Chuck Schumer on the Nachman Segal Show slams the Obama administration’s public criticisms.
Here’s a snippet:
I told the President, I told Rahm Emanuel and others in the administration that I thought the policy they took to try to bring about negotiations is counter-productive, because when you give the Palestinians hope that the United States will do its negotiating for them, they are not going to sit down and talk. Palestinians don’t really believe in a state of Israel, they, unlike a majority of Israelis, who have come to the conclusion that they can live with a 2-state solution to be determined by the parties, the majority of Palestinians are still very reluctant, and they need to be pushed to get there. If the U.S. says certain things and takes certain stands the Palestinians say, “Why should we negotiate?” So that’s bad and that should change and we are working on changing it. But the other two are very good, according to both the Israeli government and the Israeli military and the U.S. government. But we should make that known, why don’t they? I asked them to do just that, I said we should make it public because it will, at least, give people, who are supportive of Israel, Jew and non-Jew alike, a little bit of solace.
Ben Smith of Politico has the full transcript.
According to Schumer:
- The Israelis think Obama is "very good" on military matters (a fact, the New York senator says, the administration should be playing up).
- Jewish members of Congress "will be meeting with the President next week or the week after, and we are saying that this has to stop."
- "There is a battle going on inside the administration, one side agrees with us, one side doesn’t, and we’re pushing hard to make sure the right side wins and if not we’ll have to take it to the next step."
- He talks to Rahm Emanuel and the president a lot.
- Ronald Reagan was "the best friend Israel ever" — but he and all other presidents make the mistake at the beginning of thinking that pressure on Israel will be helpful.
Over at Commentary, Jennifer Rubin offers her take.
UPDATE: The White House responds.
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