Krauthammer in the Washington Post asks of Obama's policy toward Israel:
The only remaining question is whether this perverse and ultimately self-defeating policy is born of genuine antipathy toward Israel or of the arrogance of a blundering amateur who refuses to see that he is undermining not just peace but the very possibility of negotiations.
Oh and let me be clear. When I say that I hope Obama has antipathy toward Israel, it is because this is a rogue state that is hurting America and hurting Palestinians. Sometimes antipathy is a good thing, as a motivation. Lincoln hated slavery even as he was willing to tolerate its presence in the southern states. Myself, I find that I can't hate Israel. Jews made it, and they made it for reasons I understand. They were wrong, desperately wrong, they made the wrong choices. But only fierce opposition to Israel's policies, including an opposition taken up by proud Jews, is going to save this mess.
“Jews made it, and they made it for reasons I understand.”
Gosh, how interesting it is to meet and talk with other’s from foreign cultures! I was born and raised in America, and have a very deep-seated aversion for turning religion into a nationality.
You should try coming here, there are a myriad of opportunities for Jews.
“Jews made it”
I should always think before I write (yeah, that’ll be the day!). I was going to say something very flip and sarcastic, but then I read more closely, and I realised you didn’t say ‘The Jews made it’.
Mooser: the settlements v settlements… looks like a word article is more material than a clothing article. The codpieces. Codpieces.
Does the critic Krauthammer claim to be an expert in anything?
On Fox he’s a god. On Family Guy, just a neighbor.
Oy vey.
So now Krauthammer has put you on the defensive with his propaganda and baseless accusations against Obama to the point that you sense the need to explain yourself?
Phil, you’re killing me.
I couldn’t believe the Krauthammer piece.
I could. I even predicted it. Too bad nobody knew what I was talking about at the neighborly grill on the porch deck.
Which bit of Krauthammer’s self-pitying inversion of the truth didn’t you believe Richard? Or was it the whole piece?
President George W. Bush gave a written commitment that America supported Israel absorbing major settlement blocs
The Bush letter does not mention East Jerusalem at all. It doesn’t contain any actual “commitment” or mention that America supports Israel retaining territory. The Bush letter actually said:
*As part of a final peace settlement, Israel must have secure and recognized borders, which should emerge from negotiations between the parties in accordance with UNSC Resolutions 242 and 338.
Those resolutions say that acquisition of territory by war is inadmissible.
*In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli populations centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949, and all previous efforts to negotiate a two-state solution have reached the same conclusion.
That is a prediction of the outcome based upon past experience. It expresses an opinion, but not a US “commitment”.
*It is realistic to expect that any final status agreement will only be achieved on the basis of mutually agreed changes that reflect these realities.
That is a platitudinous and tautological statement that was also deliberately worded to avoid the expression of a US commitment. All previous efforts to negotiate a two-state solution have been based upon mutually agreed changes and they have all reached the same conclusion. It does not logically follow that allocating more territory for the Israeli state would result in mutual agreement, since that strategy has been employed in every negotiation so far without any success.
After the April 14, 2004 Bush letter, the Palestinian negotiator offered Israel all of the existing settlements in Jerusalem except Har Homa, but Israel rejected the offer. The Bush administration opposed Har Homa from the very beginning. Israel was required to cease settlement activity in accordance with the Mitchell report under the terms of the Quartet Road Map adopted by President Bush and his administration.