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Hillary Clinton was For Israeli Houses, Then Against Them, Now For Them Again
Posted By Daniel Greenfield On June 12, 2014 @ 5:45 pm In The Point | 2 Comments
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
Hillary already pulled this routine when she ran for the Senate in New York. Then she became the Secretary of State and tossed it overboard. Now she’s born again pro-Israel and no longer thinks Israeli houses are the devil.
Also she’s got big plans for letting you have the Brooklyn Bridge at a discount price.
In a section of Hillary Clinton’s new memoir that was published by U.S. media over the weekend, the former secretary of state writes that the Obama administration made a tactical mistake by demanding an Israeli construction freeze that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu implemented between 2009 and 2010.
Clinton in “Hard Choices” writes, “In retrospect, our early, hard line on settlements didn’t work.” She explains that the American stance on the settlements hardened Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s position.
There’s no retrospect here. The same thing happened again and again. She had a front row seat for it as First Lady and Senator.
But if you believe Hillary, she just now figured out that pressuring Israel just makes the PLO escalate its demands. Even her husband said that was so… in time for Hillary’s race prep. Then took it back later.
That’s fool me, how many times now?
The sentiment Clinton expresses in the book contrasts sharply with her stated views on Israeli construction while she served as President Barack Obama’s secretary of state.
Immediately after Obama first issued the demand for a freeze, Clinton took the lead in making indignant, confrontational public statements that were clearly intended to intimidate the Israelis and gratify the Palestinians. The freeze, Clinton said, was the only way to get Abbas and the Palestinians to talk.
In May 2009, she told Al Jazeera, “We want to see a stop to settlement construction, additions, natural growth—any kind of settlement activity. That is what the president has called for.”
Later that month, at a press conference with Egypt’s foreign minister, Clinton said Obama “wants to see a stop to settlements—not some settlements, not outposts, not natural growth exceptions.”
Natural growth means families building houses for their children when they get married.
After an ill-timed construction planning announcement by the Jerusalem municipality during Vice President Biden’s visit to Israel in March 2010, Clinton made a now-infamous phone call to Netanyahu in which she berated and threatened the prime minister for 45 minutes, issued a list of demands he would have to meet to salvage the U.S.-Israel relationship, and then instructed the State Department press secretary to boast to the press of just how harshly she had treated Netanyahu.
After the Clinton phone call, then-Israeli ambassador Michael Oren commented that relations between the two countries had hit their lowest ebb in 35 years.
A few weeks later, in April 2010, Clinton gave a speech at a dinner that was attended by Ambassador Oren and several ambassadors from Arab countries, and once again attacked Israel. She accused Israel of engaging in “unilateral statements and actions” that had undermined the peace process and she laid blame for humanitarian problems in Gaza on Israel, rather than the terrorist group Hamas that controls the territory and uses it to launch attacks on Israel.
But Hillary has changed. It’s been a few years. She’s a new woman now. And she’ll keep on changing as many times as it takes to get back into power so she can go after Israel.
Again.
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