Wat zei Generaal Petraeus over het Amerikaanse beleid naar Israel?

 

De woorden van generaal Petraeus dat Israel de Amerikaanse soldaten in Afghanistan in gevaar zou brengen zijn door antizionisten gretig aangewend om hun gelijk te halen. Hij zelf zegt dat het allemaal zo niet bedoeld is...

 

 

The enduring hostilities between Israel and some of its neighbors present distinct challenges to our ability to advance our interests," the CENTCOM report read. "Arab anger over the Palestinian question limits the strength and depth of US partnerships with governments and peoples in the [Middle East] and weakens the legitimacy of moderate regimes in the Arab world."

 

The above words, which appeared in the report but were not uttered by Petraeus in his oral testimony, were pounced upon by critics of Israel as confirmation of what many of them have said for years – that Israel is the source of instability in the region.

http://news.zionism-israel.com/2010/03/petraeus-tries-to-soft-peddle-anti.html

 

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What did General Petraeus really say about US policy on Israel

A story that claimed General Petraeus had blamed Israel for American problems in Afghanistan was apparently a great exaggeration, to say the least. However, Petraeus himself admitted he was concerned about the lack of progress, that "moderate" Arab leaders had shown their displeasure at US positions, and that he had passed on the message.

It seems there was less to it than author Perry claimed, and more to it than Max Boot wants to admit.

Take with two grains of salt.

Ami Isseroff

Is General Petraeus Behind Obama's Dressing Down of Israel?

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/boot/258946

Max Boot

What's behind the administration's new get-tough policy with Israel? If you believe Mark Perry, a former Arafat adviser and author of Talking to Terrorists: Why America Must Engage with Its Enemies, it's the doing of General David Petraeus. In a rather imaginative post at Foreign Policy's web site, he claims that on Jan. 16,

a team of senior military officers from the U.S. Central Command (responsible for overseeing American security interests in the Middle East), arrived at the Pentagon to brief Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Michael Mullen on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The team had been dispatched by CENTCOM commander Gen. David Petraeus to underline his growing worries at the lack of progress in resolving the issue. The 33-slide, 45-minute PowerPoint briefing stunned Mullen. The briefers reported that there was a growing perception among Arab leaders that the U.S. was incapable of standing up to Israel, that CENTCOM's mostly Arab constituency was losing faith in American promises, that Israeli intransigence on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was jeopardizing U.S. standing in the region, and that Mitchell himself was (as a senior Pentagon officer later bluntly described it) "too old, too slow … and too late."

According to Perry, the briefing "hit the White House like a bombshell," because in effect the U.S. military was placing itself in opposition to the "powerful … Israeli lobby" by announcing that "America's relationship with Israel is important, but not as important as the lives of America's soldiers."

That didn't ring true to me, so I asked a military officer who is familiar with the briefing in question and with Petraeus's thinking on the issue to clarify matters. He told me that Perry's item was "incorrect." In the first place, Petraeus never recommended shifting the Palestinian territories to Centcom's purview from European Command, as claimed by Perry. Nor did Petraeus belittle George Mitchell, whom he holds in high regard. All that happened, this officer told me, is that there was a "staff-officer briefing … on the situation in the West Bank, because that situation is a concern that Centcom hears in the Arab world all the time. Nothing more than that."

I further queried this officer as to whether he had ever heard Petraeus express the view imputed to him by Mark Perry — namely that Israel's West Bank settlements are the biggest obstacle to a peace accord and that the lack of a peace accord is responsible for killing American soldiers. This officer told me that he had heard Petraeus say "the lack of progress in the Peace Process, for whatever reason, creates challenges in Centcom's AOR [Area of Responsibility], especially for the more moderate governmental leaders," and that's a concern — one of many — but he did not suggest that Petraeus was mainly blaming Israel and its settlements for the lack of progress. They are, he said, "one of many issues, among which also is the unwillingness to recognize Israel and the unwillingness to confront the extremists who threaten Israelis."

That's about what I expected: Petraeus holds a much more realistic and nuanced view than the one attributed to him by terrorist groupie Mark Perry. (For more on Petraeus's view, see this report, which notes that Mulllen was not "stunned" by the briefing he received.) In other words, the current crisis in Israeli-U.S. relations cannot be laid at the American military's door.