UPDATE: On Thursday (25 March) Aluf Benn wrote in Haaretz that “Netanyahu almost believed the crisis had passed, that he had survived by offering partial, noncommittal answers to the Americans’ questions. Shortly before meeting with Obama, Netanyahu even warned the Palestinians that should they continue to demand a freeze on construction, he would postpone peace talks by a year … But then calamity struck. At their White House meeting, Obama made clear to his guest that the letter Netanyahu had sent was insufficient and returned it for further corrections. Instead of a reception as a guest of honor, Netanyahu was treated as a problem child”… This Haaretz article can be read in full here.
YNet (with Reuters input) reported on Wednesday, after a two-part Obama-Netanyahu meeting, that “The feeling in the White House is that Netanyahu did not deliver on his promises, and that the meeting between the two leaders concluded with a deafening silence and a tense atmosphere”. This report is published here.
Netanyahu’s remarks on Jerusalem in a speech to AIPAC (the America-Israel Public Affairs Committee) — and the almost-simultaneous announcement back in Jerusalem of further movement in approving Jewish housing in Palestinian areas of East Jerusalem — had a severe impact on the Israeli government leader’s visit to the U.S.
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We don’t know, yet, what Obama told Netanyahu in private. But we do know what the U.S. position on Jerusalem used to be…
A comment [written by bob on March 23, 2010 at 12:01 pm] on a post on Mondoweiss here, reminded me of material I put as a footnote to my last article for Salim Tamari’s Jerusalem Quarterly, here [this article was, contrary to its labelling, not a book review!]
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In fact, this comment is identical to what I put in my story ….
Because some of my material had to be shortened in the editing process, I’ll reproduce more of what I wanted to publish in that article — this is all about previous U.S. positions on Jerusalem (1967 + 1969).
1.) U.S. Ambassador to the UN in July 1967, Arthur J, Goldberg:
On 14 July 1967, the U.S. Ambassador to the UN Arthur Goldberg [Representing Lyndon Johnson] stated in explanation of his abstention in a vote that day on a resolution concerning the Israeli extension of its administration to Jerusalem that “this Assembly should have dealt with the problem by declaring itself against any unilateral change in the status of Jerusalem”.