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Why Won't Obama Talk to Israel?

[New York Times] President Obama has spoken to Arabs, Muslims, Iranians, Western Europeans, Eastern Europeans, Russians and Africans, but he hasn't bothered to speak directly to Israelis. All they see is American pressure on Prime Minister Netanyahu to freeze settlements, a request that's been interpreted in Israel as political arm-twisting meant to please the Arab street at Israel's expense This policy of ignoring Israel carries a price. Though Mr. Obama has succeeded in prodding Mr. Netanyahu to accept the idea of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, he has failed to induce Israel to impose a freeze on settlements. In fact, he has failed even to stir debate about the merits of one: no Israeli political figure has stood up to Mr. Netanyahu and begged him to support Mr. Obama; not even the Israeli left has adopted Mr. Obama as its icon. Mr. Obama's quest for diplomacy has appeared to Israelis as dangerous American naivete. The president offered a hand to the Iranians, and got nothing, merely giving them more time to advance their nuclear program. And he failed to move Arab governments to take steps to normalize relations with Israel. Mr. Obama seems to have confused American Jews with Israelis. We are close emotionally and politically, but we are different. We speak Hebrew and not English, we live in the Middle East and have separate historical narratives. Mr. Obama's stop at Buchenwald and his strong rejection of Holocaust denial, immediately after his Cairo speech, appealed to American Jews but fell flat in Israel. Here we are taught that Zionist determination and struggle - not guilt over the Holocaust - brought Jews a homeland. In the past decade, repeated peace negotiations and diplomatic statements have indicated that the "settlement blocs" will remain in Israeli hands under any two-state solution. Why, then, insist on a total freeze everywhere? And why deny with such force the existence of previous understandings over limited settlement construction? There is simply too much evidence proving that such an understanding existed. To Israelis, the claim undermined Mr. Obama's credibility.
2009-07-28 06:00:00
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