As part of a high profile interview with Time Magazine, President Obama conceded that the expectations he raised for an imminent solution to the long-standing Israel-Palestinian conflict were unrealistic, and that breakthroughs were unlikely.
“This is just really hard,” Obama admitted, “even for a guy like George Mitchell.” The president had suggested when he took office that the time was right for a two-state solution and that it would be a relatively simple matter to get the move started.
Despite brimming with confidence, the administration spent the summer pressuring Israel to freeze settlement expansion, only to give up in August amid growing political pressure. This led to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu agreeing to restart the peace talks, but only so long as the Palestinians abandoned every single demand they had.
One year after taking office little has been accomplished, and officials at home and abroad are acknowledging that the prospect of peace talks starting any time soon is “slim” at best. Yesterday Netanyahu even demanded that the Palestinians accept a permanent Israeli occupation as a prerequisite for Israel to consider allowing a nominally independent Palestinian state in the West Bank. If anything, the chances for peace seem worse now than a year ago.
a simple solution. kick out every senator of Israeli decent . Cut off funding for Israel immediately. Israel has a state funded medical System of absolutely no Cost to the Citicens funded entirely by American Tax payers. when are Americans going to realize that it is Israel that is creating the problems in the first place.
if America would stop interfering in World affairs and concentrate on the well-being of it's People, every American could have free Health care. now all funds are spent on Warfare to ensure Israels survival in the middle east. on land that was stolen from the People of Palestine by the great Conquerer England.
Israel should not have been created in the first place, they had lost that right by nailing jesus on the Cross.
I totally agree with Robert Fisher. The ONLY solution is to cut off funding for Isreal immediately. This will pay for Obama's Health Care Funding Proposals foe Americans – which is ware American Taypayers funds should be going in the first place. Not to pay for State Funded medical Systems in Isreal.
Since just about everything I post can not get through the Moderator's filter, I see if this plain test will go through.
Rather a pathetic display of censorship from a site that is showing all the signs of being taken over by the J & E & W & S.
testing to see if my ip address has been blocked for some reason.
Obama misjudged more than ME peace. His whole Presidency seems one big misjudgement.
"It is really hard" especially when you do not do anything. Fire Hillary for a start. And then fire Rahm Emmanuel. Of course this was just another of Obama's lies.
Straight faced Obama pressured Israel??? What the ????
This mechanical drone is another pathological liar and beats Jr. Bush in that department.
He ain't no President, just another cabin boy for President Hitlary.Notice Biden is no-where to be found :^/
We can start by cutting off ALL funding to israel…but that isn't going to happen because Washington is Israeli occupied territory.
Notice the timing? Democrats lost a senators seat.There is a IsraelFirster's hatred of O'Bama.The knifes are out. Watch out for the Democrats-Change in mideast policy–Kissie Kissie NutinYahoo
The USA is the real enemy of the Palestinian people and people like Neteanyanyu happen to be the front men. The money and the guns that surpress the Palestinians all come from the USA. The real Jews have no problem with Palestine because they know that they are all Palestinans. Zionism works with the enemies in the USA to shame the whole world like this. I have always asked the Creator to take charge and remove every obstacle out of the way of the Palestinian people just as has been done to the. iron man. The world should stand up and tell America to get out of they way because the enemy cannot be the peace broker.
There's only two ways to peace in the mideast – either wait until Israel to complete their 'grand plan' of a greater Israel (no Gaza, no West Bank, no Palestinians) or the US becomes an honest broker in the process (no more or at least way less aid to Israel, support for the Palestinians' desire for a sovereign state without Israeli police on their borders, Palestinian airports, aid to Palestine, unified Palestinian territory, a US military with the will to confront Israeli forces to enforce Palestinian determination). The second is not likely, unfortunately, the first is likely but at a severe cost in lives, suffering, and the morality of the global political community. IMHO
There is a third solution and I hope it starts sooner rather than later. People everywhere should rise up against the Jewish diaspora and this will put pressure on Israel to do the right thing. At least half of the diaspora are in favour of going back to the 1967 borders and are disgusted at the way the Israelis behave towards the Palestinians, but they are shouted down and penalized by the other half on a regular basis. It just takes a few brave men to get this solution started..
Hard? Nonsense! Cut off all funding to Israel. Nevermind the "1967 border", the only legitimately recognized border was the 1948 one… all others are a pretense and illegal. Apply sanctions to Israel and threaten and follow through if necessary with a peace keeping force on Israeli territory unless Israel withdraws to its only recognized borders. This should concentrate their minds PDQ.
Would be lovely to contemplate cutting off military aid to Israel – but how could that get through Congress? Obama cannot snap his fingers and cut off aid. Congress voted 344 to 36 to condemn the Goldstone Report. What can Obama do about that? When we throw out the pro-Israel Lobby, then we can talk about cutting off aid? Simply electing a president who can deliver the Cairo Speech is a good step, but it is only one step on the right track for a change. Now we have got to follow through with kicking out the pro-Israel puppets in Congress – beginning with right-wing neocons this year and Lieberman in 2012.
Yes, I would support cutting off BLOODYISRAEL from the pork train. I also would like to see the butt of Rahmie walking out the door, don't let the door slam you in the butt on the way out! WARWHORING RAHMIE needs to go live in BLOODYISRAEL. Yes, as someone above said, 'Full Universal Health Care for All including a GYN/OB package is paid for by the slaves of the OCCUPIED USofBLOODYISRAEL. I just loves me big, heaping, piles of shitty FASCISM!!
