The Palestinians are slighted once more (and people are still unclear whether Barack Obama is pro-Israel?):
Dealing a blow to the Obama administration’s efforts to restart Middle East peace talks, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton failed Saturday to persuade the Palestinian leader to accept an Israeli proposal that would slow but not stop the construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
The Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, insisted that Israel must halt all construction of housing units before broader negotiations could begin. He rebuffed an Israeli proposal — developed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and relayed by Mrs. Clinton — to complete about 3,000 units and temporarily freeze other construction, the chief Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, said after the meeting.
“This is a nonstarter,” Mr. Erekat said. “Mr. Netanyahu has a choice, settlements or peace, and he has chosen settlements.”
Of course he has, because Israel continues to bully Washington and nobody seems to understand why or how. Here’s Gideon Levy on the reality:
Now is the time to say to the United States: Enough flattery. If you don’t change the tone, nothing will change. As long as Israel feels the United States is in its pocket, and that America’s automatic veto will save it from condemnations and sanctions, that it will receive massive aid unconditionally, and that it can continue waging punitive, lethal campaigns without a word from Washington, killing, destroying and imprisoning without the world’s policeman making a sound, it will continue in its ways.
Away from the grand-standing and victim mentality (everybody hates us, writes Israeli commentator Caroline Glick, including J Street), Israel has not been stopped in its colonial project.
Until it does, its legitimacy is non-existent.