Divisions Are Clear as Obama and Netanyahu Discuss Peace
NYT
WASHINGTON — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel told President Obama on Friday that he shared his vision for a peace between Israelis and Palestinians and then promptly listed a series of nonnegotiable conditions that have kept the two sides at an impasse for years.
After a meeting at the White House that was far longer than scheduled, the two men sought to paper over what is by all accounts a frosty relationship, pleading mutual support for the enduring bonds between their countries. Mr. Netanyahu, however, bluntly rejected compromises along the lines outlined by Mr. Obama in a speech the day before in hopes of reviving a moribund peace process, looking directly at the president in the Oval Office to warn against “a peace based on illusions.”
Israel flatly refuses to negotiate with a Palestinian Authority that includes Hamas, the faction that now controls Gaza, he said. Nor will Israel accept the return of Palestinian refugees on Israeli soil, an issue Mr. Obama had suggested on Thursday should be deferred while the two sides worked on borders and security issues.
Most significant, Mr. Netanyahu said that Israel would not accept a return to the boundaries that existed before the war in 1967 gave Israel control of the West Bank and Gaza. Mr. Obama for the first time publicly called for those borders to be the starting point for negotiations to create a Palestinian state, but said they would have to be adjusted to some degree through land swaps to account for Israeli settlements in the West Bank, a nuance that Mr. Netanyahu ignored.
(More here.)
Powered by Blogger
2 Comments:
President Obama has set back everything he’s touched since he showed up. The economy to pre-Reagan numbers, foreign policy to the Cold War ’60′s, race relations to the late 60′s, early 70′s. Obama should be forever the poster child for the complete, utter, total failure of the political movement we call “Liberalism”
It's a shame that a politician who I look up to would ignore the obvious human rights violations by Israel. It's really a shame that apartheid still exists in this world and I sincerely hope that U.S. policies to diplomacy in the Middle East developing into something more peaceful.
It is true that Hamas is terrible. But in my mind, Obama needs to bring the situation between these two states into perspective and see the tracks of trot committed.
Post a Comment
<< Home