Israel/Palestine

Netanyahu Addresses Supportive U.S. Congress

Susan Crabtree | May 24, 2011, 3:13PM

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rounded out a tumultuous visit to Washington with a speech to a largely sympathetic Congress Tuesday, compared to the tense relations on display with President Obama last week.

During the address, Netanyahu reaffirmed the close ties between the U.S. and Israel and once again rejected any suggestion of redrawing Israel's borders with a future Palestinian state along 1967 lines.

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Barack Obama

Democrats Glad Obama Clarified His Remarks On Israel

Susan Crabtree | May 23, 2011, 6:39PM

Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY)

Rep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.) tried to emphasize the positive one day after President Obama clarified his remarks about where to begin in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process after his initial statements on the issue last week created a firestorm among ardent supporters of Israel.

"I'm glad he clarified his remarks," Lowey told TPM at the annual American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee conference. "I'm glad we're all on the same page now."

Rep. Steve Rothman (D-NJ), a strong supporter of Israel, was much more sympathetic to Obama and his comments over the last few days, arguing that Obama never meant to advocate for a return to the 1967 armistice. He also gave Obama high marks for his follow-up speech.

"He wanted to make a strong point that these would be adjustments to the armistice," Rothman said. "And he said the relationship between the two nations is outstanding ... that the U.S. commitment to Israel is ironclad."

Obama had alienated the Jewish community during a speech last Thursday in which he called for the peace negotiations to begin with the boundaries that existed before the 1967 Six Day War in which Israel forces captured east Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza. Obama stressed the need for additional "mutually agreed upon" land swaps, but that didn't prevent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from angrily denouncing any return to the 1967 boundaries while sitting alongside Obama in the Oval Office on Friday.

The President on Sunday appeared to mend some fences with the Jewish and pro-Israel community by addressing 10,000 AIPAC attendees and insisting he is a "real friend" of Israel.

Regarding his speech last week at the State Department and his comment about 1967 lines the president was adamant that he had been "misrepresented several times."

Obama agreed that Israel could not go back to the 1967 borders as they were, and that "mutually agreed" land swaps would be necessary. Yet, to the consternation of some at the conference, he continued to suggest that Israel's actions were creating delays that were unacceptable to the international community.

House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md), who spoke to the conference earlier Sunday, provided a stark contrast to Obama's speech by urging Palestinian leaders to return to the negotiating table without preconditions and urging the United Nations not to recognize an independent Palestinian state as long as it continued an alliance with Hamas.

Barack Obama

Netanyahu Flat-Out Rejects Return To 1967 Borders After Meeting With Obama

Susan Crabtree | May 20, 2011, 2:52PM

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sat alongside President Obama in the Oval Office Friday and flat-out rejected any attempt to convince Israel to withdraw to its 1967 borders to allow for an adjacent Palestinian state, a move Obama had suggested in a major speech just the day before.

In lengthy comments after their meeting, Netanyahu said he and Obama shared the same goal of establishing peace between Israel and Palestine, but there are some "realities" that must be dealt with first.

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Middle East

2012 GOPers Call Obama's Middle East Speech An Attack On Israel

Evan McMorris-Santoro | May 19, 2011, 6:22PM

Former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA)

President Obama's middle east policy speech was a wide-ranging address that touched on a number of hot-button issues in the world's most volatile region. But for the Republicans running for president, the speech was about one thing: Obama falling down on the job when it comes to defending the state of Israel.

"President Obama has thrown Israel under the bus," former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney said in a statement. "He has disrespected Israel and undermined its ability to negotiate peace."

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Barack Obama

Obama Appeals To 'Hope' Not 'Hate' In Unveiling Shift In Middle East Policy

Susan Crabtree | May 19, 2011, 2:10PM

President Barack Obama

President Obama attempted to reset relations with the Arab world Thursday in a comprehensive speech that positioned the United States and its values squarely behind the democratic uprisings sweeping the Middle East and North Africa and promised aid to help promote economic growth and stability across the region.

"Across the region, those rights that we take for granted are being claimed with joy by those who are prying loose the grip of an iron fist," Obama said during a 45-minute speech at the State Department.

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Middle East

Obama To Lay Out Economic Recovery Plan For Middle East In Major Speech

Susan Crabtree | May 19, 2011, 8:27AM

President Obama plans to outline an ambitious economic recovery plan for the Middle East and Northern Africa designed to spur economic growth and build on democratic reforms that began in Egypt and Tunisia and have swept to countries across the region this Spring.

In major speech at the State Department Thursday, Obama will announce U.S. steps to cancel nearly a billion dollars worth of Egyptian and Tunisian debt, establish a Egyptian-American private enterprise fund and guarantee up to a billion dollars in borrowing through the U.S. Overseas Private Investment Corporation, a U.S. agency that mobilizes private-sector investment in new and emerging markets, according to senior administration officials.

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Syria

Obama Imposes Tougher Sanctions On Syria

Susan Crabtree | May 18, 2011, 2:45PM

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad

President Obama Wednesday announced tougher sanctions against Syria and its President, Bashar al Assad, as well as other senior officials in his government, in an effort to turn up the pressure on his regime and their increasingly deadly crackdown against peaceful protesters.

Previously, the United States has frozen assets and banned trade deals with senior Syrian government officials including al Assad in an effort to convince him to end the violent response rebel groups in Syria and their desire to institute democratic reforms.

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Osama Bin Laden

U.S. Officials Interviewed OBL's Wives, White House Confirms

Susan Crabtree | May 13, 2011, 2:45PM

Osama Bin Laden

The White House confirmed Friday that Pakistan has allowed U.S. officials to interview three of Osama bin Laden's wives, all of whom were living with him at his Abbottabad compound before a Navy SEAL team stormed it and killed bin Laden nearly two weeks ago.

