

Just a couple of days ago, Vice President Biden vowed undying devotion to Israel. He stated unequivocally that the U.S. will stand by its friend and ally on matters of Israeli security. Shortly after, while Biden was meeting with Palestinian officials regarding the stalled peace talks, Israel chose to unveil their plan to build 1600 more homes in East Jerusalem.
While Israel is apologizing for embarrassing VP Biden they are explaining that in their point of view, they recognize that the error was merely one of timing.

Israel apologized Wednesday for disrupting the visit of Vice President Joe Biden with its announcement of 1,600 new homes in disputed east Jerusalem, but made clear it had no intention of reversing the order that has cast a shadow over the latest U.S. push for Mideast peace.

As Biden held talks with top Palestinian leaders in the West Bank, Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai, whose office announced the new construction on lands Palestinians claim for a future state, said the problem was about timing, not substance.

"We had no intention, no desire, to offend or taunt an important man like the vice president during his visit," Yishai told Israel Radio. "I am very sorry for the embarrassment. We need to remember that approvals are done according to law even if the timing was wrong. ... Next time we need to take timing into account."

The problem here is that while they are apologizing, they are skirting over the point entirely. They are saying that the devil be damned, we are going to do what we want to do (claiming that the homes are lawful if I read that correctly), but that they will watch when they say things. Problem solved!

Biden is said to have made unusually harsh condemnations over the announcement but the fact of the matter is, the Palestinian side made the more truthful and the most harsh statement, one that should come from the U.S and the international community. One that is obvious and long overdue.

Biden's talks with the Palestinians on Wednesday were aimed in part to ease their doubts about the latest U.S. peace efforts. Israel's planned construction in east Jerusalem was an embarrassing setback for Biden after a day of warm meetings with senior Israeli officials — and drew an unusually harsh condemnation from the vice president.

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said the Israeli announcement was "damaging" and posed a "great challenge" to restarting peace talks. Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said the new construction would be the main item on the Abbas-Biden agenda.

"I think the Israeli government is making it almost impossible for us, the Americans and the international community, to take a one centimeter step in the direction of reviving the peace process," Erekat said.

Absolutely true, without a doubt.
Egypt didn't hold back either.

The new construction plan also drew a sharp rebuke from Egypt, Israel's closest ally in the Arab world, and from U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

"This is absurd. It is disdainful of the Arab and the Palestinian positions and the American mediation," said Hossam Zaki, a spokesman for the Egyptian Foreign Ministry. (more at the source)

Disdain indeed. I have yet to read anything on more serious attempts at damage control but it seems to me that this, along with the Dubai murder, the continued expansion into Occupied Territory and the fact that Gaza remains under tight strangulation ( I might add, etc. etc.) are all adding up to the fact that Israel, as it stands today, is not a friend or ally to anybody, least of all, to itself.

Israel Self Destruct Mode

I think Israel is in all sorts of trouble. They can’t seem to get their message working for them, they have become fractured. On the one hand you have the ones who continue to adhere to the “age old standard” of “Deny, Deny, Deny” and the ever popular “Poor Little Israel the Never ending victim. Take for instance the sad fact that Mirit Cohen, Spokesperson, Permanent Mission of Israel to the UN has now sunk to the level of writing whining and whinging letters to news papers that dare to publish anything contrary to the “Offical Israeli Government” line. More after this pathetic mess below:

Israel Seeks Fairness From ‘New York Times’

Dear Mr. Clark Hoyt, Public Editor of The New York Times,

I write in connection to a series of articles published in The New York Times in recent weeks regarding the Report of the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, colloquially referred to as the Goldstone Report. I am deeply concerned by the subjective and often damning language that The New York Times uses towards Israel as it fails to accurately reflect the nature and scope of the report.

