Consulate for the Palestinians on Agron Street, one hundred meters as the crow flies from the Shufersal Cheese Department, 300 meters from the Prime Minister's Residence - it's more East USA than East Jerusalem
How to understand the interest of the American Consulate in Jerusalem? Will the Biden administration go all the way? According to a credible American source, the administration is broadcasting self-confidence when they say that eventually the consulate will open. And this is what they say, with the thought of offering Israel a tempting package of compensation in return.
At the memorial meeting for the late Yitzhak Rabin, opposition leader Netanyahu tried to deter the Americans, and no less to remind the current prime ministers that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel: "Rabin said: There are no two Jerusalem. There is one Jerusalem. Jerusalem was ours. She's our day. And she will remain ours forever. This is what our friends in the United States need to be told today. "The consulate has closed. It should not reopen."
We need to go back to the days when the Biden government came to power. At the same time, the International Crisis Group published a document with points for dealing with the Palestinian issue and the Middle East in general. Rob Mali, a friend of Anthony Blinken and in charge of negotiations with the Iranians, has been at the head of the organization for years. He retired in the period before Biden entered the White House.
It is clear that the policy proposals of the "crisis group" are from Mali's seminary. The line there was against Israel and aid to the Palestinians. All of President Trump's initiatives have been declared to have damaged the political process between Israel and the Palestinians; The guiding principle is the cancellation of all Trump initiatives. This is not new. The issue of opening a consulate in Jerusalem is definitely in the recommendations; The American recognition of Israel's sovereignty over Jerusalem and the relocation of the embassy is considered by Biden and his people to be one of Trump's negative actions.
Biden said he would not return the embassy to Tel Aviv, but would open a consulate for the Palestinians. Recent consecutive talks, especially by Blinken, on the process of opening a consulate for the Palestinians have led Palestinian Prime Minister Muhammad Eshtiya to declare that it means the division of Jerusalem. .
According to the American lawyers who at the time represented Menachem Zibotepsky, who was born in Jerusalem and wanted to register his birthplace, Israel, the opening of the consulate means an appeal if not the abolition of Israel's sovereignty in Jerusalem. "This is not a matter of dividing Jerusalem," Aliza and Natan Levin wrote in Newsweek. "This is a matter of revoking Israel's sovereignty over Jerusalem."
If the Americans intend to act as required in the international literature, in coordination with Israel, then there will be no escape from a crisis with our great "friend" the United States. That is, to present to the Americans a complete refusal and let them think what to do next.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Bennett, and some ministers like Gideon Saar and Yoaz Handel, have said they oppose the opening of the consulate; according to reports, such a move will also dismantle the government. The mantra: "It will be after the budget." The opposition is probably much more coordinated than its image in the media, and there are contracts that after the budget transfer, coalition members will feel more free to get off the ship.
At the time, after Trump moved the embassy quickly and efficiently to Jerusalem , Without all the apocalyptic visions promised, he said that the US recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel does not preclude further negotiations, including on Jerusalem. But he did not mess with the borders of Jerusalem - where it begins, where it ends, what in the middle.
But negotiations, unlike in the past, are probably not what the Biden administration is striving for. The trend, as revealed in the "Crisis Group" document, is one-sided, with the aim of pressuring Israel if not actually punishing it. This is a continuation of the Obama administration's predatory line, which ended in a jarring chord when it initiated a Security Council resolution stating that everything beyond the '67 lines is illegal - including the boutique near the Western Wall, not to mention all construction in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria.
In this spirit, the Americans can decide that a consulate in the east of the city is not within the boundaries of the international lines of the State of Israel, and carry out the opening process of the unilateral consulate, ignoring Israel, the government's opposition. Consulate for the PA on Agron Street, one hundred meters as the crow flies from the Shufersal cheese department, 300 meters from the empty prime minister's residence - it's more the eastern United States than East Jerusalem.
Observers in Jerusalem, who have been well acquainted with the political issue for generations, recognize that the process of American withdrawal - as a continuation of the Obama administration's withdrawal - continues.
Despite the smiles and the Israeli desire to return to the American lap.
What we are eating now on the subject is the result of the government's not drawing red lines by its senior representatives before the government, right from the start.
What the government can afford and what not.
This was probably due to an excess of desire to demonstrate the "new wind blowing."
The unilateral route is suitable for Americans;
Biden knows that the Palestinian issue is a political "loser."
The fiasco in Afghanistan may have changed something in Biden and Linken's plans on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, but we do not yet know how.
Even President Obama was skeptical of Biden as president: "Joe's ability to do anything should not be underestimated."
Ben-Gurion's favorite
From the family pedigree to the loyalty in the Altalena affair, the relationship between the late David Ben-Gurion and the late Yitzhak Rabin has been unique throughout the years
. There is only one speaker who resembles Rabin - and that is Benjamin Netanyahu. He is closest to him politically, in terms of security principles. This does not mean that Rabin liked him. On the contrary. But over the years, the impression is different.
Rabin is close to Netanyahu; The left. And there is Rabin of "us and them." Rabin's decision on Operation Entebbe in July 1976 was probably much more difficult than his decision on the Oslo Accords. Whereas Oslo, although severely damaging to national security, was like an experiment of an innovative drug, apropos of the corona.
