Tel-Chai Nation

The Times of London (via Hot Air) reports on US secretary of state Hilary Clinton's ostensibly pushing the reset button on the settlement expansion issue with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to the outrage of the palestinians:

The Palestinian leadership accused the US of caving in over Israeli settlements after Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State, praised Israel for making concessions.

Having failed to force Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, to meet US demands for a total settlement freeze, Mrs Clinton switched tack during a one-day visit to Jerusalem when she called on both sides to resume peace talks.

“What the Prime Minister has offered in specifics of a restraint on the policy of settlements . . . is unprecedented,” Mrs Clinton said. [...]

The comments by Mrs Clinton were in contrast to the previous stance of the Obama Administration, which has pressured Israel to halt all settlement construction. In May, after President Obama’s first meeting with Mr Netanyahu, Mrs Clinton said that the US “wants to see a stop to settlements — not some settlements, not outposts, not natural growth exceptions”.

Mr Netanyahu has been unmovable, saying that the nearly 500,000 settlers in the West Bank and east Jerusalem could not be expected to stop building facilities as their communities expanded. He has however proposed limiting construction to about 3,000 homes that have been approved already by the Israeli authorities in the West Bank. He has not considered any halt in east Jerusalem, which was captured with the West Bank and Gaza by Israel in the Six Day War.

Just look at how this UK paper does what it can to propagandize against Israel's right to rescue its land, to say nothing of whether concessions were actually made, which is just what they're hoping for, and we have to be on the alert to prevent. But I think there's reason enough to suspect that Clinton isn't really changing any tack here in how she talks to Israel. So nothing new as far as she's concerned.

Labels: Israel, Israeli Arabs, Jerusalem, United States