Other than “It’s a beautiful day” and other pleasantries, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s remarks had little content – four months before U.S. elections.
She landed from Egypt, where her motorcade was the target of angry tomato-throwers, and will leave Israel in 24 hours.
Clinton praised the weather, which actually is unseasonably hot even for Israel, and read the Middle East clock as a “time of uncertainty but also of opportunity,” without explanation.
Even the most favorable mainstream media have given up on the American-sponsored “peace process,” and Clinton’s pronounced everlasting hopes for a Palestinian Authority-Israeli agreement were out of sync with her boss, President Barack Obama. He told an interviewer this week that the lack of an agreement is his biggest personal failure and one which he hopes he can correct in his second term, if he is re-elected.
Clinton met with President Shimon Peres, and most of her public remarks were dedicated to praising the aging and ageless president. President Peres did the talking for Clinton, stating:
“Even if you’ve got your baby, you cannot make him run when he is one year old, even when he’s ten years old – it takes time but we should not stop.
“The Palestinians don’t have a better alternative, and we don’t have a better alternative. We agreed on most of the issues, we made most of the road, and now we have to try and conclude it for the benefit of all peoples.”
With de facto Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney scheduled to arrive in Israel in two weeks, Clinton is likely to stick to platitudes with an eye on November. She mentioned President Obama’s name several times in her Monday morning statement. The Israeli government and many American Jewish leaders have been far from happy that President Obama visited Egypt three years ago but has not traveled to Israel since his appearance at the Western Wall in his 2008 campaign for president.
Since then, he has adopted almost lock, stock and barrel the Palestinian Authority’s demands to be recognized as a country, disparaging Jewish “settlements” as “illegitimate,” including neighborhoods in parts of Jerusalem claimed by the PA. Presumably, he would not visit the Western Wall again since it is part of his “settlement” label.
