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According to this poll, a little more than half of Israelis agree with Obama.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...pinion/columns
President Obama repeatedly insists that American foreign policy be conducted with modesty and humility. Above all, there will be no more "dictating" to other countries. We should "forge partnerships as opposed to simply dictating solutions," he told the G-20 summit. In Middle East negotiations, he told al-Arabiya, America will henceforth "start by listening, because all too often the United States starts by dictating."
An admirable sentiment. It applies to everyone -- Iran, Russia, Cuba, Syria, even Venezuela. Except Israel. Israel is ordered to freeze all settlement activity. As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton imperiously explained the diktat: "a stop to settlements -- not some settlements, not outposts, not natural-growth exceptions."
What's the issue? No "natural growth" means strangling to death the thriving towns close to the 1949 armistice line, many of them suburbs of Jerusalem, that every negotiation over the past decade has envisioned Israel retaining. It means no increase in population. Which means no babies. Or if you have babies, no housing for them -- not even within the existing town boundaries. Which means for every child born, someone has to move out. No community can survive like that. The obvious objective is to undermine and destroy these towns -- even before negotiations.
To what end? Over the past decade, the U.S. government has understood that any final peace treaty would involve Israel retaining some of the close-in settlements -- and compensating the Palestinians accordingly with land from within Israel itself.
That was envisioned in the Clinton plan in the Camp David negotiations in 2000, and again at Taba in 2001. After all, why expel people from their homes and turn their towns to rubble when, instead, Arabs and Jews can stay in their homes if the 1949 armistice line is shifted slightly into the Palestinian side to capture the major close-in Jewish settlements, and then shifted into Israeli territory to capture Israeli land to give to the Palestinians?
This idea is not only logical, not only accepted by both Democratic and Republican administrations for the past decade, but was agreed to in writing in the letters of understanding exchanged between Israel and the United States in 2004 -- and subsequently overwhelmingly endorsed by a concurrent resolution of Congress.
Yet the Obama State Department has repeatedly refused to endorse these agreements or even say it will honor them. This from a president who piously insists that all parties to the conflict honor previous obligations. And who now expects Israel to accept new American assurances in return for concrete and irreversible Israeli concessions, when he himself has just cynically discarded past American assurances.
The entire "natural growth" issue is a concoction. Is the peace process moribund because a teacher in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem is making an addition to her house to accommodate new grandchildren? It is perverse to make this the center point of the peace process at a time when Gaza is run by Hamas terrorists dedicated to permanent war with Israel and when Mahmoud Abbas, having turned down every one of Ehud Olmert's peace offers, brazenly declares that he is in a waiting mode -- waiting for Hamas to become moderate and for Israel to cave -- before he'll do anything to advance peace.
In his much-heralded "Muslim world" address in Cairo yesterday, Obama declared that the Palestinian people's "situation" is "intolerable." Indeed it is, the result of 60 years of Palestinian leadership that gave its people corruption, tyranny, religious intolerance and forced militarization; leadership that for three generations rejected every offer of independence and dignity, choosing des ution and despair rather than accept any settlement not accompanied by the extinction of Israel.
That's why Haj Amin al-Husseini chose war rather than a two-state solution in 1947. Why Yasser Arafat turned down a Palestinian state in 2000. And why Abbas rejected Olmert's even more generous December 2008 offer.
In the 16 years since the Oslo accords turned the West Bank and Gaza over to the Palestinians, their leaders built no roads, no courthouses, no hospitals, none of the fundamental state ins utions that would relieve their people's suffering. Instead they poured everything into an infrastructure of war and terror, all the while depositing billions (from gullible Western donors) into their Swiss bank accounts.
Obama says he came to Cairo to tell the truth. But he uttered not a word of that. Instead, among all the bromides and lofty sentiments, he issued but one concrete declaration of new American policy: "The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements," thus reinforcing the myth that Palestinian misery and statelessness are the fault of Israel and the settlements.
Blaming Israel and picking a fight over "natural growth" may curry favor with the Muslim "street." But it will only induce the Arab states to do like Abbas: sit and wait for America to deliver Israel on a platter. Which makes the Obama strategy not just dishonorable but self-defeating.
According to this poll, a little more than half of Israelis agree with Obama.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/publ..._tracking_poll
That didn't take long
^^^Non sequitur
Do you do anything besides ad hominem, strawman and dodging the question?
From the poll you posted
The poll queried 501 respondents representing a cross-section of the Israeli population. It said 53 percent thought Obama's policies towards Israel were bad, while 26 percent said they were positive.
What specifically did they say about Obama's settlement demands?
