Tag Archives: Ehud Barak

White House Press Office

Remarks by the Vice President to the AIPAC Policy Conference

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By The White House

Walter E. Washington Convention Center
Washington, D.C.

10:35 A.M. EST

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Mr. President. (Applause.) It’s great to be here. It’s great to be here. (Applause.) Hey, Debbie.

Ladies and gentlemen, oh, what a difference 40 years makes. (Laughter.) I look out there and see an old friend, Annette Lantos. Annette, how are you? Her husband, Tom Lantos, a survivor, was my assistant, was my foreign policy advisor for years. And Tom used to say all the time, Joe — he talked with that Hungarian accent — he’d say, Joe, we must do another fundraiser for AIPAC. (Laughter.) I did more fundraisers for AIPAC in the ‘70s and early ‘80s than — just about as many as anybody. Thank God you weren’t putting on shows like this, we would have never made it. (Laughter.) We would have never made it.

My Lord, it’s so great to be with you all and great to see — Mr. President, thank you so much for that kind introduction. And President-elect Bob Cohen, the entire AIPAC Board of Directors, I’m delighted to be with you today. But I’m particularly delighted to be with an old friend — and he is an old friend; we use that phrase lightly in Washington, but it’s real, and I think he’d even tell you — Ehud Barak, it’s great to be with you, Mr. Minister. Great to be with you. (Applause.)

There is a standup guy. There is a standup guy. Standing up for his country, putting his life on the line for his country, and continuing to defend the values that we all share. (Applause.) I’m a fan of the man. (Applause.) Thanks for being here, Ehud. It’s good to be with you again.

Ladies and gentlemen, a lot of you know me if you’re old enough. (Laughter.) Some of you don’t know me, and understand I can’t see now, but in the bleachers to either side, I’m told you have 2,000 young AIPAC members here. (Applause.) We talked about this a lot over the years. We talked about it a lot: This is the lifeblood. This is the connective tissue. This is the reason why no American will ever forget. You’ve got to keep raising them. (Applause.)

Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve stood shoulder to shoulder, a lot of us in this auditorium, defending the legitimate interest of Israel and our enduring commitment over the last 40 years. And many of you in this hall — I won’t start to name them, but many of you in this hall, starting with Annette Lantos’s husband, who is not here, God rest his soul — many of you in this hall have been my teachers, my mentors and my educators, and that is not hyperbole. You literally have been.

But my education started, …read more
Source: White House Press Office

News, Politics, Government

Israeli minister: Assad's fall imminent

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Israel’s defense minister is predicting that the fall of Syrian President Bashar Assad is imminent, and he says that would be a major blow to regional archrival Iran.

Ehud Barak‘s appearance Sunday at a conference in Germany comes days after an Israeli airstrike that U.S. officials say hit a convoy of anti-aircraft weapons inside Syria bound for the militant Lebanese Hezbollah group.

Israel hasn’t publicly acknowledged that. Barak stopped short of confirming it Sunday, but said “what happened in Syria several days ago…” is “proof that when we said something we mean it — we say that we don’t think it should be allowed to bring advanced weapons systems into Lebanon.”

Predicting Assad‘s fall would “happen imminently,” he added: “This will be a major blow to the Iranians and Hezbollah.”

Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News

News, Politics, Government

Israel's Netanyahu appears poised for third term

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With no viable alternative in sight, incumbent Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears poised to secure a third term in office following Tuesday’s general election.

Netanyahu wraps up four years of relatively stable reign, in which he boasts of pushing the Iranian nuclear threat to the top of the international agenda, deterring terrorism against Israel and keeping its economy afloat despite a worldwide recession.

But critics point to a stalemate in peace talks with the Palestinians, an expansion of West Bank settlements and a rift with President Barack Obama that have characterized his term. A protest movement against the country’s high cost of living has cut into his public support, and the huge deficit his government has run up promises tough budget cuts following the election.

Even so, the country’s splintered opposition parties and their largely inexperienced leaders have little hope of unseating him.

Together with his three-year term as premier in the late 1990s, Netanyahu, 63, has now served longer than any other Israeli prime minister besides the country’s founding father, David Ben-Gurion.

Yet he has little to show for it on the diplomatic stage. The reason, academics explain, is Netanyahu’s stand-pat approach: He has refrained from taking bold, yet criticized, steps like those of his predecessors — Ehud Barak‘s peace offers to Syria and the Palestinians or Ariel Sharon’s unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.

“He’s succeeded in doing nothing and therefore he can’t be blamed for anything,” said Reuven Hazan, a professor of political science at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University. “The problem is that the status quo doesn’t hold in the Middle East. Things change and time isn’t working in our favor. Something has to be done and this inaction doesn’t help us.”

