Israel’s Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor today cautioned that the US calls to freeze settlement construction in the West Bank violated agreements made during the Bush Administration and could undermine American credibility going forward.
“We never had an agreement with the previous administration. We had an agreement with America,” Meridor insisted, adding that the agreement was “binding” and demanding that the Obama Administration honor it.
The Israeli government has repeatedly claimed that secret deals were made during the Bush Administration, but the exact terms of them were never written down. The Obama Administration has denied that any such deals exist, citing several Bush-era officials. Bush Administration official Elliott Abrams, on the other hand, claims a “tacit understanding” of some sort did in fact exist.
The Obama Administration’s calls to freeze settlement growth, a move unprecendented among US presidents, has strained ties with the right-wing Netanyahu government, which has vowed to continue expanding the settlements at all costs. Israeli officials have repeatedly said they believe the Obama Administration will eventually back off its demands.
Elliot Abrams is not to be trusted by any American. Indeed, the only people who kept Abrams in his job were the Dick Cheney cabal — all the Israeli firsters — America last! Elliot Abrams has done more harm to US interests than any Arab group could ever hope to do.
Neo-con Elliot Abrams was convicted of lying to congress during Iran-contra, then afterward pardoned by Bush 1. His perjury and subsequent conviction, plus the ***DECLARED*** neo-con policy of deliberately lying whenever useful to further their agenda, left me utterly disgusted and certain that such a creature could never again be placed in a position of public trust. I adopted the term "Professional Liar" to describe him, feeling it the perfect combination of literal truth and profound scorn.
Now, in the aftermath of the Neo-con-directed Bush/Cheney criminal administration with its central practice of deliberate, purposeful, focused, and unrelenting serial lying, the term "Professional Liar" seems to have lost all of its force. Professional Liar seems now little more than a plain vanilla descriptor. Just another skill to be listed on a resume for today's political operative.
The American experiment is over. All that remains is to vacuum up any remaining wealth from the corpse of the old "America", transfer it to the ruling elite, wait for those who still remember what prosperity was like to die, and then start the new "globalized" era where Chinese, Indian, and American workers all endure the same "austere" standard of living.
Massive population replacement with immigrants who've never lived the American experiment is helping speed that process along very rapidly.