In the aftermath of the U.S. raid on the hideaway, U.S. lawmakers and officials have accused at least some elements of the Pakistani government of helping harbor bin Laden and have been watching Pakistan's reaction to his killing closely. The wives, one of whom was injured during the raid, were taken into custody by Pakistani security forces after the SEALs left the compound.

White House spokesman Jay Carney was tight-lipped about the interrogation aside from confirming that it had occurred. He would not say who questioned the women or whether they cooperated.

"I can't characterize the interaction except to say that we have had access," Carney said, "And we obviously appreciate the cooperation we've received from the Pakistani government."

The White House and the Pentagon have not said exactly when this week U.S. officials questioned the wives. The Pakistani Taliban on Friday took credit for twin suicide bombings that killed at least 80 people outside a paramilitary training center in Shabqadar, Pakistan earlier in the day. A Taliban spokesman said the explosions were in retaliation for the killing of bin Laden.

Carney said the U.S. government remains in a "state of high vigilance" since the raid.

"We take very seriously the fact that while al Qaeda is weakened, it is not dead," Carney said.

President Obama plans to deliver a major speech on the events in the Middle East and North Africa and U.S. Policy in the region Thursday at the State Department.

From Carney's descriptions, the speech will be "fairly sweeping and comprehensive" focused on the democratic uprisings in the region that have taken place since January and how the U.S. has responded to the upheaval.

"[The President] has always viewed the future of the region through the prism of democratization and the yearning of the people...in the region for greater political freedom, participation in their government, desire for responsive governments that address their grievances," Carney said. "I'm sure he will call as he has in the past on the governments in the region to respond to those demands through peaceful political dialogue."

Obama plans to focus on the irony he sees in some leaders' violent crackdowns in the name of stability when those brutal actions are only leading to great instability in the country and the region, Carney told reporters.

At one point during the press briefing, Carney was asked whether he had information about Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi's whereabouts and reports that he was no longer in Tripoli and is likely injured.

"Nothing I can share," Carney replied.

Syria

White House Issues Strongest Threat To Syria Yet

Susan Crabtree | May 6, 2011, 6:57PM

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad

The White House issued its strongest denouncement to date on the Syrian government's bloody crackdown on peaceful protesters demanding democratic reforms.

A statement on Friday from press secretary Jay Carney said the Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad's desperate attempt to hold onto power isn't working and "will not restore stability and will not stop the demands for change in Syria."

In addition to a series of sanctions the U.S. has imposed on Syria, the White House warned Assad that the U.S. would "take additional steps to make clear our strong opposition to the Syrian government's treatment of its people," although he did not specify what those steps would be. He also welcomed the European Union's decision to impose sanctions on Syrian officials responsible for human rights abuse.

The full statement from the White House:

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Syria

Obama Imposes New Sanctions Against Syria

Susan Crabtree | April 29, 2011, 6:42PM

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad

The White House imposed new sanctions on Syria Friday and called on other U.S. allies to follow suit.

President Obama announced the sanctions through a White House executive order in response to a violent crackdown on protesters airing grievances with the government of Bashar Al-Assad, whose family has ruled Syria for four decades.

Syrian citizens Friday crowded the streets in more than 30 cities and towns across the country for its latest "day of rage" protests, promptly a deadly blow from Al-Assad's military, which killed nearly 30 people, according to a Syrian human rights group.

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Syria

U.S. Considering Targeted Syria Sanctions

Susan Crabtree | April 25, 2011, 2:27PM

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad

The Obama administration is weighing targeted sanctions against Syrian President Bashar Assad and his regime for their increasingly violent backlash against anti-government protesters.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said Monday that targeted sanctions is one way to turn up the heat on Assad and convince him to allow protesters to air their grievances against the government without fearing for their lives.

"We are considering targeted sanctions to respond to the crackdown in Syria," Carney told reporters at a Monday briefing as the administration stepped up its denunciations of the Syrian government. "We're looking at other means to increase the pressure on Syria in a meaningful way."

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Dianne Feinstein

Feinstein Slams Middle East Intelligence, Urges Caution On No-Fly Zone

Susan Crabtree | March 8, 2011, 4:06PM

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, harshly criticized the CIA and the rest of the intelligence community for failing to forecast the uprising in the Middle East and warned the White House not to intervene in Libya without international support.

"Our intelligence, and I see it all ... was woefully inadequate. [The unrest in] Tunisia was the only intelligence we got right," Feinstein told TPM Tuesday, adding that U.S. intelligence completely missed the instability in Egypt, Yemen and Bahrain.

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Alan Grayson

Grayson Opponent Supports Indefinite Occupation In Afghanistan (VIDEO)

Brian Beutler | September 17, 2010, 4:45PM

Republican congressional candidate Daniel Webster

Florida Republican congressional hopeful Daniel Webster has a 2003-era view of American wars. A source sends over video footage of a Webster campaign event where he advocates that U.S. troops stay in Afghanistan indefinitely at the military's discretion, and use it to create a series of democracies in the Muslim world.

"Our national interest is this: We need a beachhead in the Middle East, that is a democratic beachhead, not a party but a form of government," Webster told voters. "And to me, if we have a democracy in several countries there, it become a beachhead. It also protects us because once that beachhead is established it can move further and further and hopefully free up the people of the middle east."

Webster was asked specifically how long he believed U.S. forces should remain in Afghanistan. He says that's none of voters' business. "However long we stay is a military decision that should not be shared with the public," Webster insisted, to a round of applause.

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