Posted By Josh Rogin
Tuesday, September 21, 2010 - 4:53 PM
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Russian immigrants to Israel have emerged as a central obstacle to achieving a Middle East peace deal, according to former President Bill Clinton. He voiced fears that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), which increasingly consists of soldiers hailing from this community, might not be fully willing to oppose Israeli settlers as a result.
In a roundtable with reporters during his Clinton Global Initiative conference in New York, Clinton made his most extensive remarks on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process that his wife, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, is spearheading.
"An increasing number of the young people in the IDF are the children of Russians and settlers, the hardest-core people against a division of the land. This presents a staggering problem," Clinton said. "It's a different Israel. 16 percent of Israelis speak Russian."
According to Clinton, the Russian immigrant population in Israel is the group least interested in striking a peace deal with the Palestinians. "They've just got there, it's their country, they've made a commitment to the future there," Clinton said. "They can't imagine any historical or other claims that would justify dividing it."
To illustrate his view on the Russian immigrant community, Clinton related a conversation he had with Natan Sharansky, the former Soviet dissident turned Israeli parliamentarian, who he said was the only Israeli minister to reject the comprehensive peace agreement Clinton proposed at the Camp David Summit in 2000. The proposal was eventually rejected by Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.
"I said, ‘Natan, what is the deal [about not supporting the peace deal],'" Clinton recalled. "He said, ‘I can't vote for this, I'm Russian... I come from one of the biggest countries in the world to one of the smallest. You want me to cut it in half. No, thank you.'"
Clinton responded, "Don't give me this, you came here from a jail cell. It's a lot bigger than your jail cell."
Clinton used the anecdote to explain the Russian immigrant population's attitude toward a land-for- peace deal with the Palestinians. "[Sharansky] was nice about it, a lot of them aren't," Clinton said.
Clinton then ranked the Israeli sub-national groups in order of his perception of their willingness to accept a peace deal. The "most pro-peace Jewish Israelis" are the Sabras, who he described as native-born Israelis whose roots there date back millennia, because they have the benefit of historical context. "They can imagine sharing a future."
Ashkenazi Jews who emigrated from Europe and have been in Israel for one or more generations are the next most supportive of a peace deal, Clinton said.
The "swing voters" are what Clinton called the "Moroccans": North African Jews who immigrated to Israel in the 1970s. He described them as right-of-center citizens who nevertheless want normal, stable lives.
"When they think peace is possible, they vote peace. When they think it's not, they vote for the toughest guys on the block," Clinton said.
Regarding the settlers, Clinton said that their numbers had grown so much since 2000 that their longstanding opposition to giving up their homes in exchange for peace might be more entrenched and therefore a bigger challenge than before.
"In 2000, you could get 97 percent of the settlers on 3 percent of the land. Today, you have to give almost 6 percent of the land to get 80 percent of the settlers," said Clinton. "There were 7,000 settlers in Gaza and it took 55,000 Israeli forces people to move. Somewhere between 50,000 and 60,000 settlers will have to be moved out of the West Bank."
Clinton spoke extensively about the positives and negatives he sees in the ongoing direct peace talks launched by the Obama administration.
"I'd say their chances are at least 50-50," Clinton said optimistically.
The Palestinians' internal divisions, specifically the lack of Palestinian control over the Gaza Strip, present another problem, but one that a peace deal could help solve, he suggested.
"That makes it more difficult for Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu to make a deal and to wonder what a deal means," he said. But if there's a deal on the table, that would create enough pressure for an election in Gaza that President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party would win, Clinton argued.
"I believe if there were an election in Gaza today, Fatah would win because of the greater prosperity and the greater security produced under Abbas and Fayyad," Clinton said, adding that Fatah only lost in Gaza elections because of intra-party faction fighting that saw many candidates run against others in their own party.
