Obama Caves Again

CNN is reporting that Obama has dropped his demand to halt all settlement construction. Considering that Obama caves on everything, this was pretty predictable.

I have commented on the report below (in red) while also pointing out the bias in the CNN reportage.

The full CNN report is available here:

But the United States and Israel have publicly disagreed on Israeli plans to build more housing on land the Palestinians regard as theirs. Previous Obama administration demands for a freeze have been ignored by the Netanyahu government. (Ignored? Disagreeing is not the same as ignoring. The Obama administrations demands went counter to previous US govt agreements and guarantees.)

Abbas has so far rejected resuming talks with Israel until the Jewish state halts all settlement building in the occupied West Bank and in predominantly Palestinian East Jerusalem. Arab states also have balked at the U.S. request to take confidence-building measures toward Israel until Israel freezes settlement construction. (This was never a show-stopper until the twits in this administration made it one.)

Sitting with Netanyahu and Abbas, Obama softened his regular language on a settlement "freeze," saying that Israel has had meaningful discussions about "restraining" settlement activity. (Israel = 1, Obama = -5, Palestinians = 0)

"But they need to translate these discussions into real action on this and other issues," he said.

"Obama told Abbas that he couldn't get the settlement freeze and promised to keep trying, but that it shouldn't be a condition for talks and it was time to move on," one Palestinian aide to Abbas said.

Several U.S. officials said that Obama told Abbas that although the U.S. believe a settlement freeze would create a better atmosphere for talks to begin, the lack of one should not be used an as excuse not to talk.

"Let's not have the perfect be the enemy of the good," Obama told Abbas, according to the officials. (In other words, the Palestinians were the ones refusing to negotiate.)

"It's been apparent for some time that the Israelis were going to fall short of what is necessary on the settlement freeze," one senior U.S. official said. "But our view is let's get to negotiations and settlements will be addressed within those final status issues" (See previous comment.)

A senior Israeli diplomat said Israel agreed to not building any new settlements, no outward expansion of existing growth and to only build for "natural" growth within existing settlements. He said Israel also agreed not to encourage Israelis to move to settlements, which would increase the population. (i.e. what has been going on for a decade now.)

"A complete settlement freeze wasn't physically or politically possible, especially in the absence of any Arab or Palestinian concessions," the Israeli diplomat said. "There was a time the gaps had significantly narrowed, but now they were starting to widen. The administration recognized, rather than have them widen further, we should start negotiating." (It was precisely this imbecilic administration that caused the gaps to widen by giving the Palestinians false hopes and reneging on previous agreements while focusing on non-issues.)

The Palestinian aide to Abbas said Obama's failure to secure a settlement freeze has weakened him in the eyes of the Palestinian delegation, because it casts doubt on his ability to move Israel during final status negotiations. (Yeah, and the fact that he could not get even one lousy concession from the Arabs weakened him in Israeli eyes. That and North Korea, Iran, Russia, Afghanistan, etc. Besides, this assumes that Israel has to be moved, kicking and screaming into making concessions, when the reality is that the Palestinians have absolutely no track record of making concessions or sticking to their commitments.)

The Palestinians did win an important point, however, with Obama making clear that the peace talks would not start from scratch, which Netanyahu had favored. Rather the talks would take into account progress made in previous negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians, the sources said. (Yeah and the US should take a look at the guarantees that the Bush administration gave Israel. They should also be held to that.)

The Israeli diplomat said that Israel would "take into account" the previous negotiations, but stressed his country's longstanding position that "nothing is agreed to until everything is agreed to." (This is what is known colloquially as "negotiations". If you walk away from the table, as the Palestinians did, you can not expect to come back and get everything you already rejected on the first go around.)