MEMO
To: President Barack Obama
From: Laura Jones - http://www.mamaleh-larisa.com
new site - http://how-soon-jerusalem.weebly.com/
Date: September 27, 2010
Subject: Who’s afraid of Israeli settlers these days?
Mr. Presudent Barack Obama:
I readied my latest “hornswoggled” memo by Saturday last, but was unable to post it. When this sort of thing happens – I usually soon discover that there was more to my message than I realized.
As the weekend wore on, it came into my mind that I had simply not had time to address the Israeli – uh mess, I don’t have time to search for a more descriptively detailed designation.
I began my research with Bill Clinton’s latest remarks, here is an RIANovosti report which for some reason omits what Clinton said was his concluding retort to Sharansky – according to him, Natan did not have the last word! I’m sure some of your people can check it out for you, if you’re not au courant already.
Netanyahu upset by Clinton's comments about Israeli Russians
11:48 23/09/2010
© RIA Novosti Alexei Nikolskiy
Related News
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu expressed regret over U.S. ex-president Bill Clinton's comments that Russian immigrants to Israel were an obstacle to the Middle East peace process, the Jerusalem Post said on Thursday.
"As an old friend of Israel, Clinton must know that immigrants from the former Soviet Union have made a huge contribution to the strengthening and development of Israel and the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF)," the paper quoted Netanyahu as saying.
Clinton told a round table with reporters in New York on Monday that the children of Russian immigrants made up an increasing proportion of the IDF and so forcibly removing settlers from the West Bank as part of a peace deal may prove difficult.
"An increasing number of the young people in the IDF are the children of Russians and settlers, the hardest-core people against a division of the land. This presents a staggering problem," Clinton said.
The U.S. ex-president recalled a conversation he had with Natan Sharansky, the former Soviet dissident turned Israeli parliamentarian, who was the only Israeli minister to reject the peace agreement Bill Clinton proposed at the Camp David Summit in 2000.
"I said, 'Natan, what is the deal [about not supporting the peace deal]. He said, 'I can't vote for this, I'm Russian... I come from one of the biggest countries in the world to one of the smallest. You want me to cut it in half. No, thank you.'"
The July 2000 Middle East Peace Summit at Camp David involved Clinton, then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, and Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat. It was an unsuccessful attempt to negotiate a "final status settlement" to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
MOSCOW, September 23 (RIA Novosti)
I, myself was in Israel on 3 extensive visits in 1986 – ’88. I was at the time concerned with the Russian Orthodox religion, since during the atheistic Soviet regime Russia had raised up more martyrs than at any time since the early pagan persecutions against the Christians. I visited Russia in 1984 and marveled at the palpable piety in the Russian churches – I was like: I haven’t experienced this level of religious intensity since my maid used to take me to her black church when I was growing up in the South! I could find no way to spend more time in Russia itself - but the only convent of the Moscow Patriarchate in a country I could readily travel to was in Israel.
I was too into this primary purpose to concern myself much with Israel as such, but at the end of my first visit, I discovered that Israel had a program whereby you could get a reduced El Al fare by serving as a volunteer in the IDF for 3 weeks. Which I did on my next 2 visits. One of my sons-in-law maintains that he enjoys “setting himself apart from the crowd” with the question: “Who else here present can say that his mother-in-law has served in the Israeli army?”
I found both stints fun and interesting and tremendously informative. The point I wish to make in this regard at the present moment is that, the Intifada being then newly launched, it was stressed to us repeatedly by IDF personnel at every level that the Israeli government in no way supported settlement in captured non-Israeli territories – which was then and remains today forbidden by international law. They even tried to pretend that such settlement did not exist!
Fast forwarding to the present, my question for you, Mr. President is: How did we become so beholden to this internationally illegal and morally cruel travesty of all that is humane and sacred – and I know whereby I speak, as I spent Shabbat with an Israeli family each time I was an IDF volunteer. The second time I specifically asked to stay with a “religious” (as so defined in present-day Israel) family. I found myself placed in one of the settlements built specifically to form a Jewish ring around Jerusalem. It was built right in the face of a Palestinian town which had stood for centuries, maybe more, and which was for all intents and purposes imprisoned by the adversarial Jewish challenger. The parents spoke Hebrew, I had no language in common with them, so the 12 year old daughter stuck to me like Teflon to explain everything – definitely a chilling presence given what she communicated: the mantra repeated non-stop being “it is OUR land, THEY stole it from us.” The more traditional Jewish women (this family was 3rd generation Israeli) did not go to Synagogue, I was told, so – since I specifically asked to go - the 12 year old girl and I went with the husband, who said he could not miss Synagogue, he needed to meet with the other Synagogue men as the Arabs ----- I don’t recall what the stated offense was, but I suggested that the Jewish men “needed to talk to them,” (I was still very naïve at that juncture) and he instantly spat back at me: “NO!!! WE DON’T TALK TO THEM!!!” I had no need to ask for further clarification.
And so forth and so on ……… until over these years we have come to this current impasse.
Dubya, your predecessor, was not unaware that – uh something was rotten in demark, let’s just say. But every time the issue arose, Nobel Peace laureate Elie Wiesel & Co. would organize a march in Washington – and that would be that.
You Mr. Prestdent, are not so politically vulnerable that you must continue to cave in to this settler ploy. Tony Karon thinks you can call Ahmadinejad’s bluff.
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2021608,00.html
The Method Behind Ahmadinejad's U.N. Trash Talk
Why not also call Netanyahu’s bluff while you’re at it?
To: President Barack Obama
From: Laura Jones - http://www.mamaleh-larisa.com
new site - http://how-soon-jerusalem.weebly.com/
Date: September 27, 2010
Subject: Who’s afraid of Israeli settlers these days?
