Let's Talk

On HAARETZ.COM in an article by Avi Issacharof titled Hamas: Netanyahu emerged triumphant from summit with Obama, Abbas, Issacharof writes about the meeting between U.S. President Barack Obama, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. The meeting between the three leaders took place in New York City. This article takes the position that the only person that is benefiting from this meeting is Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu.

The article says that President Netanyahu is the one benefiting the most from the meeting between these leaders. In the article, it is mentioned that President Obama had promised the Palestinians that Israeli construction would stop completely, in order for peace negotiations to begin. One of the preconditions was that the Israeli government would stop the construction of Israeli buildings. According to the article President Obama had “toned down the language” during the meeting with the leaders. The article gives the impression he was no longer speaking strongly for the case of a Palestinian state.

 The Palestinians are making a distinction between completely “freezing” and “restraining.” The Palestinians were under the impression that President Obama was in favor of completely “freezing” construction, not just cutting some of the construction. Another Political Party in Israel called the Hamaas, was urging President Abbas to reject any talks with President Obama. They thought talking to President Obama would be fruitless. The interesting thing is that Hamaas and President Abbas are not in good terms. According to the article they have not been in good terms since the coup in the Gaza Strip back in 2007. The Palestinians are upset because President Obama does not want to accept their precondition and that is the complete freezing of Israeli construction. President Abbas did say that the Israeli government was a “real problem” he doesn’t think any construction should go on. In fact, he is quoted saying that even if 95% of construction were halted it would not be enough. 

The reason they are so upset is because President Obama said he did agree that there should be a Palestinian state. The problem is that President Obama wanted to start negotiations without preconditions. President Abbas said that there would be more talk on the most basic things with Israel but that in order to truly start negotiations they wanted the Israeli buildings to stop and also start looking at the 1967 borders as a start to negotiations.

The reliability of this article is questionable. It’s obviously an opinion on President Obama’s actions with the Middle East. There are times where is it very critical of the President and I think that’s good. There is a section of the article where the quote that the Israeli government is  “a real problem” is used twice, but in different ways and that made me question the articles. Another thing that got me questioning the article is that it used other newspapers as a reference. I don’t think a newspaper should use another one as a source, they should really make sure to back up their statements. At the end of the article there were some statistics given about how some people feel about certain things in the Middle East. The only reason that made me skeptical was because statistics are sometimes used incorrectly. Lastly, the language of the article made me skeptical. When the reporter talks about President Obama’s attitudes he uses vague language like “appeared” to be doing something. To whom did President Obama “appear” to be reluctant in his talks? Who does he “appear” to be acting in that way? It seemed like the wrong word to describe something in an article that should be factual.