US government will not confirm offer of F-35 planes
1 Comments Published by Avi Green on Monday, November 15, 2010 at 9:49 PM.
The Obama administration is unclear on an offer Israel shouldn't even be taking in exchange for another building freeze:
No wonder the opponents of this latest effort to undermine Israel are doubtful of US pledges:
Update: John Xenakis at Big Peace has an entry worth reading with more info, and says that this whole farce is taking on an almost comic flavor.
The United States on Monday refused to confirm a key component of the security guarantees it reportedly offered Israel in exchange for a 90-day freeze on new settlement construction in the West Bank.And the latter could be the answer in this case. So already they're confirming that their latest stunt could be nothing more than a trick.
Supporters of the freeze have cited the US offer to give Israel 20 F-35 joint strike fighter jets worth $3 billion as a critical reason to support the deal; the initial details of which were hammered out last Thursday between Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
But when quizzed about the weapons offer, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said, “We are committed to maintaining Israel’s qualitative edge in the region – but beyond that, I’m not going to comment."
"I would just always caution that any time you have reports about specific things, some details may be right, some details may be wrong,” Crowley said.
No wonder the opponents of this latest effort to undermine Israel are doubtful of US pledges:
Diaspora Affairs Minister Yuli Edelstein told The Jerusalem Post that he and other Likud skeptics are not convinced that, despite assurances to the contrary, the US will give its support in writing to continued Jewish construction in east Jerusalem or to a commitment that the mooted 90-day freeze would be the last such moratorium on new construction in the settlements.There's a point to made that guarantees that are only temporary are not worth much, and there's no telling if it'll last.
Furthermore, Likud rebels are warning, an American promise of a guaranteed one-year US veto in the Security Council against any Palestinian moves to unilaterally seek statehood, rather than representing a benefit for Israel, constitutes something of a threat, since it opens the door to the possibility that, after the year is over, the US might in fact support Palestinian unilateral moves.
Update: John Xenakis at Big Peace has an entry worth reading with more info, and says that this whole farce is taking on an almost comic flavor.
Labels: Israel, Jerusalem, UN corruption, United States
Netanyahu is seeing the American fig leaf melt faster than an ice cream scoop on a cone in July.
He's already broken a promise not to impose another freeze on Yesha and without the fig leaf, another freeze extension is not even worth presenting to the Cabinet.
Netanyahu should have gotten American promises nailed down in writing before taking the home. Now he looks like a boob. You would think he would have gotten Clinton to write it all down.
And far from strengthening his position the American backtracking has weakened him.