Sargent: “Did Israel And Bush Admin Have ‘Understanding’ On Settlements? Even Bushies Say No.”

Aaron Keyak — June 29, 2009 – 11:24 am | Israel | Obama | Republicans | Stop the Smears Comments (0) Add a comment

Today, Greg Sargent at The Plum Line wrote a piece, “Did Israel And Bush Admin Have ‘Understanding’ On Settlements? Even Bushies Say No.” It seems that some of President Barack Obama’s most ardent critics need to take a closer look at the president they last supported - President George W. Bush.

Here’s a large excerpt:

With the Obama administration slowly wheeling into action to confront the Israel-Arab conflict, a key assertion made by some on the right is that the Bush administration and Israel reached an “understanding” by which Israel could proceed with certain types of settlement expansion.

The only problem with this assertion is that even Bush administration officials say it’s false.

This claim is important because it undercuts the Obama administration’s current approach to the region, which is partly to demand of Israel that settlements cease in all forms. It allows people on the right, as well as some senior Israeli officials, to complicate current diplomacy by portraying this as an abandonment of previous United States promises to Israel.

This assertion was made most recently by Elliott Abrams, who handled Mideast affairs at the National Security Council throughout the Bush years. “For reasons that remain unclear, the Obama administration has decided to abandon the understandings about settlements reached by the previous administration with the Israeli government,” Abrams wrote the other day in an Op ed piece that’s being heavily debated in diplomatic circles.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently rebutted this general claim, saying that the Bush administration and Israel reached “no informal or oral enforceable agreements” about settlements. So who’s right? Well, former Bush administration officials seem to side with Hillary.

In an April 24, 2008 article in the Washington Post, Bush White House spokesperson Gordon Johndroe flatly denied any agreement. “There is no understanding,” he said.

In that same article, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, too, denied any such understanding. “I never agreed to it,” he said.

Daniel Kurtzer, the U.S. ambassador to Israel from 2001-2005, has also denied any such arrangement, claiming that “there was no such understanding.”

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