settlements

As an update to my piece this morning, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday called Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who’s traveling in Russia, to discuss Clinton’s demand that Netanyahu reverse the East Jerusalem settlement expansion that Israel announced last week. That planned expansion resulted in nearly two weeks’ worth of diplomatic tension that [...]

Expanded settlements in East Jerusalem are “an insult to the United States,” says the secretary of state.

The conventional wisdom in Washington about the U.S.-Israel spat is well expressed by this Josh Rogin post and this Ben Smith post. Basically, people think the Obama administration messed up by publicly recognizing that Prime Minister Netanyahu insulted the U.S. by moving forward with settlement expansion in East Jerusalem while Vice President Biden visited Israel [...]

Just released from the Vice President:
I condemn the decision by the government of Israel to advance planning for new housing units in East Jerusalem. The substance and timing of the announcement, particularly with the launching of proximity talks, is precisely the kind of step that undermines the trust we need right now and runs counter [...]

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, after spending much of 2009 pushing against the Obama administration’s call for a settlement freeze, has proposed a 10-month settlement freeze in the interest of what he called “meaningful negotiations to reach a historic peace agreement that would finally end the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.” Here’s the official [...]

Well-known Israel expert Sarah Palin criticizes President Obama’s criticism of Israeli settlement expansion (most recently over Gilo):
“I disagree with the Obama administration on that,” Palin told Walters. “I believe that the Jewish settlements should be allowed to be expanded upon, because that population of Israel is, is going to grow. More and more Jewish people [...]

While in Israel, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee gave an interview to an extremely sympathetic reporter for PajamasTV. Asked about “the Obama administration’s view of Jewish settlements,” Huckabee compares the idea of telling Jewish families not to move to the settlements to American segregation. “We tried that in the United States,” Huckabee says. “We had [...]

Former GOP Arkansas governor, Fox News host and presumed presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee is in Israel and he tweets:
I’ll be in Israel this week and touring the highly disputed settlements that Obama and Hillary are trying to stop.
“Highly disputed” is one way of putting it. “Illegal” is another, and “contrary to Israeli obligations under the [...]

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 [...]

Via Robert Farley, Yossi Peled, an Israeli cabinet minister, proposes that Israel stop buying U.S. military equipment if the Obama administration continues to insist on a settlement freeze and negotiations with Iran. The Jerusalem Post reports that Peled wrote his cabinet colleagues an 11-page letter lamenting President Obama’s outreach to the Muslim world:
“Obama’s ascendance represents [...]