Huh, and I though Obama was supposed to be the tough-on-Israel candidate. Secretary of State Clinton, at a press avail with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Ali Aboul Gheit yesterday, pushed back hard on Netanyahu’s empty gesture:
With respect to settlements, the President was very clear when Prime Minister Netanyahu was here. He wants to see a stop to settlements – not some settlements, not outposts, not natural growth exceptions. We think it is in the best interests of the effort that we are engaged in that settlement expansion cease. That is our position. That is what we have communicated very clearly, not only to the Israelis but to the Palestinians and others. And we intend to press that point.
This is good; good for Israel, good for the United States, good for the Middle-East. Israel needs some tough love, and a cessation of settlement activity would buy them a measure of credibility with the skeptical international community, who in turn may lean harder on the Palestinians and the Arab League to make some concessions (like, you know, getting Hamas to stop threatening to blow Israel up).
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