benjamin netanyahu

Maybe “blasts” was the wrong verb for my old headline on the White House’s response to Israel’s expansion of settlements in Palestinian East Jerusalem. The White House appears to have done some editing.
When the White House press shop sent out its statement criticizing Israel this afternoon — I received mine at 2:14 p.m. — the [...]

Contrary to nearly a year of stern insistence from the Obama administration that Israel refrain from all growth in occupied Palestinian territory — an insistence that frayed with a recent comment by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton that the administration has tried to walk back — Israel has announced the construction of 900 new [...]

U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice gave a speech in Israel yesterday urging that peace demands more than “lip service,” an unsubtle dig at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Augustinian approach. She singled out President Shimon Peres, a leading peace-processor, for praise:
“As President Peres always reminds us, being serious about peace means taking risks for peace,” Ms. Rice [...]

Laura Rozen goes through the tea leaves:
“We solved the matter of the settlements with the Americans,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly told Spanish prime minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, Israeli daily Haaretz cites Zapatero.
“I cannot say more than that. If you are interested in hearing more details, ask in Washington,” Netanyahu added.
Oh really?

Real quick before the military commissions hearings begin: Laura Rozen has a detailed post about why Vice President Joe Biden’s “we will not prevent” line about an Israeli strike on Iran was not only not a green light for an attack, it was a warning to the Israelis against one:
“Some in the [Israeli] media are [...]

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman met with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton yesterday and reiterated his opposition to a settlement freeze. “We cannot accept this vision about absolutely completely freezing call for our settlements,” Lieberman said during a joint presser. But he also had a formulation that I haven’t seen before:
First of all, we [...]

So be cynical and presume that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Sunday speech on peace with the Palestinians isn’t going to commit Israel to anything major and will merely attempt to placate a ticked-off Obama administration. Eli Lake at The Washington Times says you’d be wrong and Netanyahu will instead for the first time embrace [...]

After meeting with Defense Secretary Robert Gates at the White House today, President Obama issued a directive giving Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton certain responsibilities under “section 201 of Public Law 110-429,” in “coordination” with Gates. Meaning what, exactly? Here’s the relevant text:
The President shall carry out an empirical and qualitative assessment on an [...]

Here’s how you know Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu left a bad first impression with the Obama administration. Asked in an ABC News interview yesterday about reports that his allies floated saying that the Bush administration had secretly promised Israel that it could expand settlement construction in the West Bank, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham [...]

From Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel’s remarks with President Obama at the former concentration camp today:
You spoke of humanity, Mr. President. Though unto us, in those times, it was human to be inhuman. And now the world has learned, I hope. And of course this hope includes so many of what now would [...]