Misrepresenting Basic Facts On Settlements
Misrepresenting Basic Facts On Settlements
It’s no secret that the Washington Post’s editorial page has become a kind of graveyard of neoconservatism, but even so this is a pretty profoundly misleading passage in today’s editorial lamenting the Obama administration’s firm stance against Israeli settlements:
Rather than pocketing Mr. Netanyahu’s initial concessions — he gave a speech on Palestinian statehood and suggested parameters for curtailing settlements accepted by previous U.S. administrations — Mr. Obama chose to insist on an absolutist demand for a settlement “freeze.” Palestinian and Arab leaders who had accepted previous compromises immediately hardened their positions; they also balked at delivering the “confidence-building” concessions to Israel that the administration seeks.
Netanyahu did not make a speech on “Palestinian statehood.” He made a speech laying out Israeli demands, in which he also briefly acknowledged a “Palestinian state” — and then placed such stringent conditions upon that state as to divest the term of any meaning.
In any case, previous Israeli governments had already committed to the creation of a Palestinian state. As the American Prospect’s Michelle Goldberg wrote in an analysis of the Bar-Ilan speech, “after taking office Netanyahu essentially revoked this commitment and now stands to reap rewards for re-offering it in diminished form.”
It’s also pretty interesting how, in the Post’s telling, the claim by some Israeli officials that they had arrived at secret, oral understandings on settlement growth with one U.S. administration — the Bush administration — has now magically morphed into “suggested parameters for curtailing settlements accepted by previous U.S. administrations”.
As to President Obama’s “absolutist demand for a settlement ‘freeze,’” President Bush’s 2003 road map is very clear on this point, stating that Israel “freezes all settlement activity, consistent with the Mitchell report.”
If Obama looks like he’s being unusually firm on settlements, it’s only because past U.S. administrations have unfortunately been all too willing to bend on the issue, recognizing the settlements as a serious problem, but never really moving seriously against them. Israeli governments, and settlement supporters in the U.S., have grown accustomed to the game in which the president says settlements must stop, and the Israeli prime minister agrees, and then the next day Israel announces 1400 new settlement homes. This has been disastrous not only for the Palestinians, whose daily lives are impacted in countless negative ways by the settlements and the military occupation that sustains them, but also for U.S. credibility and the credibility of Palestinian moderates who we’re ostensibly trying to strengthen.
It’s certainly fair to question whether Obama’s focus on settlements is correct, but it’s also fair to expect one of the leading papers in the country not to misrepresent the basic facts of the situation while doing it.
6 Responses to “Misrepresenting Basic Facts On Settlements”
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The Post has not only become a neocon graveyard, it has begun to lie on big and small details that do no one, especially their local DC audience of lawmakers and government employees, any good. I’m shocked at how quickly they’ve declined in the few months since the new editor took over. They’ve lost me entirely. I hate it even when a site accidentally links me to their page. Half the time it’s because of a major distortion they’re promoting. Stinks to high heaven.
July 30th, 2009 at 2:21 pmIsrael was granted a tiny bit of land (for which they were grateful),were repeatedly attacked and somehow wound up winning a lot more land at the end of each attack. What other nation has ever been told to return territory won in a war? Had the Arabs been victorious, would the world have demanded that the captured land be returned? Maybe we should think about returning parts of America to the French, Spanish, and English–better yet, let’s give it ALL back to its original owners, who we treated much worse than the Palistinians could ever imagine. Unfortunately, peace will still be a long time coming to the Middle East because many Moslems will not be satisfied by anything less than the total annihilation of Israel and Mr. Obama refuses to accept this simple truth.
July 30th, 2009 at 11:35 pmI am all for having the FACTS and then let the debating begin. When individuals can only make their argument valid by distorting the facts, then I quit reading their statements. If this distortion is how they choose to represent themselves, then it is up to the WAPO to decide if it wants to remain relevant or not. After their Salon dust-up, a rational mind would think that WAPO would actually have editors that check these editorials. If they decide to print lies and distortions, then they will have to pay for their decisions.
The only advantage to having these editorials is that it gives the public the heads up on the GOP Talking Points and makes it easier for non-neocons to focus research before the talking heads start their day.
July 31st, 2009 at 1:57 pmActually makes sense to me dude!
RT
July 31st, 2009 at 5:13 pmhttp://www.real-anonymity.pro.tc
dprosental seems to have an 18th century mindset. Taking land by conquest has been illegal for a very long time, since the UN got underway. If the Arabs had beaten the Israelis, then absolutely yes, they would have had to give the land back. There are rules about how to treat an occupied country that the Israelis have completely flouted with no retribution whatsoever. (The US hasn’t done such a good job of that in Iraq, either.)
As for his statement that it is the Arabs who are at fault, remember that the Zionist position from the very beginning was that they were going to expand into what are now the occupied territories. And that despite the tight Israeli control on the media, we are now finding out what they’ve been doing from the very beginning. It isn’t that the Israelis have all of a sudden become monsters. They’ve been that way for a long time but the rest of the world hasn’t heard about it.
Furthermore the Israelis have twice rejected an Arab guarantee of safety for a return to their own land. It seems that it is the Israelis who would rather live in constant warfare, not the Palestinians.
August 1st, 2009 at 1:59 pmI’ve heard word-of-mouth that the situation of the immigrants to Israel is desperate. People are living 4 and 5 to a room. So there is substantial motivation to steal other people’s land and even houses.
August 3rd, 2009 at 4:25 pmI doubt that the Israel government will change its settlement policies as long as there is a fervent belief in immigration of Jews and a severe lack of housing for newcomers.
I think that if a reporter went to Israel and dug around, he/she would find a story. A country that insists on immigration and has no place to put them.