OU IPA Blog:
........Now, the troubling parts:
1. The President alluded to a shared Jerusalem - one that is not physically re-divided, it seems - where "Jerusalem is a secure and lasting home for Jews and Christians and Muslims, and a place for all of the children of Abraham to mingle peacefully together." As we have long said, this reality has only been true with Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty.
2. Despite having insisted that Israel must be able to live in peace and security as a "Jewish state," today the President instead spoke of Israel as "a Jewish homeland." This word change might mean something different.
3. Relatedly, as David Horovitz notes, the President spoke of the "displacement" of Palestinians "brought by Israel's founding" (while making no mention of the Arab world's rejection of the Arab entity that would have been simultaneously created alongside us). In so doing, he reinforced the very portrayal of Israel as a modern colonial upstart.
4. In his denunciation of Palestinian violence, the President invoked the example of the American civil rights struggle in which blacks got their rights not by violence but by peaceful protest. It appears that he was seeking to use that analog to make the powerful point about "how moral authority is claimed," and not directly analogizing Palestinians to American blacks - but this should have been said differently.
5. Not surprisingly, the President continued pressing against any nuanced approach to Israel's settlement policies - something we wrote the President about the other day.
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