JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s prime minister dismissed a recent White House rebuke of Israeli settlement construction, saying in comments broadcast on Sunday that the criticism goes “against American values.”
The tough words by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened to deepen a rift with the White House over Israeli construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, areas captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war and claimed by the Palestinians as parts of a future independent state.
Israel came under fire last week after a Jerusalem city official signed the final go-ahead for construction of a new housing development in east Jerusalem. A day earlier, an ultranationalist Jewish group said dozens of settlers would move into six apartment buildings purchased in the heart of a predominantly Arab neighborhood of east Jerusalem.
Israel says east Jerusalem is part of its capital and considers Jewish housing developments there to be neighborhoods of the city. But the international community, including the United States, does not recognize Israel’s annexation of the area and considers construction there to be illegitimate settlement activity.
In a striking public rebuke last week, the Obama administration warned Israel that the new project would distance Israel from “even its closest allies” and raise questions about its commitment to seeking peace with Palestinians.
In an interview broadcast Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Netanyahu said he does not accept restrictions on where Jews could live, and said that Jerusalem’s Arabs and Jews should be able to buy homes wherever they want.
He said he was “baffled” by the American condemnation. “It’s against the American values. And it doesn’t bode well for peace,” he said. “The idea that we’d have this ethnic purification as a condition for peace, I think it’s anti-peace.” The interview was recorded Thursday.
The White House declined comment.
I would suggest that Bibi check out the comment sections of any blog or newspapers here in the US. We are not with him. As he builds more and more settlements he’s isolating Israel and moving further and further away from the support that Israel used to have. He’s as much of a rightwing nut job as those here in the US. Thankfully, they too are getting smaller and smaller.
Oh please. Yes it’s true that the United States has some genocide on it’s palmarès. Yes we too took our land from it’s rightful owners… Hmm, maybe Netanyahu is righter than we want to admit.
But does that mean that we need to support such actions in the 21st century?? I think that the settlements are against both the interests of the United States and against Israel’s own interest. In such an atmosphere it’s no wonder desperate Palestinians are lobbing bombs across the apartheid wall.
The phrase that comes to mind is “chutzpah”. It takes chutzpah for the Israeli Prime Minister to lecture the US on American values.
As an American, I’m getting pretty fed up with the arrogance of Israeli leaders and many of their supporters here in the U.S. The US gives them billions of dollars in aid every year and pays another kind of price like on 9/11 for being their biggest supporter. The issue of settlements is one of the most glaring examples of Israel pursuing policies that make them unpopular in much of the rest of the world and contribute to never-ending conflict in the Middle East. It’s unacceptable for Netanyahu to demonstrate such an arrogant sense of entitlement in addressing the citizens of this country.
“…The idea that we’d have this ethnic purification as a condition for peace…”
If there’s one thing you can always count on Americans to do, it’s bargain for ethnic purification.