I guess looking out for their own best interests doesn't help the Obama administration. How's that whole smart power thing working out?The Israelis apologized somewhat to Biden but promised to move forward with the settlements.
srael humiliated visiting Vice President Joe Biden yesterday with a surprise announcement of Jewish settlement plans that pulled the rug out from under a long-awaited US peace push -- and drew a scathing response from the embarrassed veep.
Biden, on a five-day trip to the Mideast, had just wound up praising Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for limiting new settlement construction when the government announced it would build 1,600 homes for Jews in East Jerusalem, where the Palestinians hope to establish their capital.
Stung by the surprise, Biden later issued a statement blasting "the substance and timing" of the move.
He called it "precisely the kind of step that undermines the trust we need right now."
The vice president also appeared to retaliate by showing up more than 90 minutes late to a dinner with Netanyahu at the prime minister's residence before issuing the statement.
Biden's trip, the highest-ranking official US visit to Israel in two years, was designed to repair relations with the hawkish Netanyahu and to kick off the peace talks that the Obama administration has been promising since Inauguration Day.
When you have an administration more concerned with apologizing to a terrorist regime for "offending" them I'd say the Israelis know what they're doing.
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