There are some factors that point to improved conditions for making a peace deal as compared to 2000, said Clinton. He pointed to the fact that two-thirds of Israelis trust Netanyahu to make a peace deal, more than when Ehud Barak was negotiating, according to Clinton. Also, he said that he has faith that the current Palestinian Authority leadership is serious about reaching a settlement.
"They won't do what Arafat did, they won't get up to the deal and lose their nerve. They know what the future looks like."
In the long term, Israelis will face increased pressures, Clinton said. Because of the high Palestinian birth rate, Israel will become a Palestinian-majority state sometime in the next 30 years, if it does not give up the West Bank.
"Then they will have to decide either to be a Jewish state or a democracy, but they cannot be both. They don't want to face that. They don't want to face not only the international legitimacy question but also the internal identity crisis."
Moreover, Clinton said, Hamas militants will soon have military technology that will allow their relatively low-damage attacks on Israeli population centers to have greater accuracy and lethality.
"It's just a matter of time before the rockets have a GPS system on ‘em and a few rockets will kill a whole lot of people. Netanyahu understands that," said Clinton.
He also said that Arab leaders were on board with Middle East peace now more than ever, partly because they now have Iran as a boogeyman to deflect attention from their unpopular policies.
"They think they've got a real enemy in Iran now, so they don't need a faux enemy in Israel to keep people in the street directed at somebody besides them."
Before pontificating on the peace process, Clinton seemed to realize he was stepping into some sensitive territory, but decided to proceed nonetheless.
"I wouldn't say too much about this if Hillary weren't Secretary of State and in charge of these negotiations, so I'm darned sure not going to say too much now," he said, before going in depth on the issue for over 10 minutes.
Josh Rogin / Foreign Policy
EXPLORE:ARAB WORLD, MIDDLE EAST, CLINTON GLOBAL INITIATIVE, DIPLOMACY, EGYPT, INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, ISRAEL/PALESTINE, OBAMA ADMINISTRATION, POLITICS, STATE DEPARTMENT, TERRORISM, U.S. CONGRESS, U.S. FOREIGN POLICY, UNITED NATIONS 
Bill! The jewish agency teaches hate to the new immigrants!
So when a new immigrant comes to the holy land, he/she is welcome by the Jewish agency that teaches hate to the Arabs and ignorance to the existence of the Palestinians and so on an so forth...
You better check that content... - if you wouldn't convert to arab hater, you will understand that it is worse that hamas's ideologies... These ideologies are zionist ideologies that are encapsulated by the Jewish agency...
Zionism is an infection that the Jewish agency has and passes on to the people it deals with.
STOP THIS LIE YOU CALL "PEACE"
The problem is not in Israel and not in russian newcomers and not in settlers.
The problem is in Palestinians, who desire the complete destruction of Israel by insisting that "refuges" should return to Israel and not to Palestina. The problem is in terror and in Iran that supports it and also in PA who doesn't do enough to stop it. And you mr. Clinton make racist statements, when you was a president, after each terror attack on Israeli citizens you pushed us not to take any actions and demanded more gestures of "good will" from our side. So, in your eyes "peace" means that palestinians take everything they want, do whatever they please (including of killing Israeli civilians, lie about the humanitarian situation in Gaza etc), but for Israel is forbidden to take any action, Israel must accept everything, even if it contradicts with the survival of our country and nation. And you don't care much what would be with us. WE DON'T WANT SUCH "PEACE". I hope you never be president again. You failed enough in the past and we suffered enough from your "clever" ideas enough. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!!! I just wonder how a man with such a low moral like you are yourself (remember Monica Lewinski?), can teach morals the whole Israel nation ? And also by racist statements... Why don't you have balls to say something like "Hamas and Hizbollah obstacles to mideast peace"? ENOUGH DOUBLE STANDARDS!!!
AND GUESS WHO CAME INSTEAD OF US??? HAMAS! NOW THEY SHOOT ROCKETS AND KILL ISRAELI CIVILIANS!!! So you want, us to go out from WB and have hamas instead? No, THANK YOU!