Since being elected, Netanyahu has sent mixed messages on a variety of fronts. He grudgingly accepted the notion of a Palestinian state in parts of the West Bank, and imposed a partial freeze in settlement building to allow a resumption of peace talks. But he also questioned Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas‘ commitment to peace and angered the world with renewed settlement construction.

It’s part of the mystery of Netanyahu: Is he a pragmatist who plays to his base with hard-line rhetoric or an ideological hard-liner who pays lip service to international opinion?

The answer is unlikely to be found in his next term. Polls show his Likud earning just over a quarter of parliament’s 120-seats, so Netanyahu will likely form a coalition government that could include hard-line and religious parties opposed to territorial concessions.

On the other hand, with a re-elected Obama and an impatient European leadership expected to put more pressure on him, he may be interested in building a moderate coalition.

Either way, his supporters seem drawn to the tough image Netanyahu has cultivated in dealing with world pressure.

“He’s not afraid of Obama. He cares about the people of Israel and represents the Jewish and Zionist interest better than anyone else,” said Shlomo Lipshitz, a 51-year-old religious Jerusalemite.

Gabi Magzimov, 36, said Netanyahu was the strong leader Israel needed to stave off international pressure.

“He provides security and he wants peace, but not at any price,” he said.

The son of a prominent historian, Netanyahu has a keen sense of Jewish history. In his speeches, he often refers to the Jews’ ancient link to the Holy Land and how modern Israel can survive in its hostile region only by never letting down its guard.

Netanyahu followed his older brother Yonatan’s footsteps in the elite Sayeret Matkal military commando unit. Yonatan died in 1976 while commanding a raid that freed Israeli and Jewish hostages from a hijacked plane at Entebbe, Uganda. His death became etched in Israeli lore, catapulting the Netanyahu family into the national spotlight.

Netanyahu, often referred to by his nickname, ‘Bibi,’ spent part of his youth in the United States, where he acquired his American-accented English, and later completed two degrees at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, represented Israel as a diplomat in Washington and ambassador at the United Nations.

In Israel, he rocketed up the Likud ranks and beat out several veterans to take over the party after the retirement of Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir. In 1996, he won a narrow election victory to become Israel‘s youngest prime minister at age 46.

His three-year term was marred by political deadlock, internal strife and scandals involving his influential wife, Sara. He was voted out and replaced by Barak. He then dramatically retired from politics, wrote his fifth book and made considerable money on the lecture circuit.

He returned to public life in 2002 to serve as Sharon’s foreign minister and finance minister. He criticized the 2005 unilateral Gaza withdrawal but voted for it several times in parliament, before resigning from the government to protest the pullout.

After serving as opposition leader, he recaptured the premiership in 2009 and established a broad coalition government that granted him unprecedented political backing.

“We’ve seen a political learning curve. He’s improved from his first time around,” said Efraim Inbar, director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University. “He has a legacy when it comes to the economy: more than anyone else in Israel, he is identified with liberalizing the economy and shifting the country toward capitalism.”

There, too, Netanyahu exhibited his practical side, with populist moves like promoting free education and dental care for children and raising the minimum wage.

One of the main achievements of his second term was securing the release of a Israeli soldier held captive by Hamas militants for five years. The deal included the freeing of more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, including hundreds of convicted killers. That emboldened Hamas and ran contrary to Netanyahu’s previous opposition to negotiating with terrorists. The exchange, though widely popular, further enhanced his reputation as someone who was easily pressured and whose beliefs were flexible when balanced against his political survival.

He also carried out an eight-day offensive against Gaza rocket squads last November but agreed to a cease-fire that many say helped Hamas.

Inbar said Netanyahu was a man of “most impressive skills and a wonderful communicator” who has proven a steady hand in power and willingness to compromise. He doubted he would emerge as a grand initiator in his third term.

“The chance for major changes is not great,” he said. “I don’t think that is his way.”

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News

News, Politics, Government

Israel's Labor head poised to be Netanyahu gadfly

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Just seven years after quitting her job as a high-profile media commentator, the leader of Israel‘s Labor Party appears to be on track to become head of the country’s second-largest parliamentary faction and the leading voice against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

And if Netanyahu’s coalition somehow falls short of a majority in next week’s election, Shelly Yachimovich would likely wind up with a far more important job: prime minister of Israel.

Yachimovich, 52, took over Labor, the once-storied movement that led Israel to independence, in late 2011 at one of its lowest points. Buoyed by a social protest movement, she revitalized the party by veering away from its traditional dovish platform of promoting peace with the Arabs and focusing almost entirely on the economy, jobs and the country’s various social ills.

