From Special Report All-Star Panel Wednesday, December 7, 2011
On Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s recent comments on the Mid-East peace process:It was a statement made over the weekend, and you can be sure it was approved, every word of it, by the White House. It was a very strong attack on Israel, blaming [it] essentially for the absence of a peace process. In fact he said that Israel has to “get itself to the damn table,” meaning, negotiating table.
This is egregious. This is really blaming the victim. The Israeli government has accepted a Palestinian state for the first time in the history of the Likud. It agreed to an unprecedented 10-month moratorium on settlement construction. And in fact, the Palestinian president waited nine of those months before he attended, then walked out and he hasn’t returned.
The Israelis have been ready for unconditional negotiations. And Abbas, the president of the Palestinians, put up all kind of conditions and refused to go to the table, and said openly in an interview with the Washington Post two years ago [that] he wouldn’t lift a finger or make any concessions whatsoever to Israel because Obama… will deliver Israel.
So for the secretary of defense to say the process is dead because of Israel is egregious. It’s kind of Orwellian. And it tells you about the animus and the hostility of this administration which the Israelis are feeling.
I would just add one word on the demographics. Everybody… thinks: “Israel” and [therefore] “Jews.” But 98 percent of pro-Israeli Americans are gentile. It’s a very strong, important issue among the evangelical Christians. The association [of Israel] only with Jews is missing a very large story here.
http://www.nationalreview.com/blogs/print/285319
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