On Saturday night, Nov. 13th, 2010, as soon as the Sabbath finished in Jerusalem, The Israel Broadcasting Authority, the IBA, reported that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu convened a special session of the inner Israel government security cabinet to request ratification for a new three month Judea/Samaria West Bank housing freeze, at the request of the US Secretary of State, who had met with the Prime Minister in Washington two days before that.

The IBA also reported that the Prime Minister reported to his cabinet that US Sec’y Clinton gave concrete promises in exchange for this request for an Israeli freeze on housing. Those promises included:

1. The US would not ask for any housing freeze in Jerusalem

2. The US would not refrain from requesting for a new Judea/Samaria West Bank housing freeze after another 3 months

3. The US would exercise veto power on Israel’s behalf in the UN Security Council.

Yet the November 13, US State Department web site mentioned nothing of the aforementioned commitments that the Israeli Prime Minister had reported receiving from the US Secretary of State.

At 1AM, Israel time, November 14, our agency contacted the US State Department spokesperson’s office, at their after hours phone line, and left question: Is there any truth, verification or affirmation of these three commitments by the US Sec’y of State to the Israeli Prime Minister. At 4 AM, Israel time, our agency spoke with US State Department duty officer, who stated that the US State Department has no knowledge of the aforementioned commitments from the US Sec’y of State to the Israeli Prime Minister

On Monday morning, November 15, our agency contacted the US State Department communications office during normal working hours, with the same request for verification of any promises that were reported by Prime Minister Netanyahu in the name of the US Secretary of State.

The US State Department spokesperson referred the question to the US consul in Jerusalem, who told our agency, on the record, that he had only heard about these promises from the US Sec’y of State in the Israeli media, with no confirmation of these promises from the US State Department.

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David Bedein
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.

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