Word: netanyahu
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Washington visit this week has failed to resolve his differences with the Obama Administration over the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Having twice delayed his departure as his team negotiated with U.S. officials over a set of confidence-building measures that Israel would offer the Palestinian leadership in order to coax them into talks being orchestrated by Washington, Netanyahu finally left town Wednesday night with no accord. Officials from the two sides are to continue negotiating on the issue in the coming days. Netanyahu's visit, if anything, reinforced the idea that the current Israeli...
...Netanyahu reportedly balked at White House demands earlier this month that Israel refrain from further construction in East Jerusalem. Indeed, he used his time in Washington to repeatedly restate his government's policy on Israeli settlement in East Jerusalem that had triggered a crisis during U.S. Vice President Joe Biden's recent visit to Israel. And the White House made no effort to conceal the discord, condemning new Israeli construction plans revealed during Netanyahu's visit and dispensing with the traditional photo opportunity and joint statement during Netanyahu's White House visit Tuesday evening. While U.S. officials sought to press...
...calling Israel out. "An insult," huffed David Axelrod after the Israeli government welcomed Vice President Joe Biden to the Holy Land by announcing plans to build 1,600 new housing units in East Jerusalem. The Israelis are sending "a deeply negative signal," Hillary Clinton told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a 43-minute phone call after Biden had left the country. Israel's ambassador to Washington was quoted calling it the biggest "crisis" between the U.S. and Israel in the past 30 years...
...what did all this venting of spleen actually accomplish? Not much. Netanyahu apologized for the timing of the housing announcement, but then the Israelis declared they would proceed with the construction of the new homes in Jerusalem anyway - and even started taking bids for 300 more. The Administration's tough talk may have helped placate some Palestinians who believe the U.S. is too soft on Israel - but it didn't stop several hundred others from staging riots in East Jerusalem. That's not to say that the Obama team is wrong to object to settlement construction in East Jerusalem...
...fight with Israel over settlements in East Jerusalem is never going to be easy for Washington to win. A majority of Israelis oppose halting the construction of housing in East Jerusalem, which Israel captured in 1967; many right-wing members of Netanyahu's coalition believe Israel should never give back any parts of the Holy City to the Palestinians. The hawks view Netanyahu's agreeing even to a 10-month partial moratorium on new settlement activity in the West Bank as a needless sellout to Obama, one of the least popular American Presidents in recent memory among Israelis. With...