White House fumes at PM’s 'American values' statement that echoes malicious rhetoric of birthers and other crazy Obama-haters.

Chemi Shalev

You want to give Benjamin Netanyahu the benefit of the doubt. You prefer to assume that he knew not what he was doing, that he fell in love with his own wisecrack, as he is wont to do, and simply didn’t think things through. You want to believe that we have not reached the stage when the Israeli prime minister would wantonly detonate a stink bomb in an American president’s face, as if he couldn’t care less.

Nonetheless, you have to wonder. You can say a lot of things about Netanyahu: Stupid isn’t one of them. So how could have gone down the route of declaring White House criticism of his government’s moves in East Jerusalem “un-American”? How could he have ignored the multiple numerous alarm bells and whistles that should have warned him to think twice and even thrice before taking this road? How could he have exposed himself to the kind of withering reaction issued by the White House yesterday, summed it up in one loaded little word: “odd.”

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Israel and the United States have dismissed Monday’s vote in the House of Commons in Britain that endorsed diplomatic recognition of a Palestinian state as a symbolic gesture that won’t change British policy.

In a strict sense, they are right.

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There can be no two-state solution without a compromise in Jerusalem. The latest moves to expand Israel’s presence in the eastern part of the city will make such a compromise impossible.

by Lior Amihai

After the Six-Day War, Israel unilaterally annexed East Jerusalem and another approximately 29 Palestinian villages around it. Other countries and the Palestinians never recognized this annexation and the demand to establish the capital of the Palestinian state in East Jerusalem still stands. And so it is clear that a two-state solution cannot come about without a compromise over Jerusalem.

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