Predictable, but not good news. Jerusalem Post (*see update below):
US President-elect Barack Obama is planning to base his peacemaking efforts in the Middle East on the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, The Sunday Times reported on Sunday, quoting sources close to Obama.Welcome to the morning after.
"The Arab Peace Initiative, based on the Saudi peace plan of February 2002, calls for a full Israeli withdrawal from all territories taken in the Six Day War, including east Jerusalem, in exchange for normalizing ties with the Arab world.
Quoting an adviser to Obama, the report states that during his visit to the Middle East in July, the President-elect said Israel would be 'crazy' to refuse a deal that could 'give them peace with the Muslim world."
UPDATE: The Jerusalem Post has now pulled the story at the above link, and replaced it with Dennis Ross' denial that Obama plans to back the Arab Peace Initiative. ("I was in the meeting in Ramallah," Ross said. "Then-Senator Obama did not say this. The story is false.") The Sunday Times article that the JP originally referred to is here. It may be worth noting that the Sunday Times does not say that Obama made a public assertion that Israel would be crazy to refuse the deal. Here's what it does say:
On a visit to the Middle East last July, the president-elect said privately it would be “crazy” for Israel to refuse a deal that could “give them peace with the Muslim world”, according to a senior Obama adviser. [Emphasis added.]There is some additional commentary on the original JP story at Jihad Watch.
2 comments:
This really scares me. I hope it's not true. I didn't vote for him because I was afraid something like this would happen.
Hi Sarah - welcome to the stoop!
Yes, it scares me too. He has said such a variety of things about Israel that I don't think anyone is sure where he stands. At one point he talked about the necessity for a "contiguous" Palestinian state that joined Gaza with the West Bank - which of course would cut Israel in half. Israel will be having elections soon - I'll feel better if Netanyahu wins.
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