I'm not surprised that you would read the link selectively, but it's moronic to think that everyone else will do the same, or take your word for it.
so we should be taking our orders from israel?
strongly approve and strongly disagree are just the extremes of the sides. that's to be expected. what are the approve/disapprove numbers? I highly doubt that 30% said they weren't sure.
Krauthammer is a liar.
I don't accept Jewish irredentist claims any more than I do Muslim irredentist claims. The two-state solution is a fiction. It won't work on the Israeli side any more than it would on the Palestinian side, because if Israel tries to pull its settlements out of the West Bank, the Muslim terrorists will simply be joined by Orthodox Jewish ones -- many of whom are in the IDF.
Krauthammer isn't stupid. This isn't about "natural growth" around the "1949 armistice line." He uses obscurantist language for a reason.
And Israel can stop listening to America's opinions about its policies as soon as it stops taking our aid.
I'm tired of neoconservative lies.
I'm sure some idiot will come in and call me an anti-Semite now.
You don't enjoy the taste of matzah balls.
That in a nuts is the problem with any country/person criticising the Israeli policy of the settlements and uprooting Palestinians from their homes.
I think the Palestinian in the movie Munich said it best.."You feel guilty about the Holocaust and the Jews exploit that guilt."
I don't know if I would say exploit...that word is too much. But people always equate criticism of Israeli policy with being anti-Semitic.
Well, at least Obama has taken a hard line on something -- unfortunately, it's one of our allies.
Obama has a very selective history habit.
Nothing new here. Same ol' politician.
You gotta just love the Jews! I applaud them!!!!!!!
======================
A day after US President Barack Obama reiterated his call to stop settlement activity during a speech in Cairo, defiant settlers continued to erect illegal structures in the West Bank, building a new outpost on Friday morning between Migron and Kohav Ya'akov. Illegal according to who?
At the outpost, named Oz Yehonatan, the settlers built a wooden structure they mockingly called the "Obama Hut," saying it was a sign of appreciation for the US president for his actions that had led to a dramatic rise in the number of outposts.
Overnight Thursday, settlers and right-wing activists once again rebuilt the illegal Maoz Esther outpost that was dismantled on Wednesday by security forces.
Among the structures erected was a synagogue in which activists placed a Torah scroll dedicated in the name of Yohonadav Hirschfield, who was killed in last year's terror attack at Jerusalem's Mercaz Harav Yeshiva
They rebuilt the whole outpost plus a synagogue overnight? That's impressive. Jesus must be helping them out.
what does the Judean Peoples' Front think of all this? (or is it The Peoples' Front of Judea?)
Illegal according to the government of Israel if the situation is anything like it is in this location:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satelli...ticle/ShowFull
Oh, and you forgot this little chestnut from your article:http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satelli...ticle/ShowFullOne of the activists said of Obama, "He's an Arab Muslim and a gentile, he is fighting against the Jewish people and has declared that he will continue to do so. We already stated our intention to continue to build, no matter who is fighting us - Egypt, Germany or the US."
Why do we "got to love" ignorance and belligerence and defiance of their own laws?
Well, we have a long history of being involved in Israel's politics. And, it should be pointed out, we haven't really done much good. Clinton did as well as anyone has, and got close to forging real peace, but then Nov 4, 1995 happened.
I think we should stop telling Israel what to do, too, because at this point the Israeli and the Palestinian leadership need to start figuring out whether they want peace, and whether they are capable of reining in the elements amongst their people who are determined to prevent peace. We can't make peace for them.
As ChumpDumper said, Israeli law.Illegal according to who?
In most countries you are not allowed to build
a)on land you do not own
b)without building permits
The American Neo-cons and Netanyahu's Likud party are inseparable, plus there are even other groups more right-wing/militant than the Likud that support even more Israeli expansion into occupied territories....throw in AIPAC's influence on politicians from both parties and a Israeli spy scandal that reached into the upper-echelon decision-making in the Bush years.....I would say Israel has also had a long history of 'being involved in' American politics......and I support Israel's right to protect its borders...
Krauthammer is a liar.
I'm tired of neoconservative lies.
Why does Krauthammer even still have a job? What happened to credibility anyway?
I agree... I support Israel's right to defend its territory as defined by international agreement and to protect its people from enemies who want to eradicate it.
I do not support the presumption of some Israelis to purge all the Palestinians because of what they read in the Torah, just as I don't support the presumption of Palestinians to destroy Israel because the land has to be Dar al-Islam.
At some point the people have to be accountable too...I mean, a lot of people in other countries could separate Bush policy from 'the American people' during his first term, especially about Iraq, and well, almost all other foreign policy...I mean, he wasn't even really elected, right? ....but then they re-elected that idiot and got 4 more years...the people have to be accountable too...
+10,000
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