JPost Editorial: 7/7 and Protective Edge
Just one day after Israelis gathered on Jerusalem’s Mount Herzl Military Cemetery to mark a year since Operation Protective Edge, Britons held their own memorial service in London on Tuesday to commemorate the 10-year anniversary of a series of terrorist attacks on London’s Tube and bus networks.France Drops Pro-Palestinian UN Resolution
These two seemingly arbitrary dates help to illustrate the common threat Israel and other Western states such as Britain face today as they come under attack by radical Islamists. France, Australia, Canada and Belgium have all seen acts of extreme violence that were directly or indirectly inspired by the ideology and aims of a violently reactionary stream of Islam.
A cult of death, a racist hatred of Jews, Hindus, Christians and “unbelievers” and the desire to restore a long-vanished, despotic empire ruled by a medieval Muslim jurisprudence are the common features of the groups that carry out these attacks. In this sense, Hamas and Islamic Jihad are no different than Islamic State, Jabhat al-Nusra or other al-Qaida-affiliated organizations in the Middle East, Europe or elsewhere.
It is common for the news media, foreign political leaders and other shapers of world opinion to attempt to “contextualize” the terrorist attacks directed at Israelis by Islamist groups such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah. When Palestinians target civilians in driveby shootings or ambushes and when they fire rockets and mortar shells at residents of the South, the aggression is framed within the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
France is back-pedaling from a decision to submit a resolution to the United Nations Security Council forcing Israel to renew negotiations with the Palestinian Authority.Released Clinton e-mail reignites question whether Obama reneged on Bush settlement commitments
PA foreign minister Fiyad al-Maliki told Voice of Palestine radio on Tuesday that France was instead advancing a suggestion to form a negotiations support committee.
The move follows a visit to Israel in early June, during which French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius urged the resumption of final status talks between Israel and the PA.
Netanyahu warned in remarks prior to his meeting with Fabius that the international community’s ideas for peace with the Palestinian Authority ignore the security needs of Israel.
Fabius subsequently discussed the issue in depth with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, President Reuven Rivlin, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon and a host of other top government officials.
PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas had already rejected out of hand the most recent French proposal for a resolution in the UN Security Council giving both sides 18 months to reach an agreement. The reason: Under the French resolution, the PA would be required to recognize Israel as a “Jewish” state.
Former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice told her successor Hillary Clinton there was no agreement between Israel and the US regarding where settlement construction was permitted, according to an email made public by the State Department last week.
Bloomberg columnist Eli Lake reported Monday that the email, part of the disclosure of Clinton’s personal emails stored on a private server, was dated June 7, 2009, and sent by Clinton to two aides.
The subject line of the email was “settlements,” and it read, “Condi Rice called to tell me I was on strong ground, saying what I did about there being no agreement between the Bush admin[istration] and Israel.”
Whether the Bush administration reached informal agreements with the Sharon government that it could build inside the construction lines of established settlements has long been a point of contention.
The issue was thrust into the headlines in 2009 because of the Obama administration’s demand for a complete settlement freeze and Israel’s counter claim that by making this demand the Obama administration essentially was reneging on commitments given to Israel under the previous administration.
Former ambassador Michael Oren, in his recent book, Ally: My Journey Across the American- Israeli Divide, said the Obama administration did walk back commitments made by the Bush administration and that this marked the “first time in the history of the US-Israel alliance” that the White House “denied the validity of a previous presidential commitment.”