Obama mulling ways to rebuke Israel on settlements
From Ed Morrissey at Hot Air:
As President Obama prepares to head to the Middle East this week, administration officials are debating how to toughen their stance against any expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
The measures under discussion — all largely symbolic — include stepping back from America’s near-uniform support for Israel in the United Nations if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel does not agree to a settlement freeze, administration officials said.
Other measures include refraining from the instant Security Council veto of United Nations resolutions that Israel opposes and making use of Mr. Obama’s bully pulpit to criticize the settlements, officials said. Placing conditions on loan guarantees to Israel, as the first President Bush did nearly 20 years ago, is not under discussion, officials said.
Still, talk of even symbolic actions that would publicly show the United States’ ire with Israel, its longtime ally, would be a sharp departure from the previous administration, which limited its distaste with Israel’s settlement expansions to carefully worded diplomatic statements that called them “unhelpful.”
I wonder how much time the White House spends on finding ways to penalize the Palestinians for not adhering to the Road Map? After all, Hamas has spent the last couple of years launching rockets from Gaza. Barack Obama responded by giving them almost a billion dollars for rebuilding after the Israelis finally had enough and stomped on Hamas.
- Kerry To Israel: Why Do You Want To “build In A Place That Will Eventually Be Palestine?”
Watch. Rarely are we allowed to witness a man signed his ticket to hell with one sentence. From the Times of Israel: Turning to settlements and Israel’s presence in the West Bank, Kerry on Thursday denied rumors that there was an understanding that...
- U.s. Vetoes Palestinian Bid At Un To Halt Israeli Settlements
SOURCE Feb. 18 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. today vetoed a draft resolution in the United Nations Security Council that would have declared Israel’s settlement construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem to be illegal and demanded a halt to such activity....
-
Newsmax: Obama's Midterm Loss May be Netanyahu's MidEast Win Wednesday, 03 Nov 2010 For Benjamin Netanyahu, the view from Capitol Hill seemingly couldn't get much better. A U.S. midterm election rout by the Republicans, widely seen in Israel...
- Obama Tells Palestinians That Israel Is To Blame
From Israel Today: US President Barack Obama made clear in a recent letter to the Palestinians that he views Israel as the obstacle to peace and will approach further peace efforts from that point of view, according to senior Palestinian Authority...
- Why Is It The Palestinians Are Not Being Asked To Initiate Peace?
The United States is putting pressure on Israel to make some "gestures" to the Palestinians ahead of the Annapolis Summit which will attempt to work out an agreement in the Middle East conflict. From AP: JERUSALEM - The U.S. is pressuring Israel to...