OBAMA SPIN IS USED ONCE AGAIN!

The truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end; there it is...Winston Churchill

During a meeting with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in the White House Oval Office yesterday.
President Barack Obama welcomed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's endorsement of Palestinian independence as a way to restart peace talks and called on Arab neighbors to join the discussion.

Obama also downplayed, as he does with anything that doeS not make him look good, the criticism from Arab neighbors that Netanyahu's conditions were predictable.
Obama was quoted as saying: "Well, first of all, I think it's important not to immediately assess the situation based on commentary the day after a speech."
This despite the fact that aides distributed glowing reaction to his US-Muslim speech the day after he delivered it in Cairo.

"I think any time an Israeli prime minister makes a statement, the immediate reaction tends to be negative on one side. If the other side is making a statement, oftentimes the reaction is negative in Israel," Obama said

However,Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, said the speech "closed the door to permanent status negotiations".
He added: "We ask the world not to be fooled by Netanyahue's use of the term Palestinian state because he qualified it.
"He declared Jerusalem the capital of Israel, said refugees would not be negotiated and that settlements would remain."

Yasser Abed Rabbo, an adviser to Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian leader, said: "The international community should confront this policy, through which Netanyahu wants to kill off any chance for peace.

"They must isolate and confront this policy which Mr Netanyahu is adopting and exert pressure on him so that he adheres to international legitimacy and the road map," he added, referring to a US and European-supported 2003 peace plan.

The Palestinians are irate over Mr Netanyahu's condition that they recognise Israel's legitimate right to exist as a Jewish state, ensuring Palestinian refugees and their descendents who have lived outside of Israel's borders since 1948 are not allowed to return.

Mr Netanyahu also said such a state must be demilitarised and promised that all of Jerusalem would remain as Israel's capital despite the Palestinian desire to make the eastern part of the city, a traditionally Arab area, their future capital one day.

The speech was intended as an answer to President Barack Obama's address to the Muslim world in Cairo earlier this month in which he said he expected Israel to make significant moves towards peace with its Palestinian neighbour.

By staying firm to his commitment to what he calls "the natural growth" of existing settlements, he bucked Mr Obama's call for a blanket settlement freeze. In embracing settlers as the country's "brothers and sisters" and reiterating his support for a united Jerusalem, he hoped to hold off a potential storm of dissent from Right-wing partners that keep his government from collapsing.
SOURCE: JERUSALEM POST

However a White House spokesman, trying to make a "purse out of a sows ear", said that Mr Obama "welcomed" Mr Netanyahu's speech and that his endorsement of the eventual creation of a Palestinian state was "an important step forward".Once again Obama spins a negative to an apparent positive to make him look like he is on top of the situation. This is not unlike his assertion that his "spendulus" program has saved hundreds of thousands of jobs despite the fact that the unemployment rate at 9.4% is the worst in the last 30 years!