AND DON"T TELL ME HOW I SHOULD WRITE. I AM FREE TO USE CAPS, WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT.
AND KEEP YOUR ADVICES FOR YOURSELF.
come on! enough blaming on russians every s**t that happens in the world.
georgians are selling drugs in Spain - well, they call themselves 'russians' when they get caught,
ukrainians are trafficking prostitutes to Germany - hey, they also call themselves 'russians',
all the ex-soviet scum located in US also calls themselves 'russians' while most of them are from independent states of Armenia, Azerbaizhan, Moldova, Ukraine, Baltic's and the list goes on…
and now the jewest jew Natan Sharansky has also 'become' russian: "He said, ‘I can't vote for this, I'm Russian…" - no, you are not Russian mister Sharansky, you are a jew, or at least an ex-soviet jew… so please, stay jew for the rest of your life in Israel…
pretty soon albanians and kosovars will be called 'russians' by mass-media while trafficking heroin to italy…
no wonder real russians do really get annoyed.
KGB finds way for propaganda even in discussion over Clinton...
Well, well, well... Mr. SM1141DD, KGB propagandist... You know, that famous Russian scientists and artists are considered Russian NOT by their ethnicity, but by country name and because Soviet Union was still considered Russia... More over, you perfectly aware, that most of them ethnically NOT russians... and you are well informed, that if modern national-stalinists, like yourself, instead of propaganda honestly deduct those, ethnically not pure, from list of famous Russians... this brilliant list will be shortcut many times... dramatically down... all famous Ukrainians, Georgians, Jews, etc... you still consider Russians... For example, Dmitriy Mendeleev, was born in ethnically Jewish family, which religiously converted into Orthodox Christianity... so, to the contrary, it is KGBists, who annoyed Real Russians... all Russians, ethnically pure and not so pure, but born in Russia.
Now, speaking about Clinton's allegations... I suspect, that Mr. President by error or intentionally cut Scharansky words... Awkward jock about Russian inability to adjust within small country has little to do with real roots of problem Clinton touches... People from former USSR just too well know their Arab "friends"... Also, Russian Jewry (actually all from Eastern Europe inclusive) still had memories... and those memories a little bit different comparably to Western and American Jewry... These are memories of gas chambers... read some comment here and you may smell it again... So, Mr. Scharansky is not so much can't adjust to small territory, but he DIDN'T LOSE HIS MEMORY.
hmm.. why start by calling people you do not know names?
to my knowledge KGB does not exist anymore to start with, secondly, I really doubt this type of lame discussion would interest any type of organization like KGB or CIA or NSI or whatever…
being so blindly russophobic and scared of ghosts of the past you have missed just one important thing..
..if you are an american for instance, I bet you would hate to be called: fat, arrogant, lazy, greedy redneck, ain't it? well, that's what the whole world thinks of 'americans' - I don't, because I lived in America and around the world and know that it is not true, because all people are different and you can not judge them by their nationality, skin color or mother tongue..
why give a bad name to the whole nation while doing nasty things being of a different nationality?
i have polish blood, does that mean if i kill somebody I should call myself 'polack'? and when i do a good thing I should be called 'russian'?
…and what KGB has to do with all that, walter??? get a grip!
The most amazing thing is that mr.Clinton
calls himself as a "friend" of jewish people. Well, with friends like him and like Ram Oren, who needs enemies?
Bill Clinton is single handedly responsible for the disastrous state of the US economy and global insecurity. While he was fornicating in the world’s highest office, Osama Bin Laden planned the nightmare that would change the world forever. Americans should be ashamed at themselves for not recognizing this and supporting his post-Presidency popularity. Clinton should shut up and just do what he does best - cigars and Monicca!
ex-pesident B.Klinton,
ARE YOU SCARED IMIGRANTS FROM RUSSIA??? :)))
I THINK YOU ARE!
SO, WE ARE NOT ONLY IN ISRAEL, WE ARE ALL AROUND.
