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| Israel-Palestine-Jordan |
| US demand for settlement freeze is 'extortion' |
| 2009-06-30 |
| MK Otniel Schneller (Kadima) lashed out Monday against the US demand for a settlement freeze, labeling it "extortion" and warning it could set back Israeli readiness for peace. In an interview with The Jerusalem Post, Schneller assailed Obama administration officials as holding beliefs shaped by "far-Left opinions outside of the Israeli consensus." Schneller, who has been involved in peace deals with the Palestinians and Jordan since 1994, sent a letter Sunday to Defense Minister Ehud Barak in advance of the minister's visit to the US in which he said he "searched for ways to find a meeting-point between Israel's desire to advance peace, the recognition of the agreement of the majority of Israeli people to recognize a Palestinian state, and the fatalism of America that is pushing us into a corner." "The most dangerous thing to the peace process is to push the Israeli public into a corner," he said. |
| Posted by:g(r)omgoru |
| #2 The other strategy may be adjunct to that: to pressure the current government into an agreement, using the "only Nixon can go to China" rationale. If the Netanyahu government falls in the process, it's an acceptable fallback result. Either way, the Israeli left gets placated (remember the President's casual 'stopping-by' during Barak's visit) as well as a subset of Obama's domestic supporters. And you're right - in any case, it's part of the 'diss your allies to impress your not-allies' routine. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2009-06-30 13:36 |
| #1 See it is odd. Presumably O's strategy is to break the current bibi govt, and get Kadima in in place of HabayitHayehudi (and maybe in place of Lieberman and even Shas). You dont advance that by picking on an issue (a broad freeze in settlement construction, even in E Jerusalem) that tends to alienate Kadima. It could be that they expect nothing real to come out of this, its all show for the benefit of the arabs. Or, its possible, they expect a compromise on settlements but want to lead with a big request, and also get PR benefits of that. Or it could be they want to isolate Israel. Or it could be they have misjudged Israeli politics. Or it could be they are tied up in internal disagreements within the administration. I dont know. |
| Posted by: liberal hawk 2009-06-30 12:28 |