Jerusalem – Officials in Jerusalem rejected the possibility that the Obama administration might present an American peace plan and try to impose it on the parties, The Washington Post reported. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last night that he would oppose any attempt to impose a solution on Israel. “It won’t work,†Mr. Netanyahu said to his aides. “Thus far, the administration’s approach has been that he assists, and doesn’t impose, and that indeed is the correct approach.†The Washington Post quoted senior U.S. administration officials who said that President Obama was seriously considering announcing in the autumn a new American peace plan for the Middle East that would be based on the Clinton plan with certain changes. “Everyone knows the basic outlines of a peace deal,†one senior official was quoted as saying, while a second official said that “90 percent of the map would look the same.†“The salient characteristic of this past year has been the rise of radical Islam and its armament,†said Mr. Netanyahu yesterday in response to accusations as if his policies were responsible for the diplomatic deadlock in the region. Mr. Netanyahu refrained from casting blame either on Obama or on prominent European leaders, but that seemed to be his implied intention when he said: “The world has to decide whether it is fighting against the phenomenon of radical Islam or whether it is adapting to it. That has ramifications on the peace process.†Mr. Netanyahu made his statements at a press conference he held in Jerusalem to sum up the first year of his term in office. “This march by radical Islam hasn’t been stopped until now. There are some people who cast responsibility for that on Israel, but anyone who examines the matter in depth knows that that is not the case. The Palestinians, with the support of others, have refused to engage in the peace process.†Regarding construction in Jerusalem, Mr. Netanyahu said it was important to “keep perspective. This isn’t my policy but that of all Israeli governments.†He said that it wasn’t the policy that had changed but “the government in the United States has changed. I won’t say that there aren’t differences of opinion. There are some things that we agree about and some that we don’t.†The BBC has quoted a high-ranking U.S. official yesterday who said that if the issue of Israel construction in East Jerusalem should come before the U.N. Security Council for discussion, the U.S. would not cast a veto, but would consider abstaining in the vote. According to the British television network, a senior official in the Obama administration said this to the prime minister and foreign minister of Qatar during a meeting in Paris last week. In past decades the U.S. has regularly cast a veto on resolutions against Israel in the Security Council. However, such a resolution has not come before the council yet for discussion.

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David Bedein
David Bedein is an MSW community organizer and an investigative journalist.   In 1987, Bedein established the Israel Resource News Agency at Beit Agron to accompany foreign journalists in their coverage of Israel, to balance the media lobbies established by the PLO and their allies.   Mr. Bedein has reported for news outlets such as CNN Radio, Makor Rishon, Philadelphia Inquirer, Los Angeles Times, BBC and The Jerusalem Post, For four years, Mr. Bedein acted as the Middle East correspondent for The Philadelphia Bulletin, writing 1,062 articles until the newspaper ceased operation in 2010. Bedein has covered breaking Middle East negotiations in Oslo, Ottawa, Shepherdstown, The Wye Plantation, Annapolis, Geneva, Nicosia, Washington, D.C., London, Bonn, and Vienna. Bedein has overseen investigative studies of the Palestinian Authority, the Expulsion Process from Gush Katif and Samaria, The Peres Center for Peace, Peace Now, The International Center for Economic Cooperation of Yossi Beilin, the ISM, Adalah, and the New Israel Fund.   Since 2005, Bedein has also served as Director of the Center for Near East Policy Research.   A focus of the center's investigations is The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). In that context, Bedein authored Roadblock to Peace: How the UN Perpetuates the Arab-Israeli Conflict - UNRWA Policies Reconsidered, which caps Bedein's 28 years of investigations of UNRWA. The Center for Near East Policy Research has been instrumental in reaching elected officials, decision makers and journalists, commissioning studies, reports, news stories and films. In 2009, the center began decided to produce short movies, in addition to monographs, to film every aspect of UNRWA education in a clear and cogent fashion.   The center has so far produced seven short documentary pieces n UNRWA which have received international acclaim and recognition, showing how which UNRWA promotes anti-Semitism and incitement to violence in their education'   In sum, Bedein has pioneered The UNRWA Reform Initiative, a strategy which calls for donor nations to insist on reasonable reforms of UNRWA. Bedein and his team of experts provide timely briefings to members to legislative bodies world wide, bringing the results of his investigations to donor nations, while demanding reforms based on transparency, refugee resettlement and the demand that terrorists be removed from the UNRWA schools and UNRWA payroll.   Bedein's work can be found at: www.IsraelBehindTheNews.com and www.cfnepr.com. A new site,unrwa-monitor.com, will be launched very soon.