21.05.2011                      17.Ijar, 5771                      Bechukotai; Tag 32 des Omer

Analyse:

What rankled Netanyahu in the Obama speech

A surprised, irritated prime minister feels the US president has sent out exactly the wrong message.

In 2004, US-President George Bush, in exchange for then Prime Minister Ariel Scharon's plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip, wrote a letter saying in any future agreement between Israel and the Palestinians it would be “unrealistic" to expect a full Israeli withdrawal to the 1949 Armistice lines (the 1967 lines), and that a just and fair solution to the Palestinian refugee issue would be their absorption in a future Palestinian state, rather than Israel.
What prompted Prime Minister Netanyahu to issue a surprisingly harsh response to President Barack Obama’s speech Thursday night was the sense that Obama had essentially thrown that letter out the window….