Over and over, The New York Times’ articles on this matter employ language that easily leads the reader to believe that the Goldstone Report found conclusive evidence that Israel committed war crimes. In Neil MacFarquhar’s “U.N. Council Endorses Gaza Report” (Oct. 16), the article states that the Goldstone Report “details evidence of war crimes committed by the Israeli Army…” In Sharon Otterman’s “Gaza Report Author Asks U.S. to Clarify Concerns” (Oct. 22), the Goldstone Report is described as having “found evidence of war crimes committed by Israel…” In yet another example –– MacFarquhar and Otterman’s “Palestinians, in Reversal, Press U.N. Gaza Report” (Oct. 14) –– the Goldstone Report is once again described as having “found evidence of Israeli war crimes…” These articles reflect only a sample of the many that discuss Israel vis-à-vis the Goldstone Report in conclusive and condemnatory terms.

I wish to reiterate Israel’s position that the Goldstone Report is deeply flawed and one-sided as it offers legitimacy to Hamas terrorism and its deliberate strategy to launch attacks, store weapons and use as shields the civilian population and infrastructure of Gaza. At the same time, the report’s mandate predetermined its findings that wrongly condemned Israel’s legitimate exercise of its right to self-defense. The tendency of The New York Times to gloss over such realities must be rectified and I sincerely hope that paper will use accurate and appropriate language to ensure that its coverage of the Goldstone Report and the wide Middle East is fair and honest. I remain at your disposal if you would like to further discuss this matter.

Yours truly,

Mirit Cohen, Spokesperson, Permanent Mission of Israel to the UN

And then you have some Israeli’s who are beginning to see the penny drop. They have been to the mountain top and seen the wind is now blowing against Israel. Israel’s “old ways” of getting what it wants are no longer working. Even the endless cries of Anti-Semitism levelled at anyone who dares criticize Israel’s actions don’t work because they have been ill used, wrongly used, and over used. (example in above letter from the Israeli UN official) However, whilst people like Mirit Cohen and the other thousands of “Zionist Apologists” are still focusing all their attention at using hasbara against newspaper articles, others Israeli’s are seeing the bigger picture, the more dangerous picture, the more sinister picture of Israel’s future:

Criticism is one thing, wanting Israel abolished is another

First there was the Goldstone report, with its accusations that Israel committed war crimes during Operation Cast Lead in Gaza.

That was followed by the J Street conference, celebrated by many as an opportunity to demonstrate their devotion to Israel by encouraging the U.S. to get tough with it, to force it out of the militant and pro-occupation mindset it has allegedly forged for itself.

Then there was the appearance in English of Tel Aviv University professor Shlomo Sand’s new book, “The Invention of the Jewish People,” with its claim that the concept of a Jewish people was a late invention, which the Zionists cynically manipulated to justify their taking land from the indigenous Arabs.

Finally, verging on the surreal, Donald Bostrom, the Swedish journalist who authored the article accusing Israel of harvesting organs from Palestinian victims of Cast Lead, was invited to a conference in the Negev.

The utterly predictable responses are not terribly interesting. On one side of the divide, there are those who assail Goldstone for unfairness, J Street for allowing its campus activists to drop the “pro-Israel” portion of its “pro-Israel, pro-peace” moniker, Sand for shoddy and self-hating scholarship and the Dimona Media Conference, which invited Bostrom, for utter naïveté.

What’s so dangerous is clear on the Amazon.com page for Sand’s book.

In the “Customers who bought this item also bought” section, one will find: “Israel and Palestine: Reflections, Revisions, Refutations” by Avi Shlaim, the well known post-Zionist; “Debating the Holocaust: A New Look at Both Sides,” as if there’s actually something to debate; and “Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner’s Guide.”

But there is also suicidal folly in denying what we know: Were the U.N. to vote today on the creation of Israel, the motion would fail, for the world has decided that Israel was a mistake. No other country anywhere is subjected to debate as to whether it should exist.

And that is the fact that matters more than any other.

The ultimate question is the one that the biblical Joshua posed to the angel (Joshua 5:13): “Are you with us, or do you seek our destruction?” It is frustrating, and tragic — but right now, in the world in which we live, those are our only choices.
Read it in its entirety here

Yes, I think for some the penny has dropped. Because soon the struggle will no longer be about newspaper articles, but instead will be on the validity of allowing the continuation of a rogue apartheid state to exist at all.