Obama's prizes for Israel are not "pressure"
On 13 July, President Barack Obama received 16 leaders of the most prominent pro-Israel organizations at the White House. The gathering was an effort to assuage American Jewish concerns about US pressure on Israel over a settlement freeze in the occupied West Bank.
One participant argued that in the past any progress toward peace has only been made when there was "no light" between American and Israeli positions. "I disagree," the president responded according to one witness, and pointed out that during eight years of the Bush administration, "there was no light between the United States and Israel, and nothing got accomplished."
Obama reaffirmed his commitment to achieving a settlement to the Arab-Israeli conflict and emphasized the short window and special opportunity that he had to produce one given his outreach efforts to Arabs and Muslims.
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