Time magazine fronts for Israel. Mr. Obama just does not get leadership. He does not grasp leverage at all but, rather, negotiates like an organizer in the back streets of Chicago. As a result,
Israel and its minions plays Mr. Obama like a violin. When will he wake up? When he runs for a second term…likely to lose. His veneer as an "honest hardworking intellectual" has been worn thin.
I GAVE EVERY ONE A THUMBS DOWN BECAUSE…….
THE FIRST STEP TOWARDS MIDDLE EAST PEACE IS……
ENDING OUR OWN ENDLESS WAR THERE!
Ending the Israel-Palestine dispute is hard for Obama because to come to a just settlement he would have to take on Israel's friends in this country-who just happen to be major contributors to the Democratic Party. So it's much easier to keep aid flowing to the Israelis, enabling them to settle the West Bank, and to continue the siege of Gaza and also to make Israel's enemies, Iraq, Iran, Syria, etc American's enemies. That all this puts America in the terrorist cross hairs is apparently less of a problem for Obama than taking on Israel's friends in the US.
There is no room left for a Palestinian state. They should demand a one state solution. If the Palestinians are not forced out or exterminated as the zionist are planning then they eventually will take over. As for ending aid to Israel that will never happen as long as AIPAC has control over Congress. All we can hope is for the Palestinians to hold on since time is on their side. Hopefully Iran will develope nukes. This will put a brake on zionist expansionism.
It is interesting to note that many jews are now fleeing Israel. They can read the handwritting on the wall. Over 750,000 now live abroad which means Palestinians far out number jews in the Mandate.
Angry emails will not change the situation for America.
Fight for your RIGHTS as Americans, or watch them disappear….
Obama is full of it: he had no intention of seriously pushing for a two-state solution. No one who has been alive for more than three decades could possibly believe that the DNC or RNC would pressure Israel enough to stop the destruction of the Palestinian people.
Israel will continue to chip away at the occupied territories until the Palestinians leave or die, and the US will support Israel until it is done. The small treaties and weak concessions by Israel just slow down the erosion. Meanwhile, more and more people will become terrorists, using the horrific treatment of the Palestinian people as justification, while we in the US pretend terrorism comes from racism and Islam.
Whats really, really hard is forcing "peace-road loving Israel" and America's only true ally in the region to agree that the "jihadists- terrorists-children killers ( as a means to make money by selling their organs ) Palestenians are warmongers and cannot be trusted in following UN Resolutions and/or international law.
"Palestenians are warmongers and cannot be trusted in following UN Resolutions and/or international law. "
the ignorance of this statement aside following un resolutions and following international law are not prerequisite to statehood
Omop, go the F**k away! You are an Israel-firster and don't belong in the US. You should be deported to BLOODYISRAEL.
Iaraelies have stolen 80% of the palastanian land,now they want to steal 80% of the remaining 20% of the Palastanian land. They can do it with impunity,and flip their finger to the US.as long as the zionazis are controling America.It is about time to liberate our country America from the zionist clonialism.
We have to cut all of the billions we give to Israel (and Egypt). Regardless of what you might think of Israel or the Middle East, we just can't afford it any more.
Bring our troops home. Bring our tax money home. Our economy has crashed. We can't afford these wars. We can't afford this aid. We need our tax money for our own citizens now.
Ya know what's annoying about this …. the way Obama tries to blame others for his own failure.
Obama laid out a goal for himself and his administration. He didn't meet it. But he can't admit that he failed. Instead, he tries to say that others don't want peace as much as he thought they did. Its all their fault.
I suspect we'll hear a lot of this sort of thing from Obama over the next couple of years as all the hot air he spewed turns out to be lies.
Obama should demand from the Zionist regime immediate implementation of all the UN resolutions same as the US demands from Iran and Iraq at the time. If the Zionists refuse impose severe sanctions. They could also send in the marines to expell the settlers from illegally grabbing Palestine land. The US could clear the West Bank in five minutes if they had a real desire to solve the present deadlock.
Obama is so full of it. This reminded me of that famous line by Bill Clinton when soon after getting into office he wailed and moaned about how he worked so hard for tax cuts he promised but it just couldn't be done. And that was in only a few weeks! This pols are liars extraordinaire and the only honest "action" I see any of them capable of doing is a rope dance. Preferably in large groups.
President Obama is the most powerful man on earth and an absolute gentleman and there lies his problem… he is surrounded by an unfortunate number of people whose loyalty is questionable when it comes to Israel, I understand that good old fashioned American nationalism is not terribly fashionable but please, surely there is some sort of loyalty test these guys must pass before being allowed into the halls of the White House and the Foreign Service?
Let us all agree that Israel was built on an inspired, almost holy dream but even blind Freddy can see that Netanyahu and his ex nightclub-bouncer of a foreign minister are NOT of the ilk of a Ben Gurion or an Abba Eban … the crazies have taken over the sanitarium and we are still trying to negotiate with them. Mr President please surround yourself with America-First-Americans and deal with all nations with the same yardstick and only then can the world at large expect Peace, Salam, Shalom in the Middle East.
The only thing he misjudged was the power of the Israeli lobby.