GO ISRAEL, WE WITH YOU!
Shame on you mister Ex president: Shalom Haver
I am a Sabras, native-born Israeli, whose roots here date back millennia; I'm also Ashkenazi Jew and have been in Israel for two generations. I would have been supportive of a peace deal, Peace – as an end for their claims. Although this is my land, the Jewish people only state, our homeland for 3,000 years, if only I would have heard the Arabs say for once: Yes, for two-state solution for two nations. two nations! They never did. For 60 years. They preferred war over two state solution at 1948 when it was offered them, so they got their Nakba as a result. They still can't say it. Russian immigrants are not "an obstacle to peace deal", they are clever and realistic, they are not elder hippies like you and your surrounding.
I am the "Russian central obstacle to peace"
I am very grateful to Mr. Clinton for his sincere recognition of our (including my) modest contribution to security and stability of the State of Israel. I’d like to assure Mr. Clinton that “the Russian” in Israel will oppose to her suicide in form of “painful concessions for the sake of peace”, will serve in the army and work for prosperity of our beloved country.
History teaches us that so called “peace process” leads directly to new terrorist attacks and to war. Rule of the game in the Middle East is simple: the more concessions to the Arabs – the closer war. And I think that even one Israeli killed by terrorists is too high price for victory of the Democrats on the next US elections.
Major arguments of Mr. Clinton for “peace” are false
Major arguments of Mr. Clinton for “peace” are false.
1.“…the high Palestinian birth rate” – birth rate is controlled by life conditions of population; the better conditions – the less birth rate. The birth rates of Israeli Arabs and Jews are almost equal (something like 3.6 and 3.2 respectively). It means that when the “palestinian” Arabs will achieve economic prosperity their birth rate will decrease. Such a prosperity apparently is not possible not because of Israel but because of wild regimes of FATAH and HAMAS. There are 22 Arab states that have enough territory and resources to accommodate their fellows Arabs form the territories controlled by Israel. But the Arab states don’t want this real peace and prefer to blame Israel.
2. "Then they will have to decide either to be a Jewish state or a democracy” – there is no any controversy here: Israel is a Jewish state, and persons who don’t want to recognize this should not vote.
3.“"It's just a matter of time before the rockets have a GPS system on ‘em” – yes, and there is no point to wait for that: the criminal regime that deliberately kills civilians should be mercilessly crushed by force – similarly to what the US did with Saddam’s regime in Iraq after 9/11.
Gentiles, when they do not hate all Jews, often find subsets of Jews that they oppose or blame for all the world's ills, based on origin of birth, occupation, political affiliation, location, etc. For Bill Clinton, it is Israeli Jews who immigrated from Russia, whom he blames for the failure to end the Arab-Israeli conflict. They should be grateful, he thinks, just to live on a small piece of land, outside the West Bank, when the alternative could have been Russian jail cells. And he manages, too, to pass judgment on other Jewish immigrant groups as to their degrees of culpability.
Sometimes it is hard to overcome your background and, for a Southerner like Clinton, condemning groups comes as second nature, especially if he finds them “uppity,” as I am sure he does with the Russian Jewish immigrants, over-accomplished as they are in science, medicine and the arts. Not that Clinton doesn't believe that favoring and disfavoring groups is not bigotry, and even purges him of it, if he just chooses the right (i.e., politically correct) ones, his philosophy throughout his presidency.
But there is kernel of truth his claims about the Russians' skepticism about so-called “peace proposals.” Having lived under the thumb of pogromchiks and barely escaped the Holocaust, they are legitimately apprehensive about buying into pie-in-the-sky settlement proposals that would put people in control of land adjacent to them who have conducted an uninterrupted campaign of genocide against the Jews of Palestine for over 70 years and used every property they controlled to launch attacks of mass murder against them. They are especially reluctant to relinquish their rights when the Jews' entitlement to the land is no lesser than that of the Syrians', Lebanese and Iraqis' to their lands, under the same international system and rules established in the early 1920s and, not in their cases, ever challenged.
