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Israel rejects Clinton claim of no agreement on settlements
Just after US President Barack Obama's landmark address in Cairo, and just before US Mideast envoy George Mitchell returns to the region on Tuesday, the dispute between Washington and Jerusalem over settlement construction ratcheted up a notch. Israeli officials rejected on Saturday a statement by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton dismissing Israeli assertions that the Bush administration had agreed to allow some construction in the settlements to allow for natural growth. "There is no memorialization of any informal and oral agreements. If they did occur, which, of course, people say they did, they did not become part of the official position of the United States government," Clinton told reporters on Friday, in a news conference with her Turkish counterpart, Ahmet Davutoglu, at the State Department. We should keep a promise to a bunch of kikes? Recently, Israeli officials, buttressed by some former Bush administration appointees, have maintained that Jerusalem retained tacit US approval to build in already existing settlements, so long as new settlements were not created, the lines of the settlements' boundaries did not expand and no government aid was given to these residents. Some Israeli officials are contending that the US is backtracking on previous understandings which were vital to Israel supporting both the Gaza disengagement, and the road map, a three-stage process leading towards a Palestinian state which called for a halt to settlement construction, including for natural growth. Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2009-06-07 |
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