Netanyahu Offers an Apology, but No Shift in Settlement Policy

[bemildred]

JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel told his cabinet on Sunday that the ill-timed announcement of new housing plans for a Jewish neighborhood in East Jerusalem during a visit here by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. last week had been “regrettable” and “hurtful.”

Mr. Netanyahu also said that the government had set up a committee to “examine the chain of events and to ensure procedures” that would prevent such an incident from happening again.

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Danny Danon, a Likud legislator and a deputy speaker of the Parliament who supports additional settlement construction, said that Mrs. Clinton’s “meddling in internal Israeli decisions regarding the development of our capital Jerusalem is uninvited and unhelpful.”

“In fact it is sheer chutzpah,” Mr. Danon said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/15/world/middleeast/15mideast.html

Posted mostly because the NYT is saying it.

[peacebird]

1. he said that "Mrs. Clinton’s “meddling in internal Israeli decisions.." not Sec. of State Clinton?

What's this BS? Call her by her rightful title.

Additionally - he said “Mrs. Clinton’s “meddling in internal Israeli decisions regarding the development of our capital Jerusalem is uninvited and unhelpful. In fact it is sheer chutzpah,” INDEED - it *is* sheer chutzpah ON THE PART OF THE ISRAELIS. The timing of that announcement was a slap in the face to VP Biden and to the Obama peace efforts.

Perhaps the Israeli's could retaliate against this act of "chutzpah" by Secretary of State Clinton by throwing our aid money right back in our faces?
:evilgrin:

[Botany]

2. “regrettable” and “hurtful”

Bullshit ... it was a test to see how much crap they could get away with.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

3. It's not a real apology if you go on doing it. N.T.

[Craftsman]

4. Why should Isreal apologize for building in their own country?

[bemildred]

5. Ask Bibi, he's the one apologizing. nt

[Violet_Crumble]

7. Because they're not building in their own country n/t

[Vinnie From Indy]

6. Netanyahu is an extremist right-winger

He will do everything in his power to see that there is never a peace settlement.