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Obama's Focus at the UN

(Washington Institute for Near East Policy) Robert Satloff - President Obama's speech at the United Nations Wednesday went far beyond just making a case for negotiations as the only way to resolve the conflict. Rather, it was essentially a call for people around the world to put themselves in the shoes of Israel and, most notably, the Jewish people. Perhaps most remarkably, Obama did not pair that recitation of a fundamentally pro-Israel narrative with an equal but opposite recitation of the Palestinian narrative. Instead, with no discussion of Israeli settlement activity or building in Jerusalem, Obama limited himself to one side of the story. In essence, the punishment meted out to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for rejecting Washington's request to shelve his UN gambit was that Obama came to New York as Israel's ally, not as an impartial mediator of peace diplomacy. The writer is executive director of the Washington Institute.
2011-09-23 00:00:00
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