Netanyahu Plans Major Policy Speech Next Week

Curt Here...

The article posted below says that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will deliver a major policy address next week detailing how he thinks peace can be achieved in the Mideast. This speech will be in response to President Obama's speech that was given last week in Cairo, Egypt.

In that speech President Obama made it very clear that he believes Israel must freeze West Bank settlement construction and then Israel must negotiate towards Palestinian statehood. The Palestinians believe that Israel must do this first before any chance of peace in the Mideast can occur.

President Obama and many other international leaders, believe that Israel's past leaders have made commitments towards this goal. These agreements include the Road Map for Peace and the ENP agreement with the EU.

Now, the Netanyahu Coalition Government must live up to these past agreements, even though Netanyahu was elected stating that he did not believe that portions of these agreements were the right course for the future of the Nation of Israel. He has stated this publicly for quite some time.

To compound things this article also shows that the Bush Administration made an agreement with past Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, that allowed Israel to continue to build in some existing settlements in the West Bank and any future peace agreement would acknowledge this. Now that Obama is in power he says these past agreements between Sharon and Bush are invalid.

It is amazing to me that according to President Obama, Israel must live up to all agreements made by past Israeli governments, but the US does not have to live up to our past administrations agreements.

It should be quite interesting to see exactly how Netanyahu addresses this hypocritical stance by President Obama.

Stay Tuned.

Curt

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Netanyahu plans major policy speech next week

JERUSALEM – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday he will deliver a major policy address next week laying out his proposed road to Mideast peace, after coming under stiff U.S. pressure to freeze West Bank settlement construction and endorse Palestinian statehood.

Netanyahu offered no hint of what he might say. Bound by his hardline coalition and his own ideology, the Israeli leader has resisted the U.S. demands so far, deepening an unusually public faceoff with Israel's most important ally.

"It must be understood, we seek peace with the Palestinians and with the states of the Arab world while trying to reach as much understanding as possible with the United States and our friends abroad," the Israeli leader said at the start of the weekly Cabinet meeting.

"Next week I will make an important policy speech in which I will present to the citizens of Israel our principles on achieving this peace and security," he said.

The Palestinians want the West Bank and Gaza Strip for their future state and say they won't renew peace talks until Israel agrees to freeze settlement construction and negotiate Palestinian statehood.

President Barack Obama's administration hopes that halting settlement expansion would encourage the Arab world to make overtures toward Israel, as well as improving U.S. relations with Arab states. In speeches last week in Egypt and Europe, Obama pressed hard for a settlement freeze and a two-state solution.

Israel has claimed that it reached unofficial agreements with former President George W. Bush's administration to keep building in some existing settlements. It has also cited a 2004 letter signed by Bush saying any peace deal would recognize "new realities on the ground" in the West Bank, seen as a reference to main settlement blocs close to Israel.

Many of the understandings were reached between 2001 and 2003, according to Dov Weisglass, who was a top aide to then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. The Bush administration agreed to allow construction within the boundaries of existing settlements, Weisglass told Army Radio.

However, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said on Sunday that the White House would not recognize past informal understandings. "That was never made a part of the official record of the negotiations," Clinton said in comments broadcast on ABC-TV.

The U.S. pressure is pushing Netanyahu into a difficult position, caught between preserving Israel's crucial alliance with Washington while placating his coalition government, dominated by hardliners. Netanyahu's own long-held commitment to Israeli rule over the West Bank is also a factor.

For more click link...http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090607/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_israel_palestinians