Obama not bipartisan on Israel
Andrew Silow-Carroll takes President Donald Trump to task for making major policy decisions concerning Israel without having bipartisan support (“The Trumpification of Israel,” Feb. 6). “I don’t think there has been a major pronouncement on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict [under previous presidents] without members of both parties in the room,” he writes. In fact, President Barack Obama repeatedly made major pronouncements on Israel despite strong opposition from the Republicans.
Recall, for example, that in 2004, President George W. Bush promised Israel he would support Israeli retention of those parts of Judea-Samaria where there are large numbers of Israeli residents. Obama’s secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, unilaterally announced on June 17, 2009, that the Obama administration was discarding Bush’s promise since it was not an “enforceable agreement.”
Similarly, on May 19, 2011, Obama announced that “the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines,” becoming the first U.S. president to adopt that extreme position. There was no bipartisan support for Obama’s action.
Likewise, on Dec. 23, 2016, the Obama administration permitted the United Nations Security Council to adopt a resolution branding all Jewish communities in the territories, “including East Jerusalem” (i.e. the Old City and the Western Wall), “illegal.” This, too, was a major new policy decision that had the support of only one party.
Moshe Phillips
National Director
Herut North America, U.S. Division — The Jabotinsky Movement
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