2011年3月1日星期二

living in peace with Israel

“The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop,”ghd on sale uk he said in a much-lauded speech in Cairo.
Compare this with the text of the resolution that drew 14 votes in favor and died with the U.S. veto: “ghd hair Israeli settlements established in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, are illegal and constitute a major obstacle to the achievement of a just, lasting and comprehensive peace.”
Linguists may quibble over the difference between “illegal” and “illegitimate” but the substance of the two statements is pretty much the same. ghd mk4 uk So why the veto? It followed an energetic campaign by the Israeli government and its allies in the United States to keep the issue out of the United Nations, seen by Israel as a reflexively anti-Israeli body.
Washington’s ambassador at the U.N., Susan Rice, had a different explanation. Though the U.S. opposed settlements, she said, adopting that resolution would have risked hardening the positions of both sides in future negotiations. In other words, let’s return to the parallel universe of the “peace process.”
In that universe, American presidents make optimistic predictions detached from the realities on the ground. George W. Bush, early in 2009: “The peace agreement should happen and can happen by the end of the year.” Obama, last September, held out the prospect of an agreement that would, by next year,” lead to a new member of the United Nations – an independent state of Palestine, living in peace with Israel.”

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