Why Obama Will Ignore Israel

Beinart, Peter, Newsweek

Byline: Peter Beinart

The administration's new Mideast strategy: benign neglect.

The last week of November 2012 was a big one on the Israeli-Palestinian front. On the 65th anniversary of the partition resolution that created a Jewish state, the United Nations recognized a Palestinian one. Israel retaliated with the West Bank equivalent of sequestration: announcing it would move toward building settlements in an area east of Jerusalem called E1, which many observers believe would kill the two-state solution. European governments responded by threatening to withdraw their ambassadors.

And the United States? It mostly watched. In 2011, when the Palestinians first sought a U.N. status upgrade, the Obama diplomatic corps lobbied so hard against it that one State Department official joked that "sometimes I feel like I work for the Israeli government." This time, by contrast, the U.S. largely went through the motions. It was "half-assed," observes a Middle East insider close to the administration. "They didn't …

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Publication information: Article title: Why Obama Will Ignore Israel. Contributors: Beinart, Peter - Author. Magazine title: Newsweek. Volume: 160. Issue: 25 Publication date: December 17, 2012. Page number: 22. © 2009 Newsweek, Inc. All rights reserved. Any reuse, distribution or alteration without express written permission of Newsweek is prohibited. For permission: www.newsweek.com. COPYRIGHT 2012 Gale Group.

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