U.S. anger over East Jerusalem row is excessive

[henank]

1. I don't support Netanyahu. I think his policies on settlements and building in east Jerusalem are wrong. I think he is stalling for time and I would genuinely like to see a comprehensive political settlement with the Palestinians. But America's response to the government's approval of 1,600 new housing units in Ramat Shlomo in northeast Jerusalem is excessive.

While it extends a hand to Iran, which continues in its effort to acquire a nuclear bomb; and reaches out to Syria as it arms Hezbollah with advanced weapons, it seems the Obama administration has made a conscious decision to aggravate a diplomatic crisis with the Netanyahu government.

...

4. Attempts to imply that Israeli policy is endangering the lives of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan, and even Iraq, verge on an insult to the intelligence - U.S. citizens particualrly. Afghans don't care about Ramat Shlomo, or about the Palestinians and Netanyahu. They have problems of their own to deal with. As far as extremist Islamists are concerned, the seven-year presence of American forces on Iraqi soil is a good enough excuse to attack Americans.

Efforts by Obama's senior adviser, David Axelrod, to imply otherwise in television interviews are dishonest. The only people who to suffer from Israeli policy decisions are the Palestinians and neighboring states that have peace agreements with Israel - Jordan and Egypt. Not a single U.S. soldier in Afghanistan is at risk because of 1,600 housing units in Jerusalem.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1156819.html

[henank]

1. One really ought to read the whole article

This article is by Avi Issacharoff and Amos Harel, not writers whom one would consider excessively rightist. Yet they take issue with the Administration's reaction to the Jerusalem building row and raise several very accurate points.

[choie]

7. "extends a hand to Iran"?

Are they kidding??? if ONLY!

[Better Today]

2. I agree it is excessively soft. I look forward to a much harder line against

Israel's anti-peace actions and declarations.

[henank]

3. Then you missed the point of the article.

[Better Today]

4. Nope, I got the point, I just disagree, entirely. We have been way too

soft in our relationship with Israel for too many decades.

I simply used a couple of the OP article's words to make my point.

[elfin]

5. Agree here -

Have been a huge supporter of Israel in the past -- now am done, done done.

Just sick of us still being jerked around by 60 plus years of guilt running our foreign policy.

Yes, there are real advantages to having an "ally" in the region, but increasingly I wonder if they use more and more of our money to work against us.

[ProgressiveMuslim]

6. The US needs "pointers" in this crisis? How arrogant!

[henank]

8. What? Israeli journalists are arrogant if they write analyses?

How arrogant of you! Do you think it is arrogant when the rest of the worldwide press lectures Israel non-stop? Or is arrogance a one-way street only?

[ProgressiveMuslim]

9. I think it's outrageously arrogant! Here's a pointer: stop illegal settlements.

[Jefferson23]

10. Oh it's Obama who is aggravating the situation, I see...right.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

11. Except it's not an isolated incident. The US anger is not just about East Jerusalem.

The announcement of 1600 homes in East Jerusalem was only the last straw that broke the camel's back. The US has been extraordinarily tolerant of Israel's violation of international law for a long time; its anger isn't just about those 1600 illegal homes, it's about all the others too.

Similarly, while those 1600 homes on their own do not greatly add to the danger to lives of US troops, the occupation of Palestine as a whole does so immensely - while there are undoubtedly other factors at play, I think it stretches credulity somewhat to argue that Israel's treatment of the Palestinians and America's support for it is not the single most significant contributing factor to the current hostility between the West and the Islamic world.


This article picks up on a fair enough point - this incident, *on its own*, might well not justify the number of headlines it is generating (although imagine how many headlines the US deciding to build 1600 homes in Ottowa would generate...). But it's *not* on its own.

[ProgressiveMuslim]

12. 100% spot on.

[bemildred]

13. It's going to be a war.

They(*) have been out to provoke Obama from the outset. This is what was wanted, now we will see how it plays out.

* - They would appear to be the right-wing in both Israel and the USA, who want to discredit Obama and his minions, and expect to do it this way. We will soon see if they are right.

[Jefferson23]

16. Yep, it didn't take long:

US Israel criticism ignites firestorm in Congress


WASHINGTON — The Obama administration's fierce denunciation of Israel last week has ignited a firestorm in Congress and among powerful pro-Israel interest groups who say the criticism of America's top Mideast ally was misplaced.

Since the controversy erupted, a bipartisan parade of influential lawmakers and interest groups has taken aim at the administration's decision to publicly condemn Israel for its announcement of new Jewish housing in east Jerusalem while Vice President Joe Biden was visiting on Tuesday and then openly vent bitter frustration on Friday.

With diplomats from both countries referring to the situation as a crisis, the outpouring of anger in the United States, particularly from Capitol Hill, comes at a difficult time for the administration, which is now trying to win support from wary lawmakers – many of whom are up for re-election this year – for health care reform and other domestic issues.

And those criticizing the administration's unusually blunt response to Israel say they fear it may have distracted from and done damage to efforts to relaunch long-stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

"It might be well if our friends in the administration and other places in the United States could start refocusing our efforts on the peace process," Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said Monday.

"Now we've had our spat. We've had our family fight, and it's time for us now to stop and get our eye back on the goal, which is the commencement of the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks," he said.

McCain and Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., both urged the administration to ease the tone of the dispute, which they said was demonstrating disunity and weakness to steadfast allies of Iran.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20100315/us-us-mideast-israel/

Funny how McCain and Lieberman don't express any concern for Petraeus and his concerns.

[catnhatnh]

14. Are Gen.s Petraeus and McChrystal...

ALSO insulting US citizen's intelligence-because that is exactly what they concluded.

[bemildred]

15. LOL.

:popcorn: :thumbsup: