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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: SARMAN who wrote (490643)	6/25/2009 1:47:36 PM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1574718

What he actually sees, despite yer interpretation, is that the presence of settlements is an impediment to peace. It's nothing new for the US. Shrub was an aberration , not the norm. Joel Brinkley: Settlement issue not new for presidents BY JOEL BRINKLEY It's a familiar story: An exceedingly popular president with a strong electoral mandate decides soon after taking office that to advance Middle East peace efforts he must push Israel to freeze construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank. "The most significant action Israel could take to demonstrate good faith," the president says, "would be a settlement freeze." As soon as he voices the idea, Israel's prime minister publicly refuses. Within weeks, reporters discover that settlers are putting up even more new West Bank homes, in defiance of the president's request. The White House expresses irritation, and the matter passes. The episode just described took place in 1983, early in the Reagan administration. But look at the early years of almost any administration over the past 30 years and you'll discover a similar effort -- and similar disappointing results. Now it's President Obama's turn. "The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements," Obama told an appreciative audience in Cairo. "The construction violates previous agreements." Well, Mr. President, I wish you luck. You'll need it. Why can't the president of the United States, who authorizes an annual gift to Israel of at least $3 billion, persuade any Israeli government -- left, right or centrist -- to stop building settlements? The settlements violate international law, and Israel has agreed more than once to freeze settlement growth. No other nation anywhere in the world endorses Israel's settlement policy. In fact, the majority of Israelis disapprove of continued settlement expansion. And so it has always been. After Reagan left office, President George H.W. Bush made settlement expansion his signature issue with Israel. At that time, tens of thousands of Soviet Jews were emigrating to Israel, and Jerusalem asked Washington for a $10 billion housing loan. Bush said repeatedly that Israel would not get the money until it froze settlements. Bush finally relented, late in the 1992 election campaign. Soon after President Bill Clinton took office, in 1993, he cut the loan guarantee for that year by almost 25 percent -- because Israel was once again refusing to halt new settlement construction. By then, 10 years after Reagan's effort, 112,000 Israeli Jews lived in the West Bank. After the Oslo Peace Accords in 1993, Israel more or less stopped building new settlements but aggressively expanded existing ones. President George W. Bush, chastened by his father's loss to Clinton in 1992, chose not to make much of the settlement issue. The White House called the settlements "unhelpful," and its "road map" for peace called for a settlement freeze. But when Bush took office, 177,000 Israeli Jews lived in the West Bank. When he left, the number approached 300,000. Earlier this month, Obama said that "part of being a good friend is being honest" with Israel. Well, I would argue that Reagan, Bush and Clinton were honest. On the settlement issue, it did no good. kansas.com