esrosedotblog

DUMB QUESTION DEPARTMENT

From Today's NYTimes (my bold face):

JERUSALEM — Iran seems to be hurtling toward nuclear weapons capacity, Hezbollah could win Sunday’s election in Lebanon and Hamas is smuggling long-range rockets into Gaza again. So why is President Obama focusing such attention on the building of homes by Israeli Jews in the West Bank?

That, in essence, is the question being angrily posed by the Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and underscores one of the biggest shifts in American policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in three decades.

And that, in a nutshell, is why the Israeli's don't get that they are perpetrating a good part of the violence in the region. If not directly, then indirectly, by their intransigence and duplicity on this issue.

This is nothing new.

Past administrations have said "don't do this" but somehow in the back channel, let the Israeli's know that we were not really serious about it.

The Obamas are serious.

This, as the Times article points out, is the soft and vulnerable underbelly of the Israeli position. World opinion is against them. They are in violation of the Geneva Convention. Settling in occupied territory.

They are doing just what was done to them in the beginning. Edging, pushing, provoking. And, at the same time, making life miserable for Palestinians still waiting for their own state.

I am glad that we have stopped the double talk. Time to say the truth at all levels. No give with one hand and take with another. The settlements must stop.

Read it all here:

Obama Pins Mideast Hope on Limiting Settlements

Even with the pro-Israel slant of the Times, you can see the picture.

Well, I can.

Labels: Administration Obama, Israel