Word: standoff
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Dates: during 2010-2019
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...standoff between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Obama Administration concerns whether Israel can build in those parts of the city it captured in the war of 1967 - the Jewish state's claims to East Jerusalem are not internationally recognized, and building there is considered settlement activity by the U.S. and the rest of the international community. In order to restart peace talks, the Obama Administration has demanded that Israel freeze all settlement construction, in line with its obligation to do so under President Bush's 2002 peace road map. Netanyahu demurred, offering instead a temporary slowdown in West Bank...
...dimmed, with the authorities having successfully contained the challenge of the Green Movement (whose leaders, in any case, publicly backed their country's nuclear program). And despite President Obama keeping the proverbial "all options" on the table, the U.S. military leadership is opposed to trying to resolve the nuclear standoff by force: Bombing Iran's facilities would likely only set back its nuclear program by a few years (and make weaponization more likely), goes the reasoning, at a cost of a possibly starting a calamitous regional...
...founder Sergey Brin's bravado. After all, if you were a 36-year-old billionaire, you'd probably be forgiven a little audacity yourself. Even when it came to the implacable, muscle-flexing behemoth that is China. It was in February, just over a month into Google's extraordinary standoff with Beijing, that Brin appeared at a tech conference in southern California. "I'm always optimistic," he responded, when asked about the effectiveness of plans to stop censoring Chinese search results in retaliation for the hacking and e-mail pilfering that takes place behind Beijing's Great Firewall. "Perhaps...
...Jerusalem standoff also carries a domestic political risk for the Obama Administration. A number of Republicans have already lashed out at the President over the issue - former Bush Administration Middle East policy chief Elliott Abrams wrote in the Washington Post that "the Obama Administration continues to drift away from traditional U.S. support for Israel. But time and elections will correct that problem; Israel has a higher approval rating these days than does President Obama." And the influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee, to which all major leaders of both parties traditionally declare their unstinting support for Israel, expressed "serious concern...
Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu had hoped that his apology for the poor timing of plans to expand Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem would have been enough to quell the resulting furor. Instead, the Obama Administration has opted to escalate the standoff into a major battle of political wills between Netanyahu and the White House - one in which neither side can easily back down despite the risks involved in hanging tough...