The Economist:
Five months after Barack Obama went to Cairo and persuaded most of the Arab world, in a ringing declaration of even-handedness, that he would face down Israel in his quest for a Palestinian state… [f]rom the Palestinian and Arab point of view, his administration… has meekly capitulated to Israel…
Hamas, the Islamist movement that runs the Gaza Strip, the smaller of the two main parts of a future Palestinian state, mocked [Mahmoud Abbas] for ever thinking that Mr Obama could change American policy towards the Middle East.
There are still folks on our side, most notably Chomsky and those who follow his line, such as Stephen Zunes, who would have us believe that the ritual humiliation of American presidents by Israeli prime ministers, such as we have seen again and again these past weeks, is simply a cover to disguise continuing US support for the Israeli occupation. When it’s brought to their attention, the notion that the pro-Israel lobby might have anything to do with it is dismissed by them out of hand.
