Obama Urges Palestinians to Drop Demand for Israeli Settlement Freeze
Obama clearly defined lines appear to offer little hope to Palestine
President Obama more closely aligned himself with the Israeli government’s terms for resuming peace talks with the Palestinians Thursday as he continued his visit to the region. Speaking in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Obama urged Palestinians to drop their longstanding demand for Israel to halt settlement construction on Palestinian land as a precondition for talks.
President Obama: “What I shared with President Abbas, and I will share with the Palestinian people, is that if the expectation is, is that we can only have direct negotiations when everything is settled ahead of time, then there’s no point for negotiations. So I think it’s important for us to work through this process, even if there are irritants on both sides.”
Obama had previously backed the Palestinian demand for a settlement freeze at the start of his first term. On Thursday, Obama said the Israeli settlements are not “constructive” or “appropriate,” but he stopped short of calling them illegal, a point stressed by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
President Mahmoud Abbas: “Regarding the issue of settlements, it is not only our perception that settlements are illegal, but it is a global perspective. Everybody considers settlements not only a hurdle, but even more than a hurdle, towards the two-state solution.”
Posted on March 24, 2013, in activism, Government, International affairs, politics, Protest, USA, War and tagged Barack Obama, Israel, Israeli settlement, Mahmoud Abbas, Obama, Palestine, Palestinian people, West Bank. Bookmark the permalink. 2 Comments.
misebogland 
The Palestinians should ask the indigenous people of North America how “direct negotiations” worked out for them. They could just rename the occupied territories reservations and at least put some casinos in them.
Being Irish the only negotiations you can have with people that have Imperial dreams is with the barrel of a gun. A sad state of affairs.
You know at one stage the British banished the indigenous Irish To Connaught the poorest and mostly westerly provenience in Ireland.
The phrase was “To Hell or to Connaught”. Well like many dreams the British illusion fell apart but they took care to insure what they left behind was chaos and division int he countries they departed. As for Casino’s well OK a good idea- I see the wealth of Israel flowing over the West bank. In the grand plan I feel sure Goldi Sucks would be assured of a role by the US government…