While, in the short term, Israel may owe its prosperity to the accomplishments of its Russian Jewish immigrants, in the long term, it may well owe its salvation to their realism.
Bill Clinton is unwilling to accept Jews as Jews. He does not even know that there would be peace between Arabs and Israel if the ARABS stopped making war on Israel.
He does not even know that "Palestinian" has been synonymous with "Jew" sincethe Roman Emperor Hadrian changed the name of Judea to "Palestina" in 135 A.D. after he had defeated the last Jewish uprising under Bar Kochba. He wanted to eradicate all memory of Judea and Judaism (he outlawed Judaism). Since that time, "Palestine" became synonymous with "land of the Jews" or "the Holy Land" (since Jesus was a Jew), and "Palestinian" synonymous with "Jew." That is why the Zionists wanted the "Palestine Mandate" and why Great Britain was awarded the "Palestine Mandate" after World War I as the "homeland of the Jews."
Calling Arabs "Palestinians" is a consequence of Soviet propaganda, for Nasser and the Soviet Union in Cairo in 1964 invented the "Palestine Liberation Organization" with all the phony history to accompany it. Israel should certainly not give up any territory, including the propaganda-named "West Bank," namely, Judea and Samaria, for a "Palestinian" state named "Palestine." It should not give up any territory it controls, in any case, for military reasons, and the Arabs, as phony "Palestinians" do not deserve yet another state. The only "Palestinians" are the Jews, with the state of Israel.
After reading the former President's comments, I'm left with
a question.
.
Back in 1999, where were these so-called anti-Peace "Russians"?
.
The fact of the matter is, regardless of minister Sharansky's vote back in 1999, the Israeli cabinet supported then Prime Minister Ehud Barak in making peace with the Palestinians.
.
Indeed, it was Yasser Arafat, who then President Bill Clinton, declared was unable to make peace.
.
Of course, since then, the Palestinians went on to support the use of violence against civilians, including suicide bombings, and then elect HAMAS, which outright declares itself to be not only against the peace process, but wedded to violent extremism, and an eternal Jihad against the Jews, with the goal of killing them all on the way to ultimately destroying Israel.
.
But the 16% of Israeli's who speak Russian, they are the ultimate stumbling block?!?
GPS attachments vs. the IDF. Who's taking the bets because I
think that President Clinton did not properly calculate the odds.
.
Back in 2002 / 2003, the journal Foreign Affairs published an article about the Palestinian tactic of using suicide bombers against Israeli civilians. The article mentioned how this tactic was akin to a 'nuclear bomb', a strategic weapon that Israel could not defend against. It was the use of suicide bombers that would lead the Palestinians to victory . . . . or not.
.
The reality is, Israel still holds the military advantage in a conflict with the Palestinians. HAMAS, regardless of any advances in its weapons systems, and planned attacks on Israeli civilian targets, with GPS systems or not, is still is limited by its lack of territory, and Israel's own military capabilities.
.
As was seen back in December of 2008, if Israel should decide to again meet the threat of HAMAS' violence head on, HAMAS, and its supporters in Gaza are going to lose. The question really is, how many dead Jews it will take before Israel's government feels the need to stop the violence emenating from Gaza.
Arab leaders boarding the peace train?
I'm getting a muddled image of judge Mary Murphy from "So You Think You can Dance" and King Abdullah, and Syria's Bashir Assad. I can't say that its a pretty picture.
.
The reality is, the Arab and wider Muslim world appear no more ready to join the peace party today than they have in the previous six decades. It was only as far back as this summer when Saudi King Abdullah penned an op-ed published in the New York Times. In it, he declared that not only would the Arab world not offer Israel any incentives for the risks it was taking for peace then, but the Saudis in particular, refused to even as much acknowledge Israel's Jewish character, let alone deign to meet with Israel. Of course this is hardly suprising given that Abdullah couldn't even be seen shaking the hand of Israel's Prime Minister back during the last peace get together in Annapolis. In between the two dates, Yemen saw itself ethnically cleansed of its last 100 or so Jews, who were not able to safely live even within the confines of its capital city after fleeing for their lives from their homes due to the threat of violence by Muslim Yemenites, with one of them killing a local rabbi after demanding that he convert to Islam on the spot.
