Moving the goal posts

Well, according to Hillary Rodham Clinton, "Israel is making "unprecedented" concessions on West Bank settlement construction." What is she talking about? Israel is continuing with its on-going  construction of about 3,000 houses in the West Bank and with building east Jerusalem. So, this is what actually happened; Obama asked Netanyhu to halt construction. Bibi, naturally, refused, then Washington agreed on a so-called "compromise". In the meantime the Palestinians don't get a say in any of this and the so-called "compromise" means in effect that America accepts Israel's position and now we have Hillary spouting out her drivel.

What we have, of course, is Hillary portraying her ally Bibi as a reasonable man, a man who makes sacrifices in the cause of peace and there is Bibi doing this level best to lend weight to this false image and saying that he "hoped the Palestinians would "get a grip"" and drop their demands that settlement construction should be halted before negotiations start. Yes, Bibi right on "get a girp" Palestinians, "get a grip". What a clown and it really would appear that these people either don't want to understand, or they understand and don't really care. 

Of course, it has nothing to do with them not understanding or even not understanding and not caring. This strategy is quite simple; the goal posts are being moved every day and nothing would suit Israel and most of their friends in America more than sitting down with the Palestinians and having negotiations that revolve around the illegal settlements rather than the real issues which will have to be solved before this conflict ends; namely, the ethnic cleansing of 1948, the illegal occupation itself and the status of Jerusalem.


In the meantime, the media makes sure that "Joe Soap" and "Otto Normalverbraucher" naively believes that Bibi is indeed a generous man and that he is willing to concede some "disputed territory" and there is no time even to peruse the real story, a story of ethnic cleansing and illegal occupation. Finally, while it is good to see Abbas refuse to enter any negotiations "without a complete freeze on Israeli settlement construction" and his spokesman, Nabil Abu Rudaineh, adding"If Clinton thinks that we are going to return to the negotiating table while the bulldozers are working in the settlements she's deluding herself," it would be nice to hear one of them, or even both of them, scream at the top of their voices; "the occupation is illegal and the construction of settlements is illegal". Don't let them move the goal posts!