…..’Settlement policy has changed,’ he said.
Jeffrey Blankfort writing for MONDOWEISS took on former President Bill Clinton’s pro-Israel talk at the Saban Forum in Jerusalem a few days ago with the full cynicism it deserves. His advise to the Palestinians was no less disingenuous than his ‘nod and wink’ go-ahead policy in the early 90s that doubled Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories.
Bill Clinton, who is thus a major source of the problem now facing Obama, settlements, is probably the last person who should be advising the Palestinians.
In what should go down as one of the most humiliating episodes in the history of Israel-US relations, former President Bill Clinton told the Saban Forum in Jerusalem on Sunday that Palestinians must “accept America’s modification of its anti-settlement policy and return to the bargaining table,” according to a report in the Jerusalem Post which the US media apparently ignored.
It was the last nail in the coffin of Obama’s and Hillary Clinton’s earlier demand for an Israeli settlement freeze.
(snip)
Ignoring the overwhelming vote in the UN General Assembly in favor of the Goldstone Report, Clinton warned that the Palestinians “risked irking the international community” if they refused to return to the bargaining table. When even the French and British have expressed criticism of Netanyahu’s hardline stance, what countries, besides Israel, the United States, and maybe Palau, was he referring to?
The article reiterated the myth now being spread by the Obama administration that the Israeli prime minister is calling for a resumption of “peace talks” without preconditions, ignoring the fact that Netanyahu has, among other demands, made the Palestinian acceptance of Israel as a Jewish state a prerequisite for any settlement.
Concerned that they might think otherwise, Clinton told his audience, “You should not think that President Obama is your enemy,” and then offered as proof of America’s commitment to Israel, its own rejection of the Goldstone Report.
“No American president can serve in good conscience,”he said, “and not be committed to the security of Israel.” Nor, he should have added, could he or she obtain the campaign funding necessary to even run, let alone get elected.
Is there any American president who deserves more cynicism than Bill Clinton about his contributions toward increasing the conflict in the Middle East, both in the past and today?