Word: netanyahu
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Halloween night in Jerusalem, and Benjamin Netanyahu came dressed as a peacemaker. "We're prepared to start peace talks immediately," the notoriously reluctant Israeli Prime Minister proclaimed, with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton standing at his side, poker-faced. "I think we should ... get on it and get with...
...course. The Palestinians were tangled up in themselves, yet again. They had elections looming, and their leader, Mahmoud Abbas, had to hang tough: he was demanding a total freeze to Israeli settlement-building on the West Bank - which was precisely what the Obama Administration had previously said it favored. Netanyahu was offering a partial freeze, not including new settlements in East Jerusalem, the desired capital of a future Palestinian state. This was a nonstarter for the Palestinians, but it had the holographic glow of a step forward. It was an "unprecedented" offer, Netanyahu trumpeted, with the joy of a chess...
...playing second fiddle at the Bibi-does-Gandhi show. President Barack Obama had softened his language on the settlements a few weeks earlier: instead of a total freeze, he had talked about Israeli "restraint" in settlement-building. And now Clinton seemed to cement the Administration's retreat, agreeing that Netanyahu's proposal was, indeed, "unprecedented," even though the U.S. still favored a total freeze. The most important thing, she added, was for the parties to get to the table as quickly as possible. The onus was back on the Palestinians - and the Palestinians quickly expressed outrage at the Obama Administration...
Suddenly the Obama Administration seemed wobbly on the Middle East; clearly, Clinton had been too bullish on Netanyahu's proposal (which had been negotiated over months with Middle East envoy George Mitchell and was seen, privately, by the Americans as real progress). But the Administration's mission was to get the parties into peace talks without preconditions. The Israelis were now in favor of talks. The Palestinians were setting preconditions. And Clinton had violated an essential rule of her job: boring is almost always better.(See pictures of former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright...
...With Netanyahu's settlement-freeze defiance having demonstrated the limits of the Administration's ability to sway the Israeli government, Obama now faces the uncomfortable reality that this has also accelerated the decline of U.S. influence with the Arab states and mainstream Palestinian moderates. Having made resolving the Middle East's most intractable conflict a top foreign policy priority, the Administration now needs the symbolic resumption of talks simply to signal progress. The message from the White House to both sides over the past week has emphasized the urgency of doing that. Unfortunately, given the gulf between the demands...