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End the Spat With Israel
Washington Post ^ | June 29, 2009 | Jackson Diehl

Posted on 06/29/2009 5:29:07 AM PDT by SJackson

The upheaval in Iran offers the Obama administration a host of fresh foreign policy opportunities. Not the least of them is a chance to creep away from the corner into which it has painted itself in the Arab-Israeli peace process.

President Obama began with a broad strategy of simultaneously pressing Israel, the Palestinians and Arab states to take concrete steps toward peace. By the time Iranians took to the streets, it had allowed that broad front to be narrowed to a single point: a standoff with the Israeli government of Binyamin Netanyahu over whether "natural growth" would be allowed in Jewish settlements outside Israel's 1967 borders.

Pressuring Israel made sense, at first. The administration correctly understood that Netanyahu, a right-winger who took office with the clear intention of indefinitely postponing any Israeli-Palestinian settlement, needed to feel some public heat from Washington to change his position -- and that the show of muscle would add credibility to the administration's demands that Arab leaders offer their own gestures. But, starting with a statement by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in May, the administration made the mistake of insisting that an Israeli settlement "freeze" -- a term the past three administrations agreed to define loosely -- must mean a total stop to all construction in the West Bank and even East Jerusalem.

This absolutist position is a loser for three reasons.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Editorial; Israel; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS:

1 posted on 06/29/2009 5:29:07 AM PDT by SJackson
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To: SJackson
Such good advice will be ignored.

The Muslim kid will not end his spat with Israel, support Iranian democracy or cease trying to destroy the U.S. economy because he is a hardcore Leftist (neo Communist). All those mentioned above are Communist positions and TOTUS cannot think of any other way.

2 posted on 06/29/2009 5:35:31 AM PDT by Stepan12 (Palin & Bolton in 2012)
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To: AdmSmith; Berosus; bigheadfred; Convert from ECUSA; dervish; Ernest_at_the_Beach; Fred Nerks; ...

Israel ‘Fed Up’ with US Declarations against Jewish Building in Judea and Samaria
Israel National News | June 29, 2009 | Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
Posted on 06/29/2009 2:29:38 AM PDT by Tzvi INN.com
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2281536/posts

Barkat to halt 70% of East Jerusalem demolitions
[”illegal construction by Palestinians in East Jerusalem.”]
Haaretz | 6-29-09 | Nir Hasson
Posted on 06/29/2009 5:31:13 AM PDT by SJackson
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2281585/posts


3 posted on 06/29/2009 5:41:30 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/__Since Jan 3, 2004__Profile updated Monday, January 12, 2009)
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To: dennisw; Cachelot; Nix 2; veronica; Catspaw; knighthawk; Alouette; Optimist; weikel; Lent; GregB; ..
Middle East and terrorism, occasional political and Jewish issues Ping List. High Volume

If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.

..................

4 posted on 06/29/2009 5:45:35 AM PDT by SJackson (G-d da*n America, Jeremiah Wright---Don't tell me words don't matter!, Barack Hussein Obama)
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To: SJackson

Dear WaPo,

Hussein is a muslim. He will stop hating, betraying Israel as soon as Saudi Arabia does. Get the picture?


5 posted on 06/29/2009 7:17:34 AM PDT by Oldpuppymax (AGENDA OF THE LEFT EXPOSED)
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