Word: israelity
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...Obama had prioritized resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But his demands - of a complete settlement freeze by Israel and reciprocal gestures toward normalizing ties with Israel by Arab governments - has been rejected on both sides. And while no recent Administration has had much success in this realm, veterans of the peace process concur that the President's initial approach was flawed. It may have even done more harm than good, they argue, by raising expectations that could not be met, leaving both sides mistrustful of Washington's intentions and creating a situation where either Netanyahu or Abbas would be painted...
...raising expectations, the Administration has unfortunately weakened President Abbas," says Elliott Abrams, who coordinated Middle East policy at the National Security Council for President George W. Bush. "They drew him out onto a limb by demanding that Israel observe a 100% settlement freeze, and then retreated from that limb themselves, leaving him out there." (See pictures of life in the settlements...
...leader could have accepted the settlement-freeze demand, which Obama also made a centerpiece of his outreach to the Muslim world in his Cairo speech last April. Accepting Washington's demand would have brought down Netanyahu's government, says Abrams. Nor were the Arabs ready to reach out to Israel. "[The Administration] made it worse by not having a very good learning curve," says Abrams. "It was already clear last spring that Netanyahu was not going to accept the settlement freeze, and in June, when Obama visited Saudi Arabia, it became clear that the Arabs were not going...
...Aaron David Miller, a former U.S. peace negotiator now at Washington's Woodrow Wilson Center, agrees that the Administration's initial demands of Israel and the Arab states were misguided, created unrealistic expectations, and "have allowed both the Israelis and the Palestinians to say no to the United States without suffering any consequences." Still, he says, first-year errors in foreign policy are common in new U.S. Administrations and the Obama team will have time to rectify matters...
...Bold U.S. proposals are unlikely to be welcomed by the Israelis, but "baby steps" won't work for the Palestinians - in fact, Abbas is sending Obama a now-or-never ultimatum, warning him to crack the whip on Israel or lose his Palestinian partner. Levy agrees that putting a U.S. peace plan on the table now would be a bad idea - but that's because the timing is bad. That's why he recommends a familiar course of action to an Administration becoming accustomed to foreign policy setbacks: For now, says Levy, the Administration would be well advised to subject...