Israel Matzav

'Obama uses an axe when a scalpel is needed'

Even the American Left is beginning to doubt President Obama's emphasis on a 'settlement freeze' according to Foreign Policy Magazine's The Cable blog.

Obama's stance on Israel is facing predictable criticism from more right-leaning pro-Israel groups in the United States. Mort Klein of the Zionist Organization of America, for instance, this week described the U.S. pressure over plans to build Jewish housing on the site of a Jerusalem hotel as "racist." But more troubling perhaps for Obama are doubts from some who strongly support his push to resolve the conflict.

"I think it is extremely important to send this firm message," on his resolve to solve the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, said Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of the left-leaning pro-peace group J Street. "But if one is choosing something to have a true, go-to-the-mat moment with between the U.S. and Israel, should one really choose it on a piece of puzzle, or do it around a real resolution on how to go forward and try to end the conflict?"

"There needs to be a conclusion to the U.S.-Israel impasse over settlements that deals with the core principle that the Obama administration is seeking to promote: no prejudging of negotiations," said David Makovsky, senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and coauthor with Ross of Myths, Illusions and Peace: Finding a New Direction for America in the Middle East.

"This can be achieved by the Obama administration's focus on 'no geographic expansion' of settlements with a mechanism to monitor its implementation," Makovsky continued. "The current approach of the administration, with its focus on the phrase 'settlement freeze,' sadly uses an axe when a scalpel is needed. The current approach sets an unrealistic bar. If the Israelis want to build vertically without expanding the constructed footprint of the settlement, this has nothing to do with any conceivable interpretation of land encroachment. Therefore, by perpetuating the impasse with Israel instead of bringing it to a swift conclusion, [the United States is] blocking the very idea that the we seek to promote: commencing Israeli-Palestinian negotiations."

Read the whole thing. The author also presents an interesting take on why the Egyptians and the Saudis are so eager to make the 'Saudi plan' an all-or-nothing deal.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:34 AM