Clinton ‘Re-Backtracks’ on Israeli Settlements.
Dear God, how can anyone keep up with Clinton's ever changing positions over Israel's illegal settlements?
Well, which is it? I spoke yesterday about how Netanyahu's government were crowing about the US's U-turn, and now Clinton has only gone and turned again.Over the weekend, Secretary Clinton was visiting with top Israeli officials, and publicly praised Israel for its commitment to peace despite its repeated refusals to halt settlement growth, and chastized the Palestinian Authority for holding on to demands that themselves were at the center of the Obama Administration’s position only a few months prior.
Now, following what is being described as a rather awkward meeting with Arab foreign ministers in Morocco, Secretary Clinton insists that the position she took just 24 hours ago isn’t really her position.
Instead, she praised Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas for taking steps toward peace and pressed for Israel to “reciprocate,” insisting that the United States still wanted Israel to freeze all settlement construction.
Obama has made much out of the US, under his leadership, being a nation of laws. If this is to be true, then the US must also respect international law.
International law deems the Israeli settlements illegal. The Obama administration would do well to stick to the simple principle that it will insist that all nations it deals with comply with international law. To that end they should insist - as agreed in the 2003 Road map for Peace - that Israel desist from settlement building so that negotiations can commence.
Clinton's slithering on this really is a thing to behold. I mean, this is not a difficult concept.
Hillary needs to get her shit together, adopt a principle, and stick to it. No matter what excuse the Israelis come out with.
She looked yesterday like she had been played. Today she looks like she'll say anything to please whatever audience is currently in front of her.
The Obama administration were impressive when they clearly set out the fact that they did not accept the legitimacy of Israel's settlement activity. They had international law and world opinion on their side.
Clinton's step away from that position was a gross mistake. Today, she is back on the right course... but for how long?
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3 comments:
I think what she opposed was the notion of a "precondition" to negotiations, not the position that Israeli settlements should halt, which is U.S. policy. But it was poorly expressed.
Maybe it was poorly expressed. Nevertheless, stopping settlement building prior to negotiations is something the Israelis signed up to in the 2003 Road Map for peace.
She should be holding them to it, not trying to force the Palestinians to accept this illegal act.
She is just being a Clinton. This shows that Obama is giving her free reign. I really didn't like Bill for the first several years of his presidency, because every time he opened his mouth, I could tell he was lying. Over time I realized he was just telling everyone what they wanted to hear and then doing whatever he wanted, which was more often than not the right thing to do. Lets hope she gets it right in the end, but I'm not sure this is the place for it.
The Palestinians on the whole want peace so badly that there is really only one thing she could do to screw it up: prove to them that she has no intention of holding Israel accountable to their agreements.
On another note, I've been getting malware warnings whenever I come to your site for the past couple weeks. I get them in google Chrome, and they seem to be associated with something called wordofblog.
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