Israel Matzav

For this administration, 'moral equivalence' would be a vast improvement

Jennifer Rubin has a good comment on the latest kerfuffle between Congress and the Obama-Clinton State Department over Senator Mark Kirk's demand for a more exact count of 'Palestinian refugees.'

This latest outburst from the PA confirms what we have known to be the case for decades: The goal for the PA is to keep the “right of return” pristine beyond reasonable definition or compromise for as long as possible. And this is precisely why a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is impossible: The goal of two states living side by side means Israel remains a Jewish state, and those survivors of 1946-49 and their progeny settle in the West Bank or Gaza or one of the almost two dozen Arab states.

What is interesting is how aligned are the Obama administration's positions and that of the PA. The PA wanted a settlement freeze; President Obama forced one on Israel. The PA wants to go back to the 1949 lines (incorrectly referred to as the “1967 borders”); that becomes U.S. policy. Now the PA is frantic to preserve the inflated head count for refugees; the State Department takes the PA’s side. You see, the State Department says, “Final-status issues can and must only be resolved by the Israelis and Palestinians in direct negotiations.” If only the striped-pants crowd felt the same about final borders.

Critics of the Obama administration sometimes say the president operates with a false moral equivalence. If only. Now “equivalence” would be a vast improvement for Israel.

Unfortunately, the predetermined borders go back much further than Obama, but other than that, the comment rings true.

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Mark Kirk, Palestinian refugees

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:58 AM