The Shakedown of American Pocketbooks Continues in Israel while our V.P. gets publicly embarrassed by their Leaders

What do you do when someone disrespects you?  Give them a boatload of mo’ money!  That’s the real US Policy towards Israel!

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said Wednesday that the Palestinians deserve a “viable” independent state with the contiguous territory.  He was seeking to reassure them of U.S. support after Israel announced plans to expand a Jewish neighborhood in disputed east Jerusalem.

The Israeli move has overshadowed Biden’s visit, which is meant to promote U.S.-led peace negotiations that are set to begin in the coming weeks.

Great!  Our U.S Vice President comes to make peace and the Israelis have contempt for him while they expect us to pay them over $ 10 billion a year in aid money and defense contracts.  With our economy in tatters and states cutting back on education, we’re asked to stand up for Israel and aid them.  You gotta be kidding!   I mean, the least they can do is pretend they support our positions while they rape us blind!

I mean when Israeli leaders embarrass us, should they expect us to send them more money?  Well, for most of us in the normal world, the answer would be NO.  Heck in our daily lives, we would never reward people for stepping on us.  But this is the bizarro world of Israel where normal is not normal and they have a stranglehold around our proverbial necks, well, bizarro is the norm.

At a news conference with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Biden reiterated his condemnation of Israel’s plan and urged both sides to refrain from actions that could “inflame” tensions.

Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai, whose office announced the new construction on lands Palestinians claim for a future state, said the problem was about timing, not substance.

“We had no intention, no desire, to offend or taunt an important man like the vice president during his visit,” Yishai told Israel Radio. “I am very sorry for the embarrassment. We need to remember that approvals are done according to the law even if the timing was wrong. … Next time we need to take timing into account.”

Israel’s planned construction in east Jerusalem was an embarrassing setback for Biden after a day of warm meetings with senior Israeli officials — and drew unusually harsh condemnation from the vice president.

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said the Israeli announcement was “damaging” and posed a “great challenge” to restarting peace talks. Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said the new construction would be the main item on the Abbas-Biden agenda.

“I think the Israeli government is making it almost impossible for us, the Americans and the international community, to take a one-centimeter step in the direction of reviving the peace process,” Erekat said.

Palestinian security forces lined the streets of Ramallah as Biden’s convoy of black SUVs made its way from Fayyad’s office to Abbas’ headquarters, a 10-minute drive. Riot policemen, with their backs to the road, faced small groups of Palestinians watching from side roads and shops.

‘Undermines’ trust
In an apparent snub Tuesday night, Biden pointedly arrived 90 minutes late to his scheduled dinner with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and he sharply rebuked the Israeli step — which came just after the Palestinians agreed to a new round of indirect peace talks under U.S. mediation after a 14-month lapse.

I admire Biden’s snub.  Its’ a good start and sending these contemptuous jerks a message!  But really, they don’t care what Biden does or says.  They know they have our congress so sewed up that the Whitehouse can’t do a dam thing about it except bend over.  So contempt is just a game they can afford to play and laugh at us while they do it.

Biden said “The substance and timing of the announcement, particularly with the launching of proximity talks, is precisely the kind of step that undermines the trust we need right now. “We must build an atmosphere to support negotiations, not complicate them,” he added, warning that “unilateral action taken by either party cannot prejudge the outcome of negotiations.”

Fayyad said the Palestinians appreciated “the strong statement of condemnation” by the U.S. administration.

Israel’s opposition Kadima party said it is planning a no-confidence vote in the prime minister in parliament for “destroying” the Biden visit.

The new construction plan also drew a sharp rebuke from Egypt, Israel’s closest ally in the Arab world, and from U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

“This is absurd. It is disdainful of the Arab and the Palestinian positions and the American mediation,” said Hossam Zaki, a spokesman for the Egyptian Foreign Ministry.

Israeli media lambasted the move, calling it an embarrassment.

“A slap heard round the world,” read the headline of a front-page commentary in Israel’s Haaretz daily.

Israel’s refusal to halt building on war-won land has infuriated the Palestinians and undermined their faith in the U.S. as an effective mediator.

President Barack Obama initially called for a complete settlement freeze but did not take Israel to task when it only agreed to a 10-month moratorium on housing starts in the West Bank. Netanyahu refuses to stop building in east Jerusalem, saying he will never partition the city.

The Palestinians want east Jerusalem, captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast War, as their future capital.

Growing settlements
Earlier this week, the Palestinians reluctantly agreed to indirect negotiations with Israel, with U.S. Mideast envoy George Mitchell to shuttle between Abbas and Netanyahu in the coming months.

Abbas has said he won’t resume direct negotiations without a settlement freeze, leaving the U.S. no choice but to arrange indirect talks in hopes of ending the impasse.

Growing settlements take up more and more of the land the Palestinians want for their state and make partition increasingly difficult. Today, nearly 300,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank and 180,000 in east Jerusalem.

The ongoing construction is also eroding domestic support for Abbas and his policy of trying to negotiate the terms of Palestinian statehood with Israel.

Many Palestinians are critical of U.S.-led peace efforts, saying two decades of on-and-off negotiations have deepened Israeli control over the lands they want for their state, instead of bringing them closer to independence.

The latest Israeli building plan is undermining Abbas, said Erekat. “It’s a really disastrous situation. I hope that this will be an eye-opener for all in the international community.”

At Tuesday’s dinner, Netanyahu told Biden he was caught off guard by the ministry’s announcement, a senior Israeli official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the dinner was closed.

While Netanyahu considers east Jerusalem to be part of Israel, he acknowledged the timing of the announcement was poor and said he had no intention of sabotaging Biden’s visit. He stressed that there are no plans to begin construction anytime soon.

Whatever!  It does not matter because contempt governs as;

• Israel will continue to build settlements on real people’s land while calling them people that don’t really exist.
• The U.S. Congress, thus the American people, will continue to send them billions to commit the crime.
• The American people will continue to lose ground at home while funding an occupation in some foreign land that has no real asset value to us.
• American Rachel Corrie was murdered by an Israeli Bulldozer in defense of peace on March 16, 2003, and no one in America even knows her name!

What a joke!   The peace NO process!   What do we stand for anyway?

Look, I live in the real world and want education for my kid. I don’t care what Israelis or Palestinians want as long as I don’t have to pay for it.  I pray peace finds their children someday.  But as for Joe Biden, hey bud, take it up the wazoo because Israelis have one hand up your arce and the other around your neck while we get the shaft.

And so the shakedown continues!