Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: la stampa USA chiede conto a Obama delle sue contraddizioni

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304066504576341212934894494.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
Say what you will about President Obama's approach to Israel—or of his
relationship with American Jews—he sure has mastered the concept of
chutzpah.
On Thursday at the State Department, the president gave his big speech
on the Middle East, in which he invoked the claims of friendship to
tell Israelis "the truth," which to his mind was that "the status quo
is unsustainable, and Israel too must act boldly to advance a lasting
peace." On Friday in the Oval Office, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu offered his version of the truth, which was that the 1967
border proposed by Mr. Obama as a basis for negotiating the outlines
of a Palestinian state was a nonstarter.
Administration reaction to this reciprocal act of friendly truth-
telling? "That was Bibi over the top," the New York Times quoted one
senior U.S. official, using the prime minister's nickname. "That's not
how you address the president of the United States."
Maybe so. Then again, it isn't often that this or any other U.S.
president welcomes a foreign leader by sandbagging him with an
adversarial policy speech a day before the visit. Remember when the
Dalai Lama visited Mr. Obama last year? As a courtesy to Beijing, the
president made sure to have the Tibetan spiritual leader exit by the
door where the White House trash was piled up. And that was 11 months
before Hu Jintao's state visit to the U.S.
When this president wants to make a show of his exquisite diplomatic
sensitivity—burgers with Medvedev, bows to Abdullah, New Year's
greetings to the mullahs—he knows how. And when he wants to show his
contempt, he knows how, too.
The contempt was again on display Sunday, when Mr. Obama spoke to the
Aipac policy conference in Washington. The speech was stocked with the
perennial bromides about U.S.-Israeli friendship, which brought an
anxious crowd to its feet a few times. As for the rest, it was a thin
tissue of falsehoods, rhetorical legerdemain, telling omissions and
self-contradictions. Let's count the ways.
For starters, it would be nice if the president could come clean about
whether his line about the 1967 line—"mutually agreed swaps" and all—
was pathbreaking and controversial, or no big deal. On Sunday, Mr.
Obama congratulated himself for choosing the hard road to Mideast
peace as he prepares for re-election, only to offer a few minutes
later that "there was nothing particularly original in my proposal."
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Associated Press
President Barack Obama arrives to speak at the American Israel Public
Affairs Committee (AIPAC) convention.
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Yet assuming Mr. Obama knows what he's talking about, he knows that's
untrue: No U.S. president has explicitly endorsed the '67 lines as the
basis for negotiating a final border, which is why the University of
Michigan's Juan Cole, not exactly a shill for the Israel lobby, called
it "a major turning point."
Mr. Obama would also know that in 2009 Hillary Clinton had described
this formula as "the Palestinian goal." Now it's Mr. Obama's goal as
well, even as he insists that "no peace can be imposed."
Then there was Mr. Obama's use of his favorite professorial trope:
"Let me repeat what I actually said." What followed was a rehearsal of
what he supposedly said on Thursday.
But Mr. Obama's problem isn't, as he supposes, that people aren't
paying close enough attention to him. On the contrary, they've noticed
that on Thursday Mr. Obama called for Israel to make territorial
concessions to some approximation of the '67 lines before an agreement
is reached on the existential issues of refugees and Jerusalem.
"Moving forward now on the basis of territory and security," he said,
"provides a foundation to resolve these two issues in a way that is
just and fair, and that respects the rights and aspirations of
Israelis and Palestinians."
Mr. Obama neglected to mention these points on Sunday, hence the
telling omission. But the essence of his proposal is that Israel
should cede territory, put itself into a weaker position, and then
hope for the best. This doesn't even amount to a land-for-peace
formula.
That's not all. Mr. Obama got some applause Sunday by calling for a
"non-militarized" Palestinian state. But how does that square with his
comment, presumably applicable to a future Palestine, that "every
state has a right to self-defense"? Mr. Obama was also cheered for his
references to Israel as a "Jewish state." But why then obfuscate on
the question of Palestinian refugees, whose political purpose over 63
years has been to destroy Israel as a Jewish state?
And then there was that line that "we will hold the Palestinians
accountable for their actions and their rhetoric." Applause! But can
Mr. Obama offer a single example of having done that as president,
except perhaps at the level of a State Department press release?
What, then, would a pro-Israel president do? He would tell
Palestinians that there is no right of return. He would make the
reform of the Arab mindset toward Israel the centerpiece of his peace
efforts. He would outline hard and specific consequences should Hamas
join the government.
Such a vision could lay the groundwork for peace. What Mr. Obama
offered is a formula for war, one that he will pursue in a second
term. Assuming, of course, that he gets one.

 
http://online.wsj.com
ROTFL. LA stampa USA = carta igienica di Murdoch. Fede ti fa una pippa