.
Indeed, even Ariel Sharon's offer to fly to Riyadh to meet face to face with the Saudi king to then discuss his "Arab League" peace plan was rejected.
.
Meanwhile, Israel's former ally, Turkey, finds it better to cuddle up next to Sudan's genocidal leader Bashir, praise HAMAS and Hizballah, and attempt to grow its economic ties with Iran. All while stating just short how it could easily have gone to war with Israel earlier this year.
.
Of course there is Egypt that one could rely on. You know, the signer of that famous 1978 peace treaty with Israel. And yet, that same 'peace partner', continues to black list Israeli researchers from attending international medical conferences in Egypt for cancer research, even as the government claims that it was a "Jewish conspiracy theory" that prevented an Egyptian minister from obtaining a prominant UN post for the arts.
.
Somehow, I'm just not as encouraged as President Clinton in this regard.
Fucking Clinton. Kiss My Ass. Shit.
I now think that Monika Levinski was the Russian Jew. (:(:(:
Funny enough that Mr. Clinton thinks he knows better what's better for Israel than the Russian Jews who ARE indeed living here.
Bill Clinton's evaluation on Russian Jews
Say those words somebody else nobody would pay attention, espesially us Russian Jews. Towards us we heard here in Israel words much more worse not even from ordinary people but from elite. What is interesting the accusations Clinton made are the same of the Israeli leftist. So let's them.
The last wave of Jews coming from former USSR countries started almost simultaneously with bringing Arafat, the murderer, from Tunisia to Israel with 20000+ fighters. Then it was Oslo agreement and ... thousands of Jews and Arabs killed, including Rabin, Prime Minister of Israel. Who was the director of the agreement? Clinton. Everybody saw that picture : Clinton, Rabin, Peres, Arafat shaking hands and smiling. Nobel Prices were awarded, paradise was espected but ... Later on Ehud Barak suggested to Arafat everyting Arabs could only dream, lands, part of Jerusalem and what not. What was the result? A new intifada with thousands killed and injured. Who was the director of Camp David talks - again Cllinton. Then same Barak withdraw Israeli forces from Lebanon and Hisballa created a military force not each regular country has. They kidnapped our soldiers, killed them and to have the dead bodies back Israel freed hundreds of murderers. Later on the second Lebanon war started and again thousands killed. Then Sharon decided to withdraw our troops and settlers from Gaza strip. No single man was left, all jewish buildings including synagogues were destroyed. And result was shelling our cities and kidnapping Gilad Shalit, an israeli soldiers. For more than eight years arabs shell our cities before Israel went into new military operation. Again thousands killed and injured. All those agreements and aftermath killings were right in front of us, Russian Jews. You should not be that smart to understand that the old elite politics, based on modern leftist ideas, is wrong. All those agreements bring blood and desperation.
But Clinton says and Clinton is an honorable man. A pure Shakespeare's character!
Russian Jews, is your body itching? It is Clintons are crowling over you.
We knew for a long time that all of them traitors, but nobody listened to us.
These agreements won't give result. Palestinians don't look for peace and don't want the state.
I in all streets of Israel said that it is the country very small and it is impossible to give anything. But to me said that I understand nothing in the politician. Possibly Israelis will be happy, when from Israel remains one Tel-Aviv. They will be happier, when Israel at all won't be.
We knew for a long time that all of them traitors, but nobody listened to us.
John Hudson reports on national security and foreign policy from the Pentagon to Foggy Bottom, the White House to Embassy Row, for The Cable.
May/June 2013
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