Mr. Presudent Barack Obama:
I readied my latest “hornswoggled” memo by Saturday last, but was unable to post it. When this sort of thing happens – I usually soon discover that there was more to my message than I realized.
As the weekend wore on, it came into my mind that I had simply not had time to address the Israeli – uh mess, I don’t have time to search for a more descriptively detailed designation.
I began my research with Bill Clinton’s latest remarks, here is an RIANovosti report which for some reason omits what Clinton said was his concluding retort to Sharansky – according to him, Natan did not have the last word! I’m sure some of your people can check it out for you, if you’re not au courant already.
Netanyahu upset by Clinton's comments about Israeli Russians
11:48 23/09/2010
© RIA Novosti Alexei Nikolskiy
Related News
- Moscow-Jerusalem: fifteen years of cooperation
- Israeli schoolchildren to study Soviet Jewish immigration
- Mutual visa free regime enters into force between Russia, Israel
- Russia, Israel to switch to visa-free regime in Sept. - embassy
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu expressed regret over U.S. ex-president Bill Clinton's comments that Russian immigrants to Israel were an obstacle to the Middle East peace process, the Jerusalem Post said on Thursday.
"As an old friend of Israel, Clinton must know that immigrants from the former Soviet Union have made a huge contribution to the strengthening and development of Israel and the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF)," the paper quoted Netanyahu as saying.
Clinton told a round table with reporters in New York on Monday that the children of Russian immigrants made up an increasing proportion of the IDF and so forcibly removing settlers from the West Bank as part of a peace deal may prove difficult.
"An increasing number of the young people in the IDF are the children of Russians and settlers, the hardest-core people against a division of the land. This presents a staggering problem," Clinton said.
The U.S. ex-president recalled a conversation he had with Natan Sharansky, the former Soviet dissident turned Israeli parliamentarian, who was the only Israeli minister to reject the peace agreement Bill Clinton proposed at the Camp David Summit in 2000.
"I said, 'Natan, what is the deal [about not supporting the peace deal]. He said, 'I can't vote for this, I'm Russian... I come from one of the biggest countries in the world to one of the smallest. You want me to cut it in half. No, thank you.'"
The July 2000 Middle East Peace Summit at Camp David involved Clinton, then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, and Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat. It was an unsuccessful attempt to negotiate a "final status settlement" to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
MOSCOW, September 23 (RIA Novosti)
I, myself was in Israel on 3 extensive visits in 1986 – ’88. I was at the time concerned with the Russian Orthodox religion, since during the atheistic Soviet regime Russia had raised up more martyrs than at any time since the early pagan persecutions against the Christians. I visited Russia in 1984 and marveled at the palpable piety in the Russian churches – I was like: I haven’t experienced this level of religious intensity since my maid used to take me to her black church when I was growing up in the South! I could find no way to spend more time in Russia itself - but the only convent of the Moscow Patriarchate in a country I could readily travel to was in Israel.
I was too into this primary purpose to concern myself much with Israel as such, but at the end of my first visit, I discovered that Israel had a program whereby you could get a reduced El Al fare by serving as a volunteer in the IDF for 3 weeks. Which I did on my next 2 visits. One of my sons-in-law maintains that he enjoys “setting himself apart from the crowd” with the question: “Who else here present can say that his mother-in-law has served in the Israeli army?”
I found both stints fun and interesting and tremendously informative. The point I wish to make in this regard at the present moment is that, the Intifada being then newly launched, it was stressed to us repeatedly by IDF personnel at every level that the Israeli government in no way supported settlement in captured non-Israeli territories – which was then and remains today forbidden by international law. They even tried to pretend that such settlement did not exist!
Fast forwarding to the present, my question for you, Mr. President is: How did we become so beholden to this internationally illegal and morally cruel travesty of all that is humane and sacred – and I know whereby I speak, as I spent Shabbat with an Israeli family each time I was an IDF volunteer. The second time I specifically asked to stay with a “religious” (as so defined in present-day Israel) family. I found myself placed in one of the settlements built specifically to form a Jewish ring around Jerusalem. It was built right in the face of a Palestinian town which had stood for centuries, maybe more, and which was for all intents and purposes imprisoned by the adversarial Jewish challenger. The parents spoke Hebrew, I had no language in common with them, so the 12 year old daughter stuck to me like Teflon to explain everything – definitely a chilling presence given what she communicated: the mantra repeated non-stop being “it is OUR land, THEY stole it from us.” The more traditional Jewish women (this family was 3rd generation Israeli) did not go to Synagogue, I was told, so – since I specifically asked to go - the 12 year old girl and I went with the husband, who said he could not miss Synagogue, he needed to meet with the other Synagogue men as the Arabs ----- I don’t recall what the stated offense was, but I suggested that the Jewish men “needed to talk to them,” (I was still very naïve at that juncture) and he instantly spat back at me: “NO!!! WE DON’T TALK TO THEM!!!” I had no need to ask for further clarification.
And so forth and so on ……… until over these years we have come to this current impasse.
Dubya, your predecessor, was not unaware that – uh something was rotten in demark, let’s just say. But every time the issue arose, Nobel Peace laureate Elie Wiesel & Co. would organize a march in Washington – and that would be that.
You Mr. Prestdent, are not so politically vulnerable that you must continue to cave in to this settler ploy. Tony Karon thinks you can call Ahmadinejad’s bluff.
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2021608,00.html
The Method Behind Ahmadinejad's U.N. Trash Talk
Why not also call Netanyahu’s bluff while you’re at it?