There are Israelis who recognize that it is important to achieve peace.
So said Barack Obama, in a statement that strikes me as a tad condescending.
I realize that everyone is obsessed with the economy right now, but when coupled with the fact that Obama’s first presidential interview is with an Arab network, might the above indicate that a rather major change in foreign policy be in the offing?
MORE: In other news, (doubtless because January 27 is international Holocaust memorial day), the Iranian government has branded the Holocaust a “Big Lie”:
“The Holocaust is a concept coming from a big lie in order to settle a rootless regime in the heart of the Islamic world,” Gholam Hossein Elham told a conference on Gaza in central Iran’s religious city of Qom.
It was not the first time an Iranian official has questioned the massacre of Jews by Nazis in World War II.
Iran does not recognise Israel, and since his election in 2005 President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has attracted international condemnation by repeatedly predicting that the Jewish state is doomed to disappear.
In late 2005 Ahmadinejad branded the Holocaust a “myth.” His comment was followed by a conference in Tehran in 2006 that brought together Holocaust deniers and revisionists.
Unless I’m misreading him, President Obama seems to think it’s just fine to do business with the author of these monstrous, ongoing remarks:
Obama also emphasized the importance of engaging with Iran, a country the Bush administration often singled out as the most dangerous in the region.
Obama condemned Iran’s threats against Israel, pursuit of nuclear weapons and support of terrorist organizations, but said “it is important for us to be willing to talk to Iran, to express very clearly where our differences are, but where there are potential avenues for progress.”
What’s that supposed to mean? Constructive Engagement?
(It didn’t work out terribly well for Reagan…)