What do you get from this excerpt from the Saturday, June 6, 2009, article entitled “Clinton Rejects Israeli Claims of Accord on Settlements” by Washington Post Staff Writer Glenn Kessler?
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton forcefully rejected yesterday Israeli claims that the Bush administration had secretly agreed to expanding Jewish settlements on the West Bank, deepening the impasse between the two countries.
“We have the negotiating record, that is the official record, that was turned over to the Obama administration by the outgoing Bush administration,” Clinton told reporters after meeting with her Turkish counterpart in Washington. “There is no memorialization of any informal and oral agreements.”
President Obama in recent weeks has pushed Israel to halt settlement growth, including expansion that results from population growth, on the grounds that it violates commitments made by Israel in the 2003 “road map” peace plan. Israeli officials have protested, saying that they had reached a series of understandings with Bush administration officials – some written, some spoken – under which growth was permitted under certain conditions.
The Washington Post documented some of those understandings last year, quoting Dov Weissglas, one of the Israeli negotiators; at the time, the Bush White House insisted that no such understanding existed. But last week former White House aide Elliott Abrams acknowledged that there had been unwritten understandings between Washington and Jerusalem.
Is Clinton misrepresenting the record? Is Israel pulling a fast one? Or is it possible, just barely possible, that the Bush administration—that cloister of secrets—tacked toward Tel Aviv while claiming they were never in the boat at all?
Trust none of them.
