"An occupation that has lasted for almost 50 years must end... Israel cannot maintain military control of another people indefinitely. That's the truth."
Barack Obama’s top aide says Israeli ‘occupation’ must end
Dennis McDonough says the White House isn’t impressed with Israeli prime minister’s effort to backtrack on campaign comments.
By EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE
Politico
3/23/15
White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough made clear in a speech to a left-leaning Israel advocacy group that President Barack Obama isn’t letting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu off the hook for his dismissal of a two-state solution.
That stance, as well as Netanyahu’s suggestion also made in the closing days before last week’s Israeli elections that he’d approved settlements in contested territory in Jerusalem for the strategic purpose of changing the borders are “so very troubling,” McDonough told J Street’s annual conference in Washington. He called the pro-Israel group, which opposes some of Netanyahu’s policies, “our partner.”
McDonough added that the White House isn’t impressed by Netanyahu’s efforts since last Tuesday to backtrack on what he meant when he said there wouldn’t be a Palestinian state established so long as he’s prime minister.
“We cannot simply pretend that these comments were never made,” McDonough said.
McDonough said the Obama administration is well aware of the regional security problems Netanyahu referenced in explaining why he didn’t see a two-state solution as an imminent possibility. But he said Obama does not believe that is or could be reason to back off talks — and this is not simply matter of personal “pique” about Netanyahu, the chief of staff said.
“The United States will never stop working for a two-state solution and a lasting peace that Israelis and Palestinians so richly deserve,” he said.
McDonough then described the alternate to a two-state agreement: a one-state solution based on unilateral annexation and abandonment of democratic rights for Palestinians that, he warned, “would only contribute to Israel’s further isolation.” In other words, he said, more divestment, boycotts and efforts to delegitimize Israel in the international community.
“An occupation that has lasted more than 50 years must end,” McDonough said, one of several times he brought the crowd to its feet.
He reiterated that Obama remains committed to Israel’s security through investments in the Iron Dome missile protection system, which he said will never waver, and described negotiations with Iran over curbing its nuclear ambitions part of that commitment.
Though he didn’t specifically mention the prime minister, who denounced the negotiations in a controversial address to Congress last month, McDonough dismissed “an absolutist position [that] makes for good rhetoric.”
He went through the broad strokes of what a deal would entail, saying that if one is reached, Obama will work to bring the public and Congress on board and remain vigilant in monitoring the behavior of the Iranian regime.
“Even if a nuclear deal is reached, our concerns about Iran’s behavior and around the world will endure,” McDonough said.
Obama Says U.S. Won’t Rule Out Withholding UN Support for Israel
Bloomberg News
Mar 24, 2015
President Barack Obama refused to rule out the possibility of allowing a Palestinian push for statehood through the United Nations as part of a U.S. reassessment of its approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“We’re going to do that evaluation,” Obama said at a news conference in response to a question on whether he would consider supporting Palestinian statehood at the UN. “We’re going to partly wait for an actual Israeli government to form.”
Such a move would represent a major shift in U.S. policy and trigger new tensions with Israel and between the Obama administration and Congress.
While other administration officials have said the U.S. would reevaluate its stance after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he won’t support the creation of a Palestinian state anytime soon, Tuesday’s White House news conference marked the strongest indication from the president of his intentions.
Obama’s comments also indicated that the administration plans to keep up pressure on Netanyahu, who has backed away from his original statements, made last week just before Israeli voters went to the polls.
Obama said that even though Netanyahu has sought to clarify his pre-election statements, the Israeli leader still set conditions for talks with the Palestinians that “would be impossible to meet anytime soon.”
That has cut off prospects for any negotiations which could trigger “a downward spiral of relations that will be dangerous for everybody,” Obama said.
“We’ll continue to engage the Israeli government as well as the Palestinians, and ask them where they are interested in going and how do they see this issue being resolved,” he said. “But what we can’t do is pretend that there’s a possibility of something that’s not there.”
While Obama did not detail how the U.S. might support Palestinian statehood at the UN, one option is to back a UN Security Council resolution saying a two-state solution would be based on Israel’s pre-1967 borders with Gaza and the West Bank as well as mutually agreed swaps of land.
The U.S. has thwarted that bid at the UN, which is opposed by Israel.
Obama also refused to comment when asked about a Wall Street Journal report on Tuesday that U.S. officials were upset Israel had spied on negotiators involved in talks over Iran’s nuclear program, and used that information to argue against the emerging deal.
Israeli officials have denied the charge.
“Someone has an interest in creating conflict and blowing an even fouler wind” into U.S.-Israel relations, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said, according to audio clip supplied by his office. “Israel would never spy on the Americans.”