Her political ascent, along with the strength of the Israeli right wing, underscores that pursuing peace with the Palestinians is not a winning campaign issue among Israelis, who appear to have lost faith that West Bank lands can be traded for peace.

Skeptical Israelis point to the rising strength of Hamas militants in Gaza Strip, the uncertainty roiling the region as the Arab Spring unfolds, and the wide gaps with moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas that have kept negotiations deadlocked the past four years. Even when Israeli leaders proposed what they considered far-reaching offers, during the 2000-2001 negotiations and again in 2008, no deal was reached.

Netanyahu’s Likud-Beiteinu bloc remains far ahead in the polls before the Jan. 22 vote, and Yachimovich has vowed not to serve in a Netanyahu government. As a result, she looks likely to become the country’s new opposition leader, a forum that could allow the articulate populist to further burnish her credentials for any future race for prime minister.

Yachimovich appears set nearly to double Labor’s presence from eight to as many as 18 seats in the 120-seat parliament. That would leave it well behind Likud-Beitenu but still the second-largest party in parliament.

Although Labor‘s roots were socialist, Yachimovich’s economy-focused approach has alienated some of Labor’s traditional supporters. Critics accuse her of turning Labor — which dominated Israeli politics for the country’s first 30 years and produced prime ministers like David Ben-Gurion, Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin — into a niche party that ignores Israel‘s diplomatic and security challenges and fails to present a viable alternative to the security-obsessed right.

Last week, acclaimed Israeli author Amos Oz attacked Yachimovich for neglecting the Palestinian issue, saying she was worse than former Labor leader Ehud Barak, who serves as Netanyahu’s defense minister. Barak’s defection from the party in 2011 opened the way for Yachimovich to take the helm.

“He (Barak) says there is no solution. She (Yachimovich) says there is no problem,” said Oz, one of the most eloquent voices of Israel‘s left.

Yachimovich has also tiptoed around some of the traditional targets of the left — the huge government outlays on West Bank settlers and ultra-Orthodox Jews — in an effort to appeal to working-class voters who like Netanyahu’s hard line on security but have been hurt by his economic policies.

Israel Radio political analyst Hanan Kristal gave Yachimovich high marks for making the party younger, more dynamic and “changing its DNA.” But he said she was not a strong prime ministerial candidate like Netanyahu, or Barak and Ehud Olmert before him, because of her narrow focus.

“She’s channeled the Labor Party into a one-issue party,” he said. “That’s her ideology, but it’s also her strong suit. She’s not as strong when it comes to diplomacy and security.”

Public opinion polls confirm that most Israelis do not see her as prime ministerial material, and overwhelmingly see Netanyahu as best suited for the job. But if pre-election polls prove dramatically wrong and Netanyahu and his allies don’t win enough support to form the next government, that task could fall to her.

Yachimovich’s one-time mentor-turned-rival, former Defense Minister Amir Peretz, abruptly left Labor last month to team up with former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni in a new party whose focus is resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Peretz, a former Labor leader, assailed Yachimovich for avoiding the conflict with the Palestinians.

“Labor gave up its historic role as the leader of the peace movement,” he charged.

Yachimovich told the Yediot Ahronot newspaper website recently that Labor “is not a leftist party and never was. … It strived for peace out of pragmatism and not out of some romantic dream of peace.”

“It is much harder to deal with the socio-economic agenda,” she added.

As a journalist, author and radio show host, Yachimovich made her name as a passionate advocate for the downtrodden. She has acknowledged voting in the past for Hadash, a party which has communist leanings. The daughter of Holocaust survivors from Poland, Yachimovich often invokes her working-class roots by mentioning that her father worked in construction. She has two children and lives in Tel Aviv.

In politics, she has been an energetic lawmaker, passing legislation on behalf of the poor and promoting woman’s rights. But it was the mass grassroots protests against Israel‘s high cost of living that erupted in the summer of 2011, drawing hundreds of thousands into the streets, that provided her tail wind.

Taking aim at Netanyahu, she has depicted him as a cold capitalist out of touch with the average Israeli.

While the country has a per capita income approaching Western Europe’s, the gaps between rich and poor are wide, and many people have trouble making ends meet. Few seem to have benefited from the country’s impressive economic growth while many have suffered from the erosion of social welfare safeguards.

Unlike Netanyahu, Yachimovich tends to favor a strong government safety net.

Netanyahu’s campaign has focused on how he has fought Palestinian militants and stood strong against Iran’s suspected nuclear program. But this week’s news that Israel‘s 2012 national deficit ballooned to twice its initial projection, roughly $10.5 billion, played right into Yachimovich’s hands.

“Netanyahu is leading the Israeli economy to total collapse,” she said. “Four more years with him, and the damage will be irreversible.”

Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News