The drug did not work and it allowed another prime minister, Netanyahu, to gradually remove the country from this valley of weeping and even open new horizons. If we had not tried the drug, we would not have known. If we had continued, we might have marked Rabin Memorial Day on the sands of Tahiti.
There are doubts about the special treatment that the first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, had of Yitzhak Rabin. The first landmark is BG's meeting with Rabin in 1949, when Chief of Staff Dori ordered Palmach commanders not to attend the Palmach conference.
On the day of the conference, Rabin was at Ben-Gurion's home in Tel Aviv. At one point he said he had to say goodbye in order to make it to the conference. Ben-Gurion deliberately tried to prolong the conversation in order to delay him and thus prevent him from attending the conference. Rabin attended the conference, but was not expelled from the IDF like other senior members of the Palmach command.
Somewhere Ben-Gurion's affection for Rabin is more interesting than his attitude toward Moshe Dayan and Shimon Peres. Journalist and historian Shlomo Nakdimon says it is clear that there was a special treatment there, but to this day it is not clear what the source is. Rabin was the son of Rosa Cohen and Nehemiah Rabin, from the pioneering founding generation. He also expressed complete loyalty when he commanded the Palmach fighters who shot at Altalena, including the survivors who jumped into the sea and swam to shore.
Rabin felt close to BG, unlike his friends, most of whom hated the old man until the end of their lives. I encountered this remnant of hatred when I met Ike Aharonovitch more than 15 years ago. The harsh words he absorbed collapsed.
Unlike Persia and Midian, which were originally from the Phoenicians, Rabin comes from the Palmach heritage as a "red brigade."
He came from the left, in addition to Altalena fighting for Jerusalem as Brigadier General Harel, and BG saw him as an important asset that needed to be fought.
He asked Eshkol to appoint him chief of staff.
Rabin (left) and Ben-Gurion // Photo: GPO,
Where is the defendant?
"Project 315" delves into the 315 items that are considered Walla's unusual response to Netanyahu, and it is clear that this is a more thorough work than that of the prosecution in the trial
if the prosecution in British times had functioned as the State Attorney's Office today, Stavsky, Rosenblatt and Ahimair were already swinging from above. Those who mercilessly expose the dysfunction of the State Attorney's Office in the Netanyahu trial are the team of Project 315. They are headed by Guy Levy, Moshik Kovarsky, Moshe Melal and Dr. Adi Sabo, a brilliant psychologist.
They delve into the 315 items that are considered an exceptional response to Netanyahu, to give him positive and sympathetic coverage. For starters, Dr. Sabo has now completed a required study on the comparative coverage in the media of the leading candidates in the 2013 and 2015 elections. There are no surprises, but documentation in percentages of Benjamin Netanyahu's negative coverage. 24 percent positive. Compared to Shelly Yachimovich, who received slightly more than 10 percent negative coverage and over 80 percent positive coverage. Bennett then received about 52 percent positive and close to 20 percent negative. 60 percent and the positive coverage is reduced to below 10 percent.
"In a bribery deal, the main questions are about the gift he receives and the mental element. In fact, we found that what Netanyahu received from Walla - means that there is no 'gift', "said his grandfather Adi when I spoke with team members 315 on the eve of Rabin Memorial Day.
Moshe Melal: "The main figure in the investigations and the indictment is not Mandelblit but Shai Nitzan. Nitzan clearly said that this is a precedent-setting accusation and should be started from someone. According to such rules of the game, a politician cannot talk to journalists."
In general, Moshik Kovarsky says that splitting those 315 news items brings up the following picture: 136 These are unanswered demands. Or they asked for them to be downloaded from the site and not downloaded. Or they asked for a positive article and the result was negative. 153 items do not represent an exceptional response because the same coverage can be found on other sites. There are 24 left of which five are undefined and unknown events and also undated. At the end are left six items that can be defined as an exceptional response. For example, a request from Rubinstein, who is a family friend, to include information about Sarah Netanyahu who organized a fun day for children with cancer.
"No politician is behind us," they say. "To date we have produced 10 videos that have been uploaded to YouTube. There is all sorts of speculation about the videos. Everything is our job." Guy Levy previously worked with Amir Ohana. I saw him lecture on the project. He is an honest and candid man, and his analyzes of the materials are convincing. And it's also clear why. The 315 items were hastily and carelessly collected. There is no doubt that Levy, Kowarski, his grandfather and Melal and their volunteers did a much more thorough job of researching the content of the coverage in Walla than the prosecution. These collected the materials only after the judges reprimanded them that they should bring examples of a gift in the form of an unusual positive cover.
"If there was a crime, Ilan Yeshua should have been charged," says Melal.
"He is the conduit through which everything passed. Aviram Elad never spoke to Bibi. All he says is rumor. What he heard from Salvation."
Owner Elowitz's desire to maintain a balanced website is more than legitimate.
If any coverage that does not blacken Netanyahu, raises suspicion and requires treatment by the State Attorney's Office and the police - then we are not in a world of freedom of the press.