Against the backdrop of record cold temperatures, snow and yet another foreign policy crisis in Ukraine, the president received a healthy dressing down by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The US president opened his meeting with a press appearance citing several crisis around the world that he and Netanyahu would be discussing. Netanyahu responded, Iran calls openly for Israels destruction, so Im sure youll appreciate that Israel cannot permit such a state to have the ability to make atomic bombs to achieve that goal. We just cannot be brought back again to the brink of destruction. Then he fired another volley across the presdents battered foreign policy ship. Netanyahu said, The 20 years that have passed since Israel entered the peace process have been marked by unprecedented steps that Israel has taken to advance peace. I mean, we vacated cities in Judea and Samaria. We left entirely Gaza. Weve not only frozen settlements, weve uprooted entire settlements. Weve released hundreds of terrorist prisoners, including dozens in recent months. And when you look at what we got in return, its been scores of suicide bombings, thousands of rockets on our cities fired from the areas we vacated, and just incessant Palestinian incitement against Israel. So Israel has been doing its part, and I regret to say that the Palestinians havent. He continued, Now, I know this flies in the face of conventional wisdom, but its the truth. And the people of Israel know that its the truth because theyve been living it. Mr. President, you rightly said that Israel, the Jewish state, is the realization of the Jewish peoples self-determination in our ancestral homeland. So the Palestinians expect us to recognize a Palestinian state for the Palestinian people, a nation state for the Palestinian people. I think its about time they recognize a nation state for the Jewish people. Weve only been there for 4,000 years. While the US president tried to make light of the meeting and place extremely tough issues in with a large number of others, Netanyahu focussed the discussion.
Posted on: Tue, 11 Mar 2014 17:09:00 +0000
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