Love of the Land: The Palestinians: Why Negotiate? The US Will Extract Concessions For You

The Palestinians: Why Negotiate? The US Will Extract Concessions For You

Mark Sillverberg
Hudson New York
01 April '10

When Jackson Diehl of the Washington Post attacks Obama’s outrage over the Jerusalem District Planning and Building Committee’s decision to approve the construction of 1,600 housing units in Ramat Shlomo (a post-1967 Jerusalem neighborhood) as “ideological - and vindictive,” you know that Obama has made a serious political blunder.

The administration has apparently decided to provoke a diplomatic crisis with Israel over a construction project that was plainly in keeping with past U.S.-Israeli undertakings concerning East Jerusalem.

Israel’s official position for the last forty years has been that East Jerusalem’s status will not be negotiable in any future land-swap agreement with the Palestinians.

This policy, however distasteful it may be to the Obama Administration, did not prevent the conclusion of peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan, nor did it preclude the Palestinians from negotiating with Israel for more than fifteen years after the Oslo Accords of 1993. Now, suddenly, it has become a major issue with this administration, and an impediment to world peace.

Apparently, a zoning dispute in Israel’s capital city is more important than addressing the nuclear threat posed by Iran.

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Love of the Land: The Palestinians: Why Negotiate? The US Will Extract Concessions For You